Live, from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Informatica World 2019. Brought to you by Informatica. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of Informatica World here in Las Vegas. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, John Furrier. We have a CUBE alum joining us. Graham Thompson, SVP and CIO of Informatica. Thank you so much for coming, for returning to theCUBE. Pleasure to be here. So one of the themes we talk a lot about on theCUBE is the 10th anniversary of theCUBE. Is the changing role of the CIO? And you are a CIO, so you are well positioned to answer this question. In addition to the changing role, there's also the perception of what it is versus the reality. Can you talk a little bit about how you see the role having evolved both at Informatica and as well as your peers at other companies, as well as what sort of the industry is expecting or maybe those not in the industry thinks you do versus actually what you do? Yeah, that's a long first question, thank you. Keeping all my toes here. Yeah, so a lot of things are, the outcome is the same, but the method is different. So vendor management's always been important, cost management's always been important, but as it moves from being predominantly on-prem to being predominantly in the cloud, the dynamics of how these deals are put together changes. So you need a different kind of approach to how you manage the portfolio of cloud applications. Security is different in the cloud, it's still important, it always has been, it always will be, but it's different in the cloud. You have to look much more at vendor risk management, make sure that you're comfortable with the risk posture of the vendors that you're sourcing your applications from. So those things I would put in the category of, you're trying to accomplish the same thing, you're just doing it differently because your application workload is more likely to be in the cloud. Things that are different though, completely different are expectations. So everyone can see the power of data and the power of having speed and agility in the cloud, but they want it immediately and they don't want to do the hard work to get there. So I find that the CIO sometimes has to be the educator or the evangelist for change to explain that if you want all this data to generate all these miraculous new outcomes, you have to focus on the process and then you have to enable that process within an application that's going to meet your needs today and tomorrow. You have to think end to end, which means you have to integrate applications like Marketo and Salesforce, then you need to find a way to get it all in your data lake. That is completely different, it's a completely different sport from what we were playing as CIOs five years ago. And it's definitely the biggest area of change that I've seen both internally and talking to peers. Graham, we've talked in the past, obviously good to see you again. You're a CIO, you work for Informatica, so you're the CIO of Informatica, so you don't need to be sold on the value of data. You're in the business, the data company who thinks hard and build building products for years. Then private, retooling, you see the way, we've talked about it, you guys been on the same wave, a great wave for four years, everyone else is now on it. So as a CIO who works for a company that's, you're not going to get in trouble for doing a data-driven project. What are some of the things that you got going on because you do have relationship with all the different cloud providers, you do have a great on-premises, large install base. And as you guys as a company, what are some of the projects that you're doing that would be a nice guiding light to folks watching who were really kicking the tires on digital transformation, not just like talking about it, but like, okay, architecture, roadmap, really thinking through all the hairy problems of what's coming down the pike for them. What are you working on? Yeah, so I think our marketing team's done a really good job framing things in the four journeys. So I'll talk about it within that context. So the first one is next-gen analytics. So a lot of companies go into this thinking, great, all I have to do is find where the data lives, ingest the data into my data lake or data warehouse, put Tableau on top of it and job done. Not the case, right? So as soon as you start sharing data across more than one function, marketing are really good at knowing their data. They know how it's generated, they know how it can be used. As soon as you let someone else lose on marketing's data, it's used at your own risk, right? So that introduces the need for governance. If you're going to use data in one organization that was generated in another one, you have to agree on the definition of terms. You have to agree on calculations so that you don't get the finance team and the sales team debating what the renewal rate is. So the next-gen analytics journey for us has been an interesting one. We started with an on-prem data warehouse, it's now on Azure. The tipping point for us was when most of the data is generated in the cloud, why move it back on-prem just to do analytics on it? So we made a decision to build that on the cloud with Azure. So leave it on the cloud as there, and then have the on-premise piece. Go to the cloud. It's for the MDM, it's for the pieces kind of come together. Yep. All right, so the on-prem analytics journey. So I want to give you another curve ball here. So as you come in here, you say, okay, great. The next step is, well, you know, I need to actually make my AI work.  AI is fed by data, machine learning, other things, really kind of feeding the outcome for AI. But without good data and or data that can help the AI get smarter, this kind of brings up the conversation of more data or diverse data, different data sets. So accessing data sets actually is a new dynamic that people are getting into improving, adds value to AI. How do you see that playing out? Because this really kind of brings up the real complex question, which is that you mentioned earlier, terms, rights, marketplace, sharing data, all these new things. What's your view on this notion of having more data sets feeding an intelligent AI? So part of the increase in enthusiasm about AI and ML is really the convergence of the technologies actually ready to help. It's not a science project off to the side anymore. And the need for it has never been greater. There's no way a human can keep up with all the data that's been generated even in a company like ours. So if you want to find out where the data's created, where it's used, who has access to it, then you're going to have to apply some AI to that. Otherwise there's no shot that you'd need an ever-increasing team of humans who would fail to do the job adequately. So you see data sets merging, not merging, but being merchandised, if you will, for lack of a better word. Yeah, well, you have to manage the lineage of it. So you have to know where it's created, where it's used, who has access to it, is that access appropriate? All those things have to be taken into account, especially when you look at all the compliance and privacy things that we're all faced with now 18 months ago, we weren't all that concerned about. And that really goes back to what you said earlier in our conversation in that the role of the CIO is so much as an educator and an evangelist. So can you talk a little bit about what you've learned in terms of making that message really sink in with employees, in terms of understanding where the data lives, who has access to it, all the obstacles that you just talked about. Yeah, so part of it, there's the managing the IT team and then there's managing the relationships with your business constituents. So let's take the IT team first. Really good IT people, like really good engineers, will work on the most interesting problem available. It's our job as a CIO to make sure that the most profitable problem is also the most interesting one. Fight number one is get people working on the right things because IT people will work incredibly hard. You just need to make sure they're working incredibly hard on the right stuff, with a focus on the right outcome at the end of it. So that's the IT part. Then working with the business stakeholders, it's really setting expectations because quite rightly they want everything as soon as they can describe it, it should be available. There's often a lot of technical debt that we have as organizations. We had a more than 10 year old deployment of Salesforce. You've got to believe there was a ton of technical debt in there because it was built to perfection for our old business. It wasn't built for our new business. So you have to work with the business stakeholders, bring them along with you on what to do first, what to do next, what the dependencies are, and focus on