Learning to code is probably one of the best decisions I've made in my life. It opened up so many different opportunities and allowed me to find a career that I truly love. Not to mention, it has such a useful skill nowadays, and will allow you to find jobs that pay quite above average. So, in this video, I want to go over my whole coding journey, whilst giving you some advice for those of you at the beginning of yours. Let's get into it. Now, I was in that some young protégé who built their first compiler at age 5, or their whole computer at age 10. I actually wrote my first line of code at the age of 18 at university. My dream when I was younger was to become a physics researcher after watching the Big Bang Theory around the age of 13. My ideal goal at that point in time was simply just to scribble all day on a whiteboard of paper solving complex proofs in quantum mechanics or general relativity. Yet, in my first class at university, of my physics degree, I was put into a computer lab and will gain taught how to code. And the first language they taught us, which is arguably not the best way to start, was FORTRAN. I now have some sort of romantic affinity towards FORTRAN. I've even written an article describing why data scientists should learn FORTRAN and where it could be used in machine learning. However, with it being the first language I ever learned, at the time, it made me not really like coding that much. For those of you unfamiliar, FORTRAN is probably the oldest high-level general programming language. It came out roughly in 1958, and it's pretty old and it's not really used that much anymore. It's by far from ideal the first language you start coding in. Compared to the likes of Python and JavaScript, which are very easy to use, and you can quickly build things really early on. FORTRAN is a lot harder, there's a smaller community, and it's just not as well kind of supported as the whole language compared to Python and JavaScript like I just mentioned. Learning FORTRAN is my first language. It made me not like coding all that much. And throughout university, I basically just avoided modules which contained any form of coding element because of this initial kind of fear or, you know, kind of not enjoying it so much. I also didn't perform that well on my first few coding tests, which is probably another reason why I didn't like it so much. However, despite my initial lack of love for coding, I did learn some useful things in those first few modules that I took at university. I learned things like, you know, what types, variables, loops, functions, how to use terminal, what is bash, and zshell. Just all the key patterns and tools you need around a programming language to basically create things. To be honest, even though I could code and solve basic physics problems in FORTRAN, I still didn't really understand exactly what was going on. I was kind of just learning these concepts just to pass and do well in my university course. Not necessarily to really dive deep and have that real deep intuition behind what I'm actually doing and what all these things in the code really mean. Now, at this point in my university career, I'm in my third year and I'm doing a research placement as part of my master's. Now, I have a whole other video which I explained exactly why I want to become a data scientist and how I became one. I'm linking someone's screen here, but the basic gist is that I fell out of love with physics because research wasn't quite for me and I basically watched this video of DeepMind's AlphaGo documentary and it basically inspired me to learn machine learning and ultimately pursue a career in data science. To be a data scientist, it's pretty common knowledge that you need to be well versed in Python. N's equal, but Python's come to the main programming language you would use day to day. So even though at the time coding wasn't something that I was like overly interested in, I really want to become a data scientist to implement all these fancy machine learning algorithms. So I had to go about learning Python. Now, the first course I ever took was this free co-cam video on basically learning Python from scratch. It's about five hours long and I did it all in one sitting. I still recommend this course to this day. It's very short. Like I said, you can do it on one go and it'll teach you pretty much everything you need to know about Python at the beginner level. Throughout that free co-cam course, I also supplemented my learning through the websites of W3Schools and tutorials points. Now, I find it really useful to get multiple explanations and examples of the same topic because I really believe that enhances my personal learning. After I took those courses and I understood kind of all the basic syntax and concepts around Python, it was time to get some hands-on experience. And to do this, I basically did around 50 problems on hacker rank. For those of you who don't know what a hacker rank is, it's kind of like Lee Code where you have a problem that's really framed in its own environment and your goal is to solve it. What websites like Hacker Rank and Lee Code do is that, yes, you can solve the problem in so many ways, but they also teach you kind of the best ways to solve a problem, like the most efficient in terms of complexity. And that is something that's a really useful skill because it really allows you to learn the language inside out and understand all its nuances. Now, at this point, I had all my basics down. I knew all the Pythonic concepts or at least the basic ones and I knew how to solve kind of simple problems from the hacker rank tutorials that I did. So for me, as I once become a data scientist, I then focus my