I'd like to thank Julian and Andre for inviting me to present in this seminar series. It is my great pleasure and I also appreciate the opportunity to share some of my current research with people from different fields. So the paper that I'm presenting today is about whether the geek platforms should decentralize the dispute resolution. And this is a joint work with my doctoral student at Cornell, Vickette Lee. So this is a working paper. We are actually revising it right now. So any feedback will be very helpful for us to push the model further. So in this paper, I'm going to focus on a particular but major type of geek platforms, and that is the online labor platforms.  So usually, basically any of these geek platforms will specialize in a particular type of tasks that you can find on their website. For example, the Task Revit specializes in home services and Upwork and freelancer.com specialize in the more creative tasks such as web design or marketing tasks. And there's also the Amazon M-Turk. In there, we can basically do simple tasks like filling out a survey or tagging an image. More recently, these online labor platforms have actually been growing very fast. And one important reason that workers may want to work on those platforms as a freelancer is that they get to work whenever they want. So they actually get to enjoy the flexibility in their work schedules. And also they can get access to a broader group of clients. So basically you can work for anyone around the world. And that's particularly true if the tasks can be done online. And there's also some data that showed recently the online labor platforms account for more than 90% of the net employment growth in the United States. And it is also projected that by the year of 2027, more than half of the U.S. workforce will participate in those online labor platforms. And another factor that kind of contributed to the recent growth of this gig economy is the COVID-19 pandemic. So with the pandemic, a lot of people actually switched to working online. And it's just so much easier for them to find jobs on those gig platforms. So overall, what we do see here is these online labor economy has really become an important part of the overall economy. But at the same time, there are also problems that could arise and there are also challenges that these platforms need to manage. For example, quality could be a primary concern for these platforms. Because usually the workers there are freelancers. So many of them may not be professionally trained employees like the company employees. So the quality of their work could be a question mark. And then because of that, typically, these platforms will allow the client to reject paying the freelancer after the work is done. So if the client thinks the work is not worth getting paid, then the client can actually reject to pay. But in that case, the freelancer may not be happy. So the freelancer may actually file a dispute over the payment. So that's basically how a dispute could occur in this case. So if you look at these online forums where people share their experience from using those online platforms, there were actually quite some complaints about the quality of work and also about the disputes. So many of the clients actually complained that the work quality from the freelancers is actually not sufficiently good. So they think many of the freelancers have failed to meet the required standards. And at the same time, many of the freelancers were also complaining that the clients were being overly picky. So their services are being undervalued to a point where they were practically working for free. So there's apparently disagreement over the task assessment between the two sides of the market. And when dispute occurs traditionally, the platform is going to be the one that handles this dispute case because the platform is making centralized decisions. In this case, in the paper we call this traditional model, the centralized dispute system. However, there has been discussions and even criticism about this centralized decision-making mechanism because people were saying that the platform may have a conflict of interest. Maybe the platform would want a particular site to win. And if this keeps happening and if the unfair judgment keeps happening, then there could be a long-term damage to this market. And because of that, more recently there's actually a number of emerging online platforms that promise to handle disputes differently. So the idea that these emerging online platforms were putting forward is that instead of letting the platform decide who wins the dispute case, maybe we should ask the other platform users to vote on the dispute case. So that's exactly the idea that they want to implement with these new business models. And of course, many of these platforms here are startups and several of them have already been in operation, such as CryptoTest. And next, let me basically introduce how this decentralized dispute system works. So in this case we consider it as a decentralized dispute system because the dispute decision is not made by the platform, but it's being made by the individual platform users through a voting mechanism. So in this case, suppose that the client wants to reject paying the freelancer. And then the freelancer is happy about it. So the freelancer filed a dispute case. Under the decentralized model, the platform will basically form a tribunal consisting of individual platform users. So there are going to be voters in this case. And each of the voters will reveal this dispute case and submit their vote. And who wins will be dependent on the majority rule. For example, in the example that I'm showing you right now, there are three voters in this tribunal. And two of the voters have voted for the client. So that's the majority. So the client will win. And what that means is that the client will not have to pay the freelancer. But if the freelancer wins, then that means the client will have to pay the freelancer. So this is how the voting works in this case. Actually, this whole voting, decentralized voting idea is not new. In 2007, eBay actually did something very similar by creating the eBay community court. But in that case, the participation of voters is entirely based on a sense of community contribution. But there is no monetary incentive involved. And what happens is that it basically didn't work for long. So after some time, eBay actually terminated that program. And the way that these new platforms are doing this voting model is actually different because they want to create a monetary incentive to drive participation of the voters. So they want to give the people some monetary incentive so that they will want to consistently participate in this voting process. And the way that it works is every time a voter, in order for a voter to participate in the voting process, each voter will have to deposit a participation fee. And all the participation fees from the voters will form the reward pool. And then after the voting is done, the people who have voted for the majority side will split the total reward pool in this case. So here you can imagine that every time a dispute case is filed, we will form a tribunal consisting of a number of voters. And then there will be a reward pool. And then the reward pool will be shared by the people who actually voted for the winning side. And for the more to make sure that the payment transfer is credible and trustworthy, these platforms basically rely on blockchain to build this whole system. So that's basically the business proposal of these emerging online platforms. And I guess by now, you might have seen a concern, right? Because in this case, the voters may be participating on those tribunals for the purpose of earning more money, right? Then it is actually not clear whether the voting outcome would be a good one, right? So whether the voting outcome will be a fair resolution to this field. And that is indeed one major concern that these online platforms have thought really hard about, right? So one thing that they want to prevent is the voter's collusion, right? So something that should not happen is that, let's say one voter actually knows many other voters and then this voter basically says, hey, let's all vote for the freelancer this time. So we're going to win and then we're going to split all the money, right? So these cannot be happening in this case. And these platforms have actually taken several measures to prevent the voter's collusion from happening in the first place. For example, in terms of how to select the voters for each dispute case, these platforms actually doing selecting the voters in a random way. And the reason to do that is that each voter will not know which dispute cases I will actually vote for in the future, right? So that's going to make it very difficult for people to collude with each other. And for the more the platforms strictly forbid any communication channel between the voters. And finally, they actually, the voting will actually happen within the limited time window, usually just 24 hours, right? So all these measures are intended to make sure that the voters are not going to find out about each other so that they will not be able to collude, right? So let's say that these basis model will actually work in terms of preventing the voter collusion. However, voters will still vote strategically, right? Because each voter will still need to guess what the other voters will vote. And then the voters may naturally have a tendency to vote for the side that they believe will also win the dispute case, right? So if the voters vote strategically, then will these decentralized models still work? In other words, will the decentralized dispute system will achieve justice? And then what will be the condition for this new business model to actually work? So in this paper, so this is basically how we got really interested in this problem. And what we want to do in this paper is we want to build a theoretical model to capture the strategic voting behavior of the voters. And then we want to find out, under work circumstances, will this voting model work? And furthermore, we will compare this new decentralized model to the traditional centralized model. And then we will see which model will be more profitable for the platform. And finally, we will take the perspective of the social planner, and we will find out which dispute system will be better for the social welfare. Okay, so that's basically how a little bit of background for how we got interested in this research. And what are the research questions we want to address in this paper? And if there is no questions at this point, I'm just going to continue. So in the interest of time, I'm going to be very brief about the literature review. I just want to mention that our paper is related to several streams of research. In particular, in recent years, there's actually a fast growing literature in OM, which is the field that I am in. And that literature is about the platform operations. And of course, there's also the huge economics literature that look at platforms. And our paper is also related to other modeling works, such as the voting games and also the quality contracting models. All right, so now let me introduce our model. So I will first talk about the centralized case. And then so I will show you the model and then show you the equilibrium. And then I will move on to the decentralized model. And finally, I will show you the results from comparing the equilibrium under these two models. All right, so the centralized model. So in this case, there's no voting or tribunal, right? So the platform is going to make the dispute decision. So basically here we consider a typical platform setting. There is a client and there is a freelancer and they're going to contract with each other. And then the platform is going to intermediate the transaction between the two sides of the market. So what I'm showing you on this slide is the sequence of events. I'm going to go over this sequence of events to show you how we model the strategic interactions between the different parties in this setting. And