setting expectations that it's not going to be done overnight. It's about governance. Obviously, governance has been around for a while and we've talked about it before, but now more than ever, you're seeing in the news, first year anniversary of GDPR. I predicted that would be, I won't say it, I said it like months before, these bad words, BS basically, but it's reality. More privacy stuff, you're seeing more and more regions and cloud dealing with certain restrictions. So when I hear regulation, I hear constrained data. That goes in my mind here. Oh my God, regulation and innovation are always sometimes at odds. So it's a balancing act. What do you guys do to address that? What's the solution today and how do you see that playing out? Because SaaS is about data and agility. And that's why SaaS has been so popular. That's what digital transformation is going to get to is these SaaS-like benefits. Agile risk taking high reward, low risk high reward kind of things. How do you get the balance between regulation, compliance, risk and innovation? Yeah. So I can talk about how we look at it internally and then a little bit about how our customers look at it. So for us, you can look at it like a tax. It's a tax on innovation or if you look at it a little bit more optimistically, who wouldn't want to honor the customer's right to be forgotten? Who wouldn't want to consult their customer on where you use their data? So you can also look at it as a way that by implementing the GDPR or the California Privacy Standard or whatever it is, it makes your company better. It allows you to be the company that you would like to aspire to be. So you don't have to just look at it as a tax. Then when I look at our customers, they fall into two categories. Those that have to do it because they're in a regulated industry like financial services or healthcare. And then there's those that want to do it because they know it will help them serve their customer better. And you see a lot of governance and compliance projects starting from a place of defensiveness. They have to do it because they have to comply with new regulations that apply to them. And often it's companies that are really trying to make the best use of the data but they want to do it in a really responsible way. It's not, if done properly and responsibly, it can be something that's good for everyone, I believe. I just have one final question about the skills gap and this is something we've been really talking a lot about here. What are you doing to address it and is the problem really as bad as the headlines to make it out to be? Yeah, so there's the macro problem of aging workforce and where the new people coming from. There's that one. It's been with us for a while and it applies across all functions. Then those specific skills areas in IT that are always a shortage. Security is one. It's really, really difficult to find really good IT security, information security people. Often these groups can be ivory towerish. So it's hard to find people that are really practitioners. It's hard to select them and then it's hard to retain them because they always want to build and then move on and build something new. So security is one. Obviously data and analytics is a huge one. Finding people that can that know a little bit more than what an Oracle Data Warehouse is is a challenge. And then once you get those people, you have to make sure that they are working on things that they find worthy of their time so that they're motivated to work as hard as we need them to work. And then other areas like managing cloud vendors is I think a skill set that will start to grow up. These cloud contracts get really expensive as you scale and there's no friction at the point of consumption. We've got engineers that aren't allowed to order a stapler from Amazon without approval. But they can sign the company up to tens of thousands of dollars worth of compute cost obligation. You need governance and skills to manage that. If you ask an engineer, do you want slow or fast and or big and small? They're going to pick fast and large, right? Just a follow up on that skills gap question. For the folks that are graduating college, high school, elementary school, education is obviously kind of a little bit linear but people argue that there's no one playbook for the kinds of courses you need to take to get into the data kind of world. There is, is there any patterns you're seeing where the folks who are really excelling in this new environment have certain skills and classes? So if someone's going into college, maybe honing a class in a particular class or discipline, have you seen some things that work? No, what I have seen that works is finding people who have a track record of solving important business problems and using that to select the people that you hire because having a sound education and the technology is one thing. You've got to understand the business domain and the problem that you're trying to solve. That's where the value comes from. The business stakeholders value someone that can understand their problem that they're trying to solve or the opportunity they're trying to take advantage of. So finding those people that have a track record of solving meaningful problems, to me, has been a way to find the right folks in that area. Multitalented, and it's early too. I mean, Berkeley just had their first graduating class of our girl data science. It's kind of, it gives you an idea of how early this is. Yeah, and it takes two to four years to have a university course accredited, but the time you've done that, it's out of date. So that has to change. My final question for you, Graham, is for the folks that aren't here at Informatica World 2019, what's the summary in your view, the theme of the show, what's the key highlights that people should walk away with this year for the focus at Informatica World 2019? So it's not a new theme. It's more of an expansion on the theme from the last couple of years. So the importance of the platform is key. You can go off as an IT professional and source one product to solve one problem. And before you're done, I guarantee you'll have found an adjacent problem and you're going to wish you'd chosen a platform instead of an individual product. So if you listen to Anil's keynote this morning and Amit going into more detail, it's really about the platform and then the power of Claire and the AI part is part of that overall platform. That's really the theme, but it's not new. It's not something we just came up with last week. It's been a strategy for at least 24 months and we just continue to build on it. Bad data or no data is no AI. Or bad data is bad AI, no data is no AI. That's essentially the reality as AI becomes mainstream. Yeah, all right, thank you. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Graham. You're watching theCUBE's live coverage of Informatical World 2019. I'm Rebecca Knight and John Furrier. Thanks for staying tuned.


Welcome to Young and Successful episode number two, and here I am with Ravi Frank from RaviFrank.com He's a 20-year-old man from Australia, I mean from Israel, and he teaches men He teaches men and women up to start a business from scratch. His Fortmere partner is Matt Bochess The one of the youngest and highest paid internet entrepreneur who made his first million at 18 years old Do you have anything to add? That's pretty much a good.  I like that Alright, so that's Ravi Frank I'm glad to have you on the show, Robbie. Thank you So we're to start we've had an interview before I talked to you unfortunately went to shit, but Here we are again at the interview the recording. Oh, yeah, I'm actually recording this time Okay, I I'm gonna ask you some a few questions just like that to start off the conversation if you had okay, I've been asked this question quite a bit there's some people from my high school from my friends and They really want to start a business, but they have no idea where to start They're just like I want to start having recurrent income I want to have a passive income coming in but I don't know what to do what to tell what to look up to What would you suggest to those people?  Do you have anything to suggest if they want to find a mentor? Yeah, I commend that shins to start getting mentors Yeah Money is Basically, it's just in your head. It's just the number Money, you know comes and goes I had months that I was $20,000 in depth and then the next month I make $50,000. It really doesn't matter You're regarding mentors these are actual people just like you and me they simply went through the process that I'm describing and actually pulled through and Got big results.   