attention on learning the kind of the data science tech stack of Python. And to do this, I took the courses on Kaggle. So Kaggle is basically a data science kind of competition or website that people can come upload data sets, work through notebooks and, like I said, also enter competitions. And another thing I did was message my lecturer who ran a physics for Python course at university and basically requested lecture notes from him. Now, data science and Python have quite big of an overlap and so all the kind of things you'll cover in the physics of Python course will be very applicable to the data science kind of tech stack of Python as well. And at this point, to be honest, I felt like I knew Python at a good level. I mean, I didn't know everything like, you know, what are abstract decorates and how to use them, but I knew pretty much the basics and like the beginner level things you need to know to a good standard. Along with Python, I also took a couple of courses in SQL because as people say, SQL is a language of data. The two courses that I took was the complete SQL bootcamp for Udemy and the W3Schools tutorial on SQL. Again, both very useful and I really recommend those two if you're planning on learning SQL. It shouldn't take you too long once you know kind of like Python or any other language, SQL is quite simple to learn as it's quite different, but it's very intuitive. And from then on, after learning Python and SQL, I just built several simple machine learning and data science projects. But at this point, I was kind of more focused on learning data science as a concept rather than understanding how to program. And so that's kind of the end of my initial learning to codes kind of career you can call it. Right, so now I want to go over some tips that I wish I had when I first started learning to code and also some things that I think I did quite well and that really benefited my learning and may also benefit you in your coding journey. The first tip is just to pick one language and really go deep in it. Now, ideally, I recommend starting with either Python or JavaScript. Now, you can start with languages such as C, C++, Rast 4, trying to be really one too. But in my opinion, they're a lot harder to like grasp right at the beginning. And it may make you feel a bit unmotivated because the kind of learning progress is a lot slower. Whereas with Python and JavaScript, it's a lot more intuitive. You'd be able to build things quicker and now probably motivate you more to keep on learning. Obviously, like I said, you're free to choose what you want. That's just my opinion. Either Python or JavaScript doesn't matter too much. But, you know, it's better to start with quite a high level language than a really low level language like C because, you know, it'll kind of inspire you to code more because it's a lot easier to work with. The second tip is that it will be hard. Like coding is such a hard skill. It's not simple. And you got to really kind of tune your brain to think in a programmatic way, which a lot of people may not naturally have. I think some people see as quite glamorous thing. Like you're there just, you know, smashing your keyboard, having green lines running down your screen, or you're going to build a next Facebook within a few days. But, you know, to be honest, most of your day is spent googling basic arrows of why your functions are working when you're trying to add two integers. You know, things like this, it's just not glamorous. And to be honest, most of your time is spent thinking rather than typing on the keyboard. So, you should go remember that it is hard, but eventually those small gains will compound into something bigger. And your understanding will explode and you'll be able to build things and iterate a lot faster than you did right at the beginning. As the famous entrepreneur and investor, Neville Ravecan said, you know, it's not 10,000 hours, it's 10,000 iterations. So you have to put in the reps to get good and eventually those reps will scale to something a lot bigger than you initially thought. And the final reason is that you've got to have a why. For me, my why was that I want to become a data scientist. So even on the days and times where I didn't feel like coding, I was like, oh, this is boring, you know, I'm not learning, I'm struggling.  And that's what really powered me through those kind of days where I didn't feel that motivated is that discipline and having a bigger reason to why you're doing things that really drives you forward. However, your reason could be a lot smaller. It could be that you run a cupcake business and you want to make a website for it. You may not have a why and you just want to learn how to code. And that's completely fine and also very cool. But I really recommend that even if you don't have a why like me or, you know, that cupcake business owner I just mentioned, have something like you want to build a project and write a blog about it. At least you have some direction in your learning and there is an end goal in sight. And when you achieve that end goal you feel very satisfied. Coding is a skill that's becoming more and more useful every single year.  If you enjoyed this video and you'd like to hear more from me I run a weekly newsletter called Dish in the Data. It's basically a place for me to write my thoughts and feelings as a data scientist and give you some advice into how I'm improving and things I'm learning along my journey. So if that sounds interesting make sure you click the link in the description. If you enjoyed this video and want more videos like this on this channel then make sure you click the like and subscribe button and I'll see you in the next one.


