It's the mat work. Oh, what's up everybody? Once again, it's Brand Man Sean and welcome to Music News That Matters. We're on the first of every month. We help you sift through the noise to bring you the most important industry news. We know there's so much information out there, but we're going to focus on topics that matter most to you guys and give you our perspective as well, of course. In this episode, we're going to bring you the latest updates and drama on Live Nation, TikTok and Spotify, who has always shown we're never too far away from the headlines in our podcast. And don't forget, everybody, before we get started, since these videos are only once a month, make sure you sign up to our newsletter to get notified of the latest news and why it matters between episodes. You can also listen to the podcast on the go now. This episode, along with all future episodes, is on all audio streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, and many more. Let's get into it. What have we got here? Another busy month was a lot of drama this month, actually. One of the big ones is Live Nation. I know that Corey did a video on the channel last week after this memo was leaked. To summarise, for those of you who are not quite aware, it was a very negative memo about Live Nation's plans for 2021 and the new artist contracts. The main headlines was that they're going to guarantee that there'll be a 20% drop from the 2020 rates for artists. So they're getting a 20% less than they were getting this year. And one of the big things that stood out was that if an artist cancels a performance in the breach of an agreement, they'll have to pay twice the agreed-upon compensation, which is just ludicrous, especially given how hard the industry's been here already. Another main point was that artists stand secure 25% of their performance fees for concerts that are cancelled due to low ticket sales. And another one that I think is interesting is that they're now required to get their own cancellation insurance to, you know, they've got to cover their own ass now, even if it is an event like the COVID-19 crisis from now on they're expected to sort out their own insurance, which is just crazy, considering you can't really plan police things. Exactly, exactly. I mean, this whole scenario, of course it came as a shockwave. It threw a lot of people off because it was just so blatantly violating. But I've heard a lot of people speculate that one that is not necessarily a leak. It's more intentional. So, and you know how that goes, right? It happens all the time in music, in business. And when we speak of these backtracks that also has been speculated to be a part of the strategy. The first person I really, I guess first company that I really noticed and paid attention to that with was Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, where oftentimes they'll be hyper aggressive knowing that some of the stuff will have to be backtracked. But, you know, I'll still move forward three steps because I got pushed back from seven steps versus slowly incrementally changing which most people don't like anyway.  Yes, a classic case of ask for forgiveness, not permission, isn't it? 100%, 100%. That's what I think it is because it has so much leverage. We know the ball's gonna move forward a little bit in their direction. That's it. There was always gonna be cuts as well. It wasn't gonna be, you know, like everything stays as alley as it is. Everyone's gotta adapt and obviously they've gotta try and cover themselves. Obviously they've been trying to pay out a lot for cancellations, but they have come out and retracted some of the stuff. So they've said that they're not gonna, they're gonna abolish that, requiring us to pay twice agreed upon fee they cancel the show. That's not gonna be in any contract now. They're completely gone against that. They are still doing the 20% reduction in artist guarantees, but they're trying to spin that in a sense that they think it's gonna be so lucrative next year in terms of ticket sales that it's actually gonna make more money than it was in 2019. I think that difference is actually gonna be sort of like leveled out. So I think it's quite ambitious considering people should be very skeptical I think next year. Even if we are sort of like over the hill in terms of coronavirus, I think people will still be very wary about it because it's not gonna be gone. It's gonna be obviously lurking around still. Yeah, I think that's pretty ambitious in terms of show projections, but maybe they know something we don't know. I wasn't really going to shows anyway. So I can't really boycott or withhold my attendance from something that I was never in account for. But another, well, flip perspective of it is a promoter was speaking on the fact that they think that this is a good thing in some ways. Although there was some violation in the contract and the language, there is a middle ground that needed to be met between artists and promoters and apparently a promoters feel like artists were having an advantage to the point that it didn't make sense. So they could be the leader on that side of things and just level setting and having that trickle down effect from there. Also, I know you're also very angry about the cancellation, like getting your own insurance which hasn't been discussed anymore since the announcement, but we have to get insurance for most things ourselves. Is this sort of, I think, is that fair game? Yeah, and that's probably a part of that conversation with the promoters saying they need to have that, right? They need to like get some more balance in things. I honestly, I just have no stake in that game. I don't care which one and I don't have an opinion. But when I was running shows, I definitely didn't want to have the insurance on me and I hated that part of it. Yeah, and obviously we're seeing that South by Southwest this year, obviously we really struggled. They couldn't really afford the damages it's cost them and I think most businesses have been blindsided by it. There's not many that have actually like sort of have their assets covered by this. So I think it's only natural that's gonna happen anyway, but it's nice to see that they have sort of retracted some of it. I think it's more of maybe like a publicity thing anyway in the first place, just to try and see the test of waters of the announcement and also then scale back as you said, but I expect more scale backs from this because obviously the industry was up in arms last week about it. But that is the latest on Live Nation. Another thing interestingly from yesterday, so Monday, 29th of June, recording stay on Tuesday, Indian's government has blocked TikTok and 59 other Chinese based apps completely. So TikTok was currently not available in India, which is obviously a massive blow for them considering that they had, I think India in terms of downloads of the app, it's like 30.3% of the total downloads. Yeah, which is massive. Like they were the number one by large. It's not even close. Yeah, I know, so you were saying to me earlier that you've had clients that have been working with you now that's something like, well, what are we gonna do now? It's not even available to us. Yeah, and that was one of those things where I couldn't say anything in back. Sometimes you think a client might just be trying to hold things off procrastinate and you're like, oh no, we're okay, but that was one of those things where I had no response. I actually did not see that coming, you know? So I've only, I haven't even had the chance to really get all the details. So like I'm leaning on you because I see a few notes you have in regard to soldiers and TikTok personality. Was all, is any of this stuff in relation to why or are these just additional? So a couple of them are, the main thing is that relations have been quite strained between Indian China, like most of this year. So that the Ministry of Information Technology claimed that the blocked apps are prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India defensive in the security of state and public order. And they weren't very happy with China because earlier this month, 20 Indian soldiers were killed on the dispute Himalayan border with China. So the Indian Army claimed these deaths were a result of a violent face off of Chinese soldiers. And there's been lots of news recently about a lot of Chinese apps actually spying on users. I know there was this thing that TikTok accesses like your clipboard, your phone gallery, every 14 seconds or something, kind of the exact quote. Do you remember that thing on Capitol Hill or whatever? In DC, where they were basically saying nobody in government could use TikTok. They were banned from using it with government workers. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's been that serious for a while. And again, I already thought when I just recognized the trajectory of TikTok, I was like, yo, this is going to be crazy. This is going to be an issue. Especially even just getting in the experience is weird because it collides worlds a lot differently than other apps where you're following people from other parts of the world. And unless it's like China or Russia where they might be using a lot of distinct language but if they're using English, you don't know where they are a lot of times unless they speak or something like that. So it really turned the world into a melting pot far greater than most apps have so far. Most people connect their region. This one was really connecting the world without people even knowing. And then you zoom out though and find out that Chinese businesses, especially these apps, have to report their information to the government. Like the government has access to that same information that immediately is a red flag where it's like, wow, all these tech companies have an absurd amount of information. Facebook has an absurd amount of information. I think there's been battles before about our government wanting to see some of Facebook's data and data Facebook being like, nah, but it's America and how things run in America. They have a completely different philosophy and in which they built their political system in China, which I don't think nah is much of an option, right? So if you're telling me the government has access to all that information over there and people already, and China's already rising and then you already understand the geopolitical issues. Then you think about kids with all these features, what do you call them? Filters where you're putting your face in it, right? People are complaining about that app where it ages you. Yes, yeah. Yeah, and they were saying like, oh, Russia trick people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, that being true or not, right? Well, TikTok is doing it every day through these filters, right? Every time you put your face in a filter just like it's Instagram, except this is owned by a different company. We're not used to a widely used social network or social media platform that isn't from us. Exactly. Every other one is from America. The closest thing we can get to that's not that is Spotify being in Stockholm, but that's not quite social media, right? And driving media, that conversation. So just that alone, that shift alone is interesting. It brings it back as well. On a larger scale, you've got last year's old drama about Huawei and the 5G networks and US and UK trying to block them coming in, because obviously there's fears of security breaches and spying and things. And this has a potential to me to get on a similar scale if this continues, if more reports come out about the technology goes involved in the TikTok app and it's tracking and spying. Like India's been a massive statement here and other countries may well follow suit. So that's why I think it's a bigger story than perhaps from the surface. Yeah. Look, they know what's happening and they know what the attempts are because it takes a con to be able to sniff out a con artist, right? If you come up in the streets and you don't want to get robbed, you