we are going to assume that everyone makes rational and forward-looking decisions. So first, the platform is going to decide on the fees to charge. So F is the dispute fee. That is basically the fee that the freelancer will need to pay if the freelancer wants to file a dispute case. And in addition to the dispute fee, the platform will also be earning the commission revenues from each transaction. And then we're going to assume that the commission rate, which is the percentage commission, as an exogenously given parameter. So it's basically determined by the industry norm. And after the platform announces its fees, the client is going to offer a contract to the freelancer. So the client will choose a price P and then if the freelancer wants to accept the contract, the freelancer will decide on his work quality queue. And then we assume that the freelancer can incur an effort cost to improve his quality. And this effort cost is a convex, quadratic increasing function in the work quality queue. So here the alpha parameter is going to be an important parameter in a model because it captures the inverse of the skill level of the freelancer. So if alpha is bigger, that means it will be more costly for a freelancer to achieve the same quality level. So that means the freelancer pool actually has a lower skill level. All right. So after the work is done, the client will decide whether she wants to accept or reject the freelancer's work. We assume that the client's valuation of the work is equal to the quality level queue in the main model. And we also have a model extension where we allow the client's valuation on the work to be different from the work quality. But all the insights actually carry through in that case. So in this case, the client will actually be forward looking. So she will know that if she rejects and for the more the freelancer initiates a dispute, then the platform is going to make the decision and then both sides will win with a certain probability. So the client is going to take all that into consideration when she decides whether she just accepts the work or actually rejects to pay. And then if the client rejects, then the freelancer will initiate, will decide whether to initiate a dispute or not. And in the case of dispute, finally, the platform is going to decide which side wins. And then on the next slide, I'm going to focus on the last stage. And I'm going to show you more details about how we model the platform's decision for the dispute resolution in this case. And I think there's a couple of questions. So I'm happy to just answer those before I move on to the next part of the model. Do you need me to read them or are you happy to? Please do. Thank you. So Lyric Cabral asked, are you modeling platform participation and network effects from your extensive form? It seems like you're not. Okay, right. So in this case, we basically look at a single transaction because this game actually has multiple stages. So in that sense, we do not explicitly capture the network effect. But we believe the insights will carry through if we kind of consider a multiple transactions or even a repeated game setting. Oh, yes. And Andre responded to that already. Yes. Okay. All right. So now I'm going to continue with the centralized model. So basically to solve this game, we are going to do a background induction. And then the first step of analysis is going to be the last stage, which is the platform's decision on the dispute resolution. So let me show you how we actually model the decision making in this case. So we're going to assume that the platform chooses a quality threshold to evaluate the freelancer's work. So basically if the work quality is higher than this threshold, then the platform will let the freelancer win. And then we also assume that after the platform reviews the dispute case, the platform will receive a noisy signal of the freelancer's true quality. So in this case, the platform does not observe the true quality. And what it observes is a noisy signal X. So basically the platform is going to compare the signal X to its quality threshold, which is endogenously determined. And if X is higher than the quality threshold, the freelancer will win, otherwise the client will win. So here the epsilon is a noise term, which is uniformly distributed between minus one and plus one. And then sigma is the scaling factor. And next, let's actually look at what will the utility function for the platform in the case of dispute happening. So basically based on these decision making rule, we can calculate the probability for the freelancer to win. And that's the H of Q function. So if the freelancer wins, then the client will have to pay the freelancer. And then the platform will be able to extract this percentage commission revenue from the transaction. And at the same time, the freelancer has also paid the dispute fee. So this is the revenue that the platform earns in this case. And then if the client wins, then the client does not pay. So the freelancer does not earn the commission. So he only earns the dispute fee. And from this utility function, you can see that the platform may have a conflict of interest. The platform may naturally have a tendency of letting the freelancer win with a higher probability because if the freelancer wins, then the platform will earn the commission. But if the platform consistently makes biased decisions, then it could actually create a negative reputation damage in the long term. So to capture that, we also have this disutility term in the platform's utility function. And the disutility term is intended to capture this long term reputation loss if the platform actually makes biased decisions. So we're going to assume that the disutility is an increasing and convexly increasing function of the difference between the platform's decision rule and the industry norm. So here, basically, we introduced this parameter y as the industry standard. So what this y parameter captures is that what would the industry norm, what would the industry think that the quality, the how high the quality level needs to be, right? And then the difference between the platform's threshold and the industry standard will basically measure how much bias there is in the platform's decision making. So that's the platform's utility. And then after we analyze this last stage of the game, basically, we can go back to the main game and then we work through the entire background induction process. So next, I'm going to show you the equilibrium. So first of all, for the last stage of the dispute resolution, after we solve the game, we find that the platform's quality threshold is equal to the industry standard minus a positive term, right? So that means the platform is going to set a lower threshold compared to the industry norm because it wants the freelancer to win with higher probability. And here, the bias is also proportional to the amount of the commission revenue because that's exactly why the platform has this bias. And correspondingly, if you look at the probability for the freelancer to win, there's also going to be a bias term. So the freelancer will win with a higher probability compared to what the industry norm requires. And then now if you look at the overall equilibrium of the entire game, so here, basically, we characterize the equilibrium dispute fee of the platform and also the equilibrium contract price that the client offers and also the quality level that the freelancer chooses. So with everything taken into consideration, what we have is that depending on the skill level of the freelancer, one of three cases could happen in equilibrium. So if the skill level of the freelancer is very low, then the freelancer will find it very costly to improve quality even to a minimum acceptable level. So in that case, the freelancer will not be able to participate. So no transaction happens in that case. And if the skill level of the freelancer is moderate, the freelancer will be able to participate. But in that case, the freelancer will not be able to provide a quality level that is sufficiently high. So what happens in the equilibrium is that the client will tend to reject the work and then the freelancer will file a dispute. So eventually it's going to be the platform's decision for who wins or doesn't win. And then it's going to happen in a probabilistic manner. And in the third case, could I ask a question again from the chat? Sure, sure. Which is from Luis again, who asks, how important is the industry standard deviation assumption for your results? And why isn't reputation monotonic in quality standards? Tonic in quality standards. Ah, okay. Yeah, that is a good question. So basically these so we introduced this parameter of the industry standard to kind of capture this long term damage, the negative effect of the decision making bias of the platform, right? So it is an important component of the model, right? So if we don't have it, then basically the platform will be completely strategic in a way in this decision making. And also we model this as a quadratic term, because we want to capture the fact that the damage of this decision making bias can be actually highly convex in terms of the amount of bias that the platform introduces in this decision making. Okay. All right. So I think, yeah, I was here about the three cases under the equilibrium. All right. So these are the three possibilities that could arise in equilibrium. And basically in each case, we have fully characterized the sub game perfect equilibrium. And here you can see in the case where dispute does not happen, the platform does not burn any dispute fee, right? So what it earns is the commission revenues. But if dispute happens, then the platform will earn the dispute fee. And also the platform will earn the commission revenue with a certain probability. And that is the probability that the freelancer will win the dispute. And finally, the minus term here basically is the the disability caused by the bias. So this is the equilibrium of the centralized case. And next, let me actually move on to the decentralized case. So the overall game structure is very similar to the centralized case. And the main difference here is about how the dispute is being handled. So in this case, the platform does not make any decision there. But the tribunal consisting of individual voters will actually vote on the case. So once again, we're going to use background deduction. So we're going to start with the last stage of the game. And here just to kind of recap how this voting mechanism works, right? So we're going to assume there is a continuum of voters with a total mass equal to one. And then each voter will pay a participation fee equal to $1 to participate. And then the total participation fee will form the reward pool. And we also allow the platform to put in an additional amount of money into the reward pool. So eventually, after the voting is done, the voters who have voted for the majority side will actually share the total reward pool. So essentially, what we want to capture in our model is the strategic voting behavior of the voters. So what we have here is that the voters cannot communicate with each other, so they don't know who other voters are. But they still have to coordinate with each other somehow. And to capture that dynamic, we adopted the global games framework to model our voting game. In particular, we're going to assume that each voter has a uniform prior on the true quality of the freelancer. And then after they reveal the district case, they're going to receive an update. So they're going to receive a noisy private signal, which takes a very similar, basically the same form with the platform case. And then they're going to update their beliefs. And then after that, they're going to decide whether to vote for the freelancer or the client. And let me briefly show you how we model the utility of the voter in this case. The structure is actually very similar to the platform's utility. So there's going to be a term for the monetary earnings. And there's also going to be a guild term in this case. So the monetary earning term is basically how