That's so stupid So so when you when you're looking for a mentor and make sure that it's really important enough that you're willing to risk everything Because just in general whether you believe karma or not if you look at the history You'll see that people who willing to risk everything they got big stuff big rewards and people who are now willing to risk Usually to get the short end of the stick. Yeah You also talk about books. Do you have any books to start to suggest at least to in order to start making money? Start me coming an entrepreneur mean books to look at for me I really liked the four-hour week. It was really eye-opening in terms of entrepreneurship Do you have anything else to suggest? You mean any particular books? Yeah, any particular books or maybe fields of study to to to look into If you want to be an entrepreneur read a books about being an entrepreneur obviously, it's gonna be an entrepreneur and online marketing read books about online marketing when when you Read books three hours a day. What happens is that you're thinking Level gets elevated Now you might think that the difference between a guy like me who's pulling like sometimes $20,000 a month working as little as 10 hours a week Is doing it because I'm like more talented, but it's not like it's only because I think on be different bigger I think better And then you say okay, so somebody like Donald Trump who pulls like almost a billion dollars a year He's better than me. No, he's not. He's just thinking at a higher level He's thinking he just thinks with a bit more zeros in a goal Yeah, but also not only that the he thinks in a different level, but he has also the resources to make more money I mean a lot of people as they expect starting with nothing and becoming a millionaire from From the day they start then then the next day they're millionaires It's not like that either like you have to go through the motion. I mean, yeah It's an ebb and flow process. So there's the outward manifestation. There's the inward manifestation. So what happens? You need to start with either one. So let's say you want to start becoming a millionaire You slowly you can either raise your thinking level by reading a lot every day or getting a mentor So if I don't have a mentor at that time, I read a lot if I have a mentor I stop reading I just focus on my mentor, but either way I make sure I elevate my thinking every single day Just like you work out you should work out every day if you want to keep fit You should read every day if you want your brain to think better so what you do is you elevate your thinking process and You begin to think at a higher level which in turn manifests better external circumstances But also you want to do it from the outside in so you start manifesting by force higher levels of External circumstances so you get the apartment that you can't afford you get the car that you wanted But it's not you I can't really afford it. You leave your house You go for the girls you want, but you're not sure you deserve them yet So you go for the things that are out of your reach and what happens is You go for the external stuff and that in turn manifests the thinking processes So it's it's it's a process that sort of feeds itself the outside feed the inside and the inside feed the outside And if one of them is not good enough, for example, I just moved to this penthouse apartment But and it's really expensive and it's really beautiful.  So for some reason I sort of copped out I got a really pretty apartment, but I feel I can do even better So I'm not challenging myself by getting this one. So what happened my my internal Dialogue actually got handicapped So I'm always keeping my external levels just a bit above what I can afford And that way I'm always on edge What happened I I got an apartment that's exactly What I can easily afford so I can live in this apartment make like a 90% Profit so that means this apartment the amount it costs me at the end of the month I get to keep 90% of the profits this System of thinking you you named it something Insta internal and external. How do you call that? Being awesome being awesome is putting yourself into certain consensus that force you to level up. I Mean I Mean for me it makes sense because I read a lot and I hang out with successful people every day But for somebody who doesn't read a lot and doesn't hang out with successful people That's not necessarily the right thing to do a retard. It's like How do you explain somebody that in order for your muscles to grow you need to work out every day and eat health? Yeah, no, it's kind of obvious, right? Yeah.  All right, it's growing stronger. I mean what do you do you read every day? Or you get a mentor that will elevate your thinking which is like a muscle So you're better equipped to hold More bigger rewards because bigger rewards usually are attached to bigger risks Perceived risks, so you're capable of holding these ideas That's by elevating your level of thinking every day But on the other hand you also need to elevate your external circumstances To support your self-esteem Because if your self-esteem doesn't follow or even doesn't lead where you want to go I mean Again, what happened I moved to this apartment and in this apartment. It doesn't cost me It's it's basically like paying for error at this point. So I'm not challenged So I basically spend my days drooling The last two days.  I'm not focused enough because you're not placed in a position where you had to focus Is that yeah? It was really interesting Because I'm already making like ten times more than the average person I can easily afford living here for all my life and you know all the most expensive stuff But it's it's not an effort. So what I'm doing right now moving to an apartment like three times more expensive So now what happens if I don't make a sale for? Two weeks I will lose money mm-hmm So so I'm always it's not you know, maybe I can do even better You know like maybe I can boot put even more pressure But the point is as long as there is pressure.  So it's just like finding that balance of like Pressuring yourself and testing your limits until you actually Like force yourself to level up, right? Also your video is not activated.  I'm gonna put the link in the description. You talk about McDonald and school. Do you remember exactly what you said? Can you can you tell it again? the the analogy the analogy exactly I I Had a guy who I talked to and he got three years of college for free So I told him don't don't take it Said why but it's free education So that's been yeah, but if I offer you like three years description of Donald Would you get it and he says of course not and I said but why it's free food Right, so what you're saying is that our educational system is completely screwed It won't teach you how to become an entrepreneur and successful in life. That's what you're saying I'm saying that you can't learn from somebody else. How to do it. Yeah Do it yourself Let's say someone wants to launch itself in business What's What is what he has to do in order to start making money? Where's what are the things you should look at? In order to become an entrepreneur is it making sales as soon as possible or What do you recommend in order to start making money? And in order to start making money you have to first of all On have something to offer. That's that's obvious You have to know exactly What sort of value you can give? but but but mainly it's like the reason I stress thinking levels is because at this point I don't need I Don't need my current business to make money I'm in a position Where whatever I do I'm gonna close the month with at least at least at least five like 5k in earnings like regardless doing the business Doing something else because you understand sales the amount I'm Expecting not expecting like a spoiled brat, but expecting because I know what I'm work Right and I'm talking about like tiny amounts of work Because I think better of Most people are stuck at the employee level so they think you know if I work eight eight hours a day and I Finish the day then I finish the month with like two three k. So that that's what happens and then you get a guy At a ten times higher level than me. It was like a multi-millionaire or a billionaire You know you can take that guy and within a month. He'll start making tens of thousands. I'm right That's really interesting also last time on the last interview you talked a lot about sales and how it's all perspective Can you explore the subject or at least explain it to me again? I thought it was really interesting and I believe people should understand this So yeah, so the reason I emphasize Perception also is because that correlates with creating external circumstances. So when your external circumstances are enhanced The way people perceive you is enhanced now you look at a person and you ask yourself What is success?  