Magandang araw mga kababayan. We're back in TV UP, TV UP's science innovation series. And our topic today is very exciting. It's complexity science. I'm Giselle Concepcion, a professor at the Marine Science IGWP Dilliman. I do research on marine drug discovery and development. And with me are my co-hosts, Fidel Nemenzo, professor of mathematics, majoring in number theory and coding theory, as is area of research. We have Benji Baliejo, professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology. He's a biogeographer and ecologist. And we have two guests, our young professors and scientists from the Institute of Mathematics. Professor Joma Escaner, who is into differential equations and mathematical modeling and heads maths, finance, mathematics. And we have Associate Professor John Rob Bantang of the National Institute of Physics, who is an expert in complexity science. So I'd like to start this exciting discussion with the rich, diverse expertise of our guests by asking Fidel to explain to our audience what complexity science means. What does it cover? When you think of complexity science, it's really a framework for analyzing systems. My main question, what is common? What do things such as Facebook, social networks, traffic, ecosystems, even the finance market, what do they have in common? These are examples of complex systems. A complex system basically is a dynamical system of different parts interacting. But the behavior of the entire system is determined by the interaction of the parts. Actually, I wanted to ask John Rob, who is an expert in complex systems, what is the simplest explanation of what a complex system is? What is the difference between a complicated system and a complex system? Well, first, based on its term. When you say complex, it's the opposite of simple. It means that complex systems are actually composed of simple systems being brought together by something. And that something is exactly the point that you're trying to say, that there's interaction between these simple parts. And the thing in complex systems is that their behavior cannot be simply derived from the sum, total, or average of the individual parts that composes it. But instead, it is very dependent more into the interaction between the parts. In this case, according to the complexity science, quite a view, it's very difficult if you can even understand a complex system by simply looking at the parts. Rather, you have to look at the complex system as a whole, as one system. And here, the difficulty arises because the usual physical and mathematical techniques is very difficult to be applied to them. For example, thermodynamics does not follow. You cannot apply thermodynamics very simply to these systems. For example, when you talk about granular systems, it's another one. It's like when you look into rice, I think many of our audiences are familiar with it. When you try to remove the palae from the rice, usually you shake. And it turns out that shaking is actually the right way to do this. Because according to experimental evidences, the palae actually goes on the surface. And this cannot be described by the usual Navier-Stokes equation, differential equation. And our current models are still trying to explain how it happens. Ma'am, I would like to go back to the metaphor of palae. I wanted to discuss traffic jams, for example. But one of the key features they say about complex systems is that it is nonlinear. Can you explain what nonlinearity means? Well, from mathematics we know nonlinearity means that one state is mapped into two or more different states. And in case of traffic, for example, you can never say that one method in solving a traffic problem will affect the same today and tomorrow. Because exactly the response of the system or the mapping of the system is different. It can be mapped into many different states, nonlinear. So the response of the system may be totally different from the response today. That's what makes it very difficult. For example, when you have a jitney in a traffic situation and it park in one side of the road, you'll never know how far the effect is. Maybe it's far down the road in a jam because it started here and then everyone blocked the way, or maybe not. That's the nonlinearity there. So a complex system is inherently complicated, but not all complicated systems are actually complex. So to put it in a Venn diagram. How about, can you explain, people talk about the butterfly effect? I think you know this in nonlinearity. Can you explain that to the audience? The butterfly effect is an unusual adage when you talk about mathematical case. I think everyone will understand. Chaos is not like, you know, magulok, usually when you say about chaos. Ah, so chaotic, this is so chaotic. It's actually not the chaotic, the mathematical case is not that chaotic magulok as we have in Filipino. Rather it is more of a sensitivity to the initial condition. So it means that, say traffic is a chaotic system in a sense that it really is very dependent on the initial condition. So in your decision whether to park even for a moment or just park for maybe another minute will have a very different effect in the traffic condition. Not just in one part of the community, but probably in the entire metro. So this is an example of a butterfly effect that a very small effect can give or yield a very tremendous different effect in the future. So that was very interesting to me as a chemist and a biochemist. And because we are teaching, team teaching a course on biological and social structures. And I just finished my several lectures on thermodynamic and kinetics. Thermodynamics, very limited in terms of the path that change will take. Whereas kinetics captures that pathway of the change. So the way you describe it to me, it looks like there's lots of kinetic based equations in complexity science. And am I right, Joma, is that simply expressed by differential equations? Well usually when we do mathematical modeling, we make use of differential equations. So differential equations are equations that would involve derivatives or changes of quantities over time. So for example, changes in the population over time can be affected by different factors or different things as well. So that's how we work with it. So there's nothing totally esoteric about complexity science. It's still rooted in the fundamental physical, chemical principles that we know from way back. And that's why we start our course on biological structures that way. And I would imagine that your area of research, John Robb, is, well it covers so many disciplines. And you are involved in one ecosystem research with biologists and sociologists. And some of them are actually urban planning experts. So when you look at the development of a community, there are so many factors that you need to consider. There are economic factors, social and psychological factors, and even physical factors. For example, physical in the sense that how are they separated from each other? Whether they are separated by natural boundaries like rivers or mountains? Or how far they are from their source of livelihood? How arranged are their source of livelihood? For example, if you're doing farming and they use fertilizers, it will affect river systems because of the neutrification and other imbalance in emissions. And then it would also depend on economic factors like which part of the system or population system has more opportunities to sell their products or transport their products. So those who are near the shore are usually more economically progressive because of the availability of export, being able to communicate and interact economically with the neighboring cities. And so in the one ecosystem, we try to understand how the ecological and social and economic and social profile changes over time. For example, we know that in the provinces, we have several livelihoods. Some are fishing, others are agriculture, husbandry, even quarries, taking minerals from somewhere, sometimes even kainin. And the problem is, when you say that you kind of do kainin for a time, what will happen to the life of these families? So by understanding the profile of these communities and how they are connected to each other using a complex network approach and other agent-based modeling approach, then we hope to find a certain pattern that might point us out where could be the problem if we impose certain policies. Dear viewers, John Robb is describing an emerging interdisciplinary research program funded by UP in Abra de Ilogu, Negroes, Mindoro Occidental. And what's interesting about that area is there is among that community. And so you're talking about agent-based modeling. And so would you say that the LGU is one agent? Would you say that the community of Mangyans would be another agent? Is that what it means? Or is it livelihood as agents? It can be agent-based modeling is a very broad class of modeling type. But an agent would be defined by the research question. Let's say you're asking about the livelihood profile. The livelihood can be thought of as an agent. But if we're talking about the options that each of the family have or which livelihood they want to take whenever this one is less opportunistic or the other way around, then the family becomes the agent. So whoever is sort of deciding changing the state from, let's say, doing these two in another time doing another state, then that would be the agent. So in case of the policy, the policy is like, what can think of it as like the IC model magnets or you have magnets and each part of the magnet has either spin up or spin down state. Then the whole thing, when you put it in a field, an external field, let's say in another one net of field, then it will react. And the IC model gives a very interesting reaction. And when you apply it to agents, the agents have their own decisions. They have their local conditions that they feel and then they decide according to that. But there's also a global condition which we call the environment. And the environment will give in the boundary conditions, so to say. And that would be provided by the LGU, the national government. And so let's say, for example, there's a policy, maybe every June or July, no fishing. Yes. And that would be a boundary condition to the situation. I see. I think Jomar will be able to explain like, when you have a differential equation, put boundary conditions, then the differential equation would behave systemally differently. So that's very, very enlightening to me boundary conditions. That's something I can understand myself. Coming from biology and molecular and cellular complex systems. But I think Jomar will tell us also something that's biological, medical, infectious, because I understand you're also into infectious disease modeling, endemics, et cetera. So tell us about that, Jomar. One of the research that I'm doing would be on dengue modeling. So we'd like to look into the dynamics of how dengue disease spreads throughout the Philippines. Usually, we use compartmentalized models. So we have three compartments. Basically, there's susceptible. We have infected and infectious individuals. And there are those who are removed or what recovered glass. So that's the basic model that we use. So any changes in the susceptible population is affected by their interaction with an infectious. So it depends on the biting rate of the mosquito, but many of the vector population is affectivity, the resistance of each individual that changes them. So we also have the initial conditions. So we can see how the population of each human and mosquito population works. And from there, we can look at what parameters that affects