much money they can earn in expectation by participating into a tribunal. So the minus one term here is basically the participation fee that they need to deposit. And then they can earn money if they have voted for on the majority side. So there's two possibilities here. If the majority of the tribunal votes for the freelancer. So here, L represents the proportion of voters who vote for the freelancer. In that case, if voter I also votes for the freelancer, so that means AI is equal to one, then he's going to share, he's going to obtain a share of the total reward pool and earn more money than the participation fee. On the other hand, if the majority of the tribunal votes for the client, then this voter will only earn the reward if he also votes for the client. So that's the monetary component. But at the same time, we also want to capture the fact that voters may also care about justice. So we're going to assume each voter will incur a guilt if they actually vote for the wrong side. So what we want to capture here is that let's say a voter has observed a very high quality signal Xi. So it's clearly higher than the industry standard Y, but somehow the voter wants to vote for the client. So obviously they can do that to earn more money, but they're going to feel guilty about it. In particular, if the Xi is higher than the industry standard Y, then this term will be negative. And then here we take the maximum between zero and this term. So the first term will be zero, no guilt there. But the second term will be positive if voter i votes for the client. So AI is equal to zero. So in this case, the signal of the quality is actually very high. So the freelancer deserves to win. But if voter i votes for the client, then he's going to incur this utility. And this guilt this utility is also going to increase with how high the quality signal is for the freelancer's work. And then using this utility function, we basically analyze this voting game, and then we characterize the equivalent brand. And in this case, you may have seen that if everyone just always votes for the freelancer, regardless of the quality signal, that could be an equilibrium in certain cases. On the other hand, if everyone just votes for the client always unconditionally, then that could also be an equilibrium in certain cases. So we consider those as the state independent equilibria because the signal will actually not matter in that case. But those will be the type of equilibrium that we don't want to want to have. So for this voting model to work, what we need to have is a state dependent Bayer-Shinash equilibrium. And we actually proved that there always exists a state dependent Bayer-Shinash equilibrium. And in this case, each voter will decide make their decision based on the quality signal. So if their signal is higher than industry standard, then they vote for the freelancer. And otherwise, they vote for the client. And more importantly, we also characterized a condition for this state dependent equilibrium to be the unique equilibrium of the voting game, meaning that if this condition is satisfied, then the state independent equilibrium will actually not arise. So the only equilibrium that survives is going to be the good kind of equilibrium that we want to have. And what this condition requires is that the sigma is sufficiently large. So in this case, the sigma captures the degree of heterogeneity across the voters. So the takeaway from this result is that in order to make sure the voting outcome is going to be fair, the platform should actually make sure that the voter pool is sufficiently diverse. And the intuition is that if the voters are quite homogeneous with each other, then it's going to be very easy for a voter to guess what the other voters are going to vote. So the state independent equilibrium will be more likely to happen in this case. And that's not the kind of equilibrium that we want to have. But if everyone is very homo heterogeneous, then it's going to be a lot harder for the voters to actually converge to the state independent equilibrium. And we also think that this actually does not conflict with how these online platforms are actually implementing this voting mechanism, because like I mentioned previously, they actually select the voters in a random fashion. So that could naturally guarantee that there will be a decent amount of heterogeneity or diversity among the voters. But if the platforms actually select voters based on whether the voter's experience would fit this particular case, then that actually might not be a good idea, because then you would actually make the voters more homogeneous with each other and then the voting mechanism would actually could actually fall apart. Could I put another couple of questions? Yes, please. So firstly, from Jack Krimer, he says surely in practice, platforms pay the voters to provide them with an incentive to examine the case carefully. This could be modelled as a cost of information acquisition. This doesn't seem to be in the model. And could you explain why? And then there's I think a related question from David Salant, who says there does not seem to be any mechanism to induce voters to put much effort into getting good information, only the cost of regret, which could be quite small. And it's not related to the value of a good decision. Could you comment on this? Right. Yeah, those are very good questions. And that's actually one of the things that we are working on right now. Yes. So in the model that I just showed you, we didn't incorporate the effort of the voters to actually, let's say reduce the noise of the signal. And that's actually one thing we are working on right now. But I think something that could be interesting here is because we find for this equilibrium to be a good kind of equilibrium, we actually need the sigma, the degree of noise to be sufficiently large. So that means it may actually not be a good idea that everyone actually has more homogeneous signals after they review the case. So of course, we could also think deeper in terms of whether the heterogeneity among the signals is actually caused by how much effort they incur to review the case or what is their true preference. So those are actually the things that we are looking to capture in the model right now. And then thank you for the wonderful questions. Okay. All right. So I think I'm okay. Yeah. So there's another question. If right. So if sigma is extremely large, and that means, yeah, it will be very, very noisy, right? So the it's not going to be informative, right? That's true. Okay. I see that I don't have much time left. So in the interest of time, let me basically go over the main results, some of the main results when we compare the two systems. Okay. So basically, first of all, under the decentralized system, we also characterize the entire the equilibrium of the entire game. The structure is actually similar to the centralized case. So either the transaction does not happen or transaction happens. But dispute also happens or transaction happens, but dispute does not happen. Okay. And then when we compare these two systems, one main effect that we see is that the decentralized model, right? So it's going to remove the decision making bias of the platforms. Okay. So in this state dependent equilibrium that I just showed you, the decision of the voters is actually based on this industry standard, right? So everyone will basically vote according to the industry standard. That means the bias of the platform's decision making is improved, is removed. And what that also means is that the tribunal is going to set a higher quality standard for the freelancers, right? So that will actually incentivize the freelancer to actually work harder and improve the quality in equilibrium. And correspondingly, the client will actually be willing to pay a higher contract price. So the platform could actually extract more commission revenues from the contact price. However, these phenomena will actually mean different things for different freelancers, right? So overall, the change is that the tribunal is going to set a higher standard and then the freelancer will have to work harder. This may not be an issue if the freelancers have higher skill levels, right? So think the Ford to work harder, right? And then offer higher quality and then the platform can also earn more commission revenues in that case. So that is why when the freelancer skill level is sufficiently high, the decentralized case should be preferred by the platform. But if we are dealing with the lower skilled freelancers, right? So having a higher quality standard will actually make them make it even harder for these lower skilled freelancers to participate, okay? So what we find is that under the decentralized model, more of the lower skilled freelancers will actually not be able to participate, right? And even for the ones that do participate, the platform will not be able to extract much surplus from them. But if the platform uses the centralized decision-making model, right? So he can actually control the quality threshold, right? So if the freelancers have lower skill levels, then the platform can also set a lower quality threshold. So in that case, more freelancers will be willing to participate and the platform can also extract more surplus from those lower skilled freelancers, right? So that's why the centralized case will actually be better for the platform if the freelancer has a lower skill level, right? So basically, this is a single threshold result of the result that we obtained regarding which system should be preferred by the platform, okay? And a couple of takeaways is that in order to make the decentralized model work, it will be important for those platforms to make sure that the skill level of their freelancer pool is sufficiently high. Some of the things that the platforms could consider doing is that maybe they could require certifications for professional software, for example, and they could also consider providing training sessions to improve the skill levels of the freelancers. And another factor that's related here is if you look at what's happening over time, one thing that we observe right now is a lot of the professional employees are actually switching to those online labor platforms. And if this keeps happening, then over time, the overall skill level of the freelancer pool will actually keep increasing. So that means in the future, the decentralized model will be even more likely to be the optimal solution. And finally, although I didn't show you the detailed results for the social welfare analysis here, I do want to mention that because the decentralized case is going to set a higher quality standard, what we find is that the equilibrium quality level is actually closer to the socially optimal level. So that means if the platform uses the decentralized model, then its incentive will be more aligned with the social planner, okay? And finally, those gig platforms have been criticized to behave more like a monopoly, although they claim to be running a decentralized marketplace. And we also believe that decentralizing the dispute resolution can be one step to move those platforms closer to being a true sharing economy, okay? All right, so I'm basically going to stop here just to briefly summarize some of the main findings from this paper. We find that the decentralized dispute system indeed can work and then provide a fair dispute resolution, but that only happens if the tribunal is sufficiently diverse, okay? And another thing that the platforms will need to be very careful about is to make sure that the freelancers are sufficiently highly skilled, right? So only by making sure of those two things can the platform make this new decentralized model work. And in that case, the decentralized system can also align the platform's incentive with the social planner, okay? So that is my presentation. Thank you very much for listening and for all the wonderful questions. I think now I should pass it on to Andrei for the discussion part. Yes, right over to Andrei. Sure. I'll try to keep it brief so we have time for Q&A. So first thing, I