did want to talk a little bit about my PhD thesis. So back to some more serious stuff. That's not really serious, I just like talking about it. So we talked a lot about QTL mapping, right? And that is just the association of a genetic marker with the mean in different phenotypes, right? So you have a marker in the genome where some individuals are one, other individuals are two, and then you look to see if there are difference in the mean of a certain phenotype, right? So when I was doing this presentation initially, I just had like the definition, right? So a quantitative trait locus is a section of DNA which is associated with variance in a phenotype, a quantitative trait, right? So that's the definition of a QTL, right? We already saw this slide, right? So to detect a QTL in a population, we need to have measured genotype, for example, SNPs, and a phenotype of interest, such as tail length or yield or whatever you come up with, right? And then at each genetic marker, you just do a regression or a t-test to associate the phenotype with the genetic marker of interest. So again, how we go one by one? Oh, this one goes automatically and doesn't have the little thing, right? So we go through the markers and at each marker we just say, well, okay, is the A group bigger or smaller than the B group? So that's kind of what QTL mapping is. We do statistics to associate the marker and we show it as a lot score. We already talked about that. And then had likelihoods are plotted for every marker on the chromosome, we already saw this. And then in RQGL, I also showed you how to load the library. So we load the library, we load the dataset and in RQGL, you have to scan one function to do a QTL scan if you don't wanna do the t-test yourself or if you don't wanna do the other tests, right? And then you get, you call the plot function and then the plot function generates this. So there are some serious limitations in QTL mapping, right? One of the things that when I started my PhD really was difficult for me to deal with is that QTL mapping only considers a single phenotype at a time, right? So we're only looking at yield or flowering time or some other phenotype which we associate. And it requires the phenotype to show significant differences, right? If we want to QTL map the locus on the genome which controls the tail in ice, we can do that for tail length, right? Because every mouse has a slightly different length of tail. But every mouse has a tail. So we'll never be able to find the gene which controls if you have a tail or if you don't have a tail because every mouse has a tail. The same thing holds for eyes, right? Everyone has two eyes. So doing a QTL mapping for the number of eyes, well, not so much the number of eyes because that might vary. Well, not based on heritability of course, but so had that the phenotype needs to show significant differences. And the problem is is that a lot of the phenotypes which are really, really interesting do not show any difference, right? Every human has hair. So figuring out where the locus is that controls hair or no hair is of course very hard to determine. And one of the other big drawbacks in QTL mapping and we didn't talk about this before is that when you have two phenotypes which are very correlated to each other, like the length of your arm versus the length of yourself then they result into very similar QTL profiles because the phenotype vectors are highly correlated to each other and because the longer you are, the longer your arms are, the load side that it will come up with are very similar. And of course that is genetically or like biologically that makes sense but for some things this is really annoying, right? Because generally we're interested in like where differences are controlled for and we also want to know for example where in the genome do we find the gene that controls if you have a tail or not? So one phenotype at a time there needs to be significant differences and highly correlated phenotypes result in a very similar QTL profile which just means that you cannot distinguish load side that make you grow bigger from load side which make your arm grow longer. So that's just a drawback. So imagine two phenotypes which are very highly linked, right? So imagine that I am a plant biologist or I am a farmer and I am growing corn, right? And I'm very interested in the yield of my corn so the amount of grain that I get from a single plant and the susceptibility to infection. Then these two things are highly correlated to each other because bigger yields generally mean a higher susceptibility to infection. And this is something that we have seen in many, many phenotypes. And here's one of these examples where people looked at wheat yields and the yields of wheat plants across the years, right? So you see here that, well, initially there was no real like improvement, right? Because we just did race selection and then we did pedigree selection to kind of improve our plants. But when we started like in 1955 using scientific breeding and especially in the 1980s with the advent of QTL mapping people figured out which locations on the genome of this plant controlled the yield. And we've been doing this now for like 20 years and the yields are decreasing, right? You see that in the beginning when we started QTL mapping we had a very high or very rapid improvement in the amount of food that we could make out of a square acre of a field. But this has been more or less stabilizing since like 2000, 2005. So we found the initial outside that we're controlling the phenotype, we selected the animals for having positive load psi, but in the end we selected this a couple of times and now we're in a situation where our plants are more or less optimal and there's this kind of improving plant yield further also makes them more susceptible which makes that the yield goes down again. And this is a very serious problem in science and in production as well, right? Because the way that we as humans live on this planet is that every year we need more resources because there's more humans. So we want this increase that we get from the scientific breeding approach or more or less the selection approach using QTL mapping and these kinds of things to continue improving. But we can because the more we improve our plants the more susceptible they become the less yield we get in the end, right? So at the beginning of my PhD I thought long and hard about this and I said that no, we should find a different method, right? Because we are interested in these two things at the same time, the susceptibility on the one hand and the yield on the other hand and these two things are coupled together so we want to instead of map the differences in mean we would want to map where this correlation is breaking, right? Because if we find a genetic locus where the correlation breaks then we can actually select for this locus and then we can continue improving without suffering the effect from the susceptibility. So that's why I define CTL mapping as a correlated trait locus, CTL which is very poorly chosen in retrospect because CTL also stands for cytotoxic T cell and there's a lot of literature about cytotoxic T cells and their literature amount is improving. So no one can find my method. So everyone who searched for CTL mapping on Google gets like genome-wide associations where people use cytotoxic T cell. So it's very poorly chosen. But a correlated trait locus is a section of the DNA so a locus in the DNA which is associated with differences in correlation between phenotypes. So CTL mapping is very similar to CTL mapping. It's just the differences is that it's multi-phenotype. So instead of looking at a single phenotype at a time, we're looking at pairs of phenotypes. And what we want to do is we want to identify genetic regions where there's a difference in the phenotype to phenotype correlation, conditional on the genetic marker that we're currently looking at. And of course, it's an unbiased data-driven method which no prior information so there's no type of bias that flows into it. The same thing as CTL mapping, we just measure the genotypes, we measure the phenotypes and then we do the association analysis and CTL mapping is similar in that sense. So there's no like iterative process or these kinds of things involved. So the idea that I, when I came up with the ideas what that CTL mapping should be applied in classical selection in breeding to improve the economically interesting phenotypes. So the idea was that you select for a beneficial CTL locus similar to QTL. So in the case of yield and susceptibility you want to break them, right? So you want a locus at which these two phenotypes are not showing any correlation because if they are showing correlation and you're selecting for it then the next generation will still show correlation, right? And the idea is that by selecting for these beneficial loci where the correlation breaks you can break the linkage. So the correlation between these phenotypes in the next generation. When we started doing this, we also figured out that when we combine correlated trade load side together with quantitative trade load side we can build kind of a phenotype by phenotype causal network. And I'm not going to talk much about that but I want to talk about this initial idea that by trying to find load side at which two phenotypes which are normally highly correlated are now not showing any correlation and then selecting for that locus will be able to break this linkage. So that's the thing, right? So the yield plateau tells us that both phenotypes yield and susceptibility because they are highly correlated with each other you will get the exact same QTL profile, right? So when you select for high yield you will also select for increasing susceptibility which you don't want because that means that you have to use more and more chemicals to get rid of all of the bugs every time. So the idea is that CTL mapping finds load side where correlation between yield and susceptibility is lost we can then use the CTL information to break the correlation between yield and susceptibility. So how does this look? So this was one of my figures from my thesis where I just said, well, this is a simulation. And so if we have phenotype A which is the yield of the plant we have phenotype B which is the susceptibility. We have the AA genotypes which show strong correlation, right? The same correlation that we see overall in the population and we have here the BB genotype which shows low to no correlation which you can see that there's no, like it's just a cloud of points and there's no straight line, right? So if you see a picture like this which genotype should we breed? Should we breed the AA individuals or should we breed the BB individuals? So that's a question to you guys in chat if you're still listening, right? So that was the whole idea behind it, right? That if you have two phenotypes which are highly correlated overall at each marker you look at the correlation between the individuals which are AA and the individuals which are BB and then you will find if you're lucky a locus in the genome where these two highly correlated phenotypes are not correlated. So in this case, of course if you wanna breed the next generation you want to breed individuals which are BB at this locus, right? Because the BB shows no correlation and in this case we have a positive phenotype linked with a negative phenotype. We can also have like a negative phenotype linked with a negative one and then of course you would probably want to have the correlation and show the lower tail, right? So select the CTL genotype to unlink two phenotypes and in the next generation we should show a decrease of correlation between the phenotypes and this allows again in the next generation to select high yield without increasing the susceptibility, right? And then in the next generation you would just select individuals based on CTL information like you would normally do. So the methodology here I explain it using recombinant red lines. There is a package on a crumb which actually is called CTL and this package handles many more complex crosses. So I just explain it here using AA and BB individuals but it also works if you have an F2 population where you have AA, AB and BB individuals. So recombinant in red lines I had the example here is assuming that I have four phenotypes which have been measured and I have six genetic markers, right? So I have four different phenotypes and six genetic markers and at every locus, right? At every marker there an individual can have either AA or BB just to simplify it for the presentation. So the way that this methodology works is first you select a phenotype called P1, right? So that's your first phenotype. Then you select a genetic marker. So the first one, right? You split the individuals into two groups by their genotype. So you have a group of individuals which at the first marker is AA and then you have a group of individuals which at the first marker is BB. So you have a population for example of 100 animals and 50 of them go into group one. 50 of them are in group two because these 50 have AA, these 50 have BB. Then what you do is you calculate your correlation for both the AA and the BB genotype. What you do is you do P1 times all of the phenotype correlation vector, right? So you just say, well, calculate the correlation of your phenotype P1 with the phenotypes which are showing AA, right?  