have to learn how criminals think, right? Just to be a part of it. Even if you don't want to be one. Well, in this case, each of these countries are a criminal where they're trying to do this to each other so they can sniff out what somebody else is kind of positioning to do that to them, which is like the paranoia is just gonna be through the roof and this is gonna get very interesting, right? We know that the wars aren't as much physical anymore and a lot more digital, right? And coding, hacking, media. So I think people should pay more attention to it than they are because I've been having behind the scenes conversations with some people who seem to be more than know than me which I already think is pretty definitive that this is a very big issue that's gonna happen in between the countries but some people are like pretty afraid that TikTok won't be in America for too long or at least they're gonna go through a moment like what's happening in India. We all know how tough it is though for the government to come out on top of these scenes as we've seen in the past when Cambridge Analytica and Facebook the scandal about interfering with the US elections and Brexit and obviously the government tries to take them on and get the information and that was a long bow to many years and hasn't really revealed too many answers they're not gonna, I didn't buckle under the pressure of Facebook and I just feel like we have a very long dispute again which may not bring them any answers. So yeah. Yeah, it's weird man just because of the political thesis it makes America more vulnerable in things like this but even though I guess politically we look at it as a strength we talk about the freedom and freedom of speech and blah, blah, blah, all that stuff but when you think about responding to coronavirus you see there's a lot more order in a country like China because people in America think, well, you can't tell me what to do I have my rights and blah, blah, blah, right? And the same thing goes in a moment like even these apps and the way things run in business China has been blocking American companies from expanding to China for years and heavily censoring them for years but even if it might be called for in this instance it's so unprecedented at least in terms of public knowledge on a large scale that it will be very weird and I would be interested to see how the public reacts to it or what the government would have to do media messaging wise to get the public on their side and to understand. I'm gonna be watching it with a very keen interest as it develops that's for sure. Another thing related to TikTok and India but not related to this ban is that one of the big personalities over there Sia Kakar, she was 16 years old she committed suicide last week she had over a million followers on the platform I just thought I'd mention it because obviously it's kind of it gets so many things get lost in the noise of social media these days but it's just another sign about you know that behind the scenes of these creators and all this noise it seems it's just terribly sad. Yeah man, I mean that I'm on TikTok all the time and sometimes I wonder what serious and what's not serious you know you can never tell for sure some of the most that these teens have some of the things that they're going through and you know if you've been a team before you know that there's a lot of volatility in emotions even if you weren't one of those people you know that there are a lot of peers that had those ups and downs and once you amplify that to social media level right that when that volatility already exists it doesn't help. I'm still of course we know what social media can do from a positive standpoint in terms of uprising, voices and things like that but in terms of an individual generally speaking it seems like it's just it's pretty harmful but I don't want to say and assume that her case has to do with social media but I will say you hear a lot of you see a lot of crying out on TikTok and there was one campaign that we were going to work on the song was basically I didn't even recognize it it was like catchy sounding but I didn't recognize that it was about suicide so then I looked at all the hundreds of thousands of videos now like 300,000 plus videos where people are basically talking about like the last picture they take before they die and it's like how many of them are just thinking the song is catchy how many of them are you know, serious and kind of hiding behind a supposed train so yeah it's a sad case have you seen much of this or just what's your perspective on it? Well one thing that got me thinking was that I'm not trying to say this is any thing of power but it's just saying that I've noticed is that how one users broke was that her management released the announcement I just think I imagine being 16 and younger and having a management team behind you and all the brushes that was bring it's not normal for a child to be in that environment and I just kind of feel that's going to play a lot of stress and in fact growing up is a very different child to what you'd normally expect and a lot of these stars now are quite young and do have these massive lots of voices talking to them and influencing them not just the family but the the agents and the sponsors and the management teams and that's just got me thinking about all of that aspect Yeah look we've seen this for years when we look at child stars all right now you have people that are considered normal but still consuming or living out a lot of child star at normalities all right yeah and without necessarily that immediate compensation without the understanding of that dynamic because so many people are going through it at once it's just like even I felt it when I came I was in my mid 20s when I started to be more front side and experience just a lot of people watching and that shit was weird yeah that shit is just weird this is not a normal thing you know so I could only imagine being that young and having that many people's eyes on you and look and it's pretty well documented so far that there has been an uptick in suicides and depression and things of that nature through social media and you know that whole paradigm of being more connected but more disconnected at the same time is a real one and I wonder how you solve for it I've been off of Instagram over the last week except for my desktop but which is I'm so happy that they allow you to do that right they've become so functional on desktop that I don't really need it on the app because I only want to be on there for business and I hope Instagram doesn't like hear this somewhere and then all of a sudden try to mess up the desktop but I could feel the difference in my focus and it wasn't even one of those things where I was trying to do it like oh to become more healthy in a social media cleanse but I can just feel it it's clear all right my intent is clear my thoughts are less scattered and I'm able to focus on other things more and I'm just continuing to do that and I don't know how to guard kids from that though because that's so much a part of the experience and so much a part of the world so much would be based off of that group experience of those apps it'd be it's a weird thing to manage going even further from like just finally on a management sponsorship aspect obviously TikTok is still a very very new platform so the the attention on those who have got a big following and the pressures on them is going to be 10 fold compared to what it has been for people in the past because obviously they want to get they also want to tap into this talent like now and just really stretch them out as much as possible because it's so new yeah man that part is trashed so like this whole management thing is extremely predatory and how they approach the TikTok I want to talk about it more I've been wanting to talk about it for a couple months but obviously I've been light on YouTube but the the predatory nature of just coming in swooping up these kids and to become a manager when really you're only managing them for their numbers you're not actually giving them value a lot of these managers aren't they're really just using them as leverage for their own deals all right versus like seeing about their career individually as an artist it is not making sense it's not adding up and I think there's going to be a huge moment where a lot of these these kids crash at a collective time and I don't know what that's going to do to a lot of them mentally either but a lot of them will experience the height and like the steep height right we know TikTok is exaggerated too that's the worst part about it you experience three million followers and then all of a sudden I'm only getting 10,000 view engagement and I can't figure out what to do because some of this algorithm is not fully sensical in the first place it's going to it's just going to be something else that that'll be scarring trauma of its own to Gen Z absolutely I've always definitely left like mentioning just discussing this for a bit because it's it's not the first time and unfortunately it won't be the last and it's yeah it's just not really any words for it yeah well our next topic is some of you always tend to talk about is what's going on at Spotify every month we have a little a little chat about them back in January we were discussing Marquis which we're going to come on to very shortly but what I want to do first is that there's been a lot of reports floating around over the past month that Spotify is working on adding music videos into its app there's been reports that in the code now in the app code there is like an extra like button and feature where video would go you could swipe across from music and from podcasts and there'd be video so they're now speculating that there might be some videos being added we also know that the Joe Rogan podcast deal is happening there's going to be video on Spotify like exclusively so we're going to have to put that functionality in anyway so are they going to push the wheel and include more videos and that's what it looks like because if we start doing it for adverts in the US, UK and Canada you can now run video ads on the platform and they've been doing very well 50% of advertisers use the tool it's only 11% in March wait so how many what videos are they showing already? just you know like the the adverts with the audio ads you can get on the platform on ad studio you're familiar oh the audio ads okay and now they're doing like actual video ads you can now promote think you can now promote products or but what are they showing the video ads on I'm saying have they actually started using them or you're saying now they have the ability to but when Joe Rogan comes this is when they'll actually start no they've been using them it'd be like the you know where the canvas plays you have a little looping videos they get played in that interesting interesting I haven't noticed that so your 50% of advertisers have been using this tool now and apparently a lot of spot for users are using it with the sound on not just muted because you can mute the sound on the ads on the video ads according to them that they've got a 1.9% ad recall with 2.2 times percent 2.2 times increase in brand awareness according to company stats so the advertisers seem to love it it's much improvement on the audio aspect so with the fact that they're doing these video ads now it does seem natural progression that we're going to get more video content on the platform for more podcasts and for music videos and it's just another case of we never quite know which direction Spotify's heading in one minute it wants to be you know all in on audio the Netflix of audio but now here we are again tapping back into video they try to do it in the past like four or five years ago they bought a lot of startups that were in that space and also you did not pair recently discussing the future of Spotify and what it needs to do to try and survive with the threats of TikTok and Rezo but I don't video wasn't really sort of like on our radar again