think it's a super interesting paper. I mean, the topic I just want to emphasize is the topic of decentralization of platforms. I find that like one of the most interesting current topics, both in the real world, but I think it should become like a super like rich and interesting research topic. And as far as I know, I think this is I think Yao is one of the first papers to look seriously with the model at the trade-offs that are involved in decentralizing, let's say, certain governance decisions. So they're focusing on dispute resolution. But of course, you can imagine platforms decentralizing other governance decisions. And the idea of decentralization is pretty simple, right? I mean, so instead of the platform controlling and deciding everything is to essentially like delegate some of those decisions to a randomly chosen subset of its participants. Now, I think it's important to ask here. So I just want to emphasize this here because it's a theme that I'll come back to in my comments. So it's interesting to ask like, why do platforms do this? So yeah, there's this notion that there's sort of like PR notion that platforms decentralized because they're perceived to have too much control. But I think more practically decentralization also helps, at least in some circumstances, better aligned decisions with the welfare of participants. So I think it's useful to think about this because so yeah, I don't think you necessarily have that mechanism per se in the models. I'll come back to this. And by the way, my job is made a lot easier by the comments in the in the in the chat, which basically kind of what I'm getting at as well. All right. So there are two main comments that I have. And again, they're kind of been hinted by Luis and Jack in the chat that I just want to emphasize though. So the first comment I have is about the voting mechanism. So you're kind of you're assuming that the voting mechanism is this like the so the voters post the bond. And if you're on the winning side quote unquote, then you win. I think it's important to justify because it's not entirely obvious why that mechanism is ideal. I mean, it's not entirely clear that that's the ideal mechanism. In fact, I actually looked out of curiosity, because I was super curious about the examples that you had. It's kind of interesting the examples of decentralized dispute resolution that you have. There's these very obscure platforms. Honestly, I try to go on the websites for a few of them. Some of the websites don't work. Some of them don't have websites or they haven't basically they haven't tweeted since 2018. They look a little bit I don't they look a little bit sketchy, which by the way, I know is the nature of like blockchain decentralized platforms. They're very new. But I think it's interesting. So there's one that I know I can recommend. There's a very successful freelancer platform called brain trust, which you should look at. Now the interesting thing I looked closely at the dispute resolution they have, it is decentralized in the sense that they get like they get members to vote on disputes. However, this is where this is the main point about the voting mechanism I have. It's not like the workers have to post a bond. It's basically they do it out of their own free, like, you know, whatever they want to participate on the platform, it's in their best interest to make sure that you know that disputes are solved in an equitable manner. So more broadly, I do think you're right. I mean, I think it's interesting the mechanism of so, you know, you get so you post a bond and if you if you're wrong, then you lose it. If you write you basically share and the winnings, I can see an argument for that. And the strongest argument is probably like, well, it incentivizes people to take voting seriously, like to consider cases carefully, because you don't want to be wrong. There are two issues with that. Number one, if we take this seriously, so this is Louie's question, I didn't see that you have voter participation, right? So it should be incentive compatible for voters to want to participate in expected value. Now, you don't have that because in your case, like voters have, there's a financial reward, plus there's a subjective element, you know, I don't want to feel guilty about getting things wrong. But I think it's useful to think about like, there should be like, if it's truly monetary, like if it truly matters, then there should be some participation constraints. And the second thing that I wanted to say here, right, so the other thing is, in reality, I think the voters are not exactly posting bonds. I think more likely what's going to happen, especially with blockchain-enabled platforms is they will be paid or rewarded tokens. And I think this is important. In your model, it's basically lump sum payments. I think that the advantage of tokens is it basically aligns voter participant incentives with the long-term incentives of the platforms. When I think this is the sort of the mechanism that I think you want to introduce in the model. And that brings me to the second point, which I think is sort of the crux of the thing I would sort of like focus on the most to sort of improve the paper. So right now, both the platform and the jury members, if it's decentralized dispute resolution, the way you sort of get most of the action is, you know, Luisa's first question is like, well, you have this kind of exogenously given preference for not deviating from some industry standard, right? So like the platform doesn't want to get a file of industry standards and the voters, they just, they don't want to get things wrong for fear of being, for feeling guilty. I think it would be a lot nicer, a lot more realistic and a lot more convincing if you can introduce a mechanism of reputation where basically the incentive to get things right in terms of voting basically comes from the fact that it has the feedback effect on the reputation of the platform. I actually don't think it's that complicated. So I was thinking, how would I do that? We can probably maybe do something like two periods and say something like if the client feels like they're being wronged, they will be less likely to come back in the second period. And vice versa, if the freelancer is wrong in the decision, then they're less likely to come back in the second period. And this way you have this like you will have basically the incentive to get things right is going to be endogenous as opposed to this exogenous parameter. And I think it will make it a lot more realistic and a lot more appealing. Anyway, so I can go on by just in the interest of time. Let me pause here. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of interesting discussion. Honestly, I love the topic. I think this is like it's awesome. This is one of the first papers to do this. There's plenty of things that you have like in the results are very nice. You can make, you know, you can probably make some tweaks to make it more, you know, more convincing. It's like there's really, like really, really good topic to be working on.


Today I'm going to be teaching you a three-step process to manifest anything that you want. Now it's funny because manifestation is becoming this big topic and everybody's talking about it and for those of you guys that are very analytical it might seem very woo-woo-wee like oh yeah come back you know come back down to earth hippie um but I remember back in 2006-2007-ish whatever that was that the secret came out they started talking about the law of attraction and manifesting all these things um I started trying it maybe it was 2008-2009 I don't know what it was but whenever it came out I literally started to think about the fact that maybe it's possible that every one of my thoughts is this like physical thing like I can't physically hold it but it sends out a frequency throughout the entire universe and I can actually start to create what it is that I want and the harder that I create I focus on what is that I want to create the more likely I am to get it and what you have to realize before I give you these three tips is that you are literally a future creator we are all artists of our life you are sitting down every single day with a blank canvas and deciding what to paint but are you painting the future that you want or you think about all of the shit that you don't want and then creating that to be the future that you're going to be living in and for me I have a very analytical brain like I think in facts and figures and I'm a very logical thinker and then there's another side of me that's like let me test the boundaries and actually see like and is this possible is there a metaphysical meaning and things that are happening behind a scenes that I can't necessarily see and I can't put facts and figures into it so if you're out there and you're you're very woo-woo-wee I can speak to you if you're very logical and analytical I can also speak to you in this episode as well so for those of you guys that are that are logical thinkers we all know what we need to do to create the life that we want right we're just probably not doing it we're mentally holding ourselves back in some sort of way like for me one of the things that drives me the craziest with people is that I can tell you everything that you need to do to improve your life to improve this this your relationships bills and all these things I can tell it to you but you have to be the person to decide to actually take action on it right and so we're going to use a little bit of the manif manifesting in the the metaphysical and the analytical and the scientific and we're going to put all of those together and make a little smorgasbord in today's episode of exactly how to create the thing that you want to and by following this is this manifestation is just a way for those of you guys that are you know if you're like the most analytical person you're like I don't believe in manifestation at all okay what I'm going to teach you today is going to trick you into finally believing in yourself so you can finally take some action that's what we're going to dive into today and so for those of you guys that are spiritual thinkers you look at this world and you see everything is vibration right if you're looking on video my hand is vibrating this table that I'm sitting as vibrating this microphone that you're looking at is vibrating there's all vibrating at different frequencies and if you look at water water is just vibrating at a much higher frequency than like this table is but if you were to look at this table in a microscope you would see that it's just all vibration it's all waves and so we're all frequency and so we attract the frequency that we are like if you're turning into a radio station for those of you guys that actually have used a radio in your lifetime so me guys are so young you've never used a radio but the life that you want 10 years from now for those of you guys that are spiritual woo woo because I can I can dance on all sides of the woo spectrum as I like to call it I can get real woo woo or I can get really analytical which is like woo resistant right it's like a radio station and if I can think that my future that I want 10 years down the road from today is of a station that I can tune my frequency to that's what I want to be tuning myself to every single day you must change your frequency in order to attract that's the way that I want you to think about it okay so we're going to talk to your logical people that aren't our woo resistance and I'm going to talk to you spiritual people that are woo woo is can be because I can dance between all aspects of this one right and so I'm going to go into three different steps three different steps that I want you to go through in order to really start to attract what it is that you want okay the first thing that I think is the most important thing is your vision and your belief your vision of what it is that you want you have to be very clear on what it is that you want and you have to see it every single day you have to feel it every single day you have to normalize what it would be like to have that life you