So phenotype one, of course, shows a correlation of one to phenotype one because two things which are equal always have a correlation of one. P1 and P2 at this marker show 0.1 correlation, P1 and P3, 0.5, P4, 0.8, right? So here P1 and P4 are highly correlated at this marker. You do the same thing for the BB individuals, right?  Of course, P1 versus P1 is still one. And for the other three phenotypes, you also get a correlation. So correlation in the AA individuals, correlation in the BB individuals. So then the next step is just to define the effect size, right? So the effect size in QTL is defined as the difference in the mean between the AA group and the BB group. But in CTL mapping, the CTL effect size is calculated or defined as the difference in correlation between the AA and the BB groups, right? Just like QTL, but now instead of looking at the difference in mean, we're looking at the difference in correlation between phenotype, right? And to make it easy, we're just going to take the absolute difference, right? So not negative and positive, we're just going to say that, like the absolute difference, right? So minus 0.1 becomes 0.1. So when we do that, so here we have the two vectors from before, and now we just calculate the difference vector. So of course, P1, because the correlation of P1 to P1 is of course, one and one, the difference is zero. The difference from P1 in AA to P1 to P2 in BB is 0.1, 0.20, 0.7, right? So we just take the difference, so we just subtract these two vectors from each other. Then the next step, of course, is now we have mapped one marker is to do all of the markers, right? So what I do is I take the vector that I just had and just put it on its side, right? So now here we have the markers in the columns and we have the different phenotypes in the rows, right? So this is the result from the last slide. You can check that it's 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.7, and indeed here you see the same thing, right? And then this is the difference vector for matrix two, difference vector for marker three, difference vector for marker four, and so on. And like I told you, we assume that we only have six, right? So I repeat this calculation for every genetic marker, so multiple difference vector for our selected phenotype. Of course, that when we map P1 against P1, it will only will shield the difference of zero, right? So we could have not mapped this and just skipped it, but just for completeness sake, I just wanna show you the whole matrix. Let me get a sip of water. It's been a long lecture. All right, so here we map P1 against P1, always a zero, and of course for the other phenotypes, we don't get that. So now we need to of course find what is significant, right? Is this difference of 0.6 in correlation is that a significant difference? So what we do is we repeat the same thing at 10,000 times. Just like I showed you guys for QTL, is we break the link between genotype and phenotype, right? So in this case, we're just assigning genotype vectors at random to the individuals, just like we did before in QTL mapping, but in QTL mapping, we assigned the phenotypes randomly, right? But now since we have two phenotypes, we want an individual, so the two phenotypes of the individual to stay the same, but now we just give it a random genotype vector in the end, right? So we redo the whole analysis, we remember the maximum score, and then we make a distribution out of it, and then we find our 5% and 1% thresholds for significant values, right? It's just the same way. So we're just gonna permute ourselves out of problems by just saying, I'm just gonna, instead of assigning a new phenotypic value for each individual based on the fact that we have, we're now just gonna assign like a new genotype. So, CTL uses 10,000 plus permutations to assign significant of course in the package because I did study this stuff for four years. I also devised a method to directly calculate your p-value using mathematics. So of course, we then convert, so we convert the differences in correlation that we see to probability values. So how likely is it that there is a real correlation difference at that point? And then we do the next step, which is just saying the same as QTL where we convert the p-value to the lot score. So we just take the minus log 10 of the p-value. So by converting this, have we performed QTL mapping for P1 as well? So because we have the data anyway, so we have P1, which we can CTL map against the four phenotypes that we have, but we can of course also just do the QTL mapping, right? So for P1, we get four vectors of lot scores from CTL mapping, right? So every correlation difference is transformed into a lot score. And beside that, we have the information about P1 itself, right? So because we can also associate P1 with every one of the six markers that we have. So how does this then look? So this is the way that we visualize it. So we take our QTL curve of P1 and we just plot it on the top and then we take the CTL curves of P1 versus the other phenotypes, which we see on the bottom, right? So on the bottom is the lot score the negative lot score of the CTL score. And of course, on the bottom, we then see four or five or six or seven lines, no matter how many phenotypes we had. All right, so that was the CTL mapping method. It's a relatively easy thing, right? And in the end, we find load psi in the genome where we see that there's, for example, a QTL controlling the variation in P1, but we also see that at this locus, P1s loses correlation with some of the other phenotypes. Let me actually pull up one of the other presentations that I did about CTL mapping where we use some real data, right? Just to show you guys how we can use this information. It should be somewhere in presentations. CTC, transmission ratio distortion, here. So let me open this up and please swap that. Just swap the PowerPoint. Yes, I can. So let's go to properties and then switch to this one, right? So what we were looking at here is in Arbidopsis-Taliana, we have metabolites and these metabolites are known to be in a linear pathway. So we have something called hydroxypropyl, which is then using an enzyme is transformed into a methyl sulfonilpropyl and then using another enzyme, this is transformed into methyl teopropyl, right? So it's just three metabolites with two enzymes in the middle. There is a major regulator of this pathway on chromosome five and all of this was known, right? So then I did the CTL mapping, right? So the first plot that I'm going to show you is, and remember the colors, right? So it's green, red, orange, right? So green is on the top of the network, then green gets transformed into red and red gets transformed into orange. So here we see the QTL profile of hydroxypropyl on the top, right? So we see that there's a major regulator of the difference in hydroxypropyl on chromosome five. The same thing holds for chromosome four. There's a marker on chromosome four, which also controls the hydroxypropyl concentration in the plant. But then we start seeing that if we do the CTL mapping with methyl sulfonilpropyl and methyl teopropyl, right? So the red one and the orange one, we see that we do find a little locus on chromosome one. And that is strange, right? Because we never had any indication from QTL mapping that something on chromosome one was actually driving the hydroxypropyl region. But we do get the idea that, well, there is something on one which makes hydroxypropyl lose its regulation or lose its correlation with the other two phenotypes that we're looking at. And we see the same thing on chromosome five, right? So on chromosome five, we learn nothing new because we already knew that there was a major driver of this network. When we then look at the middle phenotype of the middle metabolite in a pathway, methyl sulfonilpropyl, what we see is now, hey, that's interesting. There is a little QTL on chromosome one for the middle phenotype. So there is something on chromosome one which is controlling the concentration of the middle phenotype. Of course, there's also something on chromosome five, which is kind of passed down, right, from the initial one. So the initial concentration of hydroxypropyl is transformed into methyl sulfonilpropyl, right? So the more you have at the beginning, of course, the more you have from the intermediate product as well. So here we also see the CTL line and we indeed see that at this locus, we do get the idea that, yes, no, that there is correlation between the amounts of sulfonilpropyl of a hydroxypropyl, sulfonilpropyl and the teopropyl. So when we then look at teopropyl, now we see something interesting because if you look at the top, we see that when we do the QTL mapping of this phenotype, we don't know where the concentration of this metabolite is controlled from. There are no significant regions. So if I would do an experiment using methyl teopropyl measurements, right, and I would scan across the genome, I would learn that there is no locus that is controlling the concentration of methyl teopropyl. However, if we look at the CTL map, we do see that we get significant load sign. So we do see that the method tells us there is something on chromosome five, which is influencing the correlation of teopropyl, hydroxypropyl and methyl sulfonilpropyl, right? And the same thing again on chromosome one. So what we see is that for the first two phenotypes, we don't really learn anything new except for that there is something going on on chromosome one for hydroxypropyl. We learn for the middle one, we don't learn anything or not that much because we already knew that there was something on chromosome five controlling it. But for the last one, we don't get any QTL. And because we get no QTL as a geneticist, you're stuck here. You cannot say what's happening to teopropyl. But we can from CTL mapping, we learned that no, if you wanna influence this phenotype, you have to be on chromosome five. And there might be something on chromosome one which can also influence it. So the idea is that we have this network, right? So this network is driven. So if we combine the QTL information that we get, so on chromosome five, we see that the strongest association with chromosome five is with hydroxypropyl. Then the lot score, then because the concentration of this one influences the concentration of this one. So we can still see the effect of the chromosome five locus on this one. But we learn that this effect of chromosome five is not a direct effect. It is an indirect effect. It goes via hydroxy. So the thing on chromosome five is not directly influencing material sulfonylpropyl. It is influencing hydroxypropyl and that in turn is influencing material sulfonylpropyl. So the exact same thing, have we then find for this locus here? We don't find any direct association of chromosome five with this phenotype, but based on the CTL and the strength of the CTL, right? Because the thickness of the line determines the strength. We now learn and we now start seeing that indeed this is kind of a linear network, right? Because we see that the red metabolite should be in between the two because there is a very strong CTL from the red one, from the green one to the red one. But from the green one to the yellow one, it is much lower. And from the red one to the yellow one, it's also lower, but it's still detectable, right? So we can start building up this causal network and seeing that indeed the network should be hydroxypropyl, causes changes in sulfonylpropyl, which then causes changes in methyl teopropyl. And without CTL mapping, we would have never looked at chromosome five for this phenotype because there is no direct association. Only based on the correlation, can you see that the correlation is lost at that point. Good. So that's the whole big idea. That's what people gave me my doctor title for. Seems not much, but was a lot of work. Was a lot of work to do all of this. And thank you guys for actually staying until the end, right? So you can see that I actually use the same phenotype in this presentation as well. But the idea is that CTL mapping is only a part of the puzzle. CTL mapping gives you direct effects on the means of phenotype. But in the end, it's not about single phenotypes. It's about the relationship between phenotypes and how genetic loci kind of modify these relationships. Good. So that was what I wanted to tell you today. So for today, just as a quick overview, we did phenotypes, heritability. I tried to explain to you guys what CTL mapping is and how you need to use experimental crosses. I told you guys about GWAS. I didn't tell you about the BFMI. It will be in the slides that I upload, but I just skipped that part. And I will talk to you about CTL mapping. Also, the fine mapping part is not directly in the presentation because I skipped it today because we were kind of running out of time because we took an hour for the assignments. All right, so for me, that's it for today. If there's any questions, remarks, other things, then please let me know, throw it in the chat. I think all of the four guys that made it to the end, like you're amazing. Thank you for being here. And of course, for my moderator, who's also probably still here. Bacon, Misha, thank you guys for joining and staying until the end. That was it for me. It's five, so people on YouTube, see you on the flip side. So, see you next time.