no it wasn't but I'm not surprised because video only makes sense when it comes to the leverage that they're trying to build in the podcasting space because a lot of people watch podcasts I watch podcasts like when I first started listening to a lot of the podcasts that I watch most of them I actually started watching them on YouTube I never I still haven't listened to Joe Rogan podcasts I've watched many of them on YouTube and then sometimes like listen or I walk around and use it like a podcast Joe Budden podcast same thing I watch a lot of I watch a lot of long form content slash listen like do both so it only makes sense and then if you're going to do it from the anchor point of the Joe Rogan then why not start to test out the recommended you know your recommendation engine and see what those stats can really look like you have to use this opportunity in this window to you know feed it back in because I know they know the value of video that's why they tried it before and just because they weren't they kind of failed doesn't mean that they they don't think it's valuable anymore they just knew whatever route they were taking wasn't right or the timing wasn't right so they know the value of it this is it looks like that this is their way in yeah I think the podcast route has to be the way in because music videos obviously they're not anything new other platforms offer that but if you can now get exclusive podcasts that have the video to you to watch it's actually going to get you more engaged with staying on yet rather than locking their screen exactly because music videos which is what they were focused on that wasn't really all that interesting anyway the music videos don't have the appeal they used to no exactly I that I don't even know there's so many songs that I listen to and there's so few music videos I've seen this year you know so that's a part of it they probably so moving off of that traditional concept but probably discovering what I just said that they don't have the appeal that they used to and they make sense for a platform like YouTube where everything is video and then music video just happens to be part of it but a main behavioral driver like a show is is a completely different thing and also you mentioned those ads I'm not really impressed with the stats although they are good they're early right and you're very very early yeah so a huge part of that is just that the fact that people aren't used to it all right just like any other platform oh I'm not used to ads on my email and now I'm used to ads on my email and now it's harder to get people over there email oh I'm not used to this Facebook ad thing what's going on and Facebook ads are extremely cheap then they drive up Google ads it happens that's just the cycle so that's a huge part of it you're going to have that when you have a newer platform or a newer way of advertising on a platform and you have limited advertisers whether that's due to selection or due to natural selection through financial limitation or that either way it goes there's a small sample size but hopefully they continue to you know make it comprehensive but I think it will still follow that natural curve but they are more natural to do ads around podcasting as well too then them so I think Spotify is in a in a strong position they're really wiggling their way out of their music mishaps let's put it that way and it's through every and they're finding their way back through everything but music I would like to see them focus more less on music videos and more on little artists interviews and documentaries aren't exclusive to the platform because obviously Spotify's got an insane amount of access to these artists so you can have then the film vertically you know interview clips and weave them in with playlists of artists so you're playing their songs then one of their like interviews or documentary will come on it's been made by Spotify and that just that would be so much more valuable I think it's be so much more interesting for them and certainly they can easily do as well and just like obviously if you follow artists you can get notifications saying I'm just dropped an interview with so and so or a new extended documentary because the album music beats one docs are very very popular in interviews and I feel like they should tap more into that and that would be yeah just do much better than music videos yeah they have the leverage to the infrastructure might be more natural once the podcast and then you slowly set up in the videos is really put in there I would be more interested to see stuff like that so keep it on with Spotify as I mentioned Marquis we had a long discussion about this back in January when they first announced like the is their first ever form of like paid advertising for labels and it was going to you know the pop-up alert saying new album or new track out by so and so artists now go listen it's a little pop-up advert on your phone and they just used them before organically and now they're going to start offering them out as you know labels could pay into this but it was going to cost them even buying a five thousand dollars so our discussions back in January are like this obviously disappointing because it's inaccessible to like the major labels and it's not really very valuable for anyone else yep you're questioning the sort of results it was going to achieve as well but six months on and they're reporting that more than a 20 percent click-through rate for the ad service anything that's not anything above single digits is very strong as far as I'm concerned so that's an encouraging number and they said that over one fifth of Spotify users he was served a Marquis ad string to promote a release within a two week time frame and with 2.2 times more likely in average to save or place a track from it they've got quite a few examples of some strong campaigns one new K artist Georgia who released an album called seeking thrills in January she got a 33 percent click-through rate on her campaign with 22 percent of them serving at least one of her tracks or listening to it and the most important thing for me is that Spotify said they've done a lot of campaigns that were well below the minimum buying of five thousand dollars and the key line is that it's their intention to make the tool that works for acts of all sizes so it looks like in the near future we might be getting this ad service ad tool for everyone which is massive we'll see because as much as I might speak against how some things that Spotify doesn't do for the smaller artists there is also a lot of that to their benefit outside of a we're just catering to a larger label but just from a platform perspective there's the curation benefit the limitation benefit from a user experience point of view I don't get a lot of push from Spotify right because so much of it is organic in nature in an inner field I'm getting these recommendations and I really trust Spotify because everything they're showing me for the most part I pretty much like right I'm looking for the playlist that they're showing me next and I'm looking for what some might discover weekly and things like that so since they have that trust built up a lot of that is because it hasn't been inundated by advertisers who are going to be less less cautious right and a lot more frivolous in how they handle the consumers attention so I don't even know how I mean maybe it's profitable back in regardless and of course as a company that's going to be the end all be all but from a but again I guess from click-throughs and the effectiveness for maybe smaller artists and or just anybody once it gets to that that mass point I wonder what the click the rules will look like then and I wonder how consumers will view those because right now I guarantee you most of those people don't even know that that's an ad all right they don't view that as an ad probably just something else based on from Spotify based on the stuff that I like to listen to because they always show me stuff that I like to listen to you know so yeah we'll see how long and how how they are able to maintain that trust that they have because there's strict guidelines with this starting out that you'd only show like one per day and like two or three per week maximum and that is only going to be sorted to your listening history it wasn't going to be too far out of that remit but obviously they the more they open it out as you say the more noise and more proliferation is going to be in the space and the more advertising it's going to feel yep but it's it's certainly promising that even if this isn't the one that is going to be the one that's going to be like brilliant for independent artists it's positive to see that they are considering you know forms of marketing advertising on the platform that will be catered more to us all sizes not just the labels we alluded to in our previous conversation and I still think this tool has got legs they're rolling out more features like to target the ads based on geography and also categories as well so there's going to be three different ones for audiences you've got users who have engaged with the arts on the platform previously but haven't done so in a while you've got new fans who recently engaged with the arts for the first time and you've got super fans should be able to access that sort of data and target those three different audience types which is interesting yeah I mean but they can easily be the most effective platform for music marketing if they want it to I don't know what the goals are or what the complete timeline looks like when they're marketing features for their ad system but I mean what better place to advertise than Spotify you know exactly they have the data where I don't have to now have my Facebook algorithm learn that they like that type of music and use these interests to then click over off the platform I can easily pop up within platform I can easily say people who listen to this this this artist or like you said people who have listened to me once people who listen to me over four times that I mean that can be game changing you know it just depends on how it's approached and has always seemed like advertising has not been a focus for Spotify and that could be to its benefit like I said there's a lot more brand equity and trust with them over there so I I mean kudos to them for holding out as long as they have to have and being as particular as they have but now they've started up let's see if if they don't you know fall down that slippery slope because it's very easy to start nibbling and then next thing you know take a big bite when you start seeing that advertising money especially for a company that have hasn't seen massive profits over his timeline speaking of advertising did you see last week that a lot of big companies are pulling advertising from Facebook is haven't seen that yeah a lot of because of what the spreading of misinformation and fake news and a lot of a lot of the anti-racist black lives protests were affected by this as well they've sort of had enough and decided just to pull around that because Twitter's obviously been flagging misleading or glorifying violence but Facebook wasn't doing anything to fill this out so you've got one brands like Eddie Bauer Patagonia Norface Ben and Jerry's they all sort of have pulled advertising for now on the platform so there's an article on music business worldwide you know sort of debating whether music companies should do the same just kind of a big discussion now about you know should we be doing what should we be doing now to sort of tackle racism and obviously there's a lot of things been done or we had the blackout Tuesday but should there be more of a stand-taking against Facebook which I thought was a very interesting discussion and you have to you have to agree that you know that they've got to you've got to take drastic action like this to you know to make make a statement I think I think it's necessary that part I agree on it usually is the money that makes the change all right the voices are nice but