are basically trying to brainwash yourself into believing that it is possible right and so you can sit down you can visualize the future that you want today and that's great but you need to do it every single day but before you visualize you have to get very clear on exactly what it is that you want like the more clear that you are on what is it you want the more likely you are to be able to visualize it in detail so many people don't have the life that they want and then when I ask them what is it that you want they don't know the answer to it they know what they don't want but a lot of times they don't know what it is that they want so what is is you have to decide what is it you want then you have to sit down and visualize it in your mind's eye as often as you possibly can at least once a day and then the the last part of that is to believe it for me what I think the biggest key that a lot of people don't don't talk about in the the process of manifesting as if it's this big huge thing is you have to believe with every single cell of your fucking body that it's going to happen so like for me I've had many things that have happened in my life that I've been seeing for so long and I've known that they were going to happen for so long that when they happen I'm not necessarily surprised and so not long ago a few years ago I reached out to Tony Robbins' team and I was like hey I love to interview Tony Robbins and they asked about my podcast and the size of it my podcast wasn't big enough yet and they said no I was like all right cool then a few years later I ended up being invited to an event there's only like 50 60 people whatever it was and Tony Robbins was there and Tony Robbins actual event and there was a small room of us and when the event ended there was this big huge line of people that were like can I get a picture with you can I get a picture with you can I get a picture with you there's a big line of people who wanted to meet him to talk to him and to take pictures with him and Lauren my girlfriend at the time now wife was like hey before we leave do you want to get a picture with Tony Robbins and I was like no I'm good and she's like really why not and I was like because I'm going to meet him one day one-on-one she's like all right and so she knows that I get so hardcore in belief in believing in the future that I see in my mind that she doesn't even really question anymore which is what it's awesome she just trusts that like all right he's going to go and create it couple years pass after this event and I get an email from somebody hey this is you know so-and-so at Tony Robbins's team we would love to have love to be on the Mindset Mentor podcast if you're okay with that I was like sure so then leading up like everybody knew that it was going to be happening all these people like are you excited are you excited are you excited I was like yeah I guess I'm kind of excited you know and they're like why are you not more excited you need to be celebrating yourself you need to be celebrating yourself you need to take a step back and see how far you've come and then the interview happened and everyone's like how was it were you excited oh my gosh it's such a big accomplishment and they're like why are you not more excited and I said because this interview happened years ago like it happened there there's no cell in my body that did not know not believe that did not know that it was going to happen so the biggest piece that I think that people don't talk about with manifesting is that there can be no ounce of disbelief that what you want is not going to happen like you can that it's it's going to happen no matter what and so for me when I when I literally set my mind to something there's not a cell out of my 40 trillion cells in my body that does not know that it's going to happen you know this this house that I live in now a few years ago we bought it there was 10 people bidding on the house and Lauren was like are you nervous and all this stuff and I literally remember we were at the kitchen and the condor that we lived in I looked her dead in the eye and I said to her there is no future that exists where we do not own this house in the next coming months like there's no future there's no reality where we do not own this house other people are bidding against it whatever it is we're getting this fucking house there is no reality that does that exists where we do not own this house and live in this house and so I'm not saying this is like oh I'm this this I'm so good at what I do I'm not trying to say any of that what I'm trying to say is when I set my my vision to what is that I want there is no reality that exists in this universe where I don't get what it is that I want and that to me is the biggest piece that no one ever talks about in manifesting like it doesn't exist there's no reality it doesn't exist where I don't have it and so there's a there's a part of a tuning myself where I'm like I okay I'm very clear on what is I want I visualize I see it every single day and then I know with every single cell of my body and so when these things happen they're not really surprises like if you guys saw a slam dunk contest with mac mclung he was this this six two tiny little white guy who won the dunk contest and one of the things that they said to him is like when he was getting the trophy and it was his first week in the NBA and he also won the slam dunk contest his first week in the NBA they're like you know are you so excited about this and he's like yeah like I'm excited but like I already knew this was going to happen like it was it was so interesting because he literally spoke the same way that I did where I was like learn did you hear what he just said she's like yeah that's crazy because he's like I already knew it was going to happen I'm big in a manifesting that's what he said I'm big in a manifesting so I knew that this was already going to happen and so am I excited yes am I proud yes am I surprised no because you shouldn't be surprised because you already know it's going to happen so the first step if you want to get something is you have to have the you have to get very clear what is it you want you have to have the vision and you have to believe and know with every single cell in your body that it is going to happen okay you're basically brainwashing yourself into knowing that it is going to happen as possible that is the first step if you miss that step the other two steps don't matter at all that's the first one cool number two is you have to develop a strategy you can't just sit back and be like okay well let's just let's just see when it happens right you have to have the strategy how are you going to do it you have to plan it in detail plan out the next 365 days of your life and then chunk it down to whatever it is that you want if you look at the next 10 years of your life chunk it down into one year increments and then from that one year increment like so if you say in 10 years i want to be worth 10 million dollars cool great amazing beautiful okay tell me what the next 365 days look like you plan it out you create a strategy of exactly what is it you're going to do how you're going to get there what it's going to require of you then you take it down and make it into smaller chunks you make it into quarterly chunks you make it into monthly chunks you make it into weekly chunks you make it into what do i need to do today to take that next step towards this vision of the next 10 years what i'm going to do and you have to develop the strategy one of the things that i hate about people who talk about uh i don't hate about people i hate about the things that people teach about manifesting is it's like you sit and you decide what you want you sit in a forest and magically it just shows up at your doorstep no no no you've got to know what it is that you want you've got to believe in every single cell of your body and then you've got to create a freaking plan like you've got to do something about it right create the plan after you figure out what it is that you want and then the last piece is execution so number one vision and belief number two strategy number three execution this is the part that i'm telling you drives me crazy you have to get off your ass like people always talk about the law of attraction there's a very big piece that i always say that's after the law of attraction that is the biggest piece of the law of attraction and it's the last six letters of attraction which is action the law of attraction requires the law of action you have to get your ass up and you have to work towards it nothing in this universe is going to happen until you make it happen and when you truly believe and you work your ass off nothing in the universe will stop you from getting to where it is that you're trying to go people don't create the future that they want they create the habits and they create the habits create the future that they want and so when you look at okay this is where i need to be in 10 years i want to be worth 10 million dollars okay well if that's the case i need to chunk it down into a year what is it that i need to do this year and what's the the the plan that i need to do this year okay let me start to plan it out what do i need to do this month what i need to do this this this quarter i'm sorry this quarter this month this week this day and then what you do is you work towards it the biggest missing piece that i see is that people think that just by thinking they're going to get the what what that they want and the life that they want the money that they want the relationship they want they're just going to somehow show up on their doorstep right like imagine if if what you're trying to attract through manifesting is the perfect relationship but you don't leave the house that person's not going to come knocking at your door you got to get out of the house you got to go to places where you might run into them whether that be a relationship for romantic relationship or whether that's a business partnership or whether that's people who are going to support you on this path you have to take action so many people want a different life but they're not willing to take action they want to create a life that they love but they're not willing to take action and i'm here to tell you if you're trying to sit around and manifest the life that you want but you're not going to get off your ass you're not going to create what you want and so there's a three-step process that you have to follow the first thing is you have to get really clear on what is that you want you have to develop that vision you have to believe and know with every single i don't mean like the word believe you have to know with every single cell of your body that's going to happen next thing what you gotta do you gotta create a strategy you've got a plan you've got to put the entire plan put your life together as if you are an architect an architect is not just going to go and build a house they're going to plan it out in every single detail like the house that we have now when we bought it it was a custom built home about eight years before we bought it and they gave us a blueprints and it's so cool because it's literally down to like the the centimeter of this house of what they had you know the the the level changes the steps that need to be here the width the height the depth everything every single thing was planned out before they could actually go and start to build the house that's the strategy that's the planning that's what you're trying to create and then the execution if you're building the house you've got to go and actually start to dig put the concrete in place put the walls in place put the glass up put everything in in that you need so you've got to actually see the three-step process of knowing what it is that you want seeing the vision seeing it every single day starting to attune your inner frequency to that life that you want into knowing with every single cell of your body that you're going to attract that thing that is that you want you've got to then create a plan and plan exactly what is it you want and last thing is you've got to get out and actually start to create it you've got to execute and take action execute and take action execute and take action if you follow these this three-step process you will create the life that you want the only thing that's in your way is you you've got to go out and create it so that's what i got for you for today's episode if you love this episode please share it on your instagram stories and tag me in it Rob dial junior ro b d i a l j r and with that i'm going to leave you the same way i leave you every single episode make a transmission make someone else's day better i appreciate you and i hope that you have an amazing day