I want to say good morning to everyone and welcome to our session on mental illness in poetry. Since April is Poetry Month, it seems appropriate to include poetry in this conference on identity and mental illness. In this session, I'm going to share some general information with you about the relationship between mental illness and poetry. Then our guest panelists will read poetry for you to think about. I'd like you to feel free to comment as you hear or read the poems. You can get the poems individually as text on a note card by clicking this red poster once. Don't click it again. If you click it twice, you won't get the note cards. So let's begin. Where can we turn to learn about the relationship between poetry and mental illness? There are two kinds of experts. One group of experts would be the poets themselves. What did they say? This is a quote. Men have called me mad, but the question is not yet settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence. Whether much that is glorious, whether all that is profound does not spring from disease of thought for moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. Thus Seath Edgar Allen Poe, who was one of the dreary dark poets of depression, also stated of his life that I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity. Now there's a poet who embraced his mental illness. Another group of experts would be academic researchers. We like him, so I'm glad. One you may want to look into is James C. Kaufman, if you're interested in this topic. In 2011, Kaufman reported an historic historiometric research study that means he looked back in history of 1,629 writers. He found that female poets were statistically significantly more likely to suffer from mental illness than female fiction writers. Female poets were also more likely to be mentally ill than male writers of any type. Kaufman also closely studied 520 eminent women, including poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, visual artists, politicians and actresses. Thanks, Rayvon. Yet again, Kaufman found that female poets were statistically significantly more likely to experience mental illness than any other famous women. He called this the Sylvia Plath Effect. Who is this Sylvia Plath? We will hear from her in a few minutes. I'm going to now introduce our poetry readers, who are Suelen and James Hartzong. They are both virtual ability members. They were first a couple in second life and now they are married in real life. I invited them to read these poems today because they're both very stable, yet emotional people. I'm proud to have met them in the physical world. I am going to warn the audience now that these poems are emotionally tough. They may contain triggers for people who are susceptible to such things. There's no rough language in the poetry, but I have to say sometimes the imagery is going to be a little challenging for some of us. So please accept that warning. If you need to leave, you can do that and return in an hour for the next session. If you could, if you get disturbed, you can leave at any time and you don't need to excuse yourself. Just TP out. James, this is the place. Did you have something to say about yourself and these poems? Yes, thank you, gentlemen. I'm going to paste this and read it. My wife and I, we are both survivors, but I used to run a group for survivors. And one of the things I offered was we used to be victims. Over time, we became survivors. Now we can move on to a new category where we can be called thrivers. This was an important part of my personal recovery, dealing with PTSD and similar issues. So hopefully we won't trigger anyone. As general said, if you need to, please feel free to leave without notice and return for the next session. Thank you. And I want to thank you, James, for that very supportive thought. That's a wonderful thought. So now let's get onto the poetry. That's why you're here. Feel free audience to add information about your reactions to the poem and to talk about how it reveals the author's sense of identity as a person with mental health issues. And you can just type those into local chat. Our first author, Jessica Lau, is a young contemporary poet, and I really could find any further information about her. And so I think you're going to read the first poem for us. Yes, thank you, gentle.   Why can't you see?  Everything terrifies me.   I struggle to get up every day and face even the simple tasks a person should be able to do.  I can't pretend anymore.  I used to be able to pretend I was okay.  I am not wired the same way. My mind races with million thoughts every single second minute an hour of every single day.  Anxiety, depression, ADD, a learning disability. To name a few, control me. No matter what I try to do.  When I try to say how I feel, you don't seem to understand what I am trying to say. Instead, you twist and turn my thoughts and words, taking them the wrong way.  I honestly do not know when what I am saying could be taken the wrong way.  Why can't you see past my failings?  I am slowly drifting away, trying to keep myself together, not doing good in any sort of way.  Thank you. Oh, good. I didn't have my speak, but not that was helpful. Charles Kukowski is our next poet. And he is he was a really rough guy. He was an unashamed alcoholic. He pretty much lived as a bum in the American West. He bummed around and lived with anybody he could take him in. He wrote vividly about his life, never felt ashamed of himself or his actions. And James, you're next. Okay, then. Today, I will be reading Alone with Everybody by Charles Kukowski. The flesh covers the bone, and they put a mind there and sometimes the soul. And the women break faces against the walls. And the men drink too much. And nobody finds the one. But keep looking, crawling in and out of beds. Flesh covers the bone. And the flesh searches for more than flesh. There's no chance at all. We're all trapped by a singular fate. Nobody ever finds the one. The city dumps fill, the junkyards fill, the madhouses fill, the hospitals fill, the graveyards fill. Nothing else fills. Thank you. Is that speaking to anybody else? That's a very powerful poem, I think. It here says you can't cut off the flesh, you're just trapped in. Lauren says there's a sense of isolation when you have clinical anxiety, that everyone else is going to be normal or calm. And you are not. Charles says the spirit is trapped in the body, all of us, but some of us would like to get out. And twisty says some people just don't get it. Okay, the next author, Carrie Klein. All I know about her is that she's a contemporary poet. And I couldn't find any more information about her. And I think Sue Ellen's going to read. Yes, thank you. Her poem is titled Hello, I am a person, a poem about anxiety. Hello, I am the girl in the door next to you. I really don't know how to say this. So I'm just going to just speak. Hello, I am the girl down the hall. I don't know what you've been told about me. So I am just going to speak. Hello, I am your roommate.  So I am just going to speak. Hello, I am your classmate. I don't want to bother you. So I am just going to speak. Hello, I am your classmate. Correct. Hello, I am your employee. I don't want to let you down. So I am just going to speak. Hello, I am a person. Last semester, I almost died by suicide. I am a person. Last summer, I lost people I thought were my best friends. I am a person. Last year, I was bullied. I am a person. Last year, I made mistakes. I am a person. Last year, I hurt some people. I am a person. Last year, I hurt myself more. Hello, I am a person who is afraid. Hello, I am a person who is crying out. Hello, I am a person who is sorry. Hello, I am a person who needs a friend. Hello, I am a person who is terrified. Hello, I am a person who needs help. Hello, I am a person who wants to please you. Hello, I am a person. Hello, I am a person. I don't want your pity. I don't want your stares. I don't want your false friendliness. I don't want your acceptance. I don't want anything from you. Hello, I am a person. I don't want your pity. I want your friendship. I want to be invited. I want to laugh with you. I want to watch Netflix until one in the morning with you. I want to eat in the dining room with you. I want to talk to you. I want to study with you. I want to work with you. Hello, I am a person. I don't want your pity. I want your friendship. I need it. Thank you. There's a lot of comments here. I thought it was a touching poem. I think it's pretty obvious that she's a college student. If you are a person worthy of love, people should matter. It is so very simple. She loves it. Marianne says, I think that people with anxiety feel that they have to hide it to conform with what others without anxiety expect from our personalities or behavior. So many aspects of anxiety involve expended energy trying to pretend we don't have it. And then we're tired or irritable because of that effort, which people then interpret as discord or moodiness, and it's just exhaustion. Marcus says, not wanting to be seen as wearing a badge that says anxiety or other disability is something he can identify with. And Faust reminds us that friendship is one of the finest goods. Kityara says, we're forced to hide it. And twisty seconds that. And Ice Guy says, going through the motions despite that feeling of an invisible barrier around yourself. And Shira says, why should anyone have to say I am a person in our era? Good question. Orange says, the worst is when you don't know you have it. Marianne says, she doesn't hide it anymore in her close personal relationships. They know, and it helps our relationship for them to understand how I process things with different filters and reactions. It's a relief to have people like that in your world who get it. And I will comment that these poets certainly do not hide. So let's hear another one of all of the authors today. Kurt Cobain, maybe the one you're most familiar with. But he's the founder of the band Nirvana. He was an exceptionally gifted singer and songwriter from Seattle, Washington, until this untimely death by suicide. I think we're ready for the reading. This poem is entitled dumb, like Kurt Cobain. I'm not like them, but I can pretend the sun is gone. But I have a light. The day is done. I'm having fun. I think I'm dumb. Or maybe just happy. Think I'm just happy. My heart is broke. I have some glue. Help me inhale and mend it with you. We'll float around and hang out on clouds. Then we'll come down and have a hangover. Have a hangover. In the sun, fall asleep. Wish away. The soul is cheap. Lesson learned. Wish me luck. Soothe the burn. Wake me up. I'm not like them. But I can't pretend. The sun is gone. But I have a light. The day is done. But I have having fun. I think I'm dumb. Thank you. Yeah, so it is a lovely awesome poem. And the two lines, I'm not like them, but I can pretend. That's what the last poem was talking about wasn't it? Brian says there is a strong correlation between drug and alcohol addictions and GAD. Others stick to hit people with anxiety with another weakness when it is just a desperate coping methodology. And Shaila says second time substance use has entered the equation. Yes, sniffing glue and bukkowski. Yeah, there's a lot of substance abuse in trying to self medicate your mental illness. GAD is generalized anxiety disorder. Thank you, Lori Vaughan.  