It's not the only measure, but it's the only measure people actually keep track of Yeah, that's only measure. You can actually count Right. Yeah, so so you want to be a person who makes a lot of money That is being a person who's successful But if you want to make a lot of money and I always stress that to people when I just first Start working with them. I tell them you want to make a lot of money. They say yeah I say so they realize that that means That people have to give you a lot of money.  The cool thing one person can give you $10,000 or or a hundred people can give you $100 Both are legitimate But my focus is on how do you create a situation where people give you an average of One two three thousand dollars and then you just need three people to reach ten thousand dollars That's a really cool thing to do. It's interesting But like like you said you really need to have External circumstances that show that you are at this level, right? You have to put yourself on almost on a pedestal in order for them to actually be Ready to pay you money Is that is that yeah, but that that makes sense. That makes all sense Do you have anything to recommend to young entrepreneurs anything you would like to tell people? and like what a like About success about success read read three hours a day Or get a mentor but always be doing one or the other That's a it's a like autonomy for success If you do I mean I haven't met a single person Who read three hours a day first of all I barely met anybody who read three hours a day But I have never met a person who reads that much about success and is now already highly successful after just a few months right because I mean people you know they like to Talk a lot. They like to bullshit, but you know, I mean I can already say that You know as then Pena says like 90% of the cocksuckers watching this they don't actually want to be successful They just want to be entertained by the thoughts of being successful Because I'm telling you it's like you tell me oh hey Robbie I want to be like really muscular and fit and look good and be healthy Okay, so you know well a well-versed diet, you know that consists of a lot of healthy things Sleep well and work out every day Done it's a recipe It's the simplest recipe. So you want to be successful work hard exactly same read a lot every day or get a mentor while improving your external circumstances But or even doing just one or the other but that's the recipe basically It's like, you know, you can get big by working out but not eating well But you can't get big if you don't do either one and if you do both then it sort of enhances the effect by quadruple Right Do you have any quotes that what's your favorite quote at the moment actually and do you have any quotes to you live? Yeah Yeah, my favorite quote is the road of access the road of access leads to the palace of wisdom You'll never know what is enough until you know what is too much So so that's a quote I live by and everything I do and it also sums up the way it started because I started just like everybody else You know making one two grand a month not really enjoying my life that much just being sort of like I was independent But I was sort of a slave to my customers. So it wasn't really being independent. What did you do? I Was doing coaching and like life coaching help coaching stuff like that. Okay And then when I got my first mentor What I did I went all out.  So what happened? He his mentor told him like you need to lift 1,000 pounds Of weights on your calves and he says come on like I'm lifting right at 200 like are you kidding me? And his mentor actually did it and his mentor was like 50 years old So he said, okay, so if he can do a thousand then I can do 500 so he jumped from 200 to 500 Just because of the top months Just because of the psychology and within two months. He was doing 1000 as well. Wow impressive All right, so Robbie, where can we find you right now on your website? Traveling the world You were in Lithuania recently, right?  I want to maybe go to Greece. I'm like, yeah, sure Let's go to Greece Your posts on Facebook are really entertaining. I'm gonna post your profile and in the description if you really want to Yeah, that's the best recommendation. Just follow me on Facebook. Yeah guys follow him on Facebook He has great advice. Also. He has a YouTube channel and if not you can register to the good life right now You have a new program or something on your website. Basically what I did I sort of took a step back with Programs right now with courses and I just focused on one-on-one training with Clients so I have clients in 60 days build a business that will make them about a thousand dollars per sale Within just two short months And the idea was working one-on-one with people because I just started really getting disgusted by the whole industry of You know people selling lectures Whereas then says putting out getting rich by putting asses on seats What do you mean putting assets on seats putting asses on a seat? Okay?  Listen. Yeah, and not actually Do it with me. All right So yes today I'm only working with plans one-on-one probably and people having raving results Actually had one guy make seven hundred dollars in his first two days That was the cool thing. That's really impressive. So you can find out on Robbie Frank calm No, just contact me on Facebook contact him on Facebook guys Contact him on Facebook believe me. He's worth it. Thank you very much for being on interview Robbie. I hope you enjoyed it


The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show on this Wednesday morning, day before Thanksgiving. Exciting. Hope you're all ready for a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday, a wonderful weekend, a fantastic meal, and of course, lots of gratitude to the producers of this world, which is what Thanksgiving should be all about. I think Thanksgiving is now kind of a global holiday. I think people recognize it all over the world. I don't know. Maybe it's still just an American thing, but I know we've got a lot of Europeans on because we are doing this in the morning when they can listen live. So that's one of the differences between the morning show and the evening show. Tonight, we'll be talking about Thanksgiving. We'll be talking about productivity, productiveness, production, different aspects of it all in celebration of the producer and the holiday of the producer, which is Thanksgiving. So join me tonight. I think it'll be 8 p.m., 7 p.m., East Coast time, 7 p.m., East Coast time to celebrate Thanksgiving. So join me. It'll be primarily an American show. My guess is because it's an American holiday, but you Canadians should join as well, although you've already done Thanksgiving back in October. Let's see. I don't know what's going on. What's going on out there in the world? Something has shifted in the zone, in the atmosphere, in the world because for a second day in the world, we've got a major once-in-a-lifetime soccer upset. I don't know how many of you care about soccer. But anyway, today, Japan beat Germany. Japan beat Germany and soccer. Like Germany, like one of the powerhouses of football, soccer of all time. And one of the best teams in the world, and both Germany and Argentina, were among the favorites to win the World Cup. Argentina was only second to Brazil to win the World Cup, and Germany was like third or fourth. So two of the favorites to win the World Cup have lost games, one to Saudi Arabia. I mean, that's absurd. That's unthinkable.  But it is Argentina that can very much go up and down. But Germany, the stable German team, just stable constantly losing to Japan. Japan's like an insignificant soccer place. Anyway, shockers, amazing. But there we go. That's the beauty of sports. Going into the match, you never actually know who's going to win. Anything can happen. So there we go. Thank you, Daniel, for the support. JJ Jigbi says, who cooks Thanksgiving dinner at Brook Household? The chef at Marmalade does. So we've got a favorite restaurant. He makes the best turkey I've ever had anywhere. I usually don't like turkey. It's very hard to do turkey right. And the chef at Marmalade in San Juan, Old City, Puerto Rico makes an unbelievable turkey. I basically had a reservation for Thanksgiving at that restaurant pretty much every year now. It's just a standing reservation. So that's who cooks Thanksgiving dinner at the Brook Households. Nobody. Nobody. We go out for dinner. I am, as you know, as I think you know, huge believer in division of labor. Huge believer in division of labor. And I don't like turkey at all. It's not edible meat. It's not meat that was meant to be eaten. It's, I don't know what it is. It's to torture people. Lack of flavor and usually dry. Now at Marmalade, the turkey is moist and flavorful. But that's unusual, rare, really strange. All right, let's get to the news because we have a hard stop today at 12.15, Puerto Rican time, 12.15 hard stop. I've got another meeting so we can do the news quickly. So we're going to do a few items in the news very, very fast.  