the behavior or the development of each population. And from there, we can strategize or make out some policies that would control the spread of the disease. So... My job is to have a basic question. What are the data that we need to implement the mathematical model for dengue infection? Most of what we're going to look at is how many people are affected by the disease. And that's one of the problems that is for some researchers. Because the data that we get are those who are hospitalized only. So we don't really actually know how many are really infected. And that's why when we make certain models or certain differential equations, we have to consider that the data that we have are only those which are from the hospitals and not from the houses. So who are you talking about in Japanese encapalitis? Because it's an issue right now. There are a lot of faces. And you're also asking about clinical practitioners. Do you think they will post questions like that? I think we can work with that. With the enough data. Because we cannot look into the parameters. We cannot estimate the parameters. If we don't have enough data. And that's one of the problems here in the Philippines. Because data gathering is one of the issues here. The challenge is here in the Philippines and like in other countries. So the model is only as good as the data and the way you're able to complete the data. You can have a very perfect model. You can have a perfect differential equation. But if you don't have the data, you won't get the correct parameters. And you cannot predict or make any. And it's also the kind or level of data. So I'll just address dengue, which I know has four serotypes. Dengue one, two, three and four. And there's this phenomenon where you get infected with a second serotype.  There's a shock and hemorrhage. So unless you're able to get data at that level. You really can't interpret it meaningfully and come up with a good or accurate model. So my question is do you collaborate with epidemiologists, infectious disease, MDs? As of the moment, we don't have any epidemiologists or medical epidemiologists for now. But I had a conversation before. We started with a project, but I got this post for some time. I'm not sure if that particular project progressed. But at the very least we should try to get data during the rainy season. So now we have a lot of rain. So incidents of dengue tends to go up during the rainy season because of the mosquitoes in the breeding grounds, right? I think the problem with the gathering data is for the serotype. It's a practical reason.  Practically. And the real problem is mine. Because in the end you have to pay for the testing, you know, the acid. And it's a very expensive one. But U.P. Manila has developed a kit to determine the antibody. Is that already, you know, deployed to all the localities? It's not antibody-based, it's nucleic acid-based. So it is in the process of being deployed by the new age. Once it's either free or, you know... But they introduced it to the public during the National Science and Technology this year in July. That's right. And it's supposed to be point of care. So it's a simple lump-based type of PCR amplification. So it's a nucleic acid-based. So it can be used in the LGUs, in the health centers. So that's one of the major investments of U.P. also. And in the U.S. team? Yes. So you have to connect with our denger researchers in the Manila. But maybe Janra can tell us a bit about your team in Abra the E-LOG. Because you've gathered data. I imagine, quite accurately, as a basis for your agent-based model, which you have published in a scientific journal. I think that you were talking about part of our team. Yes. Part of another team, we're in Manila. Yes. So this is with the purpose. Yes. And then you were able to publish a way to... I think that was about the addiction of the options that they have using game theory. So the team of cross is doing a game theory-based model. So in the game theory, this is another aspect of agent-based model.  Free will. Yes. Free will. In this case, it's like the idea of economic models. Actually, you know, Jan Nash is the one who came up with this topic of game theory. And in this game theory, you know that you're trying to optimize certain utility given options. And they combine this with their agent-based model. The other team were able, in the group, were able to check on all possibilities of the likelihood. So what likelihood is most likely to appear in this community whenever your policy is this? So you have introduced a certain perturbation in the system. Yes. And in their model, using agent-based model with game theory put in, they can predict which one will come out. Most likely everyone will go to Sare Sare store or everyone will go to fishing. So it depends. Okay. So would you say that at this stage of your research, there are already positive interventions. Do you have a plan, a game plan of how to improve the community of the Mangyans together with the reefs and the ridges? So that was the original name of the program. I think there are, we have some talks, especially with our wooden planning collaborators, that we can actually do some, you know, intervention. And based on the models, we can choose the best possible intervention. But because that's near the Verde Island Passage, which is the area of the highest marine biodiversity in the world, is ecotourism one of the options for that area? Ecotourism? I'm not really sure. But I think ecotourism is one of these options. It's just that I'm not, the plan is not yet that concrete. I'm sure there are plans to apply the models that we have to develop in order to decide on how to manage. We've been involved by the LGV. Yes, yes. Very important. How do you explain this? I'm sure words like complexity, game theory, reputation. This is very interesting. Helen, the head of this program. She's very, you know, eager to share our results with the LGU. And every time we have publication here, she always emails the results now. Hey, we have a result on this and then you do it in the back. But Helen told me the mayor and the wife, who's like a former mayor, they are UP graduates. And they're very, very open and supportive of the work that we are doing there. And I'd like to share at this point that Helen and the team have found a foreign partner that will try to set up an ecotourism program there. And they formed a group called Eco Resilience. Now, Benji here is our expert on ecology. So could you try to model how you think a place like Amra de Ilog should be developed as an ecotouristic site? I've only been there once on the way to the site of the archaeology studies program in San Jose. But, well, I think with complex systems, communities are complex, human communities are complex. And the environment is complex. So, genre was already brought out of the work policy because all of this work would not really mean much if we cannot implement the right policies. That is a major field of research in STS, Science, Technology and Society, emerging systems and complex systems. How it will translate to impact policy. One of the major challenges is this. What everybody has to think in terms of chances or probabilities. He said that the chance of winning the lotto. All of these different events will result in different outcomes. Unfortunately, the government, anybody who is on the policy side would like a sure outcome. And the challenge is how are you going to relate all of these different outcomes and come up with the best for policy. That's one of the research angles in what is called post-normal science. Because all the stakeholders would have to input their information in order to understand and manage the outputs of a complex phenomenon. So, that's what we call post-normal science. It's now being used especially for DRRM. For instance, just to give an example, one of our previous guest director, director Rene Solitun, essentially adopts the purpose because he has been talking to different communities about earthquake hazards. So, earthquakes are also complex things. We kept predicting, but the effects on communities is rather unimaginable for most people, but we have to get a grip on it. So, whatever the responses are, are being translated into some policies which he evokes as adopted in communicating the risks. So, I think in that sense, if in Avro de Ilo, since I really can't say much about it, just pass through it, I saw that there are a lot of different areas. So, that is an ecological risk. So, how will the ecological risk be quantified in the sense of a probability? And how shall we translate the probability easily manageable by the LGU? So, that's one of the biggest challenges. I'd like to say that it's a good point you're making. We used to think of science as a simple scientific method approach. You have a hypothesis, that's the rational part. Then you do some experiments, and that's, sorry, you do some observations with instruments or with your bare senses, and that's the empirical part. Then you do the experiments where you make interventions in the system, and that's the experimental part. And then you have an interplay of the three activities. But now, Fidel, because of the power of numbers and computation, you have the iterative and then the predictive part of science. So, can you tell us a bit more about how one can create these models that can more or less accurately predict what might happen in the future? And therefore, this should be useful in guiding communities to save lives, to improve their livelihoods, and also to protect, conserve the environment. How does this all originate, say, from number theory or coding theory? I listened to one of your lectures in our postgraduate course last year. Maybe I'll talk about mathematics in general, but regarding the construction of mathematical models, later on I'll ask Jomad to explain that because he's the mathematical modeler and basically a pure mathematician. We think of mathematics as the study of numbers and formulas. Actually, mathematics is the study of patterns that uses rules of logic, deductive thinking, etc. It's a way of ordering ideas, ordering patterns. In a sense, it's a logical system. But it's also a tool that is very applicable. We can think of mathematics in the abstract. It's like language. We can invent the terms and symbols, attach meanings to them, and define the rules that govern interactions between the symbols. And then you create a mathematical system. Those rules are called actions. But we can think of mathematics as an abstract system. But what is beautiful about mathematics is because it also provides a language for interpreting natural phenomena. As it's physics and chemistry, in fact, almost all areas of study right now use mathematics. So it's not only an abstract system of thought. It's also a tool that we use to model interpret phenomena. We do not know what the right interpretation is. But through science and mathematics, we always arrive at better and better interpretations of reality. So when we look at a physical phenomena, we find a representation of that physical phenomena into a system of mathematical symbols. Numbers, differential equations, et cetera. We manipulate this in order to be able to predict the behavior of that system. Then you have to test the model. You test the model. Making use of instruments that can get quantitative data. That's what we always emphasize with our students. You can try to do experiments, but if it is not mathematical or quantitative in nature, then your model cannot be very meaningful. It cannot be refined. So, Jomar will tell us more about this. Well, when you do usually experimentation, usually controlled