They're self medication. So next on our list, John Clare. He was an English poet who lived in the mid 1800s. I'm going to go back and read those two comments. Is it abuse or an effort to treat which we can just call use rather than abuse? If we wanted to end fine solutions, don't put it on the person to be a saint and slaughtered and so forth. We are not Olympians, not all anyway. And yes, that makes sense. And Roy Ann says drugs are used to quiet the internal chatter and bring down emotions to a level where others can relate to us better after we have numbed and dumbed down. I need to have better wait time. I apologize for going ahead too fast. And ice guy reminds us of the song titled comfortably numb. So John Clare, our next poet was English. He lived in the mid 1800s. So he's the oldest poet today. He was actually institutionalized in the Northampton General lunatic asylum. They determined he was unfit for society due to years addicted to poetical prozings. He was too poetical. And he composed this poem while he was in the asylum. This poem is titled I am. I am yet what I am none cares or knows. My friends forsake me like a memory lost. I am the self consumer of my walls. They rise and vanish and oblivious host like shadows and loves frenzied stifled throws. And yet I am and live like vapors tossed into the nothingness of scorn and noise into the living sea of waking dreams, where there is neither sense of life or joys, but the vast shipwreck of my life's esteem. Even the dearest that I love the best are strange, may rather stranger than the rest. I long for scenes where man hath never trod, a place where women never smiled or whopped, there to abide with my creator God, and I sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, untroubling and untroubled where I lie, the grass below above the vaulted sky. Thank you. And just a reminder to click the red post drop here to get the new cards of the poetry.  And I sky says to Shira, we know you, we won't ever consider you too poetical. And KTR says this poem reminds her of the silent screen that only we here we long for a whisper or even a cry, it is rather powerful. And Willow and Glory Joy thought this was a good poem. And Shira says he was thrown away from writing poetry to know for sure we must see those in pain, those who ache, those who have not, those who are thrown away. And KTR is giving everybody a hug. Here's the hugs from KTR. And says once you begin to research the prevalence of anxiety and creative bent, artist, poets, writers, musicians, you'll see you are part of a very distinguished club. And NEP says, all these poems are making me feel like I don't need to take my antipsychotics anymore. I think I'm being cured. And I would not advise that NEP. Community helps, it's a good support, but it does not cure. And Shira says I write much from a paranoid perspective or a fear perspective or an aching perspective.  So our next poem is from Langston Hughes. And he was the greatest American voice of black despair in the dark days of the Jim Crow laws and legal discrimination. Yeah, I'm thinking that's my cue. Minstrel Man by Langston Hughes. Oh, hello, somebody. Who's this? Hello, Willow. Not a problem, dear. Minstrel Man by Langston Hughes. Because my mouth is wide with laughter, and my throat is deep with song. You didn't think I suffered after I have held my pain so long.   You do not know I die. Okay. And yes, Lord Vaughn, if you click this red poster, you'll get the poems delivered. Just click it once. Don't click it again. And so that people are liking that poem. If you don't know Langston Hughes, you might want to check out other poems of his. They really talk about that historic era in the US. Susan and others just reminded me. Swelling and others just reminded me that my mic was on. Sorry. Off now. All right, next we'll go to a poem by Jean Ann Verlie. She used to be a punk rocker. And she lives in New York City. She is a very well respected contemporary poet. And in fact, she was a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. And her title is called At the Junction. At the junction of manic and post traumatic stress, stand the clutch of woman I keep closest. After the assault, they usher me towards the intangible. Let go, they say. Can't be strong always. Fit, whale, riot.  Instead, I pop another abilify, abuse are 10, no longer allowed xanax. So I settle for wine, and benadryl and melatonin and wine. What they cannot understand is the anatomy of a manic girl breaking. No clean edges, no roads back. Only blood spatter, leak, voltage, sonic boom, brush fire, jail time, every day a glorious and appalling new way to burn down my own house. Here, the white pill, here, the blue, here, the sherry, the roast, the chaser, the nicotine, the kiss, fill and keep filling, swallow and swallow, keep the body occupied, keep it from igniting. Thank you. Shaila Shaila and Gloria Joy are appreciating that poem. And Kit Yara did not like that one. Kit Yara, can you want to, you want to say why you didn't like that one? And Tater says you could really feel the struggle. Kit Yara says it was too raw. Anyone else find that poem pretty raw? Big Mets said it was necessary to be that raw. Shaila likes poetry that makes her feel whether it is good or bad. It makes her feel it rings of truth. And Orianne says there are many people who can't take medication for anxiety because maybe they have health conditions or conflicting prescriptions or whatever. She feels like if we were just a little more compassionate in our societal approach to the spectrum of anxiety, we wouldn't have so many people trying to find alternative methods that are harmful to managing such as substance abuse and over the counter medications and such. And Kit Yara says that one made her feel ill. I'm sorry about that, Kit Yara. And the book says it could come off as a bit strong and she agrees with both people. And James reminds us that it's good that you can voice that feeling, Kit Yara, good that you can voice that with us. And Electra says it reminds her a bit of Ungeretti's poems where he described how he experienced World War I and Slayton agrees. Orianne says if you're emotionally reactive, you are unbalanced.  Black or white for people with anxiety. But they live in the gray. Oh, Kit Yara says in her profession, she's forced to be strong. And a poem like that hit her pretty hard. I will note that sometimes our professional lives are different than our personal lives. And as soon as saying that she agrees with Kit Yara, that was how she needed to be in her profession. Do you want to say more about that so on? You can speak. Yes, I will. In my profession, I'm a retired 911 dispatch supervisor. And we had to distance ourselves from almost 95% of our calls. So if I was dealing with someone that was suicidal, I was trained to talk them down and do my best to not let the end result happen. But I had to be able to be as calm as possible and not let it affect me. It was difficult. It's difficult for me. I have a nephew who took his life by suicide at the age of 23. And I currently have a 16 year old niece who is in the hospital and has been since February 2. Undergoing more counseling because she tried to take her life on that night and almost succeeded. And this is her fourth attempt. So yeah, I can relate. You have to be different in your professional. I could go home after a shift and just cry. Certainly, Kit Yara, we could. Thank you for letting me share that.  Maureen says in male dominated professions like hers, there is an extra level stress to suppress anxiety because women are already perceived as quote unquote too emotional. We see this in IT, STM and executive leadership stereotypes that women with anxiety face in the workplace. Slayton says sometimes our professional life is our personal one and it's hard to go out from that situation. Ouch. Shaila says in her work, she was told the worst thing a woman could do was cry, that she would never be promoted if she showed emotion, which was fine because at the time she was so sick, she was pretty numb to all feelings. She's not sure she could do that same work today. She truly believes an issue in our society is the rule that we should not show feeling in some situations that makes sense. But in all situations, not in all situations that makes sense. Lots of hugs for Suama and Kit Yara. And Kit Yara says, sometimes I think we just need someone to say, I hear you. And those are very good words. People are agreeing with you, Kit Yara. James says it is good that that we can feel though, for a long time he was not really able to feel PTSD does that to some of us.  He was literally unable to feel his emotions and actually cry until days later when he got ripped roaring drunk. Tater, yes, you can speak if you would like to. And Laurie Vaughn, you can transcribe, please. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Yeah, you know, before my disability, and I worked in a very fast paced hospital setting, worked long hours, odd hours. And just about everyone that I saw in the day had their own issues and their own demons to fight. And every single one of them, I would have to say would look at me and say, you wouldn't understand. And you know, I do. I wouldn't speak, I would just be quiet to avoid confrontation. In society, we are taught to be professional and to hold back our feelings and quote unquote, be this persona of the job description. It's so nice in poetry. You know, thank God, it's still around. Okay, thank you, Tater. Katia says her clients say the same to her. They think she's perfect. She tries to be very human, but it's hard in her role. Shala says, thank goodness, all of this is not censored here. Marianne says it's so nice to hear other women share this experience in the workplace and that feels good. I'm looking at the time and I do want to keep to our time. X reminds us the female gender is superior women are queens of the world. So we have a woman poet next, it's Alyssa Elliot. She is a young contemporary poet, who was a college student. And she is pursuing a degree in theological research, which is an area I've never heard of. So we'll proceed to our next poem. The thing about depression is by Alyssa Elliot. The thing about depression is that some days, you feel fine. You feel what is considered normal. It's easy to eat, sleep, wake.  