Of course, Super Chat is open. A goal for these Super Chats is 250 for these quick morning shows. We've exceeded that goal substantially over the last few shows. But I hope we can keep up the momentum and keep the 250 going. Make it worthwhile to do these. All right. So just quick highlights from the news this morning. Another shooting. Six dead at a Walmart. Just horrible. This time it's an employee. I guess a disgruntled employee. I mean, it seems like these shootings are constant. If you follow the news, they're all over the place. Hard to tell again what the motivations are for any of these. But at the end of the day, it's some form of nihilism.   And the real question, the empirical question is, is it worse now than it was in the past? It seems that way, but it's hard to really measure. And what can be done about it? Is there a way to reduce the nihilism? I think there is. And that is to elevate values and to elevate the pursuit of values, objective values, rational values, above kind of the emotionalism of our culture. But we live in a culture where there's a sudden segment of the population that is nihilistic. And it's not about politics. It's not about any particular point of view. It's just infused with hatred, which I think comes from a disgust with the world and maybe a particular political perspective. But anyway, more for a much longer show, we could talk about nihilism. Just quickly on the business fund, Credit Suisse, losing a huge amount of money, trying to restructure outflow of assets. People are losing faith in Credit Suisse as a bank, as an advisor. Massive difficulties. It'll be interesting to see if Credit Suisse can survive. But this is a major, major investment bank, Swiss base. This is not some trivial thing. And one wonders if Credit Suisse is in trouble. How are the other big banks doing usually these kind of economic crises, financial crisis, unwind in stages? We haven't seen the big investment banks get into trouble. We've seen a lot of crypto. We've seen signs of an upcoming recession. Is Credit Suisse the canary in the coal mine, or is it just an exception? It's something to think about when you think about the economy out there. All right, quickly, intensive fighting in the eastern Congo. Much more aggressive, much more extensive fighting in the eastern Congo. This is a place that is being ruled by gangs for a long time. There are forces that are fighting from Rwanda and some of its other neighbors. There is a government in the Congo and the central Congo that is also trying to assert control. But mainly these are gangs over there. The only reason why this should interest you, the only reason why this has any importance to any of us, other than it's always horrific that people are fighting and there's a lot of death and destruction going on anywhere in the world, is that in this case in the Congo, this is one of the most mineral-rich areas in the world. Many of the components that go into our computers and our smartphones are actually mined in this area. Control over these mined resources is what's at stake. What we really need here is the rule of law and property rights. And what I fear none of the fighting parties is actually advocating or it's actually fighting for is rule of law and property rights. This is an crucial piece of the supply chain that is electronics, which is quite meaningful. EU is meeting today to try to finalize a price cap on oil from Russia, a price cap that will apply globally. That is that countries won't be able to pay more than this price in order to buy Russian oil. Russia is threatened to withdraw its oil supply from it. It's not copper. I'm not sure what it is. It's a variety of different metals. It's not just one thing. It's a variety of different resources. But they're crucial for chip making and for chip making. The more I read in chip wars by Chris Miller, the more I like the book and the more interesting it is and the more there's stuff that I don't know, which is just fabulous and it's well written. So I highly recommend it. Anyway, we'll talk more about that. We'll talk about the Fed later. Cost of shipping oil. Here's a fact that you probably didn't know. I didn't know. Cost of shipping oil is 11 times higher. Cost of shipping an average gallon of oil is 11 times higher right now than it was a year ago, than it was before the war. This is primarily a consequence of the fact that in the past shipping oil from Russia to Europe was super cheap because it's super short. Super short distances. Now every piece of Russian oil has to go all the way to India because the Europeans won't buy it. So it goes to India for refining there, which is a lot longer. And then Europe, instead of getting cheap oil from Russia, where the shipping cost is very close, it has to get chips from the Middle East or it has to get oil from other places, which require a lot more distance. A distance has increased dramatically in distance. Greater distance equal greater shipping cost. So distance has increased significantly. And that is part of what is causing shipping prices to be 11 times higher today than they were last year. Pretty, pretty cool. All right, quickly let's get into some of these other issues that I listed on the News Roundup title. Wow, I did all that in 10 minutes. Okay, so hopefully we'll do the rest in 10 minutes and then we'll have a few minutes for Q&A and we'll be done. We've got a few super chat questions, but don't forget you can ask questions. You can sheep the show. You can determine what stories I talk about by asking questions in the super chat. Let's try to get $20 questions because otherwise it's going to be hard for me to cover them all and hard for us to get to the $20, $250 goal. All right, student loans. So, you know, the Biden administration had this program to forgive student loans on a massive scale, half a trillion dollars or something worth of student loans were going to be forgiven. That has been stopped by the courts. I think the Eighth District Appeals Court has ruled against and has put in an injunction prohibiting the Biden administration from continuing. The Biden administration has appealed this Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is going, whether it's going to hear the whole case or whether it's just going to rule on the Eighth, on the appellate court decision is still open and we will see what happens there. In the meantime, the Biden administration has discovered a cool way to actually get around the court decision and that is by basically continuing the COVID era loan forgiveness program started by Trump. So, in 2020, part of the Trump administration's idea about stability and economy and helping people through COVID was, hey, if you have student loans, you don't have to pay them back. You don't have to pay them back for the next six months and then it was extended by another six months and then it's extended another six months and now it has been extended. COVID's gone, COVID emergency's gone, COVID restrictions are gone, COVID, all kinds of stuff is gone but the welfare program that is, you don't have to pay your debt back, you don't have to pay your student loans back, that is going to continue indefinitely and probably continue indefinitely until the courts rule on this. So, this is a way through executive order that both Republicans and Democrats have embraced and really, I think the first president to really do a lot of executive orders was Bush and then Obama increased and then Trump increased and now Biden. It's just horrible. This is authoritarian. This goes around the proper purpose of Congress, which is to govern around these things. This is to a large extent a default of Congress. Congress should insist on getting, you know, legislation back into its court rather than letting the president legislate through the pen, but that's what's happening. So Biden is just continuing, just let's continue. I mean, the immorality of this, I mean, we, and there's nobody to sue and say, wait a minute, this is wrong, this is unconstitutional, this is a violation because it's not clear who has standing, right? I should have standing as a taxpayer for the fact that the government is taking on more and more and more debt because it is not getting income from the student debt that it is provided. But I don't think the courts work that way. I don't think me as just a taxpayer has standing around this thing. So it's not clear who can sue to stop this. I mean, they could indefinitely, without ever passing a law, without having to have a program that goes through the courts without doing anything. They could just temporarily continue to use this emergency power to continuously change everything in the world based on just the signature of the president. Disgusting, offensive, horrible, and disastrous economically and morally offensive, and it teaches the students and everybody else in our culture the wrong kind of things. Yes, let's have our grandkids pay for students to go to college right now. And of course, let's all of us pay for it in slower economic growth, which is what deficits produce. Now, of course, the government shouldn't be in the school financing debt business to begin with. The government has no business in that business to begin with. But given that they are, at least collect on it. All right, so that's where we are, Biden administration continuing this. It's a no brainer for them to do it. Why not, right? You don't lose anybody. Nobody cares about this stuff. It's like me and five other people care. Nobody else cares. No voters seem to care. Their constituencies don't care. No economist is riling against this. No editorial pages. It may be the Wall Street Journal, but no other editorial pages are riling against it. It's not there. It's not part of the cultural wars. So who cares?  