conditions. Sometimes it's very expensive when you do experimentation. When you have the model, when you make a particular model, which is usually based on physics, physical phenomena, because historically, mathematics and science are really very closely fed. Mathematics was regarded the language of science then. So there were probably two schools of thought. There were those who are abstract in mathematics and those who would like to work with the applied mathematics, more practical mathematics. So, as an applied person, I'd like to look into changes regarding people, communities. Any quantity for that matter. And then we look into a particular model based on physical phenomena, physical law, or reaction. And then we do the simulation. So, it's less expensive. That's very important. Because in silico modeling, it's the cheaper way to design and experiment. And at this point, Fidel, I'm really missing one of our colleagues who just passed away. This is Baltazar Aguda, the former executive director of the Philippine Genome Center. So, Baltazar was a chemist, agricultural chemist by training, UPLB graduate. Then he moved to physical chemistry. Then he moved to computational chemistry, computational biology. Then finally, he did genetics and systems biology. And his particular area of research is another major disease area, which is cancer. And that interest I share with him. And let me just tell you why in silico modeling is so important. Also, that modeling based on materials and therefore chemistry, I say that's the most important discipline, chemistry. Because this is a material world. So, you've got to understand a phenomenon on the basis of the materials. Then I'll have to add the energy. Because materials will not behave in a certain way, interact or compete, cooperate or compete. If you do not know the energy inputs or the energy content of the material. So, I always say, Einstein is right. It's really matter and energy that would describe the material world. But anyway, going back to BALTZ and my interest in cancer, it's really a complex system. Because in the cell, which is really the example of a biological complex system that is comparable to an electric circuit network. In cancer, there are key proteins that are mutated by mutagens, environmental factors. There have been researchers who have identified, say, the 5 to 7 major hallmarks of cancer or the molecular pathways in cancer. And you will see this map of the cell. It's actually like a cartoon that shows you mutations in key proteins in these pathways, including extracellular signaling pathways, program cell death pathways. So then cell cycle pathways that govern cell DNA synthesis and then mitosis separation of the cell. So this is very, very complex. And they're all regulated by enzymes. Because you have chemical reactions in the cell and there's lots of enzymes. They're regulated by receptor proteins. So what happens in the cancer cell is if you apply one drug, the target's one pathway or one protein in that pathway, the cell is so smart. It's so complex. Before you know it, it's going to develop resistance to that drug. Why? Because there is cross-talking. There is cross-talking across parallel pathways. So the cell knows how to respond to the external stimulus, which is the drug that will kill it. So nowadays, the approach to cancer therapy is really multiple therapies or synergistic therapies to ensure what we call synthetic lethality. So there's a term now called synthetic lethality in drug research. And you need to target many pathways all at the same time. Ideally, or conceptually, the different targets that are critical in getting that cancer to cell to proliferate. It's a very interesting phenomenon as far as complexity is concerned because complexity is called robustness. So that the complex systems are very robust and as you have described it, you can think of the cell as a network of proteins. This is, I think, five or ten years ago that the entire network of a yeast cell, protein network of a yeast cell was invisible. And from there you can identify important proteins that is responsible for different pathways. And targeting one of these, two or three or three of these, just says that it's not guaranteed to work because there are redundant pathways. It's like traffic. It's like traffic that when you block one lane or block one street, vehicles will just try to use other ways. It's just like that. And cancer is very amazing. Exactly. So I think cancer is still the symbol of our age or the complexity of our age in terms of disease is the most serious disease and it's coming from the environment. So very little cancer is inherited. It's a genetic disease but it's not inherited from your parents. Only a few cases are when the mutated cells are the germ cells and they are passed on to the progeny to the children. Wow, this is a fantastic topic and we have five minutes to go. So maybe we need like a one minute statement from each of us but I'd like to do my statement to say that Fidel is organizing a system-wide, UP system-wide complexity study group or study center. It's about time we do this because there's so many people interested in complexity science. So Fidel, tell us a little bit more about that. Well, one thing we're learning today is that complex systems are everywhere. We've talked about communities in Arbid-Elog, epidemics, ecosystems, cancer. A lot of things around us can be modeled using complex networks. And because of their complexity we need a multiplicity of perspectives and disciplines studying these phenomena. For example, John Robus talking about the project in Arbid-Elog involving your a physicist, there's a biologist, there's an urban planner, there's a sociologist. Phenomenon right now are so interrelated that we need ideas coming from different disciplines. So the world is complex, many of our problems are complex and therefore the solutions will come from coming together of people from different disciplines. That is why we're identifying people who want to work together to look at phenomenon problems like this. So there will be physicists, there will be people in mass communication, mathematicians. We've already heard some interest from people in health sciences to come together. We have a platform where we can put our minds together and look at complex problems of society. So we still do not know exactly what form it will have, but it's about time that we get together people to look at things from a complex science perspective. At the same time, of course, we were talking about data. We need data people to because right now the currency of all science is data. But it's not enough that you have data, but it's important that you extract insights from that data. And this is where we want all these people to be contributing. But actually before we end, can I just go back to the general characteristics of complex systems. We heard the term linearity, not robustness, but other key features, emergent behavior, emergent behavior, self-organization. John, Rob, can you just give us a few lines about these very important characteristics of complex systems? Early on, we thought about that the complex systems are complex, being composed of simple things. And what is essential or rather significant in determining the eventual dynamics of the whole thing is the interactions. And it is in this interaction that certain other properties emerge. It's like how the entire let's say you have a political system, how the entire political system eventually comes out with a uniform opinion about one thing, saying yes to a vote, a decision, or no. That is also a complex dynamic in itself. This is what we call the opinion dynamics in the system of people. And when something emerges, it's just that you cannot study the emergent behavior by simply looking at the level of the individuals composing it. We just know that electrons are attracted to protons, and that electrons are moving around with protons in a nucleus of an atom. Still, it means more in order to study these chemical properties. So in a sense, chemical properties are emergent properties of those components that comprises atoms. Even molecules. For example, one would be baffled by the idea that by itself is an explosive, highly reactive chemical. Chlorine is highly reactive also. In fact, it is very dangerous to biological life. But to put them together, something amazing happens. And in itself, that's an emergent property that you cannot predict from the individual sojourn and the individual comment. We don't have time for this. We don't have a lot of birds. They move in such wonderful unison. They soar, they sweep down, they change direction without collisions. Without nobody, without a single, or maybe a single leader. Basically, this is a very nice example of a complex system that exhibits emergent behavior that is also self-organizing behavior. Like when you look at the birds during their migration. They usually do the delta formation. And you know, delta formation is actually the most efficient formation when you move very fast. Because the one on the front breaks the wing and all the others are more relaxed. They use less energy. And they do that automatically. Nobody tells them to do it. Let's go delta formation. But there's probably a leader. And there's a kind of a quorum system. That's interesting. They have no leader according to... No one assigns a leader. Anyone can be a leader. Yes, yes, yes. So it's every kind of sensitivity about it. Whoever is strongest among them becomes the one. It's what you call self-organization or self-assembly. So this local self-organization that you've seen a flock of birds is something that you can only see at the global level. If you look at the global level, for example, the behavior of each bird, you cannot predict this kind of self-organizing phenomenon. I think we need to talk about this at another show. And I like to ask Banji to talk about the STS. Your baby, now his baby. And it's really the basis for interdisciplinarity. And it really will support our complexity science studies. So Banji... All of these, you know, in the social, interaction of social and science, sighted science, actually complex. And its major relevance today, especially for climate change, with all these hurricanes and typhoons battering the state of Florida in America and Caribbean islands. In Manila. Risk itself is an emergent property of a complex system. That's been long recognized in STS studies ever since. Now, the big challenge now is how can we translate this to policy? Because policy is usually... Usually if you say there's policy, that's it. There's not much room for external order. There's not much wiggle room, as they say. But risk and other responses are not like that. So that's one big challenge for STS now. And it's very relevant for the Philippines, especially for disasters. That's why we have to put some effort in our STS program to be the important focus for research. And it's definitely interdisciplinary. We have to involve all of our expertise in the university. Not just in the Liman, but in other campuses too. Well, dear viewers, I think we'd like to hear from you about this show. One of the hallmarks of complex systems is feedback looping. So we're going to hear this from you. And you can imagine there's so many other topics that we could discuss in Science Innovation series of TVUP, including financial risks and risk-taking. And Jomar is an expert on that as well. So thank you very much, my co-hosts Fidel and Benji, and our young and very knowledgeable guests, Jomar and Jung Robb. And thank you, everyone, for being with us in TVUP's Science Innovation series. Thank you very much.