He'll eat you like a vulture devours corpse, no matter how hard you try.  You're afraid to.  You're afraid if you stop, you won't be able to start again. So you run, run, run away from problems that need to be addressed, from wrongdoing stunts you, from mistakes you made. And even the wonderful things of life, love, laughter and sweet friendships. Eventually you hit a wall and crash. You can't keep going. And instead you find yourself back to where you began. Except this time, everything you ran from catches up to you.  And yet, those bright things in life, well, they break through. Like a candle in a subterranean cave, they eliminate the first step forward. It seems impossible, but there it is, and you crawl. You tread failure to drag yourself toward that light anyway. You use every bit of strength you can muster.  That you aren't worth it.  Because in that time that you were running, you saw the light out of this darkness. You glimpse life outside the pit your soul's captured in. You believe the light is out there, that life of freedom is worth it with all your being.  That's what depression feels like. Thank you. I'm just going to ask if that poem is an accurate depiction of everyone's depression. Shaila says, a friend said people see her as running, but she's really crawling. That hit something inside twisty and orange and a lot of other people, apparently. Glory Joyce says, being a professional, this relates very well. Big guy says he doesn't believe that's a poem. And Lori says to Shaila, that's a good analogy. And everybody is saying it's not a depiction of everybody's depression. Orange remembers he was clinically depressed for 40 years. Lucy says it's not always so strong. And yes, our readers are reading with great emotion. That is, that is one of their strengths. Jack says this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. She started to sing that after the poem. Kit Yara says it doesn't fit her, but it's still very powerful. And not all depression is the same. And that's important for us to know. Net asks if poetry can replace Sarah Quell. Orlando says it's powerful and depressing in itself. Orlando, what do you mean? How is the poem depressing in itself? Oh, Sarah Quell is powerful and depressing, Net says. Orlando says the poem made me think of my own and my son's depression. And Taylor reminds us that this is the analogy. This is the analogy of the cave is, oh, is that Plato, I think? Luke says that was not and is not how depression feels to her. Net misses the voices. Dee says when I get depressed, he smokes bombs. Sarah Quell killed Net's friends. I think there are alternative experiences in depression, Abby reminds us. Loren says there's little understanding about high functioning anxiety or depression. People can hide it very well on the outside if they have to. That doesn't mean that they are okay. In fact, many people who self harm do so because they're fearful of being seen as immobilized by mental illness. And so they don't get therapy or help. They try to hide it. While internally, they are self damaging to cope.  And Tater says that's an allegory. Willow reminds us there are other ways to cope. Drawing helps Willow. I'm not sure I understand that big guy. James wants to say this, what he got from this poem is that no matter how bad things get, we can still remember that we can keep on striving to free ourselves. Nip says was never alone until I started taking the pills. Now I am so alone. It's so quiet. I think you're going to enjoy some of the other poems we have. Nip, speak to that. Okay, we're going to go on to a poem by Jeremy Tremblay. And he is a young heavy equipment operator from Ontario, Canada. One of our male poets, Lauren says, creativity is a great vent to Willow getting it out without fear of being judged. Hence the link between creative expression and mental illness or anxiety syndromes. And Jeremy writes poetry to express his life experience with mental illness. And his poem is titled My life with anxiety, a poem. Every morning is waking up to another day of thinking, putting myself down. Nothing else but a smile covering a sad man. The headaches, nervous stomach, the tingling feeling in your body, the weakness in my legs, the feeling of going crazy, the chest pains, incapable of sleeping, all this because of my dear friend, anxiety, thinking of different subjects in my mind throughout the day, the feeling of losing someone you love so much, and she probably doesn't even care. Everything I do to make someone happy always seems to turn out to a mess. Trying your best to get better, but the closest person you have has no time doesn't encourage you. All I see is people walking away. I never thought I was good enough for anyone. I think about a lot about who really cares about me, and who will support me. I don't want people thinking this is a joke. All I want is to be good, and to be the best example for my amazing son. After all, one day of thinking is gone by and feeling very possible mood. Every possible mood goes to bed the same tired and sad man who cries himself to sleep. I will never give up my life with anxiety. Thank you. Was that only about anxiety? I think it was about a lot more his emotions, lost love, trying to be a good example for his son maybe. There's a lot in that poem. Peck says, sometimes people believe men don't have emotions. Kichira adds, it was living to fight through another day. And that poem, Tater says, leaves the door open for all to relate. Let's let's move on to a type of mental illness. This is Anna Claire Martin. She is a film student from Washington, DC.  Explaining my post-traumatic stress disorder in poetry by Emma Claire Martin. My brain is a broken time machine. The story telling in the wind. The page is blown back and forth, chapter eight, giving way to chapter three. Familiar scenes refused to stay on the left side of the bookmark. My brain is an archaeologist, is fussed, learning to breathe, and ancient buried memories breaking through the crust of the earth. This is a rewind button and an escalator changing direction at whim.  It is no behind fingers as much to class. And memories secured in elegant golden frames. Those nights sealed and paint on canvas, never to fade, never to fade.  It is monuments built over bruised skin. It is tears unholy ground. It is historic preservation and a gift shop. Cave paintings I keep going back to like spontaneous pilgrimage. Shrine towards I never said.  I'm still sifting through the ashes. Still following the scent of burning wood. Thank you. And that of course is a very strong poem. Stephanie likes the poems. And Tater does too. Lauren says men have that societal filter to she's guilty of that stereotype that men should be tough and strong rather than emotional. It must be so hard for men with anxiety. So many expectations thrust at them. This reminds us as we learned from our first speaker that a lot depends on the culture. Looking at the clock. Can we do that later? I'm going to go on. We want to hear from Yoshi Brown. Yoshi Brown is a spoken word poet who advocates for those with mental illness like herself. Thank you, Kateria. A lot of comments on this one. Yoshi Brown is the niece of Michael Jackson. Oh, lovely. Thank you second life. We're going to start with the niece of Michael Jackson, Yoshi Brown. And this is titled I've had to pick myself up. I've had to pick myself up at my bootstraps one last time. Once the strap comes up, rock bottom will throw in the towel. Influently resigned to a bit of mine. So I flex every muscle grew the strap for all times.  So what do I do? Let go. Thank you. We're going to go on I apologize. I put the wrong note card in there got a little lag. And we're going to go on to Sylvia Plath. Goodness gracious things are going strangely. Sylvia Plath was an American poet. I told you we get back to her later. She also wrote short stories and a novel.  So we'll go on to her poem. Sorry, folks. Somebody was advising me in an I am that I said something inappropriate. I apologize if I did I have no idea but let's get on with the training. Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath. I have done it again. One year and every 10 I manage it.  Oh, my enemy, do I terrify? The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth. The sour breath will vanish in a day. Soon soon the flash, the gravecade eight will be at home on me. And I, a smiling woman, I'm only 30.  This is number three.  What a million filaments, the peanut crunching crowd just in to see them unwrap me hand and foot, the big strip tease, gentlemen, ladies. These are my hands, my knees, and maybe skin and bone. Nevertheless, I am the same identical woman. The first time it happened I was 10. It was an accident. The second time I meant to last it out and not come back at all. I rocked it shut. As a seashell, they had to call in and call and pick the worms off of me like sticky pearls. Dying is in an art like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.  I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've called. It's easy enough to do it in the cell. It's easy enough to do it and stay put. It's the theatrical. Come back in broad day to the same place, the same face, the same brute amused shout. A miracle that knocks me out. There is a charge. For the line of my scars, there's a charge for the hearing of my heart. It really goes.   So so had a doctor. So had an enemy. I am your opus and your valuable pure gold baby that melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash Ash you poke and stir. Flesh bone. There is nothing there. A cake of soap or wedding ring, a gold filling. You gotta go to Lucifer. Beware. Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair. And I even like hair. Thank you. And we have one last poem and then we're going to clear the stage for our next speaker. Thank you all for participating so well today. This poem's title is the first day's night had come. The first day's night had come. And grateful that a thing. So terrible had been endured. I told my soul to sing. She said her strings were snapped. Her bow to Adam's blown. And so meant her gave me work until another morn. And then a day is huge as yesterday's in pairs. Unroll the tour in my face until it blocked my eyes.    And something's odd within that person that I was. And this one do not feel the same. Could it be madness this? Thank you. Thank you so Ellen and James. And thank you to our audience for sharing so much today. We really appreciated it. Thank you. Now we'll clear the stage for Mohammed.