Live from Las Vegas, Nevada. Extracting the signal from the noise. It's theCUBE, covering IBM Edge 2015, brought to you by IBM. Welcome back to Edge, everybody. Edge 2015 is theCUBE. John Callisto is here as the Vice President of Business Development at Glasshouse Systems. John, welcome to theCUBE, good to see you. Thank you, great to be here. So, winning Edge, again, third year in a row, is that right? You guys, Glasshouse continues to get it done, why? Why do you keep winning year after year here? Well, third consecutive year, that's quite an honor, quite a feat, and this one is very special, though. The previous two years were in storage, this one's in power, and it really validates what we've been really investing in, in technical skills, customer awareness of what they're doing with their business, where they want to go, where they want to grow their business, and being able to see that we can compete in a different brand within the IBM portfolio at the highest level, and be successful in executing it at just, number one, demonstrates the capabilities of the company, but also validates where we've invested in. So, that's interesting power. Talk about your relationship with IBM specifically, it relates to power. How long have you been selling power, and why power? You know, we've been a business partner for over 25 years, we were one of the first business partners in the program, headquartered out of Toronto, doing business both in Canada and the US, throughout both countries, and power's been a great platform for us, and we're seeing a resurgence in, it's really growing. If you were to look at trends and directions in the open systems environment five years ago, maybe even sooner, it would only talk about the growth of X86 as a platform, and the demise of everything else, and everything else is tapering off. If you look at current trends and directions today, it's a different chart. It talks about the growth of Linux, and about the decline of Windows, as an open systems operating system. It's gone away from really talking about the hardware, and talking about the operating system. And really that's the benefit of power, because power allows you to run Unix, you know, under AIX, IBMI, but also Linux. And it is probably the most powerful Linux platform, especially in comparison to Intel, that you can have out there. So when you talk about the growth of Linux, then the platform of choice becomes power. Well, it's interesting, you're right. The definition of open has really changed in the last 20 years, hasn't it? Absolutely. Intel used to be the open platform, and now you've got Linux open source, it's running on mainframes, it's running on power. So you feel, if I'm interpreting correctly, that power differentiates you in the market, allows you to differentiate in the marketplace. Absolutely. The Intel X86 basis, there's a lot of noise there, it's kind of commodity. How would you describe the power base? You know, there's still a great business out there for X86, don't get me wrong. But when you start looking at customers who are looking at reducing their software costs, when they're charged on a per core basis, you know, more bang for the buck with power. When they're looking at maximizing their VM utilization, you know, when they're comparing X86 to power, more bang for the buck with power. When they're looking at doing high-performance computing and looking for performance of Hadoop nodes, you know, again, more bang for the buck with power over X86. So when you look at what power brings to the table in today's compute-intensive environment, you know, it swings so much to power that that's the discussion. So IBM talks a lot about this, cams, cloud, analytics, mobile, social, and security. They talk a lot about digital transformation. Talk to us and customers speak. What do customers talk to you about and then maybe we can translate them into the sort of marketing terms. You know, Glasshouse Systems prides itself on being very customer-centric. And really, the basic key is understand what your customer's business is. You know, and understand what their vision is. You know, what do they want to do now? Where do they want to go? And it's not like that 10-point math problem you had in grade school, where you get one point for the answer, you know. You get nine points for showing your work. That's where the rubber meets the road. So we are willing to put in the work with our customers. They recognize that, they value that. And it's not a matter of going in there and just saying, here's the answer. It's not like, you know, again, you use another analogy. It's not like plain jeopardy. You know, you start off with the answer and then you try to figure out what the question is. It's, you know, looking at where they want to go, what they're trying to do, and then applying the best practices, the trends and directions they're going into the industry that apply to uniquely what they're trying to do. And then customize an IBM solution that's going to address that. Not just their needs for today, but also where they want to go in their future so they're not painted into a technical corner. All right, so let's break them down. So cloud, I think I just heard from you, it's a spectrum that depends on the customer. You're going to get some customers that where cloud is a swear word, other customers are like, put it all in the cloud. So what's the state of cloud in your customer base today? I mean, it looks like public cloud's real. It's happening. Public cloud's real. It's growing, we know that. But this notion of private cloud is sort of evolving into this hybrid. So talk about that a little bit. You're seeing public cloud, like I said, the acceptance has been there. You're seeing hybrid clouds, but you're seeing really more and more interest going in private clouds because customers, they want a secure environment. They want an environment that's the run. They don't necessarily want to share. And if that's the case, then you're going to look at a private cloud situation. And they're looking for something that's going to be a little bit more bulletproof than public cloud, that's going to be a little bit more resilient and is going to give them the peace of mind that if they've got socks or HIPAA requirements or any other type of fiduciary requirement that they have, that they're going to get a good night's sleep knowing where their data is and how well it's going to be protected. So John, how does power in cloud affect your business? So look at the announcement of power going into soft layer. We've had discussions with the open power group here. You've got companies like Rackspace and Google talking about how they're going to leverage power. Does that have an impact on your power business just for general awareness in the marketplace or perhaps in a part of the hybrid cloud strategy or curious how that impacts? You have to look at it as private cloud security. That equals Linux. That doesn't equal Windows number one. So if you really want something industrial strength, you're going to really look at Linux as your operating system in a cloud environment. Again, and if you want to have a highly scalable, highly flexible, highly affordable platform, you're going to look at power to run that Linux operating system over x86 and maybe even seeing some Z Linux in that private cloud space for the really big bruises. So we talked about cloud, let's talk about analytics.  IBM doesn't actually use that term. They talk about analytics, which is probably good. What are customers doing there? People want to be data driven. Data is the new oil. It's the new source of competitive advantage. All of these sort of terms. How real is that? Very real. I mean, customers don't throw out data. They are worried about the throwing out an asset. They're worried about whether they realize it's an asset or not. They're worried about throwing out something and then having to come back to haunt them in a lawsuit. For whatever reason, customers don't like to throw out data. That has been a great boon to us as we look at customers wanting to do something with that data. They just don't want to sit there. They're looking at it and saying, I've got this asset over there. I know it's worth something. What can I do with it? How can I use that to leverage my business? So you're seeing more and more interest in taking that data, analyzing it, doing different things with it to give them more insights into their business and make them more successful. Let's talk about mobile. When I talk to business technology practitioners, particularly IT practitioners, they tell me they have a love hate with mobile because they're mobile users. I love my mobile device, but it's driving our infrastructure to the breaking point. And so we have to respond to that. So that's the hate part of the love hate. What are you advising customers? What are you seeing in the customer base regarding mobile adoption, obviously huge, but what is it doing to infrastructure? You know, it's putting a lot of thought into where you are today, but it's putting a lot more thought into where you want to be tomorrow. So you want to have a system that's going to be scalable, that's going to be flexible, that's going to take you from where you are today where you may think you know a lot about it to something that could have no limit, or a higher limit than you ever thought of before. I thought it was going to be here, but it's way up here. So you want to have a system that's going to, a hardware infrastructure that's going to take you there. When it really comes down to at the end of the day, infrastructure matters, customers recognize that. They understand that's the key to their success. As a business partner, we get that, and that's why we leverage customized solutions, but also IBM gets it. It's not just a slogan, it really does make a difference because that's what customers are looking for. And it's interesting, I mean the Apple deal with mobile looks like IBM's doing some unique apps as opposed to sort of me too apps, which is great. How about social? You just got this Twitter deal. Social media again, it's one of those, some guys love it, some guys hate it, there's certainly a lot of data being generated. Are there a lot of insights to go with that? There are, and it's, you know, you're going to find things that, as you move forward in time, people are going to get things out of social media that they never thought possible before. It's just a matter of having all that data, and then utilizing it and exploiting it to a company's advantage. All right, so we're getting the high sign here, so I wonder if you could sort of put a bow on edge 2015. You guys, winning edge again, so congratulations on that. Thank you. And as the trucks pull away, what's the bumper sticker on the back of the truck from your perspective? Once again, it's a great conference. The 2015 version is better than the 2014, and that's always great when you move from forward. And we're just great to be a part of it, we're happy to be an IBM business partner and really value not only what we get from them, but also the value that they recognize in us and how they treat us as a business partner. John Calisto, Glasshouse Systems, well-known experts, congratulations on the win and all the success. Look forward to seeing you in the future. Thank you so much. All right. Keep it right there, everybody, we'll be back. This is theCUBE, we're live from Edge 2015. Stu Miniman, Dave Vellante, right back.