How to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Silence. Set aside distractions and enter a quiet place. Stillness. Quiet your mind and focus on the Lord. Study God's word. The more familiar you become with the written word, the more clearly you will hear the spoken word. Submission. God will speak and then not speak again until you've obeyed what he's already spoken.


I would like to start in the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful, and the everlasting curse beyond the Satan and his followers. Now let me just quote what Al-Imam Al-Hussain, alaihi salam, said. I revolted neither for wickedness nor for fame, verily I rose to seek reform in the nation of my grandfather, namely the messenger of Allah. Nearly 1400 years have elapsed and still these words, said by the master of the murders, are still deeply ringing in the consciousness of humanity. Peace be upon your respected viewers and welcome to Ismail Hussain, a series of episodes in which we will be elaborately talking about the different stages of Imam Hussain starting from his miraculous birthday and ending with his unique unparalleled martyrdom. My name is Hassan Hadi and I'm honored to be hosting this program. Now talking of Imam Hussain's birthday and martyrdom, it's reported in the books of history that Imam Hussain, alaihi salam, was born in the third year after Hijrah and was murdered on the 10th of Muharram. For the year 61 after Hijrah. Imam Hussain, alaihi salam, was murdered by the army of Obaidullah ibn Ziyad, the governor of Kufa during the caliphate of Yazid ibn Muawiyah. Allah's curses be upon them both. Now talking of the great noble family to which Imam Hussain was born, Imam Hussain simply was born to a family known for its nobility, a family known for their equality, a family known for its compassion, for knowledge, for loving, helping the elderly and whatsoever. His grandfather was the prophet of Islam. His mother was the prophet's daughter, Fatima al-Zahra, the mistress of the women of the world. And his father was the commander of the faithful, Ali ibn Abi Talib, alaihi salam. So this is who was Imam Hussain and this is where he was born. He was born to a family known for all these Islamic qualities and Imam Hussain accordingly inherited all these Islamic principles from that family. Now as it's narrated in the books of history that the period of time between the birth of Imam Hassan and the birth of Imam Hussain was 6 months and 10 days. Now speaking of the miracles that produced at the birthday of Imam Hussain, a sheikh sadoq quotes from Safiyah ibn Abu Talib that when Imam Hussain was born, she was attending to Lady Fatima, Imam Hussain's mother. While the prophet of Islam came and he asked Safiyah, oh and bring me my son. Safiyah replied, oh messenger of Allah, I have not yet purified the newborn. The prophet of Islam surprisingly replied, will you purify him? Rather Allah, the exalted has cleansed and purified him. This is one of the miracles, another miracle that happened to Imam Hussain during his birthday. Imam Hussain narrates that it normally none, a women's period of time is of 9 months and that a baby born in 6 months can never survive except for prophet Isa, the son of Mary and Imam Hussain. The last miracle that produced at the birthday of Imam Hussain, here both Imam Sadaq and Imam Rida, have reported that when Imam Hussain was born, he had received no milk from any women as an infant even from his mother Fatima. Rather said Imam Sadaq, he would be brought to the messenger of God who would place his thumb in the child's mouth and he would receive sustenance in this way that would tide him over for 3 days at a time. In this way, the flesh of Hussain and his blood has grown from the messenger's blood and flesh and therefore the prophet of Islam, peace be upon him and upon his pure family, has said that Hussain is from me and I am from Hussain. Whoever hurts Hussain, hurts me and whoever pleases Hussain, pleases me. Now let me move on to a glimpse of Imam Hussain's martyrdom. Imam Hussain's martyrdom was predicted and the prophet was foretold by Angel Gabriel that Imam Hussain will be killed right from the nation of the prophet of Islam. And here Imam Sadaq, peace be upon him, says that even before his birth, it was well known that Imam Hussain, peace be upon him, would be motted on the plains of Karbala. Imam Sadaq also continues saying that when Fatima, peace be upon him, became pregnant with Hussain, Angel Gabriel came to the prophet of Islam and told him, Fatima will give birth to a son who will be murdered by your nation after your death. So Imam Sadaq, peace be upon him, continues saying that when Fatima became pregnant with Hussain, peace be upon him, she was in a state of tribulation. And when he was born, she also was in a state of tribulation over his birth. The Imam continues saying, in this world, you will never see a mother in a state of tribulation over giving birth to her child, but she was upset by her knowledge that he will be murdered. In this regard, Imam Sadaq, peace be upon him, says this verse was revealed for this regard. If I may read out to you this verse from the Holy Quran, we have enjoyed man to be kind to his parents. His mother has carried him in tribulation and bore him in tribulation and his gestation and weaning take 30 months. In the next episode, by Allah's will, we will be talking about Imam Hussain's youth and the lessons that can be taken from the message and sacrifice of Imam Hussain. Let's pray that Allah the Almighty hastened their appearance of the master of our time to interpret what Imam Hussain came for when he said, that I desire to spread the values of good and to prevent evil. This is what we have for you today. Until we meet with a new episode, thank you very much indeed for joining us and assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.


In this class we learnt about a noun. What is a noun? We learnt that a noun is naming a person, a place, a thing or an animal. Today we will learn about describing that noun. Let's see. Today we are going to see describing words. So, these describing words, it describes a name of a person, it describes a place, a thing or an animal. Let's see some words that describe this frog. Shall we describe this frog? Yes, beautiful frog. Beautiful. Can we say something else? Texture. Adjective. What these words are called? Adjectives. Numbers. Many. Instinctive. Slower. It's very quiet. Melodious. Rumbling. So these yummy, tasty, then sour, bitter, sweet. So the adjective tells me about these things.


As Aurora is the sunrise, there was a project called DONG to get rid of Aurora, and at that point we merged into what we do today in terms of... Oh, that sounds different. Okay, is this now with... Okay, I keep talking. So now we chained all that, we have one localization repository in these channels. It builds twice a day now. With the latest of the localization update, we have beta releases twice a week for desktop or laptop, however you want to call it. The sign-off process still exists, but it is something that we do as a team. Every other day we go through a list of updates on our localizations and say, well, let's do something new for it. Beta and ESR is the latest version of beta for that version. So we freeze release and ESR right now, but we intend to change that. I haven't noticed. One of the things that's new, what's indicated here is Harold. Harold is part of a fabricator, which is a revenue tool, a suite of revenue tools. Originally developed by Facebook. And Harold is the tool that allows you to say, whatever someone submits a patch that touches this file, they're making the revenue process. So whenever someone attaches a patch to a fabricator that touches a localization file, they need to move one of those. So that gets me now a vestibule registrant in full that even land on ESR. So that's really helping us to kind of improve the localization readiness of our code by the time that things hit Mozilla Central. There's still one blind spot left, and that is if developers change the way that they use an existing string and don't touch the localization file, we don't find it. If you have a different project and it is on GitHub, you can use code owners, a magic file, to actually say, I want these people to be CCD on the pull request whenever someone goes in and changes this file in the pull request. We have problems reaching Mozilla Central, and we don't want to expose all of these problems and their back-outs and stuff to every localizer on the problem and the hundred languages that we do. We created a little place where we can current state of our strings and not expose them to the world yet, and our nickname for that is counter time, because then might be the pest in it, but we don't wear it. Provisers work on that directly, Francesco is wrong, Tom is wrong, and they find problems, and then you get back to the developers and say, hey, this doesn't work right, can you fix this? Or we ask the showers to actually just back it out until it's fixed. This is something that we do quite aggressively for a lot of test failures these days at Mozilla. We back things out that don't work perfectly, and we also do this for localization problems. Then Francesco goes in and publishes that to all localizations when it's ready, and that is Gecko strings. It only comes with English strings, so no code or something that is in Mozilla Central, the test cases, etc. It contains the unit of all the strings that we intend to localize. So it has the strings that are in Mozilla Central, it has the strings that are in Mozilla Beta, it has the strings that are in Mozilla Release, it has the strings that are in Com Central, in Com Beta, and in Com Release. So everything that we use to ship Firefox, Firefox for Android, Thunderbird, Seamunkey, is all gotten together and is creating one of these localization repositories that only has English strings. So that repository is then current time, and when Francesco says it's good to go, then it goes into Gecko strings, where it is synchronized from pontoon directly, and then the localizations that are done in pontoon or are done locally are written back to Elton and Central. And then they go into Firefox builds twice a day. The nickname of the code is Cross Channel because it's working across localization channels. We have not yet included our extended support releases into that scheme. We intend to do so. Right now we're rewriting our localizations from DTDs and properties into Fluent, so we don't want to keep our old files around for a year and a half, so we're a little bit hesitant to do that right now, but technically we can. And that would allow us to do localization updates on