All right, quickly, interesting stories on the Russian, on the war, Russia, Ukraine. As you know, what Russia is focusing on right now, it can't win on the battlefield. It's not advancing on the battlefield. So what it's trying to do is demobilize the Ukrainians.  So all of the missiles and all of the Russian military capacity right now is being dedicated to destroying power plants and destroying infrastructure in Ukraine. Ukraine is going to have a pretty cold and pretty dark winter. So it's going to struggle. It's going to be very, very difficult. But one of the things that I think is under-reported out there, I think the Wall Street Journal has had some stories about this, maybe some others, but not much, is the fact that Russia is running out of ammunition. It's running out of shells for its cannons. It has a huge artillery advantage in terms of sheer numbers, not in terms of quality, but in sheer numbers of Ukraine. But it's running out of shells. It can't lob enough shells out. It's running out of missiles. It's running out of cruise missiles. It's running out of smart weapons. So what it's doing is it's buying drones from Iran, suicide drones.  So not even the smartest drones, the suicide drones. It's also buying missiles from the Iranians. I mean, think about that. Russia, the great industrial powerhouse that is Russia, the great manufacturer of weapons that is Russia, cannot, cannot, has to buy weapons from Iran. And according to American intelligence sources, it's buying shells, ammunition shells, artillery shells from North Korea.  And a big reason for that is that Russian manufacturing depends for chips. They don't produce any chips. For chips, for anything electronic, for anything advanced, for anything sophisticated, for fine tools, they depend on the West. And the economic sanctions have crippled them. Not to say they're not smuggling stuff in, not to say chips are not getting to Russia, they are. But they need to be smuggled. You can only smuggle certain quantities. And Russia is, as I've said from the beginning of this war, in deep, deep trouble. Its economy is faltering. Its capacity to produce weapons is diminished dramatically. Russia is not a self-sustaining economy. It cannot survive by itself. These sanctions are hurting, and the war is crippling it. Not only have they lost 100,000 people, productive young people, to this war, they've lost probably another few 100,000 who've left Russia, probably the smartest people. There's clearly a brain drain in Russia. The economic consequence of this war on Russia will be dramatic. Of course, the life consequence of losing those people is horrific as well. So that is even more horrific. The whole, you know, this is a catastrophe for Russia. It is a catastrophe for Putin. It is a catastrophe for Russian nationalism. The whole thing is an absolute, unmitigated disaster for the Russians, and it's reflected in the fact they just don't have munitions. Just don't have munitions. All right, so that is Russia. Let's see. Yes, Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren, where is this? Elizabeth Warren has this up-ed. Yes, Elizabeth Warren has an up-ed today. Oh, yesterday, I think. Regulate crypto, or it'll take down the economy. More panic and hysteria for the left. They love this. Of course, the right loves it too, a different type of panic and hysteria. This is the panic and hysteria from Elizabeth Warren trying to save capitalism from itself. She would argue, which is nuts. Crypto, you know, FTX, all these crypto exchanges are going to take down the economy. Crypto cannot take down the economy to a large extent because crypto is not yet so integrated into the world economy. It is not yet big enough to really take down the US economy or the global economy. You know, even if crypto all went to zero, it would have consequences. It's not negative. It's not zero consequences. A lot of investment capital. A lot of people's savings. A lot of stuff has gone into crypto to do this. But all of those investments, capital resources can be reallocated to more productive endeavors if crypto went to zero. It's not going to zero anytime soon. And Elizabeth Warren is, of course, being hysterical, and hysteria is primarily motivated by Elizabeth Warren's desire to regulate, regulate, regulate. Regulate this. She wants the SEC. She wants the Treasury Department. She wants everybody. And she uses FTX as an example. Now, the funny thing is, FTX has broken existing laws. You don't need new regulatory agencies. All you have to do is penalize FTX for breaking existing laws. Enron broke existing laws. You don't need new regulatory agencies to protect us from Enron. That doesn't stop the Elizabeth Warrens from advocating for new regulatory agencies. They do. The Consumer Finance Protect... Something Board is a Elizabeth Warren creation. She just wants more and more and more government controls, government regulations, government institutions. She is one of the worst, because she comes across to the left, at least, as one of the more reasonable people, right? And she's knowledgeable. She can write. She can talk about these things.  And ultimately, while she claims she's not a socialist, she would bring about fascism in this country in a way that I don't think any other senator out there, other than maybe Josh Hawley, in a different form would like and would advocate. Remember, I'll just remind you without commenting that Elizabeth Warren, when she went for president, came out with an economic manifesto that Tucker Carlson praised and hailed as he basically agreed with almost everything she said. So again, the differences between regulate control kind of fascist policies that Elizabeth Warren is advocating and the policies, the kind of economic fascist policies that somebody like Tucker Carlson is advocating, not that different, different between Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren and economics, not that different. Very, very similar. All right. Just related to crypto, New York has just restricted crypto mining. It's the first state in the country to do that, primarily for environmental reasons. So crypto miners signed deals in New York to resurrect some old fossil fuel electricity plants to dedicate them for the purpose of crypto mining. They are going to be shut down. The crypto miners are going to have to go somewhere else to do it. Although, of course, the profitability of crypto mining has gone down a lot. They could still mine using the existing grid, but they can't have the dedicated new power plants for them because God, global heating, global warming or whatever. Of course, and this, whoops, that was crypto. Of course, the real threats to the global economy and the U.S. economy and what Elizabeth Warren won't tell us, the real threat, the real damage that is done has been done by the Fed, not by, and by government policy, certainly not by crypto. The real threat is the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve, everybody is on pins and needles today. Pins and needles because the Federal Reserve will release its notes, the notes from its last meeting, the comments that it makes from the last meeting. The markets will try to squeeze out any kind of information about what the Fed is planning to do in terms of interest rates and then price everything accordingly because price adjusts according to interest rates. Unbelievable that there is no, there's almost nobody talking out there about the fact that we have given the Federal Reserve this much power over human life, this much power over the global economy, the fact that a board of 12 people get to decide the fate of humanity, the economic fate of humanity, on a dime like that. Central planning, power excellence, and nobody cares. That is the real outrage. That is the real danger that we face is that a Federal Reserve does the wrong thing and we all suffer. And of course the Federal Reserve can't really do the right thing because what is the right thing in a centralized planned economy? There is no right thing. It's just unbelievable and nobody challenges this. The existence of