the withholding is just the way that changes seem to happen more than anything in this country you know money or blood whichever one so I hadn't heard anything about that stuff if people want to actually make Facebook change something cool sometimes I just don't have those expectations of companies like that like Facebook to even care I think Facebook is definitely had a a past that made it really clear that the lines are extremely blurry based on the messaging they do allow they don't allow the social things like this then you have the thing that happens with Russia and then you have things like kicking banning Lewis Farrakhan from Facebook when you I mean you know it's not saying anything that could be anywhere near as bad as the stuff that they show or allow so I don't know man this um is weird they like to act like they care about voices and not limiting the people and like they use that conveniently right we don't want to limit or be intrusive in a day yeah they go on the other side and they get very specific and push certain people and voices off and things like that so you know I don't really expect much from them in that regard I've been the main message that the discontent about the other companies that is that Facebook seems to think that they're above it and they don't have to get involved with this these kind of social issues as to discontent I think is that they can try and just you know brush it aside because Verizon actually have pulled their advertising and they spent $1.5 million on Facebook ads last year and half a million on Instagram and they've pulled everything so that's a that's a big scalp yeah that's uh that's commendable for sure I'm interested on how Facebook reacts I'd be yeah let's stay up to date on this one because I want to see what actually happens with this because I haven't seen Facebook really bow down much and they do have a lot of additional income to sit on and wait out a $50 million loss $100 million loss if they need to so yeah I can't I can't do anything but wait and see yeah so I'm just looking now a few days ago they did make a statement saying that they'll take a similar approach to Twitter labeling posts that may violate its policies but are allowed to remain on the platform because they're dean newsworthy so it's kind of very wishy-washy and I don't know if it's gonna really that's stupid that's that's the stupidest shit up you can't say fake news is newsworthy like when we're literally talking yeah like I've seen some stuff on you know what on Twitter I'm scrolling and they're like yo this is photo shots to to appear as news and it's not news and it didn't happen and that we like we took this picture of the KKK and put a different and put and changed the sign of who they were supporting and things like that that doesn't that doesn't act as news like that's just a lie if it's so it is newsworthy now I need to see your criteria of newsworthy if you're gonna yeah if you're gonna use that contingency because it doesn't make sense especially when we know for facts even when fake news is told that it's fake news and even almost immediately still told that it's fake news it still has the ability to anchor and begin to nudge your opinion and your perspective because what they're saying is they're gonna have like essentially a little information that says we know it's this bullshit but open it anyway and share it just and stay on our platform yeah yeah it's it's a very yes a very terrible statement is doesn't address anything doesn't yeah not so that's that's facebook right now and in hot war yeah yeah they used to it exactly one final thing to mention is that twitter launched like audio clips this month from the platform so rather than tweeting in text form you can record some audio instead up to two minutes 20 seconds just a new quirky little feature from them it's probably one as we said before it's probably one of the most valuable things they could have done because there's not really much they can go to sort of like reinvent the wheel and they're not reinvent the wheel of this but it is a fun new way to engage and post on the platform yeah and if you're an artist you can obviously record some yeah put some demos on there and you know share share your voice with your fans and it's just a new way to engage yeah that would have been really cool if twitter did it in like hot twitter days you know you know they did that in like 2011 it would have been crazy like they might have found their way down the path to really resemble some of the social networks we have up today a tiktok ish a even ig-ish napchat they would have probably innovative innovative further to this point before anybody else versus being left behind if that one feature was added because I'm sure the the behavior around that and the the data they would have had insight on would have just probably pushed them to to start creating more around that I man I would have been very fun to have when I was less responsible yeah kind of be like a massive audio meme culture wouldn't it since there would be building right oh my god it looks nice as well with the the color background your profile picture and you pick on your profile picture circle to play as a like a play button and it looks it looks it looks pretty nice like the way it's been designed but yeah it feels like it's very very late to the game but it's still like a surprise welcome addition to the platform and check it out do you even have audience between the audio yet oh there was like on the first day Lil Nas X just said the word penis and that was it yeah so here's one of the first ones to do it yeah you know it's gonna it's gonna get shared it's gonna it's everyone's going to be talking about it so why not that guy yeah there's things to be done with it you know you can make it what you will but I'm I'm sure there's creative things to be done marketing wise to sort of leverage that now new feature yeah I agree so that's pretty much it on the news this month a lot of sort of like interesting sort of like gossip really it feels like with that is what TikTok and Spotify and Live Nation yeah yeah I mean yeah Spotify always responds their way in the news TikTok things like it's about to either compete or maybe even take the crown yeah and obviously we've we've got a lot to talk about in the coming months about their I'm sure especially with I'm anticipating Rezo to make its way over the border sort of like you know later on this year yeah I think they might try to move a lot faster considering the India ban yeah I think that makes sense like it's been how long has it been now like three or four months anyway since it first rolled out so it felt like it's only been a month maybe two I was supposed to base it was before that but I guess like officially yeah but we shall see it's certainly going to be interesting everyone's sort of just trying to thumb all the way through this time right now and we're not going to see lots of like major announcements like we've had done on this podcast in the past but there's lots of little nuggets and potential stuff that as we look ahead to post COVID-19 post COVID PC looking forward to it 100% I hope everyone stays safe and well and we'll see you again next month with lots more news and lots more discussions all right like and subscribe peace bye for now it's the network


Fiery horse with a speed of light, a claw of dust and a hearty hyo silver! The lone ranger! With his faithful Indian companion, Toto, the daring and resourceful Mask Rider of the Plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find the greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From all of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver! The lone ranger rides again! When a single shot heralded the arrival of wagons at Fort Adams near the Mexican border, it was evident that they had made the journey from Fort Rayburn safely. During the months prior, many trains had been attacked by the outlaw Kyle Ferris and his gang. After the latest arrival, Colonel Palmer, commandant of Fort Adams, was talking to young Lieutenant George Courtney. It's too bad they didn't send us those new rifles from Fort Rayburn on this last shipment. Perhaps there would have been an attack if they had. The only time Ferris and his gang seem to go after the wagon trains is when their guns being carried. You're right, Lieutenant. It's almost as if the outlaws knew when gunshipments are made and by what route they're sent. What about those new rifles, Lieutenant? When is Captain Peacock shipping them from Rayburn? Well, they're on their way here now, Colonel, in Pop Gary's wagon. What? Captain Peacock is sending a rifle shipment in that battered old wagon that Pop Gary owns? Oh, yes, sir. New gun shipment is a small one. Captain Peacock thinks no outlaws would figure our sending guns like that. Always trying to outguess the outlaws. He and his subtle planning. Lieutenant, Captain Peacock is a brave man. I know that. But I'm beginning to think he lacks good sense. You say the rifles have already left Rayburn? Yes, sir. Pop Gary was to set off from the fort three days after we did, sir. He must be halfway here by now. Pop Gary, with a single companion to ride with him, had found the first half of his trip to Fort Adams without incident. Then on a back trail, Kyle Ferris and his outlaw gang attacked the wagon with a hail of bullets. Ferris climbed into the rear of the wagon and found the rifles that had been covered by pots and pans. Yeah, here are the guns. Just like we expected once we knew which way the wagon was heading. That poor Captain at Fort Rayburn trying to fool us. He'll never learn. That Captain will never learn. Late that night at a remote spot along the Rio Grande, Kyle Ferris and his men crossed into Mexican territory. Before dawn, he transferred the stolen gun shipment to the Mexican outlaw Ignacio Gonzalez, known in his country as the Hawk. Gonzalez watched the rifles unloaded and looked happily at Ferris. My friend Kyle, you have done it again. It gives me great satisfaction to pay you gold for these guns. It gives me satisfaction to get the gold. You and your men will be able to do a lot with these rifles, Gonzalez. During the next weeks, Gonzalez, the Hawk, became the scourge of all Mexico. He and his men armed with new rifles, attacked the states and towns, and finally a garrison of federal troops. The raid was a success and the man had become the greatest menace in Mexico. Look what we have done now. Soon we will take bigger garrisons and who knows? If my friend Kyle continues, I shall be the leader of all Mexico. Then after that, we take back Texas. Oh, the future is bright! Hundreds of miles away, the long ranger and tato had entered the state of Texas and were making their way south towards the Rio Grande. We should be near Fort Rayburn within four or five days, tato. Now we stop there, Kimosami. The most gun shipments from the north and east are funneled through that post. Most of the guns that have been lost were shipped from there. We start there? If we're to try and help put an end to the Ferris-Gonzalez combination, it's the only place to start. Come on, tato. Four days later, as the long ranger and tato were nearing the hills above Fort Rayburn, a man was dining with Captain Gregory Peacock, the officer in charge of the small post. The visitor was Arturo Del Rio, a representative of the Mexican government. As they neared the end of the well-prepared meal, Del Rio sighed. Oh, Captain, this indeed has been a most satisfying dinner. Captain Peacock looked at the stern-faced Indian servant who hovered near the table and made a gesture of congratulations with his hands. Well done, Toscosa. You speak to him? Is he not, as you said, before a deaf mute? He is. He neither speaks nor he is. But usually, when I make some gesture of approval or congratulations to Toscosa, I find myself using words as well. You say he is an Indian of the Zuni tribe? Yes, my former cook was returning to Mexico and recommended Toscosa as the finest cook he knew. Naturally, I was happy to get him. He