Welcome back to series 2 of testing the tips, where I as an average golfer test out some of the best golf tuition videos that I found from my fellow YouTubers and first of all, I'll see if they work for me. I'm kicking things off in series 2 with a lesson from Chris Ryan Golf, link will be in the description below. I'm going to be studying this thing. I'm going to find three very simple and effective ways of getting that ball onto that green. Right, so like I said, three different ways in which to get out of this bunker, but very different shot types. And the first one is if you're struggling to get out of a bunker, then this is a very simple technique just to make sure you get from the bunker and onto that green, which is all important. The next step moves up a gear and it's then about trying to get some height onto your bunker shot. So really getting some loft, flying it up in the air. That's the second shot. And the third and perhaps the most interesting for me is when you're looking to fly that ball just a little bit further for it to get out the bunker and run on. So when you've got a bit of distance to travel and I've got to say these methods are really, really effective as you've just seen. So what I will do is I'll provide my interpretation of Chris Ryan's instruction and I'll tell you how they work for me. Right, so shot type number one and the first thing is the club selection. And when I say club selection, we're going to put plenty of loft on this. So I'm playing a 58 degree wedge. Chris suggests we look at a club with a lot of bounce on it. It's going to help us in terms of that bunker shot. Once we've got the club selection right, it's then about our technique. And the first thing to do is the widening of the stance. And I've got to admit it was probably a little bit wider than I would normally play. It's then about flaring out those feet. That's the second thing. Ball position is slightly forward of centre. So we've got our setup right. The next thing is our weight distribution. And our weight moves forward off our back foot or off our central position right now. And it moves forward onto our left knee in a right hander's perspective. And I've got sort of 60% of my weight now over onto that left knee. A dress position is very much square up to the flag. We're not opening the stance. We're not getting clever right now. The club head is square. My body and alignment is square to the flag. And that's all we do at this point. We're in our normal position. The next thing is the takeaway. And the takeaway is to, as we go into the backswing, you want to be forming an L shape when you're into that first part of the backswing. So into that L shape. Then it's that downswing and what we're looking to do from there, the impacts on how this ball gets out. And what Chris explains is we're looking to enter at the sand behind the ball. So we're looking to hit sand, not ball. And the feeling or the understanding is that you're trying to lift sand and put sand onto the green. So we're not doing anything special right now. The important thing is again, do not decelerate. You're in your position. You've got your weight slightly forward. You've got the L shape. Enter that ball with a normal swing. And feel like we're going to put some sand onto the green. So let's give that one a go. Well, to be fair to Chris, it doesn't get much better than that Chris. That's an absolutely perfect start. And as you can see, the ball fight was quite good. We're going to look at the second phase of this about getting the ball high. But I've got to say that also popped the ball quite high. And I would take that any day of the week. But the important thing is we've got to get, like I said, a position right now where you're struggling to get out of the bunker. That's the first thing because what you don't want to do is take two or three swipes in here before you get on the green. Get it out the bunker, onto the short stuff, and at least we've got that putter in hand. That's step or technique rather, number one. Let's step it up to the next level. Right, so next technique is all about getting some air on the ball.  In terms of the video Chris has done, in the first shot he had a 54 degree wedge, and then he suggested adding some loft to the club. I'm playing a 58 degree wedge again here. Now, first of all, with that club face, he's suggesting open it a little, but stay very much square at a dress, which is interesting. Stance again, slightly wider stance than we've just done on the first technique. Feet flared out, weight positioning is the same with sort of 60% onto that left-hand side. He's really changed at this stage, but the interesting one for me is he then suggests we're sort of slightly further away from the ball, and what that's then going to allow us to do is we're going to drop the handle lower. So we're going to require a bit of knee flex. We're going to be lower in our positioning, and then we're going to drop our hands down to a much lower position than normal. And again, Chris' explanation of that, it allows us to get a lot more sort of rounded in our swing and our rotation, and it certainly makes sense, keeps loft on the ball as well, on the club rather, which again, very much makes sense in his explanation. So the next thing we're looking to do and where the key difference is from what we tried in the first phase to this, the takeaway is the same. So we've got our L-shaped, but then when we come to the ball, when it's coming towards impact, first of all, the butt of the club is going to drive down towards the ball, but then through impact, you're going to have the bottom hand, you're releasing under the ball and passing your hands very quickly. So the hands almost stop in this position, and the club head then quickly follows through at some speed. And the idea of that is we'll maintain that sort of loft on the ball, on the club head rather, and generate that speed, on that ball up in the air in theory. I think I've covered every element of this instruction. Like I said, this is my interpretation, and the best thing to do is follow the link below and look at Chris's explanation, which will be far greater than mine. But anyway, we're going to give that theory a test. So I'm in position, club face slightly open, I'm going to lower the hands and my body down in a much different position than I'd normally play this from. It's into that L-shape, and the thing is to release that trail hand and feel as though it's really surpassing the butt of the club rather. Right, let's give it a go. Now again, I've got to admit, I'm really impressed so far, Chris, with your instruction, and I'm pleased with my execution to be honest because yet again, that's a really good shot and did exactly what we had hoped it would do and that your instruction led to. So it's a real different feeling. There are a few practice goals at this one. It's a technique that was different for me personally, but certainly that feeling of the club head passing the hands and the butt of the club through that impact position is alien to me, but it certainly did what you suggested and that's popped that ball up in the air. That's two techniques down. The third and final one is a real interesting one that is very much of interest to me on a personal level. Right, third and final technique and the first thing we need is a change of club because what we're looking to do here is we're looking to get the ball out and we're looking for it to release. We're looking for it to travel a greater distance. So when we play the lofted club, the idea is lofted club is very much going to come up, come down and pretty much stop. For this kind of shot, we want to get it out onto the green and for it to release and run out. So, change of club, first of all, Chris went to a 9-9 and going to a pigeon wedge. Basically, we're taking loft off. Then what he suggests is that we open the club face up just a tad and then we're going to grip down on the club as well. So that's the first thing in terms of relation to grip and the club face. We then adopt that same wide stance which has been pretty much prevalent throughout, but we're very much square to target on this one. Again, it's nothing to do with opening the stance or anything like that. Square to target. Club head, a lot will feel slightly open because we just opened it with square at a dress still. The next key difference with this one is about the weight in which, well, it's about the follow-through, about the impact position, I suppose. So in all three of these techniques, we'll grip down a little bit on this one, but in all three, we've sort of got to this L position in the backswing. That's been the same with every technique. The difference has been through the three of them is how we've released that club head and it changes again. So you're into the L position, 60% weight still forward, all those things still apply. But there's a difference here in the way we're going to rotate round the body, rotate through the ball rather, and feel like the club head is as far away from us as possible through impact. I mean, I'll be honest with you. This one, like I said, I'm always scared of this shot. I don't like playing a bunker shot with loft to make sure I get out. So when I'm faced with this kind of shot, it does worry me because I know in theory I should be playing the likes of a pitching wedge, but it always worries me. But anyway, that's it. I mean, technique done, like I said, into that L shape, and when we swing through the club head this time, we're going to feel like it's as far away from us as possible. Talking's done and can we make it three out of three? So grip down the club, position is the same. That's again, absolutely, it's, well, it's carried again pin high. The interesting bit for me was not only did it travel. We faced quite a steep lip there as well, so even with the pitching wedge in hand, when I'm assuming we've lost loft, so therefore we're going to not get that height, it still managed to do that if we're taking sand before ball. I've got two ball behind me waiting for me to get out of the bunker, so we'll do an evaluation somewhere else, I think. The evaluation is quite a simple one. It was a great way to start off series two of testing the tips, and I'm going to reiterate the point is my interpretation of again, I'm not a PGA professional, I'm very much the average golfer, but the idea is that I tried these tips very much like you would do. And try and decipher which are the good and which are the bad, and in this case I thought Chris Ryan's video's explanations were really, really good, probably better than mine, so like I said go and see his original video. There are no magic potions in terms of helping you get out of bunker play, ultimately it's about practice, but you need to understand the technique first and foremost of how to get it out, so at least you've then got something to practice with. So whichever one of those that you like the look of or think might help your game, then getting a bunker and get practicing and hopefully you haven't got a two ball chasing you up and cleaning you off out the way. Give me your feedback and comments down below. One last thing, if you've not watched series one, then again we'll put some kind of link on the screen right now for you and go and check out some of them. Thanks for watching and I'll see you all soon.