This is Witchspace news for Friday the 10th of July 2020, I'm CMDR Buur In this weeks news, there's a patch coming next week, Frontier reacts to the AXI community goal, there's a player initiative to bring improvements to CQC and more If you enjoy this video consider subscribing to the channel and also click the little bell icon to make sure you don't miss any of our future videos, that stuff really helps us smaller creators. Frontier announced yesterday that a new patch will be coming to the game next week, in the announcement they stated that the plan is for the patch notes to drop on Monday the 13th of July with the patch itself following on Wednesday the 15th of July. Whilst there's no word on exactly what is planned for the patch yet, a mining exploit has been proving problematic for them to fix so it's likely that that will be addressed again at the very least. As you may be aware as part of their quest to try and make the Thargoid an endangered species the AXI player group are running an ambitious entirely player-driven community goal right now utilizing the commodity market on their official squadron fleet carrier. With its own webpage, completion, tracking and promotional video the effort put in and the work involved has not gone unnoticed at Frontier and the company has stepped up with a one-time only ship decal reward for anyone delivering a Thargoid heart to the fleet carrier as part of the community goal. Frontier has been tracking progress since the beginning and if you've already delivered a heart you'll be included in those stats however there is still tons of work to do to make sure the goal is completed on time. As of this recording the goal still needs over 8,000 hearts to be delivered before the now extended end date of the 20th of August. That's a serious amount of dead Thargoids but one awesome decal. There's a new player initiative to shine a light on the somewhat maligned and underutilized CQC portion of Elite Dangerous right now. Suggestions on how the arena portion of the game can be improved are currently being encouraged and compiled in a special channel in the CQC Discord server. The plan is to collate all the responses and submit them to Frontier to aid any potential forward development of the standalone PVP arena matches. In case you're unaware you can now queue for CQC matches from the social panel of the main game while you're in your ship. Participation in the matches is entirely fighter and small ship based and has no detrimental effect on the main game whatsoever. You can't lose any ships or credits etc from participation in CQC and getting killed in a CQC match won't set you back at a starport. The two are almost entirely separate entities. By coincidence here at the pit we recently held an impromptu CQC evening having never really tried it out properly before just to see what it was like and found it to be really good fun. In fact our normally placid camera operator Commander Rene discovered a serious affiliation for firing laser cannons and developed a significant bloodlust during the event. It was so much fun in fact that we're planning on doing another one really soon. To add your thoughts to the CQC improvement discussion there's a link to the CQC Discord server below. There's a project underway from commander pseudonymous Cypher on Reddit to collate any overlapping tritium hot spots throughout the galaxy and add them to their clickable and searchable web resource essentially creating a tritium database for long distance carriers to use for refuelling. A truly invaluable tool for any carrier based exploration the companion app is linked below. The elite community is never short of high quality fan created content for their favorite space sim and in that vein the Fangs webcomic released its latest edition this week if you've not checked out Fangs before it really is a hell of a thing to behold and this latest edition that tells the story of a Cobra pilot lost in which space has seriously upped the already ludicrously high bar that Fangs has set for itself. Don't miss out it's linked in the description below. And finally after three months 759,000 light years nearly 124,000 bodies scanned and well in excess of 10,000 jumps we're very pleased and seriously humbled to report that the apparently utterly unstoppable commander Zibadian has completed their latest project to once again create art on the face of the galaxy. This time the logo of this very YouTube channel. Commander we salute you and are frankly in awe of your determination dedication and patience thank you Zibs from everyone here you are simply amazing that's it for now thanks very much for watching we'll be back later this week with more videos until then 07 commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack we very much look forward to seeing you next time


So if through poor planning you may occasionally accidentally bump into another boat So we're gonna see what happens there and see how you can evade or in the case of the orcs how you can ram them So you're gonna try and accidentally smash into me and we'll see what happens there Yeah, so I'm I'm badly positioned with this ship So I you know in its in its move is gonna have to go straightforward, which means it's going to hit this So the point here with it with the Collide we both have to make an evade test, right because Unlike what orcs love to hit other things, but they don't potentially really like being hit themselves So and certainly other other fleets really don't like having their boats smashed up. Yes chance of sinking So you make both both boats make a skill test, which is an evade roll As long as one of them passes, yeah, and the ships will avoid each other Okay, they both fail they will collide right With terrain terrain will always fail. It's evade roll Okay, only got the ship that's moving to try and try and get out the way and what do you need it? You get plus one to this so we're both regular crew, which is normally a five so we both on fours. Okay try and avoid it So I failed But I have yes at this point Okay, so I would I would complete my move step If I could if I couldn't if I couldn't clear you with my move step, then I stop short Okay But then because because the because the ships evades each other I can then carry on come on I stop short I turn the smallest amount so then avoid you with any further movement.  You're gonna effectively anchor but you collide into each other So let's now reverse it. Yeah, and do what the orcs do best, which is ram you so what would happen? I would just come I'm going straight forwards and you'd come in you'd stop obviously where I am. Yeah Just there yeah Now I've got I still have a chance to evade yeah So that's pretend I fail because what's this anyway? Oh, yeah, there we go great Fated so I failed so you now hit me. Yeah now in terms of so the damage we both start with one D10 Okay Now if one ship is bigger than the other for every size category that ship gets another D10 Okay, so you're a medium and I'm a small so that's another dice you get yes And because you've got the ram rule yeah two in brackets You're gonna add plus two to the amount of damage that you do Okay, so if I got two rather than two guys. Oh, okay If I got ram one Okay, fine, so they're not adding they don't add a lot more damage Yeah, but the but the fact is that they can ram in the first place anyway Yeah, and then they can initiate a boarding action. Okay. Yeah, so they hit they do damage and then they'll pour on board Okay, fantastic. I'm again. We need sixes for this one You're rolling here, and this is literally the amount of damage that you're causing. Oh, okay, right, okay So that's a little so I got six and nine dean to me. Yeah I only I do eight back to you. Now. Remember you're 15 plus two so 17 So I'm my structure points are 20 in my nose 15. So I'm already crippled right point So the point you now board me I'm down to half a tax as well. Okay, so as you can see it's quite quite Devastating yes, I mean the orcs. I mean, I guess that's their tactic, isn't it really to Ram stuff pretty much. Yeah, so I mean I did I did eight back to you But you know, you kind of shrug that off really okay, but I mean the serious trouble. Okay this point Wow, so ramming is all the orc players out there definitely need to be ramming everything Yes, apart from islands avoid islands And there's no criticals or anything like that for this one Not on this one though. Well, there we go. So there's ramming. So I think we've pretty much covered evading ramming Obviously if that was an island, you'd just be rolling to evade and then what happens with damage if you hit the island there Do you roll to see what? Yes, so this So the island obviously itself won't won't take any damage So it causes it causes to the ship that hits it one D ten of damage for each Size of ship right an Excel ship hits it it takes 5d 10 damage Okay, wow, but if a small you know the small ship hits it then it's only 2d 10 damage and say if you Survived here. Now, we're are we gonna locked in to combat now? Not this one. So at this point you could then you would then still be Grappling me. Yeah, which case I'd go this smallest amount you pull me round to the side like that Oh, okay board me fine, and then if you manage to survive that next turn. Can you sail off or I'd have to make a Well, you're there. So I'm crippled at this point But anyway, yeah, I would have to try to avoid surrendering to you because there's a bigger ship medium-sized ship Or you know within 10 inches if I pass that I could then try another skill test to try and disengage and sail away Yeah, depending on the initiative, you know, you might then catch me up That that being crippled is in serious trouble. Yeah, okay Fantastic. Okay. I think I've got the hang of ramming. I'll be doing that all the time So I think we'll probably just wrap up and see what else we've got to look at


Income tax 2023-2024. Business credits. Get ready and some coffee, because contrary to popular belief, you need a strong imagination to do income tax preparation 2023-2024. Most of this information, first a word from our sponsor.  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Okay, it's an improvement If you would like a commercial free experience consider subscribing to our website at accounting Instruction.com or accounting Instruction.thinkific.com who comes from publication 334 tax guide for small business for individuals who use schedule C tax year 2023 which you can find on the IRS website at iris.gov iris.gov Remember in the first half of the income tax formula is basically a funny income statement Most income statements having income minus expenses resulted in net income Here having income minus various deductions resulting in taxable income Noting that the sole proprietorship schedule C rolls into line one income Which is a little funny considering the schedule C itself is basically an income statement Having business income minus business expenses Otherwise known as business deductions resulting in in essence net business income that rolls into line one Income of the income tax formula which is reflecting the calculation behind the form 1040 this being page one of the form 1040 Schedule C rolling into line number eight additional income from schedule one This is the schedule one additional income and adjustments to income We have part number one schedule C rolling into line three business income or loss from the schedule C This is a schedule C profit or loss from business Which has a profit and loss P&L or income statement format? Income minus Expenses all right Let's look at the general business credits now Noting that we are basically going to list out these credits because they are often going to be specific towards Specific types of industry so you want to be aware of them and then as you're thinking about your business If you're doing tax preparation or running a business You want to say do these credits apply to this particular business and or are these kind of industries that I'm specialized in going to be subject to these types of credits and if so then you need to do more specialized research and those Particular areas specializing within them so your general business credit for the year Consists of your carry forward of business credits from prior years plus the total of your current year business credits So credits we note that they're good like deductions and that way credits are similar to deductions Remembering that taxes are all kind of upside down and backwards in other words Normally the income statement we like income and we don't like expenses But for taxes we like the expenses because those are the deductions the credits Basically are going to give us a benefit similar to the deductions But typically a larger benefit if you're talking about a dollar credit versus a dollar deduction For example the dollar credit is usually worth more Because the dollar deduction will simply be lowering the taxable income which will then have a tax rate applied on it Whereas the dollar credit might actually