prepares the most exotic dishes I've ever come across. And he's at the stove from early dawn until late at night. If I have two or twenty persons for dinner, it makes no difference. The next evening, the lone ranger and tonto camped in the hills above Fort Rayburn. At that moment, Captain Peacock sat on the porch of his quarters, finishing outlines for another plan to outwit the gun-stealing outlaws. Arturo Del Rio had helped complete the arrangements, which would go into effect the next day. Del Rio was enthusiastic. One thing is sure. Only you and I know what they plan for tomorrow is. The wagon train of rifles due for delivery here at the fort will not arrive here. Correct, senior. Instead, he'll bypass this place by circling fifty miles southeast of here. Then the wagons will go along the Tex-Max road to Fort Adams. Only you, I, and the officer in charge of the wagon train know about this plan. Excellent, Captain. If something should go wrong this time, it will be easy to learn where... Captain, there's someone over there in the dark. That's only Toscosa. He's like a watchdog, always around me when he's not in the kitchen. Good thing he has not the hearing to know what we have said or the power of speech with which to repeat it. Else there would be four of us who knew the gun-shipping plans and not just three. We have further security as far as Toscosa is concerned. You see, he never leaves these quarters much less the post. But what was it you started to say, senior Del Rio? The long ranger and tonto awakened at dawn next morning. The sun rising in the sky formed a perfect background for the small but picturesque Fort Rayburn in the valley below. Smoke was beginning to pour from the chimney of one small structure, and its spiral upward compelled attention. How do something beautiful about smoke like that nearly morning? It's just a little bit of smoke. It's just a little bit of smoke. There's something beautiful about smoke like that nearly morning. It's as if... Watch, smoke. Watch close. Yes, Tonto, I see what you mean. Smoke is going upward in spurts. Short, short, long. Those are smoke signals. They have telegraph instruments in Fort Rayburn. Why do they use smoke signals? It's peculiar. The gun shipments are usually lost after they are sent from Fort Rayburn. I wonder if it's possible that someone inside the fort is a traitor. You mean someone sent a message about guns by smoke? That was my thought. I think it might set us clear on that point if we go to the fort at once. We'll learn then whether or not there's reason to be suspicious. A short time later, the lone ranger and tonto appeared before the gates of Fort Rayburn. Sentry on duty took one look at the masked man and Indian and reached his own conclusion.  Corporal of the guard, post number one. Captain Peacock and the Mexican legate Arturo Delroy were at the breakfast table when the corporal of the guard brought the lone ranger and tonto to the officer's quarters. Captain Peacock and Delrio leaped to their feet and the officer looked from the masked man and Indian to the corporal. What's this? Corporal, who are these men? Where'd you find them? They rode up to the gates, sir. We came to see you, Captain. We're not outlaws. My Indian companions and I are trying to help run down the outlaws who've been attacking the wagon trains that leave here. That's true, sir. We thought we might be able to assist. Captain, who is it that sends smoke messages from here? Smoke messages? No one. What nonsense is this? The lone ranger related how he and tonto had recognized the smoke signals and concluded... And Captain, I'm certain they were smoke signals such as Indian use. I'm equally certain now that I saw your quarters as we were brought here that the smoke signals came from the chimney of this building. You're insane. There's no one who... Captain, please hear the stranger through. It's possible he knows something and may be able to help us. If he does not, what does it matter? All you lose is a few minutes while you listen to him. Do not forget your servant Tascosa's an Indian. He has been in the kitchen since dawn. That is where the chimney is, Captain. Captain, Tonto and I are sure that the smoke signals came from here. You, Captain, say they didn't. Would you mind, sir, if we asked your servant about them? He's deaf and dumb. We couldn't ask him. I... Well, I'll prove something. Corporal, go into the kitchen. Have Tascosa come here. Yes. I'll prove to this man how absurd his statements are. A few minutes later, the corporal returned to the room leading the Indian, Tascosa. The captain spoke with a note of disdain in his voice to the lone ranger. This is my cook and servant, Tascosa. The only one who's been in my kitchen is morning. He's a deaf mute. We exchange ideas and pantomime using gestures. We use the signs used by the Zuni Indians. And since Tascosa is a Zuni... No, him not Zuni Indian. Me know by clothes him wear and by beads on shirt. Him from Mexican tribe. This is most interesting, Captain. You have told me it was a Mexican who suggested Tascosa for the position he holds with you. I know that. Of course I know nothing about Indian tribes. I'm from Georgia and I haven't been here long. But nevertheless... Captain, did you notice the second button on Tascosa's shirt? No, I should... The captain gasped as he saw Tascosa raise his hand instinctively to finger the button on his shirt. He's not deaf, Captain. That little trick of mine proved that. Didn't it, Tascosa? Tascosa. You're able to hear. I'm going to throw myself away by reacting to what this masked man said. I hate to intrude again, Captain. But this Tascosa, he listened to all we said last night about today's gun shipment. I was just thinking of that. It's no secret, Captain, that gun runners have stolen arms from the wagon trains that leave this fort. If this Indian Tascosa had the information about roots and times and conveyed the information to Confederates by smoke signal... That's enough. Corporal, keep watch on Tascosa for a moment. Yes. Stranger, come to the other side of the room, please. You, Senior Del Rio and I will have some privacy there. I'd like to discuss this matter with you. I'd be glad to, Captain. The curtain falls on the first act of our Lone Ranger adventure. Before the next exciting scenes, please permit us to pause for just a few moments. Now to continue. Captain Peacock asked the masked man to identify himself. When the Lone Ranger did so by word and documents from law officers whom he had helped in the past, Captain Peacock and Del Rio were greatly impressed. After a brief discussion and with the captain's permission, the Lone Ranger walked over to Tonto. Tascosa could not see the Lone Ranger's smile as he spoke low to Tonto. I'm about to try something. Play through with it, huh? The Lone Ranger now raised his voice so that everyone in the room might hear his words. Tonto, we have just talked about the case of this spy, Tascosa. Captain Peacock admits men have gone to death because the messages Tascosa sent to his gun-stealing friends in the past. He agrees with Senior Del Rio and me, the justice of having you and other Indian punish Tascosa by putting him to death. No, no! When we do this, Kimosabi... This moment. Here in this room. Me too. Tascosa's eyes became wide with fright as Tonto approached, knife-hand raised high. Suddenly, the Mexican Indian began to speak. No, no! Not kill me, please! Not fair to kill. All right, Tonto, that's all. There you are, Captain. Proof that the man is able to talk as well as hear. Yes. And it's all the proof I need to know what you said about the smoke signal is true.  There's only one penalty for spies. Death. Please not kill me. Not make me die, please. Senior Capitan, if you let me speak, I'd tell you everything. Did you care to question him with me, Senior Del Rio? I shall be grateful for the privilege. Then we'll talk to him. What action I take later will depend on the information he gives us. Corporal, take Tascosa into the other room. We'll talk with him there. After talking to Tascosa, Captain Peacock and Arturo Del Rio returned to the main room and told the Lone Ranger what the Indian had revealed. He told us everything. You were right about the smoke signals. He listened to my talk about gun shipments and relayed the information to a lookout in Hills. It was a very simple code they had. Yes, a prearranged code. Simple spurts of smoke from the chimney were all the outlaws needed to know the plans for shipping guns. After sending Tascosa to the guardhouse, Captain Peacock spoke ruefully to the other men. We were too late to keep him getting his message to Confederates about tonight's shipment. Kyle Ferris probably knows about it by this time. There must be something you can do, Captain. Yes, there is. I'll send a telegraph message to Colonel Palmer at Fort Adams and tell him what happened. It may mean my transfer later. Perhaps he will send men from Fort Adams eastward along the Tex-Mex Road. I'm going to request that. Meanwhile, I'll take my men south to Tex-Mex and follow the main road west. If and when the outlaws attack, we'll be on both sides of them. This is our great chance to catch Ferris. You'll get both him and Gonzalez if you let me do something. Gonzalez too, you say? Yes. It'll involve the use of soldiers on both sides of the border. But not as openly as you'd planned on this end, Captain. Well, what's your idea? I'd like to hear it. The Lone Ranger outlined a plan to which both men agreed. When he had finished outlining it, Captain Peacock said, You'll be in great danger. But if you get away with it... Toto and I'll try, Captain. They'll count on my help. The Mexican Army will be happy to assist you in your plan also. I shall make certain of that within a matter of minutes. Thank you, sir. Captain, if you let me have the letter you promised, I'll take Toto and Will set off for the town of Tex-Mex at once. Will the wagon train be there tonight? Yes, I'll give you orders to the lieutenant in charge of the shipment. Then I'll send a telegraph message to Colonel Poff. The Lone Ranger and Toto took every known shortcut as they rode ceaselessly to the town of Tex-Mex at the east end of the Tex-Mex Trail. They arrived there late in the night. The Lone Ranger, after some interruptions by guards, found himself before Lieutenant Courtney, leader of the train. He gave Lieutenant Courtney, who was dressed in civilian clothes, the letter from Captain Peacock. When Courtney read the lengthy orders, he was puzzled but agreeable. It says here that Colonel Palmer agreed to this. Yes, he did. By telegraph, after Captain Peacock and Senior Del Rio made contact with him, it's what I think you soldiers call a calculated risk. Yeah, but I wouldn't calculate the risk breaking my back. Like you and Toto are going to do. You'll be in those wagons covered by those guns for at least an entire day, mister. Yes, I realize that. Just tell your men when they pack the guns on top of us to give us breathing space. Yeah, I'll make them pack the rifles loose around you, too, so you'll be able to move when the time comes. Lieutenant Courtney placed the Lone Ranger and Toto inside the third wagon, the one that would travel in the middle of the five-wagon train. Lieutenant, did you do as I suggested with the rifles? Yes. You'll find there are open crates in the spot where you and Toto will hide. There are about a hundred rifles in those crates loaded with cartridges. Thanks. I'm sure we'll have to use some of them. The drivers were sworn to secrecy about their human cargo, and shortly after, the five wagons started west along the Tex-Mex Trail in the direction of Fort Adams. Kyle Ferris and his outlaws attacked the train late in the afternoon at the most isolated spot along the seldom-traveled road. There was only token resistance by the drivers of the wagons, and Ferris, now that another raid had succeeded, gave orders. Ho! Ho! Ho!  