Hello everyone, I am Dr. Deepanshu Sharma and I am going to present my paper on Predictive Role of Spinnick vs. Hepatic Stiffness in Diagnosis of Serotic Isopropyl Viruses. This paper is based on my research work that I have conducted in past 1.5 years in VEMC in Sabdajam Hospital, New Delhi under the indispensable guidance of my guide Dr. Yatish Garwal and my mentor Dr. Swarna Gupta Jain from Department of Rural Diagnosis and my co-guide Dr. Manisha Baish Thakur from Department of Medicine. So, let us move to the discussion. As we all know, serosis is the end state of any chronic liver disease and it constitutes swift leading cause of adult deaths. It ranks 8th in the economical cost among the major illnesses. Now whenever a patient is diagnosed with serosis, the most important thing that a clinician is always worried of is that patient might not develop portal hypertension. Why is it so? Because portal hypertension in a patient with serosis is a root cause of myriad of complications and amongst all these complications the most important complication is esophageal varices. Now if the patient develops esophageal varices and if they rupture in the later course of disease, patient can go through a life threatening episode. Therefore, every serotic patient is advised to have an upper GI endoscopy to determine the presence and the size of varices. However, upper GI endoscopy being an invasive and an expensive procedure also it is not free of risk. It requires significant amount of patient preparation. Therefore, there has been an ongoing research for non-invasive parameters to predict if not diagnose the presence of esophageal varices. So that if we could find a non-invasive parameter to predict the presence of varices, we could reduce the number of endoscopies that are performed significantly. Among these previously researched non-invasive parameters, liver stiffness and spleen stiffness have shown promising results. Now what exactly is liver stiffness and spleen stiffness? Liver stiffness and spleen stiffness are nothing but the altered elasticity of liver and spleen and they are measured by ultrasound elastography or magnetic resonance or MR elastography. Now important thing is that liver stiffness has already been largely accepted to reflect the degree of fibrosis and the presence of esophageal varices in CLD. However, in the last few years, the research emphasis has been plays on spleen stiffness measurement in predicting the varices. Why is it so? It is so because cirrhosis as a pathology, it directly affects liver. However, it does not affect directly spleen. So that if we measure liver stiffness, we are actually calculating the stiffness, which is a total of stiffness caused by cirrhosis and due to portal hypertension. However, spleen is only affected by the reverse pressure hemodynamics due to portal hypertension. That is why spleen stiffness is superior to the liver stiffness as being researched in past studies. However, very few studies have evaluated the role of spleen stiffness in doing so. That's why our study endeavors to compare the role of these two parameters in diagnosis and the presence of esophageal varices and also their severity. So as a part of methodology, every patient went through these stages of investigations. Firstly, patient had clinical evaluation, where patient was evaluated for the signs and symptoms of liver cirrhosis. We also took proper history. After this, patient had laboratory investigations where CBC, liver function test and viral markers were done. Thereafter, patient had abdominal ultrasonography, where we looked for the gray scale features of the cirrhosis, which is followed by ultrasound elastography, where we measured liver and spleen stiffness values in the form of Young's modulus. And lastly, we followed up the patient with the gold standard upper GI endoscopy to diagnose the presence of esophageal varices and the assessment of severity in terms of grade. Once all these investigations have been done, we acquired a data for 31 patients and we did the statistical analysis. As a part of statistical analysis, we made ROC curves. ROC curves are made to find out the cut-off values for the liver stiffness and spleen stiffness values in order to predict the presence of varices. Also, we correlated these values with the grading of the varices that we found on the upper GI endoscopy. Now let's look at the observation results. Regarding liver stiffness, as you can all see that this is a ROC curve, receiver operating curve, where you can clearly see that the area under the ROC curve has come down to be 0.936, which is very close to 1. Now it is statistically significant at the p-value less than 0.001 and the cut-off value of liver stiffness calculated to be 16.9. At this particular cut-off, the presence of varices is diagnosed with a sensitivity of 89% and 85%. Same for the spleen stiffness as we can all see that area under ROC curve came down to be 1, which is very, very significant. At a p-value of less than 0.01, it's an excellent diagnostic performance and the cut-off value that we have taken is 52 kPa. At this particular cut-off value, it is helpful in predicting the presence of varices at a sensitivity and specificity of 100%. In this particular ROC curve, we have merged all the non-resistant parameters that we evaluated and we can clearly see that among these, the straight line that goes at a slope of 45 degree is the spleen stiffness values, which are having excellent diagnostic performance and the area under ROC curve to be 1. Best parameter in terms of area under ROC curve came down to be spleen stiffness. In the next two slides, I will be dealing with the association of the varicelle grade with the liver stiffness and spleen stiffness values. This is a box and whisker plot as you can clearly see that with the increasing grade of varices, which is F1, F2 and F3, you