ESR. So if you had a fix that you actually wanted to publish to our enterprise releases, we could do that. Onwards to Android. There are a couple of good parts about Android. The localizable strings are actually already in an externalized file. It's called strings.xml. The strings have comments. That's nice. They're reviewed as part of the code review. They have proper ordering. That's all kind of nice. Also the engineering teams around our Android applications decided to use linear git history and no merge commits, so that's also easy to convert. So that's kind of all set for continuous localization, but there are also ugly parts, in particular around the localization infrastructure in Android. There's a bug that they will never ever fix, because if they do, they break the world. If you use quotes or apostrophes in that localizable string file, quotes are just dropped. Ampersand are apostrophes, depending on which version of the tool chain it is, I think either cut the string off or completely break the build. And if you want to escape a string like that in an XML file, you either quote it in double quotes or you use a backslash, which I think tells a lot about how that tool was written in its first iteration, and that's what we have. So it's really difficult to find out what to do with that stuff. Also, the file locations contain something that is similar to a locale code, but is never a locale code. So instead of saying DE minus DE for German as in Germany, they put an R in, because that's a region. And then they have this thing where they say, and now we actually have unicode locale codes, but instead of using a minus or an underscore, they decided to use a plus as a separator between those things. So if you want to support a tool chain that writes these files back, you need to have completely custom logic for Android locale codes, not to mention that they still live with an old Java bug that used IN for Indonesian and weird locale codes for Hebrew and there are four locale codes that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The way forward. We need to kind of talk to the engineers and say, please only do the things that we know we understand, because the documentation is really dodgy and you can put strings wherever you want. They don't need to be in strings XML. And with that subset, you can write tests that ensure that the things are actually the way they are. And we add support for like locale codes. And then pontoon can actually be made to localize Android apps directly. So if we have an Android app and we want to localize it, we can just set up pontoon directly to that repository. It can decide on whether it writes to master or to a branch and then things can just go. The other thing is that a lot of our Android applications share a lot of strings. So Firefox for Echo Show is pretty much the same thing as Firefox for Amazon TV. And Focus has a lot of overlap with it and Firefox Lite has a lot of overlap with it. But then Phoenix probably won't and Android Components doesn't and we still want to get one project for the whole thing. So what we want to do is we want to start with like the Android product repose which is like all the Android related application repositories plus Android components. Build a unified repository out of them, put them into quarantine because also that needs a quarantine. If that succeeds, get them into ENUS, get them into pontoon, write back localized files into the same repository as Android strings would expect them and then write that content that is required for each application back to the Android product repository probably on a nightly basis. And then because Android just builds what's in the repository, you automatically get localized builds. We can publish them on developer channels and we can also run screenshot tests because that is something that has pretty good infrastructure on mobile devices. Sadly it doesn't on desktop which is something we might fix eventually. And that is as far as my slides go. And now I would love to get some questions and I might have some answers. So my question is how big a team is doing only localization at Mozilla? Any other question? We want to share something.


We have another user that that is here to speak with us today and He he comes from a company that Has one of the probably most beloved brands of of all time the Walt Disney Company Please help me welcome the director of cloud services and architecture for Walt Disney Company Chris Lonnie Chris, thank you for for being here with us Could you tell us a little bit about what you're what you're doing at Walt Disney Company? Sure? I I normally actually tell a story in response to that question, but I'll give you the quick version you can go home and Go to WordPress and register and build it out a little website. You can go register DNS You know license art buy some plugins You can spend 20 minutes with a credit card and have a completely set up web presence You can go to work and you can submit tickets and fill out process exception request forms and get your boss to send You know respond to an email and click something and you can wait and wait and wait as an entire industry of technologists We have spent a long time empowering people much better when they go home Then when they come to work with their technology and what I've been trying to do is change that inside of Disney outside of Disney You know I'm I'm like many others I'm sure in the audience are trying to lead a revolution To to help empower people when they come to work with technology. Yeah, so we've talked a few times and You said something that was kind of funny and I actually made a couple of slides here You said, you know, everybody's familiar with this triangle. So everybody's seen this before, you know, you have the triangle It's good fast cheap and you get to pick two And what you said is that that triangle now looks like this It's just fast fast fast It it's funny if you look at what any business needs these days if you're doing it all with information You need speed. That's what everybody craves. It's if you give somebody enough fast They can make their own cheap they can get their product to market quickly They can respond to market demands and changes They can be the first candy game on Facebook instead of the second candy related game on Facebook, you know, you can You know, you can deal you can make your own cheap by just increasing your revenue by just getting to market more quickly And and being able to work faster you can make your own good by shrinking your dev cycles You can change things all the time by only changing little bits at each time move to more continuous integration continuous delivery models So proud product quality goes up So if you just give somebody the faster lovers pizza with an extra helping of faster on top of it They'll go make their own good and their own cheap. Yeah, I love that faster lovers pizza with an extra helping of faster That's one of one of my favorite descriptions of it So, you know, you're talking earlier you were talking a lot about You know how it shouldn't be easier for them to be more productive at home than at work You know, you're talking about lowering barriers and it actually reminds me of an interaction I had one time this is, you know a few years back when I was the rec space cloud and I had gone and spoken at a conference and Very large corporation one of their their IT leaders walk up to me afterwards and and he said said you're creating problems for me I said, sorry, you know what's going on and and he said My developers inside of my company are going and signing up with your service and putting workloads on on your your services And I need you to to stop letting them do that And I was I was like, well, how would you like me to do that? And he said, I don't know blacklist, you know ex company comm email addresses from being able to sign up And I was like, but they'll just use a personal one and he's like well Blacklist IP blocks and and I said well, I mean it seems like they're looking for something and maybe that's what you know Like for the conversation we should have is figure out like how can you deliver what they're looking for through a way that meets your requirements? Yeah, absolutely the You hear anytime you get technology people together There's this discussion of shadow IT and how it's a bad thing and you need to you know shine the light into the corners and eliminate it and that's crazy It's it's it's like the little tablets that you chewed and when you went to the dentist at age eight that showed you where you weren't brushing Properly shadow IT is awesome because it shows you where your opportunities are right where where you're not where your service is not Market competitive where they're not compelling. How are you not enabling people to do their jobs? You know we we hire amazing passionate driven people and then we put mountains of obstacle course and process in front of them And we shouldn't do that, you know, and I don't mean we because you know We're we're trying to fix that but everybody should try to fix that. Yeah Yeah, it seems like there's a lot of stick out there. Yes. Yeah, exactly in the IT world And and you know if we change that more to care it if we change that more to to enablement then then we end up with a with a Think you know a more empowered set of technologies sure so You know I had the slide up earlier of of the sponsors that are here and you know That's a portion of the the ecosystem that participates in OpenStack and one thing that that you know I've heard before as people They look at OpenStack and they they are Concerned about how they're going to get started in OpenStack how they're going to make use of it because it's a big set of technologies But there are a lot of people out there who are able to To to help you do that and and I know that you have an interesting story about that as well I mean what what is your experience been with kind of working with OpenStack and the vendor ecosystem? Yeah, I was our I was our virtualization snake oil guy to back in 2007 And you know we had worked with our hypervisor for about six months before we felt confident enough to put our first production file Server on it right and when we deployed OpenStack, we didn't have the time to do that right? It was it was you know the whole point is let's go fast So we engaged a company called MetaCloud that we've been working with and had great success with they They take OpenStack they add to it, you know that there's some there's some things that aren't finished yet They help they contribute back, you know to the project and then they'll deploy and run it for you in your data center So it gave us a very quick We went from