They were smart enough not to fight back. So just tie them up, gag them, leave them in the bushes. Now we'll cross the Rio after sundown at the spot in the middle of the five-wagon train. Now we'll cross the Rio after sundown at the spot below Badero. A soldier whose task had been to follow the wagon train at a distance found the drivers a short time after the bandits drove off with the wagons. Ho! Ho! Ho! The first one he assisted was Lieutenant Courtney, who, in his civilian clothes, had driven one of the vehicles. Courtney, released, was jubilant. Uh, thanks. Mass Man's plan is working so far. We'll ride over the hill to the telegraph wires, cut in on them, and get a message to Fort Adams. They'll know that Ferris and his gang are crossing the river at Bordero. The Mexican army can pick them up at that spot and follow them. Too bad we weren't allowed to take Ferris while we had the chance. When darkness fell, Kyle Ferris and his outlaws guided the five wagons through a shallow crossing and headed southward on Mexican soil. They were on a road that leaned into the mountains, and as they passed, a man emerged from the underbrush nearby. He was a Mexican soldier, and he ran toward he'd left his horse earlier in the evening. Malthusen brought away. Within a few minutes, he reached the company of Mexican cavalry in the spot where they had been waiting since receiving a telegram from the American Fort Adams. He gave quick instruction. We are on the trail of Ignacio Gonzalez. Soon we should be led to his headquarters somewhere in the mountains. We shall receive a signal. And when it is given, we proceed to fight and fight hard. I've given you instructions about not clashing with the Americanos who lead us to the hawk. So, we ride now. Get ready. Outlaw Gonzalez, the hawk, laughed happily as his American counterpart, Kyle Ferris, led the stolen covered wagons into the Mexican's modern hideaway. Oh, my friend Kyle, you have done it again. This time even more better. Guns in all the five wagons. All five of them. But before we look at them and unload them, let's have some drinks, huh? It's cold here in these mountains. But certainly we drink, my friend. Bancho Jose, tequila, plenty tequila. We celebrate getting the guns that make Ignacio Gonzalez the leader of all Mexico. At that moment in the third of the five wagons, the low ranger and Tahoe cautiously pushed away the last of the rifles that had been piled loosely over them since leaving the town of Tex-Mex. Auto, all these guns and the open crates are loaded. Get ready to use them one after the other. Make a rifle and start to fire when I say the word. The lone ranger cautiously lifted the canvas at the side of the wagon. A short distance away, men were gathered around a campfire and two of them were conspicuously the center of attention. That's Ferris on the left and Gonzalez on the right. They got them first. The rest of this task may be easier. Aim at their gun arms, Tahoe. You ready? And fire and continue to fire. Hey! The first shots sent Ferris and Gonzalez to the ground. In a matter of seconds the gaiety in the outlaws camp gave way to wild confusion. Men reached for guns, but shots from the wagon frame sent many of them to the ground wounded. The others crawled to the ground and started to fire into the darkness where the wagons were. Then there was a blast of a bugle from the mountain road. Arriba! It is the army! Look, they come! Mexican soldiers charged in from the road shooting. Surrender! Surrender or you die! Gonzalez! He's Gonzalez, the hawk! We have finally found him! Kyle Ferris, low wounded, ran to his horse. His followers, none of whom had been hit, followed and leaped into the sattles of any horses available. They gave no thought to the fact that no one fired after them as they galloped away toward the north. As they neared the Rio Grande, they heard hoops approaching on the road behind and shots. They galloped faster toward the river, not knowing it was the lone ranger and toddler who pursued them, purposely shooting over the heads of the outlaws. The shots ceased as the American outlaws crossed the shallow river and rode on to Texas soil. The boys, we made it! We didn't get paid for the guns, but we're safe. Oh! Oh! Yes, sir, we were lucky they didn't... Give up your surrounding! The American army's on this side. Captain Peacock and Lieutenant Courtney led the soldiers who rode in and surrounded Ferris and his gang. Two soldiers at the rear of the ranks rode down to the river. One of them led the great white horse Silver and the other led Scout. Peacock faced Kyle Ferris. Do you have a chance, Ferris? Do you reach for a gun? No, no, I'm not reaching. Neither my men. We surrender. I'm wounded. I need a doctor. The outlaws surrendered Meekly. As they did, the lone ranger and toddler crossed the river on to the American side. They dismounted to get astride their own horses. They both saw them and spoke. Kyle, those were the armies who rode after shooting. There's only two of them. I thought there was an army. Oh, what's the difference? The army has us here. Yes, thanks to those two men. The masked man is the reason we caught you, Ferris, and the reason the Mexican army captured Gonzales. What? The masked man, the one who's riding away on the white horse? How could that be? Who is he?  As to who he is, I'll tell you that now. He's the lone ranger. This is a feature of the Lone Ranger Incorporated, created by George W. Trendle, produced by Trendle Campbell Mule Incorporated, directed by Charles D. Livingston, and edited by Fran Stryker. The part of the Lone Ranger is played by Brace Beemer.


I'm Steve Dowd, Dowd Orchards at Denver, Indiana. We're North Central Indiana, kind of in a corn belt, not exactly a fruit belt. Dowd Orchards has been a family operation here in North Central Indiana for a long time, 125th year coming up here. And we've always been tried to grow varieties, a diverse group of varieties, which gave consumers a good choice of something, you know, truly tasty and unique that they couldn't necessarily get in the stores. It's a rural area with not a huge, like urban clientele to deal with, but we do have a stable rural population here. And we get, during the course of the season, we get people coming from a few population centers within 50 miles or so. We've subscribed to the integrated pest management philosophy ever since it was introduced a few decades ago. And of course, the idea of sustainability and I guess efficiency is to use no more chemical inputs than is absolutely necessary. And of course, that's one of the reasons to grow disease resistant and adapted varieties in that spraying is not as crucial and as critical. And you know, you can have lower inputs in terms of chemicals and other things that it takes to grow them. If you're going to produce unique and different varieties, you've got to identify which ones those are and how they would improve the operation in the future and try not to be wrong very often because it's a big investment to identify and grow new selections for consumer acceptance. Basically, these are small dwarf trees of advanced selections from MAIA, which is a growers organization that was formed about the year 2000 to produce new, improved and crisp consumer acceptable apples for the Midwest, which were adapted for conditions that we have here. What we did with our grant was to have consumers test and taste many of these new advanced selections, which are what these dwarf trees are, and try to arrive at some realistic data to show which ones should be named and introduced and propagated for the future sales and use here in the Midwest. And several varieties have come out of that work, including Evercrisp, which is the biggest new thing on the horizon, we think. That was a Fuji Honeycrisp cross and there are many other crosses, but the idea was to produce varieties that did well in the climate, that had some disease resistant, that fruited regularly and dependably for these conditions and that consumers would love and demand in the future. So we feel that that work is well along now and Evercrisp being the first.


If the statistics showed that blasphemy increased the rate of violence, would you be in favor of blasphemy laws be fine with banning it? I'm not going to make a judgment without the information. But in principle, you would be okay with banning certain types of speech because they could potentially lead to violence. There has to be a realistic expectation. Blaspheming against God in the UAE or in a Muslim society can increase violence towards Muslims. I'm not in favor of blasphemy laws and I know that you are. You would criminalize blasphemy as a death sentence.


And here is an Acer IoT Kit. What is this? That is our Acer on-brain called CloudProfacer, which is for the education. So this is an HDMI stick, the CloudProfacer? Yeah, CloudProfacer actually is embedded system with our customized software inside. So is it Linux? We have two editions. One is Windows, the other one is Ubuntu. So what happens with this platform? There's Arduino, there's an Intel stick, and there's a robot. Okay, yeah. This is our standard package. So we will start from here. There are six modules inside. For the sensor module, we have a light sensor, G-sensor for the motion, and PN2.5 to detect the dust, air quality or something. And that is the server, motor, and LED and button. These are two developing four. One is the famous Arduino, and the other one is the common GPIO4. So is this like ARM Cortex M3 based, or is it? Actually, we just tried with normal Arduino. Yeah? And what is in here? This is an accessory. So this is CloudProfacer. What is he talking about in this video? In this video, first we talk about the history. Why ASA want to introduce the education key? We already have the education key for microprocessor like around 35 years ago. And now it's the cloud and the IoT era. So we want to introduce a new education key. And this is our table. So this is for the IoT era. So this is a big push. It's an open platform. Yeah, this is an ASA cloud technology called AOP as an open platform. So what is running in this Intel stick? What software is this? That's an ASA customized software. For IoT? Yes. And based on our ASA open platform technology. And this one you can see, plug in the GPIO with the LED module. And your mobile site, you will receive a message. And which app you need to download. Everything happens automatically. What is this kit? Just released now? This one, we are going to launch this education key at the end of this year in Asia market first. Asia market first? Asia market. So Taiwan, China. And so this is it? This information right here? Yes. Cloud, professor, what's the cost for a kit like this? Is it a price? So far for the retail price there will be next year. It's around like 250 US dollars. There will include hardware, cosware and app with source code. Is it possible to do different host modules with open platform? People can make different CPU in here? There will be next generation. Yes, we are working on that. What is the next generation CPU? People can wait to see. Please, let me keep the secret. Alright. This is a user experience. Easy design systems? Yes. Work with you? It just is our education key and we want to give some ideas about that. Alright. So then this robot will be able to do lots of things? Yes. We want to show people if you have a lot of knowledge about hardware, you still can use proper faces with the GBL board we provide. And you can use it by the chip control board on the internet. Clear, motor, body and power bank. What's this control board? It's a controller motor. Right. So we provide the GBL app. So if you insert a Wi-P, you still can control it. What are the other possibilities with this cloud system, BYOC? What can people do with this kit? What are the possibilities? As I'm saying, the most important thing is to focus on the idea. You don't need to deal with the data transfer, like security, purpose, something. So we have more modules so people can do what they want to do using what module they want and then do the app to do the coding stuff, to do what they want to do. But they don't need to think of the cloud work or test or something.