When the narcissist isn't talking to you, the narcissist will stop talking to you Usually as the result of some disagreement Maybe you questioned and confronted them Maybe you figure them out or maybe your supply lost its potency Maybe they got bored because narcissists need constant entertainment They're never at rest They always feel like they're missing out on something. They always think the grass is greener on the other side They always think there's something better Because they couldn't accept you Nothing you did was good enough for them, but they can't accept things about people in general And that is why it's an endless cycle Where they discard one person and move on to the next Because they can't accept anyone They can't even accept themselves They can't accept anything that is wrong with them and that is why they make great efforts To seem perfect and then they look for that perfection in other people So they will get rid of you eventually or they will try to mold you into what they want you to be They will never accept you for who you are You will never feel like you can be yourself around the narcissist And you will never be able to change them. They're always going to be that way You're just wasting your time and energy Which could be spent on finding someone you like Because you can't teach an old dog new tricks You can't change their habits or character By default they would have to be fake The narcissists cannot accept your flaws or imperfections They expect you to be perfect You never expected then to be perfect, but they expect you to be what they strive to be and You will never be perfect You will never be everything that they want you to be So eventually it's going to end Because they can't accept you So they're destined to criticize and discard you because they don't accept themselves. They have no inner sense of value Which is why they're always looking for attention and validation Which is why they're always looking for acceptance outside of themselves. So you will never be enough for the narcissist The grass will always be greener on the other side instead of accepting you They drift without any clear purpose or direction They betrayed you Because they were always looking for the next bigger better deal The next shiny new toy Instead of thinking about how they're going to give something back to you. They're very selfish Because they lack confidence. They can't depend on themselves So they're always looking for someone who can do everything for them Which is why they put you on a pedestal when they first met you Because they thought you were this person who was going to change their life. But after some time It began to wear off and they stopped talking to you Because it was too overwhelming for them It was too much work and they couldn't get what they want So they started fantasizing about other situations While you were trying to hold them accountable While you were trying to figure out why they didn't like you But this is why they stopped talking to you Because they just didn't want to deal with it anymore It was too much for them to manage They were under qualified for the position of being with you Because they're not self-reliant So they expected you to do all of the work But they won't completely cut you off They will put you on the shelf because they still depend on you You have something that they want Maybe you give them money or a place to stay Maybe you accept them as they are You accept their emotional outbursts And that's what they want But when you don't tolerate it It's too overwhelming for them So they stopped talking to you But they won't always end the relationship Because they might want to come back But when they're not talking to you They're usually entertaining someone else Whatever they're not getting from you They will go somewhere else to get it Because in their minds, you're not good enough for them But you will never be good enough for them Because they're not enough for themselves So they will go and have a short period Of enjoyment and wild behaviour with someone else They will use it as a means to control you Because they know that it hurts you But then they will come back like nothing happened And you won't have an opportunity to talk about what they did to you When the narcissist isn't talking to you It's because they're off entertaining other people They're building their inflated feeling of pride and their superiority to other people They always need people to do that But it's never enough You were never enough And even the people they cheat on you with are never enough Which is why they often come back to you Don't let the narcissist disrespect you You will only let them do that If you do not respect yourself And if you do not respect yourself Other people will not respect you It will affect yourself more than self-esteem And you will struggle to leave the relationship So when the narcissist stops talking to you See it as a blessing And don't let them back in And don't let them back in Thank you for watching I hope this video resonate with you Please like, comment, share and subscribe If you would like to donate My PayPal link is in the video description Coaching inquiries You can email me at coaching.narksurvivor.uk Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon


Okay guys, so to update the navigation software, first you can go and check to see if there are any updates. So if you go into settings and then navigation settings, if you scroll down to the bottom, you can see installed maps and updates. So if you select this one, then you can do check for updates or installed maps version. Now if you go into the Land Rover website, you'll be able to see what the latest version is for the maps and then you can compare it to this one here. So to download the latest maps, you need to go to landrover.here.com and then click on the maps and services tab there on the right hand side. Now just remember you need to have a service plan with Land Rover to be able to download these maps. If you don't, then you are able to purchase these separately and you'll see an add to basket button like this and the price that it costs. So I have a subscription which expires in September of this year, so I'm going to be downloading the Europe and Russia map. I'll click on get latest version. Now make sure that your USB stick is in the laptop at this point. So now as you can see, the file size is quite big. So you need to have a USB stick of a relevant size that will compensate for that. So I have a 64 gigabyte USB installed. The one thing to remember is that the USB needs to be formatted as FAT32 and not any other format. So if it's NTFS, then you'll need to erase it and set it to FAT32. So if you click on download map, it will open up a specific map downloader from Land Rover. And if you do see any errors, it will tell you how to resolve it. So when I first plugged in my USB stick, it was not FAT32. So I had to open up disk utility on my MacBook. So if I just quickly show you this now, if just in case you guys have the same issue, you go onto the USB stick here. So you'll be able to click on erase there. And all you have to do is select FAT32 in the format drop down there and then click on erase. That will run the process fairly quickly.  Then you'll have to reopen the downloader again. So now I've got it there. Everything seems fine. I'll click on select. I'll click on allow. And now you just have to leave it running. And it's going to take quite a while because the file is very large. So just leave it running. And then it should be there on your USB stick once it's finished. All right. So I have my USB. I'm going to put that into the USB port in the compartment here in the middle. And then I'm going to go into the settings to get this updated. Right. So I've just plugged in the USB and this automatically came up saying that it's detected that there's a map update on a USB device and I can install that now. So I click continue. It could take about half an hour. So I'll be here waiting for that. So let's go and see how this starts off. Continue to overwrite the existing map data. So the car still needs to be on. And it just gives you confirmation and then you click start. So that's it. You leave the car on. It'll be about half an hour, hopefully a little bit quicker. So I'm going to let this run through and then show you guys once it's finished. All right, guys. It actually took me 15 minutes. So a lot quicker than expected. So now it tells me that it's successful and I'm going to continue. So now it's gone back to the home screen. I'm going to go back to the navigation to see if it's updated. It's just finishing the update. And then you have the confirmation.  So I'm pretty much ready to go. And if I just quickly go to the settings to confirm navigation settings, scroll to the bottom, install maps. As you can see, the latest version and the last map update was today. So that's it and pretty much ready to go. Hopefully that was a quick, useful tutorial for you guys. And if I notice anything new in the actual system with the navigations, then I'll let you guys know in the comments below. But if there's anything else you want to know, if you're having a bit of a problem with this, then drop a comment. I'll try to help you out as much as I can. Otherwise, I'll leave a link in the description for the playlist of all my Range Rover Villard videos. So do check that out. Otherwise, I hope you subscribe and I hope you like this video and I will catch you guys in the next one. Take care.