month one looking at technologies month to POC month three deployed at the very end of that month It was we launched a pilot and and ran a pilot of Wow of OpenStack as infrastructure as a service Yeah, so it's yeah, you can go very quick And you don't have to staff up a whole big department of people to to do the operations and all that kind of stuff for you Is so it's it's a it's a nice model because if the whole point is speed right and trying to deliver that to people You want to operate in that same agile model yourself, right? Okay, last question. I want to ask you the same thing that I that I asked Glenn You know when you when you look at at this infrastructure and the way that that your business is moving the trajectory that it's on does it feel to you like like Those back-end systems and those servers and storage systems and everything you know all of that stuff That's that used to just be in a closet somewhere is becoming more strategic and more recognized Within your organization as providing value. I Think there's there's not anybody who works with any sort of digital information that doesn't Understand that it's important all that stuff. I also don't know anybody who works for those things who wants to care about all that stuff Right, so, you know, it's it's becoming really important, but it also isn't something that people want to spend time You know worrying about right? It's it's it's more like the dial tone where it just has to be there and has to work But you don't you know oh thank goodness the dial tone is still on right when you pick up your phone That's an out motored example because I don't I haven't heard a dial tone in probably nine months, but uh But yeah, it's yeah, so yes It's it's obviously of strategic value But it's also something that you want to provide as a utility service right where when you plug something in it just works and goes Yep, okay. Well great. Well. Thank you again for joining us and and we're happy to have you here at the show this week Thanks a lot


It was our 20 week ultrasound and my husband and I were excited. We expected to get cute ultrasound photos to share with our families and go home to tell our three year old son if he'd be getting a little brother or sister. Instead, our ultrasound revealed devastating news. News that I wish no parent should ever have to hear. Within 10 minutes of the scan, the technician's face went from mild observation to hard concentration. My husband squeezed my hand and I tried not to panic. We were told that our son's condition was not only incredibly rare but also beyond repair. Then he told us we believe your baby has a form of dwarfism so severe that her chances of survival are incredibly low, actually non-existent, incompatible with life. In a situation I never could have predicted where I'd never had a choice for the spontaneous development of my son's syndrome, I at least was allowed the decision to spare him an existence of prolonged pain or worse. After days of crying, researching, soul searching, no sleep and a pain in my heart that would not stop, we decided to terminate so that Evelyn would not be subjected to pain and suffering. We loved her enough to let her go and be at peace. When I heard about HB 1948, my first response was a visceral one. My palms were sweaty and I felt sick to my stomach. I'm in disbelief that just weeks after my family and I endured such tragedy, the Pennsylvania House is moving at breakneck speed on a bill which would strip a woman which would have stripped me of my choice during such a vulnerable time. I want people to know that abortion is not about the unwanted, the unvalued and the unknown babies of the world. Abortion is my story and what happened to my family. The decision we made for Evelyn was made because her life mattered to us and it will always matter to us. Ask yourself, what would you want for a loved one if they were in our situation? What would you want for your niece, your daughter, your wife? I'd wish for them to feel loved and surrounded during such a grief filled time to have the space and the time they need to process such terrible news. I'd wish for them to have access to compassionate medical care and to have all of their options presented to them. I'd wish for them to have privacy in which to decide what is best for their unborn child and their families and above all I'd wish for them to be unconditionally supported in whatever difficult path they chose.


Sometimes in life, there are very simple experiments you can do that will change the direction of your life forever. Now in this video, I wanna share a tale of two friends who at 22 embarked on very different paths and at 30 they met up again and had a conversation that changed their life. What's up guys? It's Alex Hine here, over at Modern Health Monk, author of Milk Zepihan and Master of the Day. If you haven't read both, what are you doing? Come on people, before we jump in, check out the link below this video because I've put it together for a free journaling worksheet. The journaling worksheet will issue you a similar challenge. Do this, exercise every day for seven days to get your life together and figure out what you want and it's gonna help you. All right, it's the link below the video. Check it out. So when I was 22, I knew two friends. One was the Vagabond's hippie type, one was the banker type. So one of my friends decided that the second she graduated college at Clemson, she was gonna move to Thailand and volunteer for a year or two and then just see where life brought her, basically. My other friend was very much an in-the-box kind of guy. He moved to New York. He became a banker for, I don't know, Merrill Lynch or something and was very much all about getting paid and living the New York life and being in the New York City finance bro and just in the matrix. Graduate, get your nice job, stay secure, passion is not that important. Let me just get the job. Get a girl, have a kid, et cetera. Now, as time went on, my hippie Vagabond friend, as we'll call her, moved to Thailand and volunteered for two years. Then she went to Cambodia. We met up in Taiwan for six months. Then she went to China and the Philippines and she bounced all around and she didn't make much money because really she was living for the day and her goal was to maximize her life experiences and she just wanted to enjoy her life. And frankly, at 25, you don't really need to plan for the future that much. Now, my other friend who went to New York pretty much lived the same day, day in, day out. He went to the bank. He worked nine to seven. At night, all the finance bros got drinks and they spent a lot of money on alcohol and dinner and he made a lot of money on day one. He was 22, making 80 grand and by the time he was in his almost 30, that number went up a lot. So he was doing well even for living in New York. Now an interesting thing happened when we all met up around 30. She and he and myself were all having drinks one night in New York.  And he said, you've done all the things that I was not brave enough to do in my own life. And that's when I got my epiphany of the day that is issuing you this challenge here today. Now, can you guess what that one thing that my hippie friend did with all this life experience and all this fulfilling life, what was the one thing that she did that he did not? The one thing was that every time she felt fear or anxiety, she still did that thing. And that was the only thing that made the difference. Whereas my friend wanted to do all of those other things but his moving to New York and doing finance was all safe, secure wins. And so every time he felt the urge to go travel or the urge to go volunteer somewhere or the urge to take a summer off and go to Spain, the fear that told him, don't risk it. Just be the same, stay safe, overcame his action. So my 100 day challenge to you is simple.  Because if I've learned one thing, it's that over the long run, the people whose lives stay the same as they age are the ones who are not brave enough to take a risk on something they're afraid of. They don't ask out the person they really, really want because they're scared. They don't take the job they really, really want or ask for the raise they actually want, the salary, because they're scared. They don't go to that country because they're scared. They never write a book because they're scared. They never upload a YouTube video because they're scared. They never put any of their work out there publicly because they're scared. But the irony is, everyone feels that fear, but the people who do it anyway are the ones who grow. So for the next 100 days, every time you feel any of the following fears, go do them. Anytime you feel a person you are attracted to, you're feeling it, ask them out no matter where you are. The juice shop, the gym, your work, if it's professional and you're allowed to, ask that person out the one you really want to. Or if you wanna decrease the ante, just talk to them. Talk to every attractive stranger. If it's in your work, why not apply for the jobs you actually want and get the salary, try to get the salary you actually want? If you're afraid of putting yourself out there, but you've always wanted to be a writer, put one blog post out a week or one YouTube video out per week. If you are afraid of trying a new food because that's just not how you were raised, go to one exotic restaurant every single week. And sometimes there are deeper fears. If you're afraid of loneliness. You know, basically for 100 days every weekend, do a really tough challenge. Don't hang out with anybody. If you're afraid of poverty for 100 days, spend $1 per day and you learn it's not that scary.  The net result after 100 days is that you will have conquered one of your major life fears. And once you've done that once, you can do that again. And once you've done that 10 times, you'll learn that being fearful is almost a kind of identity. And in the same way that I learned, once you get over the fear of writing one book, the door's open to writing another book. And once you write one script or one page of your book, you can write a second page.  So my challenge to you for 100 days is to pick some of the things you're afraid of and do them every single week. Because when you do this for a month or six months or a year or five years, soon enough you become the person that has no major fears. And when you have no fear or at the very least don't listen to it, your life can become so freaking incredible because while 99% of people want to do all those things, you'll be the 1% who's actually doing it. So stop making excuses, go do it for 100 days. That's all I've got today, guys. Check out those links below and I'll see you soon.