the Federal Reserve is taking us metaphysical. There is no alternative. It just is, that's it, it's gone. So this is the whole orientation of somebody like Elizabeth I. Oh, crypto is going to bring down the economy. No, the Federal Reserve is going to bring down the economy. It already is. By creating inflation and raising interest rates, which I think it has to do, there are other problems to begin with. All of that, that's the real problem. Not crypto, not credit suites, not any particular thing. It's the Fed that is creating these massive swings in the market that is potentially going to create an economic disaster, not crypto. Indeed, crypto pricing is partially dependent on what the Fed does. Everything is dependent. Everything economically is dependent on what the Fed does. It is that influential, that powerful, if you will. All right. So that is the Fed. So we're waiting, we'll hear later today about what we think the Fed might do in a couple of weeks and then next year and we'll, crazy stuff. But it's the reality. All right. Finally, we talk about real estate prices as of course very much related to what the Fed might or might not do, but we can pretty much guarantee that interest rates, at least short-term interest rates, are going up and as interest rates go up real estate prices come down. Canada, one of the biggest booms in real estate, biggest rises in real estate prices over the last 20 years of being in Canada. Canada, for the first time, I think in a very long time, in decades of seeing real estate prices start to come down. This is true in other very high real estate price economies, like certain places in New Zealand and in Australia. Real estate prices are coming down as they have to come down because of interest rates. So in Canada the percent change in home prices over the last 25 years is 553%, which is insane. Australia is 502%, New Zealand 451%, Luxembourg 449%, Sweden 442%. I think most of that is driven by supply constraints for whatever reason in these countries. US is way down at less than 200%. So this is averages, this is not in particular areas.  Alright, that is the news for November 23rd from the Iran Brook show. We did that in 28 minutes, not bad. Alright, quickly, let's do some super chats. We got Harper Campbell at 50 bucks, thank you Harper. I don't know why you think Scandinavia is a fertile ground for objectivism. Most Scandinavians, I speak with where their collectivism is a badge of honor. They brag about how high their taxes are. It's ingrained in their identity. Yes, but funnily enough Scandinavia has been governed by kind of more, kind of call it right wing or more free market leaning political parties that as much of Europe for the last 20, 30 years also true, more importantly, is that just empirically Scandinavia has a very large as a percentage population number of objectivists, so maybe we've already captured all the objectivists in Scandinavia all the potential objectivists in Scandinavia so everything else is is impossible and therefore the numbers are small and the potential is very low but the fact is that Iran's books sell well in Scandinavia and that there are a lot of relatively speaking to just a lot of objectivist per capita in Scandinavia more so than in most other parts of the world so we can talk about why that is and to what extent these people are exceptions but maybe they are maybe because of the collectivism inherited Scandinavia society there are more rebels more people who rebel will ultimately become objectivists because there's nothing else to rebel towards I don't know but it's just a fact that when you go to Scandinavia there's just a lot of people familiar with Ayn Rand and a lot of people who actually like Ayn Rand alright Shazvat would Putin go on a shooting rampage if he didn't happen to become ruler of Russia I don't know no I don't think so I don't think the nihilism expresses itself in the same way I think Putin's nihilism is much more focused on power than it is on suicidal you know shooting sprees I don't think it takes the same mentality it's a very different mentality Putin would find ways to have power over other people without dying Putin does not want to die so Putin might you know become a corrupt fill-in the blank in order to sustain his nihilism but it's a different it comes in a different form oops Phil asks our latest month the UK PM and his chancellor increased energy company would fall taxes from 25 to 35% apparently shell UK have declared that they propose 25 billion investment here is now very very in doubt what a surprise yes I mean this UK PM right now and his treasury secretary about the worst combination you could find they're almost guaranteed that the Labour Party will win in a couple of years these guys are losers completely no agenda for growth they have raised taxes across the board they are making it they are decreasing the incentives for companies to invest in energy production in the UK no whereas I was optimistic about the UK a few months ago now I'm super pessimistic about it because I think this government is worse than Johnson or at least as bad it's all the bad Johnson qualities without any of his quote charisma and you know they are completely selling out to the left they are completely selling out to populism they are completely selling out to fascism and they are going to destroy the UK's economy and at the same time instead of enhancing the UK's ability to produce its own energy they are going to make the UK even more dependent on I don't know France for nuclear and Russia for oil and gas or whatever the combination is alright Michael says can you do a show on bias I hear the BS all the time when presenting objective ideas well bias of the idea of objective reality is laughable that sounds an awful lot like you're blind because you have eyes yes I mean it's pure Kantianism while people can be biased and are biased that's something to overcome bias exists there are plenty of studies to show that people if they answer questions quickly a bias to be rational and this is what people don't understand this is the fundamental issue here to be rational it's just to exert effort to be rational takes work to be rational means to methodologically view a problem and analyze it and acknowledge areas where you might be biased and try to try to overcome that bias by appeal to reality and appeal to reason it's good to know about common biases so you can avoid them not so you can say oh well it's life we're just biased there's nothing we can do about it it's a deterministic view it's also a deterministic view of reason it's a deterministic view of human cognition and so on alright we're about $100 short of our goal we have 5 4 more questions so you have a chance to jump in with like $100 question or $250 questions I do have a hard stuff in 10 minutes so I'll do these 5 questions or 6 questions now with Liam but please no more $5 questions just don't have time for them if you can do a $20, $50, $100 that'll be great we'll do those Josh says I enjoy the news shows and appreciate commentary on the economy thanks Iran I'm also talking really really fast I think I think I'm trying to beat Ben Shapiro at his own game so these news things I need to slow down so I need to have fewer news items I'll figure it out in then but I've noticed I'm talking really really fast does that bother you guys? let me know if it bothers you alright James G how do you negotiate in business with investors and climates and clients to get them to see a win-win transaction how have you negotiated to win-win in business I don't know I don't have a secret sauce that I can present the best way to negotiate with people to show the value you add to them and focus on that and instead of trying to squeeze them for every last time squeeze them for everything I wouldn't negotiate like Donald Trump negotiate the art of the deal the art of screw the guy you're trying to deal with you want to focus on the value you are creating for them and why they should deal with you because you're creating a unique and special value this relationship is important to you and why you are uniquely positioned to create this value for them I think that's how you have to focus all negotiations in life Daniel I wonder how the removal of the Jones Act would impact shipping costs well it would impact shipping costs dramatically inside the US and even more dramatically it would impact the shipping cost for Hawaii and for Puerto Rico but also within the United States shipping from Houston to Boston or shipping from East Coast to West Coast all of that would be a lot lot cheaper I don't know how much it would impact international shipping costs but it would make shipping more efficient globally and it would have huge impacts on costs in the United States everything would become cheaper particularly in Hawaii and Puerto Rico but even including mainland United States because now you