give us the whole dollar of a benefit back Now if we can't get something like a deduction We've seen in the past or a credit in the current year because of a phase out or something like that Then the idea would be can I carry it backwards? Meaning take it back to prior years where I can take it in those time frames or possibly carry it forward Into future years anytime we have more complex tax returns that involve credits or Carry backs and carry forwards I would recommend using the same tax software from year to year and if picking up a new client or new tax software Entering the data from the prior tax year into the prior software year and then Proforming it forward so the carry forward Will be assisted with the use of the software so in addition your general business credit for the current year may be increased Increased later by the carry back of business credits from later years you subtract these credit directly from your tax So useful items form and instruction so to get more information on this stuff You could go to the forms and instructions for 3800 general business credit which you can of course find on the iris website iris.gov iris.gov and Forms and instruction 6251 Alternative minimum tax Individuals all right business credits all of the following credits are part of the general business credits The form you use to figure each credit is shown in Parentheses, so you will also have to complete form 3800 if any of these credits apply some credits have expiration dates Check the instructions for each credit to make sure it is available for 2023 so again, we'll basically list out the credits here which might be specific towards specific Industries oftentimes and then if you think that credit is applicable to you You want to drill down doing more research possibly looking at the related forms and Instructions and finding them on the iris website doing more research from there We've got the alternative fuel vehicle Refueling property credit that's form 8 9 1 1 this credit applies to the cost of any qualified fuel vehicle Refueling property for more information C form 8 9 1 1 So if you're dealing with situations where you have large vehicles that need Refueling then you will most likely be dealing with that kind of information and will want to specialize in the tax Consequences related to it biodiesel renewable diesel or sustainable Aviation of fuel credits form 8 8 6 4 so same kind of idea So if you're in certain types of industry you might still need the diesel fuel Which might be you know just better for those types of vehicles for whatever reason although again obviously you're dealing with Like pollution legislation and so on that's going to be critical about those types of things So you end up with all these kind of specialty Regulations when you're dealing in those industries for more information you could see form 8 8 6 4 Biofuel producer credit that's going to be form 6 4 7 8 So any time we're dealing with any kind of fuel situation You would imagine the IRS because they're really hyper focused on this environmental things these days They're going to try to restrict possibly fuel use in general which you're going to have to deal with those kind of Legislations and possibly look for alternative types of fuel usages possibly incentivizing the use of different types of fuel Therefore if you if they can disincentivize Diesel for example, and maybe like a biofuel incentivize that they might do that often times The legislation sadly lags behind the technology and in my opinion often acts as more of a hindrance Towards achieving better environmental goals due to the clunkiness of the legislation, but That's you that's what we have to deal with that's what's going to end up happening So for more information there, you could see form 6 4 7 8 So then we have the carbon oxide sequestration credit form 8 9 3 3 So obviously again this kind of has to do with the idea of pollution because the greenhouse gases Carbon carbon oxide or I think is going to be dealing with that So again, that'll be specific towards particular industries this credit is for carbon oxide That is captured at a qualified facility and disposed of to secure Geo geological storage or used in a qualified enhanced oil or natural gas recovery Project, so one of the things they're trying to do with this carbon is possibly take it out of the air Recapturing it storing it somewhere putting it underground or maybe they can shoot it into space at some point or something Or possibly using it alternatively. So for more information, you could see form 8 9 3 3 credit for employer social security and Medicare taxes paid on certain employee tips So that's going to be form 8 8 4 6. This is another area where I think the iris has really kind of I think kind of overstepped on the on certain business models that deal with tips Because it used to be that if you had a restaurant or something like that You can basically hire people almost as contractors to serve in the restaurants and make their money with tips and You wouldn't have and you could say hey look, that's their business They make tips. I make the food and it is what it is and But obviously that's not what the government likes They like a situation where the person receiving the tips has to report the tips as income And it's hard to track the income because who are they going to 1099 if they're getting tips directly from Customers who aren't writing those tips off as business expenses and therefore aren't required So they want the tips to be governed by the employer, which which kind of destroys that business model So if you deal with tips, that's why notoriously tip-based businesses clubs and restaurants The iris I don't think they like them very much, right, right, but but you have to see you have to do you have to do your whole dance On compliance with regards to tips and those types of industries to get a business model that works and that is in compliance So this credit is generally equal to your employers portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes paid on tips received by Employees on food and beverage establishments where tipping is customary So the credit applies regardless of whether the food is consumed or Off your business premises on or off your business premises. So for more information there you can see form 8 8 4 6 Credit for employer differential wage payments form 8 9 3 2 This credit provides businesses with an incentive to continue to pay wages to an employee Performing services on active duty in the uniform services of the United States for a period of more than 30 days so obviously if someone Goes on to active duty then They might not be able to keep their job and whatnot But the but the government is trying to have an incentive to have them keep the employment and we have that credit coming about So for more information you could see form 8 9 3 2 for that credit for employer provided child care Facilities and services form 8 8 8 2 This credit applies to the qualified expenses you paid for employee child care and qualified expenses You paid for child care resource and referral services So now you have the child care, which of course that what's the incentive behind that credit? You would think more you know women or two people in the workplace or possibly single Family single-parent homes, you know being able to work where they need the child care So the government is trying to give an incentive then for child care providing through basically credits So for more information there you've got the for Form 8 8 8 2 credit for increasing research activities form 6 7 6 5 this credit is designed to encourage businesses to increase the amounts they spend on research and Experimental activities Including energy research now this one, you know, obviously the idea of a business when it's long term in Nature is that you can do the research and development which often comes up with nothing But if you hit if you hit something on the research and development Then you want to be able to make revenue in the future the classic example of this is like drug companies Which are constantly getting beat up sometimes for good reason of course pharmaceutical companies for example But the business model of the pharmaceutical country company is of course research and development which is costly and often doesn't pay off and and when it does pay off It has to pay off or else why would you do the research and development and that's why the United States? gets a lot of flak a lot a lot of People complain about about the cost of the medicine which I can understand and so on But at the same time obviously the research and development needs to pay off or else no one's going to do it So so you have this kind of kind of issue. That's an extreme case though Similar things happen with like Software develop and it's stuff like that if you develop the software and someone just steals it right after you develop it You have no copyright laws or anything like that China just steals it or something then that's going to really Disincentivize research because the idea of getting the property is to have the property that would be like like trying to get food From farmers but every time a farmer purchases a piece of property Someone just steals it and we have no property rights We've eliminated property rights because they're evil for whatever reason. Well, that means no one's going to try to Grow some avocados on their farm because people are just going to steal all the avocados right after they start growing them And then you can't what are you going to do right? So that I think that's the major incentive, but Anyways, so you have incentives to try to get people to do research So for more information there you can see if public you can see form six seven six five So you got the credit for small employer health insurance premiums form eight nine four one This credit applies to the cost of certain health care coverage you provide to certain employees Now this one of course is part of that situation where health care has often been tied to Corporations so employees often get their health care through the employer It used to be largely because the group plans were cheaper and therefore if you can get a group plan The insurance companies would often be able to get a cheaper plan But then of course all these legislations have have happened Related to health care and so you've you've got this situation of small businesses then saying well if I have a small business How can I compete with these health care benefits and so on? So I can stay afloat on the small business and so and so for more information there You can see form eight nine four one credit for small employer pension plan startup costs auto enrollment and military spouse participation form eight eight eight one so this credit applies to pension plan startup costs of a new qualified defined benefit or defined contribution plan Including a section 401k plan simple plan or set plan So many small businesses if you're a schedule C type of business once again One of the benefits from an employer employee situation is the setup of a 401k plan and That's a big benefit because the tax law has has gotten into the system and Basically said well if you put money into these 401k plans, then you don't have to pay taxes on it Which is a huge benefit and that's really the benefit often times that wealthy individuals are trying to increase the dollar amount of Because you get this huge deferral of taxes, which you know, but obviously if you're a lower-income individual You don't have the cash flow to put into the plan Even if it was available to you and if you're a small business Then you can't put money into the 401k plan in the same way You might be able to use an IRA but the IRA has much lower limits in terms of how much you can put into the IRA and Therefore you might want to start up your own small business 401k plan But the startup costs are in are high as well as the management costs And so they have other plans the simple plan and a step plan designed specifically for small businesses and again We have basically incentives for small businesses to try to get some of the tax benefits that are now being attributable to the large businesses with regards to The 401k plans and whatnot and and you might say hey look these benefits are being provided to the employees and not to the Employer, but I just want to just point out that that's not exactly how it works We're in an economy. So if the employee error can provide money compensation to the employee that Goes further that benefits both the employee and the employee error, you know, because obviously if I can give my employee $10,000 and it's tax-free Then then then they're gonna want to be able to work for me more than if I give them $10,000 But they have to pay 2,000 of it to taxes in some Way shape or form so so so you can you can then ask the question. Well, who's really paying Who's really benefiting? Well, both people are benefiting both the employee in the plan in case for more information You can see publication 