Bring everybody, it's another new day. Well, I had big plans to get out the door earlier today. It's gonna get up like an hour earlier than usual, relax. Ended up only getting going 10 minutes earlier and I wanted to. Well, the camera won't be picking it up, but we got a little bit of a light snow coming down this morning. But it's not too cold. It's supposed to be pretty warm this week and then it's gonna drop down to like minus 30 again next weekend if the weather people are right. So better enjoy these few days of warmer weather because winter's coming again. We're down there, still haven't gotten a work bag. So we got the Timbs now and everybody still goes through the drive-through. I don't know if they don't realize that nobody's inside, but there's a big lineup around the drive-through and there's nobody at the tail inside and they let us go inside now because they're so kind and generous. So I'm gonna go inside and get my coffee before any of these people in the lineup around the drive-through get them. That's thankin' me. Way faster. Some people are still waitin' in the lineup wondering why the lineup's takin' so long. I walk in and walk out like a boss. Got my chimneys. Why is everyone scared to go inside? Or is it that they're lazy? They don't wanna get out of their cars in the morning. And I understand, I understand, no judgment. I'm not always a morning person either. Let's go drive some trucks. Doesn't really matter how much of a morning person you are. If there's driving trucks involved, it's gonna be a good day. I don't know. Driving trucks plus chimneys. There's wonderful oxygen we can breathe out here because we don't live in a big mega city. It's nice clean air. Got clean water. Got food. It's gonna be a good day. Did I mention we're driving trucks? I'm not sure what the plans are for today. I remember my truck from last week was having a bit of issues towards the end of the day. We're not too sure what was going on there. It needed a regen, but it wasn't accepting the regen that the mechanic was trying to perform. But he got it to the point where we could get it back to the shop and he was going to finish looking at it over the weekend or this morning, a Monday morning. So I'm hoping it's all good to go. Usually it is, you know? He's never let me down. I haven't known him that long, but he seems like a really good guy. He's always on the ball. He's there early. I'm sure that by the time I get there today, he'll all be warmed up and ready to go. We can start the week off like that. I'm not too sure really what was going on with it last week. I mean, I'm not a mechanic. I kind of wish I had a little bit more of a talent fixing diesel trucks because that would come in very handy seeing as I love to drive the trucks.  I usually just, well, it's usually smarter than just to leave it to the professionals, but I wouldn't even try. I mean, if I open that engine up, I don't think I'm going to be able to put it back together. But hey, that's because I didn't go to school for that. I never learned that. It would have been nice if I did though. So if you're young and you're thinking about getting into trucking, if you want to be like a super keener, is that a word just up here in Canada? Like a super diligent or a super, what does that mean? Like a keener, like a go getter. That's a good one.  And then when you break down, you can fix it if you own the truck. I don't know. I don't know. Does that make sense? Very often when you get pulled over by DOT or you know, the highway patrol, whatever, if something's broken on your truck, they won't even let you fix it. They'll make you call a licensed mechanic to fix it, which I guess kind of makes sense. They want to make sure it's done right. And the safety of all the people on the road is at stake. I don't know what I'm blabbering about this morning. Good morning. Have you told yourself it's going to be a good day yet? It's going to be a good day, even if this Ford cuts me off. No, you decided not to. See, it's going to be a good day.  He was thinking about it. Thinking about it. Chevy has right of way. Always just saying that's not true. People are spraying me with their dirt. You wait there. Wait, wait, Mr. Honda. Thank you. I have a feeling it's going to get slippery. I don't know if today, probably tonight when it cools down a bit, but it's supposed to be around the freezing point for the rest of the week. Like I was telling you earlier. And then on Saturday, it's supposed to just dive down to minus 30 at night. We'll see if that changes before then. See, here's a nice Dodge Ram. See, this is a nice Dodge Ram. I don't hate Dodge or Ford. I just like bugging them. Okay, I'm just on Team Chevy. It's all in good fun. These are nice trucks. Massive. Seriously, the 1500s is the size of a Chevy 2500. Beautiful trucks. So don't take anything I say about trucks too seriously. Around here, we like to bicker and banter with each other about trucks and brands. It's a fun thing we like to do. I'm not actually serious, but they're all good trucks. Like I was saying, on the weekend, it's supposed to dive down. And you know what? I'm kind of okay with that. Because last time we had it so cold during the week, right? When I had to work and then it warmed up on the weekend. I'm almost so better. I always like it better that it's warm during the week while I'm working. And then if it wants to get cold, get cold on the weekend. What is this guy doing? Not over. Speed limit is not 50, my friend. Where's your tailgate? All your stuff is gonna fly out. No judgment, whatever. Whatever, maybe you fell off. It happens. She's checking. Regen light is off, engine light is off. That'll turn off once the truck gets going. I don't wanna start it up because I'm in the shop here yet. I don't wanna. So she's running great. All the codes are off my dash. I got no lights lighting up at me. She's running way smoother than she was all of last week. So whatever he did this morning, he fixed every issue. This thing's running like a dream right now. That's good. That's why I came in. I tried to get in earlier. I wanted to beat a half hour earlier. I wasn't gonna clock in. I just wanted to check on the truck. I was worried about her. This is the one that they've assigned to me. So I'm sort of attached to it. I wanna make sure she's good and healthy, running well, looking good. She's dirty right now because of the climate we're in right now, winter time, but summertime she'll be clean. And I worry about her. So I wanted to go in a little early to check on her and she was already all fixed up and on the mend. The truck is actually, it runs very nice as it should. It just rebuilt it. So I'm not a perfectionist or anything like that. Like I'm not the cleanest, cleanest person on the planet. But I do like to take care of my stuff. And if I'm assigned a certain thing, I wanna make sure that I take care of it. Oh, and it's hurt and it's, you know, going to see the doctor, I wanna check in on her and make sure she's doing all right. Now let's say that instead of, it's gonna be a good day, but it's also, it's gonna be a good week. Sending good vibes your way. So if it's gonna be a good week. Okay. I've got some energy before dad comes home so vicious. Another day, another duck. Folks here where I'm delivering to, filled the trailer up once today already. I'm just emptying it out. It's been a good day so far. Not too cold. They don't want me on the dock here.  I had to pick it up in two different places. The first place didn't want me on the dock at all. Had to stay in the truck. The second place didn't want me in my truck. They wanted me on the dock. Now I came out here to deliver it outside the city, just south of Winnipeg. And they didn't want me on the dock either. Slowly learning as I go to places more than once, to learn what their policy is. It's tough to keep up sometimes. I usually just ask, you know, if you're not sure, I just ask them like, you want me on the dock? Am I allowed on the dock? You want me to stay in my truck? Just so that I know, because I don't wanna stay in my truck if they're expecting me to help on the dock.  But if they actually don't want me on there because of COVID and stuff, I don't wanna show up on the dock and look like I'm not listening to or respecting their policy, right? So it's just a simple question.  Those are the options, and they'll give you one or two. It used to be more often that they'd want you in the dock, but I find now it's pretty much 50-50 where I've been going. Some people want me there, some people don't. The reason I like to be on the dock, like I've said before, is just so that I can make sure that they don't damage anything if they shouldn't. But that's not really a problem that hasn't happened with me yet. But there's a lot of future ahead of us. And if it does happen, I'd like to make sure I know where it happened and why. But other than that, I also have other equipment in my trailer. I have a step ladder in there that helps me get into the trailer. I don't want that damaged. I have a pallet jack in there that helps me move the pallets around because a lot of places I go to don't have docks. So I'll go in there with my pallet jack and I'll bring the pallet to the end of the trailer and then they can come up with a forklift and pick it off the back of the trailer. I like to be honored to make sure that that doesn't get damaged and that if they need to take it off the trailer to get it there, stuff, that they put it back on. But that's sort of why I check before I leave as well. Before I leave anywhere I'll, even if they close the door for me, I'll go to the back, I'll open it again, I'll look at how everything is, make sure everything's secured and make sure that my pallet jack is still in the trailer and make sure they didn't damage or take my step ladder because I'm getting old. The trailer I have now, I'll have to show it to you and explain it to you in a bit here or in the future. It has a special bumper on it that sticks out, like maybe 10 inches or so, I don't know, haven't measured it past the bumper where it would usually be. So to climb in there is kind of a, the step is far in, you sort of wrap yourself around this piece that sticks out, right? And sort of roll into the trailer. There's no steps or handles anywhere, which is fine, I can do it.  My body starts asking me questions, what are we doing? Why are you abusing me? Stuff like that, I don't know. So I got the step ladder that they actually got from me and it makes getting in and out a lot easier and I sort of just have it tied to the inside on the side of the trailer. I'll show you later, I'll show you later. And that just solves a lot of problems. Cause you know, I'm turning 33 on April 1st and that's not a joke. April 1st is my birthday. I was born in 88, it's a good year. It's a good year. My wife was born in 89, so those are my two favorite years. So I'm an 80s baby, great music in those days. So I'm gonna be 33 in April. So I'm not old by any means, but I'm not exactly the springiest chicken out there either, right? If you give me a choice between like hopping into a trailer or taking a step ladder to ease the entry to said trailer, I'll pick the step ladder. I'm getting to that point where I'll be like, yeah, there's a step ladder, why don't I just use the step ladder, right? We're getting there, we're getting to that point.  