My name is Beth Hobart. This talk is called Cats, the Musical Algorithmic Song Mealification. Very excited to be here today. My first time speaking at RubyConf, so thank you. So I have a warning that I give at the beginning of this talk that within the next 25, 30 minutes you're going to likely encounter some poor singing, too many cat gifts, and an excessive amount of silliness, so be prepared. Let's get started. So I actually don't remember what my bio says on the website, but I have some changes, life changes that have happened. It's a little bit out of date. So I was a software engineer at Flywheel when I applied for the CFP working in Omaha, and now I am at Thoughtbot in San Francisco, which I'm very excited about. So if you happen to work at Thoughtbot and I have not met you yet, please come say hi afterwards. And let's get started.  So a few of my ideas have included Feesie's book, a social media website for your poo. OK, maybe I should have stopped there. Kombucha, really boozy kombucha, kombucha is like a fermented tea drink. It's supposed to be healthy, but does the healthiness outweigh the alcoholicness if you add booze to it? I don't know. Another idea, and I don't have a name for it yet, but it's birth announcements, but for features that you release at work. Then my favorite is a meowaka. It's a US-based anti-social network for your cats. And I actually built and released this to a smaller market in Omaha. It was called, and it still exists. It's called Omeowha, so you can go there and see it. So slight change of subject, but still very relevant. Who here is familiar with Game of Thrones? OK, cool. Like most popular television show that's on right now. OK, good. So I need to give you a little bit of background on me first. So this is me and my husband. We got married in a bar to the disappointment of both of our parents. That's not very relevant. These are our cats, Xiaogui and Clementine, and Geeta.  And yes, this is a professional photograph of my cat. This is me and my husband on Halloween a few years ago. We were really in the Game of Thrones. Yeah. So you can barely tell the difference, I think. You know. So you're wondering, where are you going with this? Well, I'm going to talk about that. So I'm going to play you the Game of Thrones theme song right now if we can get a little louder. OK. I'm sure most of you are familiar with that. So you may have noticed it doesn't actually have any lyrics, which I think is a problem. So one Sunday night I was watching Game of Thrones, and I just kind of started meowing along. And that's where this whole talk comes from. So you're all familiar with the Game of Thrones theme song.  So we're going to do something together. We're going to meow the Game of Thrones theme song. I will get us started, and then you are all going to join in. Are you ready? Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Cool. Nice job, everybody. We just thank you. Yeah. Give yourself a round of applause. We just meowified the Game of Thrones theme song. So probably set some kind of world record for the most people meowing in a room. So meowifier, the application, is just one idea in a long line of bad ideas that I've come up with over the years. But it also seemed like a really interesting technology programming problem to solve.  And I went ahead and I built it. So how exactly does it work? Well, simply you upload a song's audio file, and meowifier outputs a new audio file with that song's melody sung by cats. So I wish I could say there's such a thing as a cat choir. There is not. I Googled it. Nothing came up. So it was all up to me to figure out. So yeah, Google. That's great. In my internet research, I came across some very famous musical cats, probably my favorite is keyboard cat. And I would love to keep and finish out that video, but I only have 25, 30 minutes here. So I also discovered I'm not the first person to come up with this idea. This is a cat organ. So there's some really interesting details about the cat organ. So a historian in the 16th century, OK, so this historian described seeing a cat organ, and wait for it, being played by a bear when King Philip II rode into Brussels. So I honestly have no idea if that's true or not. Like, are all historians trustworthy? I'm not sure. But yeah, throughout the years, people have mentioned cat organs. So the consensus is that it actually has never been built, and it would make terrible music anyway, because cats don't meow in a fixed pitch, which I'll get to later. Well, until now that is. So we're going to do this. We're going to dive right in. And what I decided is that I had some big challenges, and I had no idea how I was going to build this thing. So I decided I'm going to make some rules up for myself. And I had one thing going for me, which is that I had read Pooter, Practical Object Oriented Design Patterns in Ruby. And that's my Sandy Mets. For those of you not familiar, I'm hoping all of you are familiar with that book. If you've not read it, please do read it. So thanks to Sandy, I knew I needed to make my classes really stupid, so plug and play. I also decided, based on my experience with my legacy code at my last job, that I wanted this application to be 100% test driven, unlike the legacy code at my last job. So I have these standards set in place, and now it's time to get started. So I have three really big challenges. And the first one is finding a way to obtain the notes of only the melody from a song's audio file. So that's a pretty big one. Then there's correcting the meow length to match the length of the note in the melody. And the third one is creating a multi-octave library of meows. So let's get started with that first problem, the melody. So it's pretty easy for a human, especially one with any musical training, to pick up the melody of a song. So the melody, for those of you who are not musicians, the melody is the principal part of the song. So every song you hear on TV or the radio is a polyphonic song, which just means that there's more than one note going on at a time. But if you were listening to Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, the melody would be the part that Freddie Mercury is singing. So this is where the bad singing comes in. So the melody is this part. It's like the mama just killed a man, or the eyes see a little silhouette of a man. So on and so forth. That's the melody. But there's harmonies and bass parts. And I was like, I don't want all those things mutting it up. I just want the melody. So what did I do? Well, compared to a human brain, the computers are pretty unintelligent. We have to tell them everything to do. So writing an algorithm that a computer can understand to extract a melody is incredibly complicated. And maybe you're wondering if I wrote one, I did not write my own algorithm. I did not even try. I did what most programmers do. And I googled the dark depths of the internet until I found something that I thought could work. And it was so difficult to find. But I finally did find something. The first tool I found is a tool called Sonic API. So it offers professional, professional grade audio technology and high quality world class algorithms. And it was free up to a certain point. So I'm like, OK, I'll give this a shot. So I have this simple song parser class. And inside this class, I have a parse method. So all I needed to do was pass the proper params through an HTTP call to this API. And then the song file in my key and all that good stuff. And it's supposed to extract the melody for me and sends me back a response. So this is an example. And I realize how small that is. I don't expect you to read it. This is an example of what the responses look like, except imagine literally hundreds and if not thousands of lines long. So this is just a collection. And this actually happens to be the first few notes of the Game of Thrones theme song. So let's take a closer look at one of these. So this is what each of those pieces of information has in it. It has four pieces of data per note. And the midi pitch here maps to the pitch of a note. So I'll get into midi a little bit later. But because only whole midi pitch numbers map to what we think of as standard notes on a keyboard, I had to round the note up or down before I could map it. So this midi pitch would be rounded up to 36. So let's see what that gets us. And midi mapping. So midi, which is short for a musical instrument digital interface. That's correct, yes. It's a technical standard so that all electronic musical instruments from different manufacturers adhere to the same role and communicate with one another. So 36 lands us on the C. And this C is two octaves down from middle C for those of you that play the piano. And here's what that looks like on a keyboard. So you may have seen me playing the piano this morning before keynote. That was me. I like the piano a lot. I know nothing about electronic music, so this is all brand new to me. But what I ended up doing is that I'm really lucky because midi is standardized. So I just went ahead and I made them constants in my note converter class. So this comes into play after I've parsed my song. So here's again midi, note 36, in its corresponding pitch C2. And time for a butt scratch break. We've been talking for a little while. All right, you guys aren't scratching your butts. There you go. We'll move on. So see that there's an append array method here, append array with note method. So what that method does is it adds the standard pitch to each line in my collection using those constants I just showed you, so the C2. And so I'm talking about this hash here. So what this class does, this method, it adds the note to the end here. So now instead of this really long collection with only four pieces of data per line, there's five. So what's next? Well, if you're looking at this, you might think, OK, well, we've got the midi pitched down. What's next? Maybe onset time or duration? And you would be correct. So I need to correct the meow length to match the length of the note in the melody. So a melody is going to have notes of varying lengths. When you think back to Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddie doesn't just hold each note for a half a second each. Some of them are a quarter of a second or maybe a whole second. It's not like, mama just killed a man. It's mama just killed a man. Some of them are longer, some of them are shorter. But I can't have a meow folder with files of every conceivable length. So instead, I had to find a tool that could either cut or extend a meow to fill the proper amount of time. And like most programmers, I'm like, I'm going to see if this already exists. And I found a little bit of Googling. Found a really great tool that I'm sure a lot of you have already used. It is called FFmpeg. It's been around for like two decades. The only problem with FFmpeg is that there's almost too