560 retirement plans for small business. All right So then we have this disabled access credit form 886 to this credit is a non-refundable tax credit For an eligible small business that pays or incurs expenses to provide access to persons who have Disabilities so if you have like a place of employment and There's stairs or something there and you put a walkway in it so that you can have a wheelchair go up it or Possibly instead of having stairs inside you you insert an elevator or something like that Then you might look into the disability access credit So you must pay or incur the expenses to enable your business to comply with the Americans with Disability Act of 1990 for more information. You could see form 886 to or I'm sorry 8 8 2 6 I went dyslexic there distilled as spirits credit form 8906 This credit is available to distillers and importers of distilled spirits and eligible wholesalers of distilled spirits I'm not sure exactly why the distilled spirits people Get a credit. I'm not totally up to date on exactly the rationale for that one seems kind of funny But there it is we need our distilled spirits and they are they obviously they often overtax the distilled spirits on The sales tax side of things and excise tax. So maybe they're either and I don't know but for more information there You can see publication 8906 form 8994 This credit applies for wages paid to qualified employees. Well, they are on family and medical leave Subject to certain conditions. So for more information, you can see form 8994 Then you've got the empowerment zone employment credit form 8 8 4 4 You may qualify for this credit if you have employees and are engaged in a business in an empowerment zone For which the credit is available. In other words, you have certain locations that have lower income locations Generally, and if you hire people that are located in those areas, then possibly there's a credit available there it gets kind of complicated and messy because You have to verify that they live in that area and so and and all that kind of stuff But there's that one. I've dealt with that one a little bit in my in the past It's been there for a while now. So for more information, you can see form 8 8 4 4 Energy efficient home credit. Okay. So now we've got the form 8908 This credit is available for eligible contractors of certain homes So for use as residents. So clearly that's going to be specific towards our particular industry once again looking at these Environmental types of laws trying to have home builders build homes that are more energy and efficient again in my mind Like you might look at all these kind of these kind of laws and sell aren't they virtuous that they're putting these laws in place But it seems to me that energy efficiency if we get good at it Should carry its own weight due to increased technology So in other words if people are able to buy and make more energy Efficient homes people will want more energy efficient homes because they use less energy and that's cheaper Right. So so it seems to me the technology is the thing that's going to drive us there and oftentimes these laws Although they look virtuous are actually Detrimental because the way they instrument the way they put them in place is is they could actually block innovation, right? And anyway though but for more information you can see form 8908 Investment credit form 3468 the investment credit is the total of the several credits for more information there You can see form 3468. We've got the low software diesel fuel production credit form 8896 Obviously that's somewhat specialized for sold for diesel fuel. So for more information you can see that form 8896 You've got the low-income housing credit form 8 5 8 6 This credit generally applies to each qualified low-income building placed in service after 1986 so once again, we're talking about people make you know production of buildings and whatnot and possible type of incentives For that so for more information you can see form 8 5 8 6 We've got the new markets credit form 8 8 7 4 This credit is for qualified equity investments made in qualified community development entities for more information Form 8 8 7 4 then you've got the orphan drug credit. So form 8 8 2 0 This credit applies to qualified expenses incurred in testing certain drugs for rare diseases and conditions So for more information, you've got form 8 8 2 0 once again specialized kind of credit there Now we've got the clean vehicle credit form 8 9 3 6 back to the theme of The environment so these credits are for certain clean vehicles placed in service during the tax year So again to me like the on my my thinking of this is we're going to get clean energy Through innovation right not through the the tax codes probably not gonna not gonna be the thing that pushes this over It's the people like the actual Tesla's out in the world that are making the car Not likely because of the tax breaks per cert per say, but because there's demand You know for it and and once the technology hits Then I think it'll be marketable and that's what's going to take us in any case Qualified reload truck maintenance e credit form 8 9 0 0 This credit applies to qualified railroad truck maintenance Expenditures paid or incurred during the tax year. So for more information there you got form 8 9 0 0 You've got the renewable electricity production credit form 8 8 3 5 This credit is for renewable energy sources. So once again, there's our theme again renewable energy sources often a Confusing term again because I don't think a lot of people really understand what it means to be you know Renewable and you know the kind of difference between creating energy That can be used and storing that energy and so on and that the complications and those processes but This credit is for renewable energy sources Produced in the United States or US territories from qualified energy resources at a qualified facility So a lot of qualifications in this credit. So for more information though, you can see form 8 8 3 5 You've got the work opportunity credit form 5 8 8 4 This credit provides businesses with an incentive to hire individuals from targeted groups that have a particularly high Unemployment rate or other special employment needs. So again the idea here incentivizing people to hire From groups, they might not otherwise hire from Possibly because they have a they're from a certain location, which is a low income possibly or possibly Because they have records like hiring Criminals or something like that Could be some of the insistence that are at play there But in any case for for more information, you could see form 8 5 5 4


Alright, welcome to my short rant on debugging OpenTelemetry by me, begobitetsuo, on the internet. So what's the deal? New users get started by installing OpenTelemetry in their app, right? This is where everyone starts. And we're always looking for ways to make it easier for people to install the OpenTelemetry clients and all of that stuff. You know, like improving the docs, various kinds of automation, yada yada. And when all of this stuff works, when the installation works properly, it's great. It's super smooth. But what happens when the installation doesn't work? Sadness. Sadness is what occurs. Suddenly, brand new users who don't know much about this are thrust into a position where they have to debug a tool they literally know nothing about. So once metrics and logs are stable, I really suggest that debugging is an area that we put some of our focus on. So in this lightning talk, I just want to briefly cover all of the ways new users may have to debug their OpenTelemetry installation, starting with is the exporter connecting to anything? This is usually the first place people look. It might be misconfigured. You can find connection errors. Hotel log level equals debug is your friend. That's pretty simple. Next up is buffering, confusing the heck out of everybody, right? Because the default configuration is meant for production, which means your data is going to buffer for some time before it gets flushed.  I can't see what's going on. It's just because the data's been buffered. So this is something that confuses new users. And last and definitely not least is the data correct. Is the data coming out of your application actually correct? And this is the part I actually want to focus on for the rest of the talk because debugging these data issues is terrible. Instrumentation might be missing. Context propagation might be broken. And the thing is, when you have a connection failure, you have an error, right? So there's a bread come for people to follow and a straightforward solution to fix it. But when instrumentation is missing or context is broken, you get nothing. You just, nothing. No errors, maybe some weird data, maybe not. And this is terrible, right? This is really terrible because new users have no idea what correct data is even supposed to look like.  Is this what I'm supposed to get? You don't know if you're a new user. You don't know anything, especially if you're new to tracing. You don't really know what to expect. So how can we make this situation better for people? And my suggestion is we have to find some way to set expectations, right? Because when users test their instrumentation by running their app and clicking on things, open telemetry doesn't know what they're trying to do. It doesn't know what kind of data it should be expecting. So if there is a way for that user to describe the transaction that they're triggering, then we could create some expectations which would allow us to test the data actually coming into a collector. So what would this kind of testing look like? I don't know. But I think we should research this and have a look at creating some kind of testing language which is simple enough and free enough from open telemetry technical jargon that inexperienced new users could actually successfully leverage it to debug their installation experience.  You should expect a transaction. That transaction should be coming from this particular service and it should contain these following components. And I can write this down because I know my app. I know what my app is called and I know the pieces that should be involved in the transaction I'm trying to trigger. If you were writing this in YAML, let's say, so that you could use it to configure a collector component, maybe it looks like this. I don't really know. Something like that, something like that would be really helpful for new users. And if we had something like that, we might even be able to go another step and create, say, like a web UI for building these expectations. Something that would walk new users through the experience of describing the transaction they're trying to trigger. A potential source of this information might be their package manifest. Like in most languages, there's some file you can grab that will tell you which libraries are installed in that application. You could then match those libraries with instrumentation that we have available and start creating some expectations with the user about what kind of data should be coming out of their app when they click on something. And if we could do this, then new users, I think, would be able to get their heads wrapped around the kind of telemetry that they should be expecting out of their application. So this is just one idea. I think there's a lot of different ways to attack this. I think there's a lot of different ways in general to combine testing and telemetry. And I think this is interesting. I think this is an interesting place for us to go once we've got kind of all the table stakes nailed down. So if you also find this interesting, hit me up on Slack. Thank you very much.


What's up everybody Jason for Jasper's case brace calm This is our last filler to unlock 2018 contenders football We are giving away 10 spots in that break with this 2020 mosaic cello pack football filler number 149 and again guys first we do the break randomized customer names and teams It should be the hits out then at the end of the break will take only the 32 customer names We'll randomize them and the top 10 out of the 32 a win a spot in contenders So there you go. So let's do the break first roll it It is a three and a four for lucky number seven seven times Good luck one two three four five six and Seventh and final time Timothy down to Kenneth three and a four seven times one two three four five six seven Chargers down to the Washington football team All right again. So stick to what you got guys. Just quick little pack fillers and no trades All right, so let's quickly do this pack filler green Kevin Byrd Jerry Rice Drew Brees Gabriel Davis rookie John Brown Chris Godwin and TJ Y. All right.  Good luck top 10 get in after six times one two three four Five two and a four six times Ron you are in Joshua Adrian Ron Adrian Carlos Matthew Jake Ryan Harold and Ron Wester congratulations boom boom Top 10 get in and there you go after six times You guys are now in the break and come in up next is the break itself. Good luck