Ah, that's where we are in life right now. I'm not old, but I'm not young. I'm like right in the middle. Starting to feel older though. Can't imagine I got a few like several decades in front of me yet. That's why I want to take it easy now so that in the future, I don't have like knee problems or back problems. I probably will anyway, but that I don't make them worse than they already are, right? What? Who wants to talk to me? Oh, an email. Oh, my cell phone provider. Thank you for your payment. I paid you like a week ago, you're just thanking me now. All right, let's go out there. We'll go out here and check the trailer out real quick. Make sure they close the door. The door is closed. However, they didn't put this inside. That's okay, I can do that. Make sure that's inside. I'll put you down there. So inside the trailer here now that it's empty, got my pallet track there that's strapped to the wall. It's always in the way. So I've always got to move that. So when I'm not on the dock, they have to move it. That's why I always feel bad. I like it when they're on the dock. I have to sweep this out now.  There's my step ladder to help me get in here because I'm an old man. There's my broom up there and some cardboard and plywood and stuff here aspenite just to help hold things in place if that's what's needed. I'm just gonna find a better parking spot and then I'm gonna come back here. I'll sweep this out. So that's what I mean when I say, I prefer to be on the dock not just to make sure that nothing gets damaged but also just to help out and get my stuff out of the way so that they can get their stuff in easier. But it is what it is. Some people like me to help out. Some people want to do it themselves and that's cool. They want to do it themselves, that's fine. They're sitting in my truck and twiddling my thumbs, watch YouTube, watch TikTok, talk to you fine people. That's the opportunity to get to chat with you a little bit, right? Most of the day I'm busy running around. This is number one priority. When I'm behind this wheel, this is what I have to focus on but when we have to wait at times like this, like now I'm just waiting for new directions then we can chat a little bit. That's a nice truck at the pumps there. Expensive headache rack, that's for sure. Imagine keeping that thing shiny. But we stopped here many times and we were over the road. They got the Timmy's here and most importantly public bathrooms because those are few and far between these days. When you find one that's open, you remember those tires. I'd love to drive whatever those tires are for. Chevy, watch out, watch out. It's the commander's turn. Chevy. What are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing? It's a diesel. How is your hand? Chevy, go. Stay, stay. Stay, okay, fine. No, no, no, no. Can you do a little buddy? No. And that is the Rockstar welcome I come home to every day. The best part of the day. Britt was able to film a little bit here. She had the day off of work so she was just hanging out here with the dogs today playing in the backyard. I love adding that footage in there. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, give the thumbs up. I'll see you tomorrow. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss a video and we'll film one every day. See you tomorrow.


Good morning, Mr. President. We want to see you again, though. Thank you. Good job, Senator. How can you change votes in the Senate when if some senators like Sanford say you're insulting their intelligence by talking about disinformation? How are you going to win anybody over? Well, there's some debate about what constitutes intelligence. Just make your own judgment. Mr. President, will the United States retaliate for the Iranian missile attack on the tanker avoiding waters? Well, we've just learned of that and I haven't had any conversation as yet with the chiefs or anything of that kind. We're going to defend ourselves if we're attacking. For this involved taking out the missile battery? The missile battery? Again, as I say, there's been no discussion about the strategy and even when there is, I don't know that it's something we should make public. Do you expect there'll be such a discussion today, Senator? Today's young. Thank you. Well, good morning and thanks for coming down and before I turn the meeting over there's a few things that I'd like to mention. One of them right now has been his hand has been forced. I'd like to call on Ed Mies here and I particularly for a brief summary on the three-part crime control package that we'll be sending up to the Congress tomorrow that Ed has another mission that he's got to go on. So we'll put you on. Thank you, Mr. President. The group knows with the full support of everyone here Senator Thurman and others had introduced into the crime control act of 1984 these matters up at a separate time. Senator Thurman has been a stalwart as many others here have also and so basically the crime program that will be submitted tomorrow by the President has to do with three measures. First of all, an exclusionary rule reform to codify in statute the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule which the Supreme Court declared in the Leon case and also in the same statute to indicate the statutory rule that for non-constitutional matters that it is definitely disapproved that courts there's another one on its way too.


Learning by doing is a formative assessment activity. What this means is that learners get sufficient and multiple opportunities to practice to apply and get feedback on their work. If we look at the structure of an LBD, the learners first do an activity such as solve a problem or click on their choice to the answer of a question and then they get feedback. This feedback is formative that means it helps the learner take stock of where their work is at the current point and helps them improve and revise their work so that they get closer to the learning goal. LBD activities help learners towards the goals of concept attainment or immediate application of some content or integration of knowledge. When should an instructor design LBD activities? This depends on the goal. For the goals of concept attainment or immediate application and practice, a guideline is to provide one or more LBDs for every learning dialogue. These activities can be at recall level or they can be simple numerical problem solving. In course design terminology, these activities can address unit level learning outcomes. Since every LED is followed by one or more LBDs, the implication is to provide multiple LBDs in a module and interspersed them throughout the module. For the goal of integration of knowledge, the guideline is to assign a synthesized learning by doing activity after a series of learning dialogues and their associated smaller LBDs. These activities may require the learner to apply concepts from multiple LEDs and their corresponding smaller LBDs. These activities can be at higher cognitive levels and address the broader course level learning outcomes. What are the types of LBD activities? Let us examine this first from a pedagogical perspective. An instructor might want their learners to reason conceptually or to predict the outcome of an experiment or demo or to reason with representations. For example, translate between graphs and diagrams and text and so on. Another type of pedagogical goal an instructor might be interested in is to get learners to match or pair definitions and terminology and of course this problem solving either short numerical problems or longer problems requiring a process, maybe a scenario based question, maybe an essay type question and so on. We can examine the different types of learning by doing activities from the perspective of what formats are available on the MOOC platform. At this point let us pause and do a reflection spot activity. You may have taken a MOOC as a learner or you may have even offered a MOOC in your subject as a teacher on some MOOC platform. Think of these MOOC platforms and list two things. Firstly, list two commonly available formats of activities or questions that you may have encountered on these platforms and second, list two formats of questions that you found interesting or unusual or something different. Pause the slide for now and when you are done listing, please resume. Commonly available formats of questions include multiple choice questions which may be the most common type of question or activity that one encounters in a MOOC platform. Multiple choice questions can have a single correct answer or it can include check boxes which means a multiple selection of check boxes may be valid. Another common format of a question or an activity is where a text box is provided either for a short text input or a numerical input or maybe even for a longer essay length longer text input. Drop downs are also available when there are questions which have a specified number of choices. If we look at more advanced type of activities, one encounters questions such as a drag and drop activity.  Other types of formats include questions where math expressions can be the answer or a part of a program or code can directly be input into the text box and it is directly graded. Some questions also can be very specific to certain domains. For example there are some questions where called circuit builder questions where the learner can actually draw a circuit and that is the format which is required or in chemistry molecular structures can be input directly as the answer to the questions. Now in all these questions often there is a provision for hints to be provided. On the NPTEL platform you would encounter multiple choice questions or MCQs with single correct answer or multiple choice questions where more than one answer can be selected MSQs. You will also encounter text box types of questions which are called short answer questions or numerical text input questions and you may also see hints in these questions. The pedagogical perspective and the formats available on the platform also map to each other. For example multiple choice questions can be used for conceptual reasoning, for prediction of an outcome or for reasoning with representations, numerical input problems can be used to solve a problem and give a short answer and a text box can be used for a scenario based question. To summarize, while creating an LBD activity we need to start with the learning goal is it concept attainment, application, integration of knowledge, we can use our teaching experience to decide the pedagogical goal and the pedagogical type and we need to explore the platform to decide the format of the question and then combine all this using a creativity. Now that you have written an LBD activity, thought about its format and maybe even explore the technology options and created the activity, are we done? If we look at it from the learner's perspective, let us see what has happened so far. The learner sees a question, answers it, maybe clicks on their choice, maybe writes their answers and submit it, then they expect something in return, they expect feedback on their work, whether it was correct or not and if it was wrong they may even expect what to do next. So let us recall that LBD activities are formative assessment activities. The loop of formative assessment is closed when the learner gets feedback on their current work and also pointers on what they should do next. In the next learning dialogue, we will explore how to give effective feedback of this kind.