many options. Like I spent an ordinent amount of time googling, like how do we do this? How do we do that? But you know what? I finally got it working. It took a really long time. And so this method right here is embarrassing because it's very long and messy and I did not refactor it and it's been two years. So like I said, it took a long time to write and I was like, oh, I'm done. But let me walk you through it. So what happens is we pass in the past song and remember that collection that the API sends back and then we append that one right here. So we pass that in. And at this point, I need to tell you that there is a library of meows living in my application. We'll talk more in depth about that soon. But all you need to know right now is there are approximately 88 short audio files each with a meow in a different pitch like the ones you'd find on a piano. So this is the part of my code that creates a meow with the correct duration. And this first piece of logic, the if statement shortens a meow file while the else statement lengthens one. And short notes are pretty simple. When the length of the extracted note was shorter than the library file, I just make a copy of that file and I trim off the end of the file to get the correct length. So it looks a little something like this. So if the duration of the note is less than the length note, then you adjust it. So we've got a note duration of only 0.48 seconds while the note to adjust is a whole second. So all I do is I trim it down and actually those don't actually match. Well, imagine they're both the same. You guys have great imaginations, right? So FFNPEG gives me the ability to do this pretty easily. Granted, I passed the correct arguments in. It gets a little more difficult with the longer notes. And there's so many different ways I could have done this, but the first way and the way I'm about to show you. What I ended up doing was if the length of the extracted note is longer than the length of the meow in my library file, I keep duplicating that meow file until it's longer than the extracted note and then I combine them to create one audio file and then I shorten it to match the length of the analyzed note. And so I will show you guys all this in a second. So this is the logic for the long notes. These are my private methods and it's actually one of the most interesting parts of my, like when I was building my application and it's probably the first part to go when I start refactoring because I've decided to do this another way. But currently, so the note length is 2.46 seconds and the file length is only one second long. So first I find the number of loops, like I take simple math. So take the note length divided by the file length, which is 2.46 and then I use the seal method which returns the smallest integer greater than or equal to the float, which is three. And then I use FFNPag in this method and I loop my file three times. I combine it and then I crop it and save it. So I mean that's one way to do it, right? Oh, my GIF, this is that GIF with like Shaq and he's doing the wiggle and it's supposed to be full screen. That's okay. The other way that I thought about doing this is like, oh, what if instead, like so right now, my meows are, if we go back here, so there's actually three meows in this, when it's only supposed to be one meow. So the next step would be to cut out the middle of my meow and then divide this meow in half and put, basically, fit the middle of the meow and extend it until it's the right length so that you have the beginning of a meow, multiple middles of meows and then an end of a meow. Currently, that's not how it works. But all of those files that I make get stored in an array and this last part is the step where I combine all the files together in my song builder class. I don't expect you to read through all of this, but it works, trust me on it. Final words, right? So this last part, this is the last issue I had to solve is like my meow library. So I had to create a multi-octave library of meows and that's a lot of meows if you hadn't noticed and very few cats meow in the base baritone tenor range and so I already Googled there's no such thing as a cat choir. So I had to figure out my own custom meow library using some interesting tactics. So the first one started out with me sitting at my piano playing a note and then trying to sing it and I'm always a tiny bit flat and my piano is a bit flat because I need to get tuned so I was like, well, this is not really cutting it. And I was like, okay, well, what's next? So then I got one of those tuner apps on my phone and I start singing into my laptop's microphone with this tuner app going like, okay, I'm gonna do this. Meow, meow, meow and I'm like, okay, this is gonna take a while because I can't get it on the first time. Like I'm always flat, I promise you I'm always flat. So I think I got like half an octave worth of notes before I realized it wasn't cutting it but it was enough for a proof of concept. I only recorded five notes but I knew a song that had five notes in it. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Okay, my test passed. It works, all right. Obviously this wasn't gonna cut it, I need more than five notes so I'm like, okay, back to the internet and like I said, I like taking the easy road when I can. So I finally found a few octaves of an auto-tuned man meowing on a free sound website called Free Sound. Who would've thought? And here is that first library. So if you remember, a keyboard has 88 notes. This is not 88 notes right here. The number of files in this free sound collection only spans just about four octaves. And I was like, oh, well, I'll give this a shot. I mean, it means I don't have to make my own library, so. But I had an issue, like what was I gonna do if one of the analyzed notes fell outside the range of these notes here?  So I had to write it, I had to do an octave modifier. So if a note is too low or too high to fit into the range of notes that I have, then I adjust the octave. So if the note is F7, which is like a really low F, but I happen to have F6, which is the octave higher, then I would adjust it up. So I was like, okay, that works. But there was another problem with the library that I downloaded. So each note has a pitch and octave designation. And you'll notice some of these notes have a hyphen in there. Well, that actually is their sharp designator. So it'll be like F sharp six. Well, if you remember, I already wrote my constants and they use the sharp designator. So I'm like, well, I'll just write another method to patch this in so that I don't have to rename every single file in my mail folder. Okay, so I write a formatting method. I'm lazy, and let's see what that gets us. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. He's in tune, that's what I can say for that. I was like, I took all that time adjusting my app to work with that library, but I still wasn't happy with it. So I bid the bullet and I found some meows online and I decided to auto-tune 88 meows and make my own cat library. And so now I have a cat, a meow library spanning almost the whole keyboard. And what that means is that this method that I wrote to format my notes, well, I can get rid of that. And this octave modifier that I wrote to modify the octaves, well, I can get rid of that. So cleaning up my code, I love deleting code. I think everybody likes deleting code. Because now I had a full library of notes, like, way better. So, I mean, that was my three big problems, right? Like, now it's the moment you've all been waiting for. But first, so this is the Game Throne's theme song just to remind you in case you forgot. And this is what we're going for, okay? You ready? Okay, we're ready?  I mean, it goes on for five minutes. So I had some problems. There were, that doesn't sound like the Game of Thrones theme song. I mean, am I wrong? So it turns out that the melody analyzer I used, which was free, you know, wasn't actually world-class. So I was like, I'm gonna try this again. So I found something called Melodia. This guy had written his PhD thesis about melody extraction. And I'm like, finally, and he developed some free software and a command line tool. And I was like, yes, I'm gonna do this. So I had to actually sign a release form so that the university where he did his research would release a software to me. And this is the release form. I'm not sure if they ever read it. I don't know if they read it because they actually sent me the software. And it was actually really simple. This is my command and the command line. And so I was just testing it out, playing around with it. And it ran really fast. And I was like, awesome, yeah. So I have it saved files directly to my desktop while I'm testing it out. The difference between this software and the previous tool I was using is that this one returns a MIDI file. So I need a new class that can translate MIDI files. So before I write this class out, though, I wanna see what this sounds like. So I go to some free MIDI analyzer online. And it turns out there might be some issues. Um, this is actually melodia in action. So this is jazz on the far left pop in the middle in opera. And so the blue is the frequency that the computer estimates the melody to be. And the red is the actual melody. So if you can see, it's really good at jazz and really bad at pop and opera, which is really sad for me because it turns out it wasn't even gonna be worth my time to add this to the app. So I'm like, well, I'm not too happy. I decided to go back to Sonic API, like the first one. And I mean, I'm stuck with this. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Yeah, is it perfect? No, it's not perfect. It's far from perfect. So it's a side project, right? Like I'm not getting paid, there's no due date. So like I'm gonna keep working on it. And like I have some ideas, like what's next? I mean, I still haven't written a client side for it. It was all command line. I wanna find a better melody analyzer, obviously. But what else could I do in the meantime? I could pivot slightly. Have you, you've probably all heard of Shazam. It's like a song identifier app, right? So what if I take a reverse melody analyzer, similar to Shazam, to figure out which song a user has uploaded to my website? And then once I find out that song's name, I scrape the internet for a MIDI version of that song and then turn that into a miauified version. Well, I haven't written that yet. So it's my next thing on the docket. So next time you see this talk, maybe I'll be done. And maybe I won't. But in the meantime, it is what it is. And I've had a great time talking about it and building it and sharing all these cat gifts with you. So you can find my slides on speaker deck and I will be tweeting at that link out soon. And my handle is a Hobart Dashery, all this is here. And with that, I am done. Thank you so much for meowing with me.