have limitations of shipping between US ports so Josh says usually listen to your podcast first time in a long time I got to listen live great thank you John thanks for the support and it's great that the morning programs are now opportunities for people to listen live when in the past they haven't been able to so this is very cool alright we're like $42 away from our goal of Michael says can an M2 takeover in post Atlas Shrugged World has the only reason Hitler, Stalin and Mao able to takeover was because they took power before Atlas Shrugged was published oh no I think an M2 takeover is possible in a post Atlas Shrugged World I do I hope we can avoid it I hope we can fight against it but it's certainly possible it's what Lena Pika predicts and you can see it in the culture in the United States the culture in the United States is moving towards Atlas Shrugged it's not moving towards Objectivism well it is moving towards Atlas Shrugged but not towards Objectivism it's actually moving towards an M2 World so no I definitely think it could still happen Catherine thank you even Catherine who's there to get you guys to contribute is contributing so you know if we had if half the people who are listening right now pitched in just as a what do you call it sticker we would reach our goal so Nathan thank you for the support really appreciate it so one dollar from everybody participating half the people participating but we should do 50 cents from everybody participating so everybody jumps in would get us to the goal Ryan says isn't the law in California outlawing the sale of gas cars constitutionally constitutional as it goes against the commerce clause it's interstate commerce clause look the interstate commerce clause is meaningless nobody pays attention to it the Supreme Court emptied it of all content decades and decades and decades ago there's a few big rulings that basically made that happen and eviscerated the interstate commerce clause I would say that a lot of state regulations of business a lot of federal regulation of business violates the interstate commerce clause but nobody seems to care and nobody seems to the interstate commerce clause is a brilliant clause which should save us from a lot of what the government is trying to do to us and trying to impose its will on us and it isn't because of the courts have abandoned it and one of the hopes is that some of these justices like Gorsuch and Thomas will try to resurrect the interstate commerce clause but who knows it's not where they focus all right, last question before that Vladimir, thank you messed up maths, thank you Roosevelt, thank you, they have chipped away and we're now only $16 short of a goal so they've all done stickers and chipped away and we have five minutes to go but Liam says California is very depressing and a nihilistic place the teenagers out there look completely hopeless dead behind the eyes maybe but on the other hand if you go to Silicon Valley and even Hollywood and places like that do you see incredibly productive people or San Diego with biotech you see incredibly productive people doing amazing things I will talk about the chip wars as we go along just an amazing story about extreme ultraviolet light the technology which I learned about today listening to the book which came out of it at least was just the amazing innovation in Silicon Valley so there's still unbelievable productive talent in Silicon Valley don't forget that all right, let's see we have Apollo Zeus, thank you Gale says thank you Yuan, thank you so much for the hard work and dedication for years you have taught me so much thank you Gale really appreciated Mel came in thank you Tom, thank you we basically I think by this point have made it so thank you all we made the 250 just in time thanks everybody I will see you tonight 8 p.m. Puerto Rican time 11, sorry 8 p.m. Puerto Rico time 7 p.m. East Coast time we will talk about Thanksgiving but more importantly we will talk about production productivity and productiveness we will talk about that on the show don't miss it and come with the Thanksgiving spirit in mind lots of lots of hero we want to worship our heroes and our heroes in the modern world today the ones that exist our business leaders our innovators entrepreneurs and we'll talk a lot about that all right thanks everybody I will see you tonight have a great rest of your day on Friday morning for the next news briefing we are going to take the day off tomorrow how about that a day off


It's impossible to imagine a modern, socially active man who's just not used cell phones and Wi-Fi. Might that be harmful for male fertility? In my last video, I talked about how the sperm of men who use Wi-Fi tend to not be getting along as swimmingly well, but that was an observational study. We don't really know if Wi-Fi actually damages sperm until you put it to the test. The title kind of gives it all away, but basically this was the first study to evaluate the direct impact of laptop use on human sperm. Here's the DNA fragmentation in samples near and far away from a laptop with an active Wi-Fi connection, suggesting one might not want to position a Wi-Fi device near the male reproductive organs. Yeah, Wi-Fi exposure may decrease human sperm motility and increase sperm DNA fragmentation, but the effect is minor. I mean, it's having 10% fewer good swimmers, really going to make a difference. Fertile men release hundreds of millions. What is yet to be done is a study looking at bouncing baby endpoints. Do men randomized with certain exposure have a tougher time having children? It's actually a harder study to perform than one might think. You can't just have men avoid cell phones and laptops for a day. Yes, we make millions of new sperm a day, but they take months to mature. The sperm with which you conceive today started as a preconceived notion months before. So you can imagine why such a study has yet to be done. You'd have to randomize men to essentially avoid wireless communications completely or maybe come up with some kind of Faraday cage underwear. Another reason why one may not want to use a laptop computer on your lap is just the heat generated by the laptop itself, Wi-Fi or not, can warm men's scrotums undermining the whole point of scrotum possession in the first place. This all dates back to a famous series of experiments back in 1968. It was an illuminating study, one might say. Sometimes they add a reflector to boost the heat, though the bulb alone was just as effective, but they had to move it closer to the skin. Much simpler, but more likely to result in a Jerry Lee Lewis song. But now we have nice cool fluorescence, but heated car seats remain a testicular heat stress factor. Saunas aren't a good idea for men trying to conceive sperm counts before and after, apparently cutting sperm production in a half and still down three months later, but apparent full recovery by six months. But that's why boxers not briefs. Or go all commando. Who makes money on that, though? That's why we need a scrotal cooling device industry, though this review noted that more acceptable scrotal cooling techniques really need to be developed. Why whatever are they referring to? It seems the devices currently on the market are not so practical day-to-day. There's the curved rubber collar filled with ice cubes. Another was just like a freezer gel pack inserted into the guy's underwear every night. Not to worry, though, it thaws in three to four hours tops. Holy snowball's Batman. Do not, I repeat, do not put an ice pack on your scrotum. A few frozen peas and carrots you can frostbite yourself. Maybe sometimes even vegetables can be bad for you. Then there's the schvitzer that keeps the scrotum damp. And finally, attached with a belt, achievement of scrotal cooling with a continuous airstream. With so many options to choose from, do laptop users really need protection from scrotal hyperthermia? You don't know until you put it to the test. And indeed, an increase in scrotal temperature was found in laptop computer users. Scrotal temperatures up a feverish 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Little scrotal warmth doesn't sound that bad, though. Then I read this case report, a previously healthy 50-year-old scientist typing out a report one evening, sitting comfortably in his favorite chair, laptop in lap, but woke up the next day with blisters, penile and scrotal blisters that then broke and developed into infected wounds that caused extensive oozing pus. Even third-degree burns have been reported, requiring surgical intervention with skin grafts. The guy drank 12 units of vodka and passed out while watching a film on his lap and the laptop burned through his leg. The surgeons call for a public education campaign to educate the public against the risks of using a laptop in its most literal sense. How about instead educating the public against drinking 12 units of vodka?