can clearly see that liver stiffness values are increasing. Similarly, you can also see that spleen stiffness values are also increasing with the increasing grade of the varices and the increase is very, very significant. If you can clearly see that chi-square value for this particular difference is 23.457 at a p-value of less than 0.01. The same is in spleen also, which is 25.992. The same is for spleen also, which is 25.992 at a p-value of less than 0.001. So, spleen stiffness here also is better than liver stiffness in predicting the varicelle grade. So, this is one of 31 patients that we included in our study. He was a 56 year old male patient with cirrhosis CTP class C and F3 varicelle grade on upper GI endoscopy. In the first part of this image, you can clearly see the grayscale features of the cirrhosis where we have irregular nodular margins and you know, portal vein is dilated. So, patient had portal hypertension or ultrasonography. In the second part of the image, you can clearly see it is basically the ROI box that we kept to calculate the liver stiffness values via shear wave electrography and the values came down to be 40.34 plus minus 7.43 kPa. Same we evaluated for the spleen also, where the values came down to be 48.16 plus minus 17.81 kPa. Lastly, we did the upper GI endoscopy and we can clearly see the presence of esophageal varices as it is obliterating the complete lumen. So, it is F3 varicelle grade. The classification that we use is back to classification. Lastly, let's move to discussion. At a cutoff value of liver stiffness more than equal to 16.9 kPa, we could predict the presence of varices with sensitivity of 89% and 85%. Same values for spleen stiffness, you can clearly see that 52 kPa cutoff is helpful in predicting the presence of varices with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 100%. The value of the spleen stiffness and liver stiffness were also seen to increase with the increase in the grade of varices. So, with these two important things, we can clearly see that liver stiffness and spleen stiffness are very important non-invasive parameters in predicting the presence of varices. Also, they are important in predicting the severity of the varices and among these two parameters, the most important parameter that came down was spleen stiffness. So, we ranked the parameters in terms of area under ROC curve, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy. And under all these grounds, spleen stiffness came to be superior over liver stiffness in predicting the presence of varices. Also, there has been statistically significant differences among the various varicelle grades and it has been seen that spleen stiffness tends to increase with the increase in the varicelle grade. So, what do we recommend? So, we recommend every CLD patient should be evaluated with a grayscale ultrasonography and also ultrasound elastography to predict the likelihood of the presence of esophageal varices before a pergeal endoscopy. Why is it so? It will shorten the number of endoscopies performed in day to day practice. So, it is also imperative to evaluate spleen stiffness along with liver stiffness during elastography of the patient. And changes in the spleen stiffness should be given priority over liver stiffness while predicting the likelihood of the presence of varices and their grade. And these are my differences. Thank you so much. This was my paper presentation. I would like to again thank the family of city bus in providing me a opportunity to present my paper on this big platform. Thank you.


Okay Jeremy, this is Madison over at Summoner to Beaver Dam. Here's a quick walk-around video for you for our 2017 Mustang GT Performance Pack GT Premium Pack Concertable. Really nice example on the light. Only 5100 miles on this one. It is super clean 6-speed transmission, premium, everything all around. Let's start with the meat and potatoes. I'll pop this hood open and we can talk about the motor. As I'm sure you can be aware, you know, 5-liter, 435 horsepower. A lot of people are saying that the Mustangs are still muscle cars. These are true sports cars now with independent rear suspension and lots of cool stuff with that motor. One of the things up front here that you get an advantage with is more cooling and that's from the GT Performance Pack. You get a high flow radiator. Also the Performance Pack has a heavier duty anti-roll bar. Easy to work on. We label a lot of things for you, so Mustang owners like to take care of their ponies themselves and we appreciate that too. So they do kind of try to make this a little easier to work on than most modern motors. These are functioning air outlets taking heat up the motor. Another feature that you get from the GT Performance Pack, these are 6 piston rotors. They're basically the same front brakes off of the 2014 Mustang GT 500, which is really cool. If you want to follow me to the back, you've got, what's up for a premium car, you get blind spot monitoring, rear-view camera, rear-view rear sensors on it. You also get home tip exhaust and speaking of that exhaust, why don't we fire it up because that's what these things are all about anyway. A couple of items you've got to pop in when you're doing the transition, but they pop in. Liquidity split. Just like that and you're good to roll. Just a few seconds. Excellent interior. You get a lot of extra leather in the GT Premium Package. Extra aluminum on a lot of the areas of the vehicle. Six way adjustable seats with lumbar as opposed to just the four way that's typical with the Mustangs. You also get nine speaker radio instead of six. Let's see. Yep, and aluminum pedals down below. Those are a nice touch, much more grip and a little bit of weight savings. Illuminated door sills for the signature Mustang look. Let's see.  Got an excellent sound system. So a great feature with the Performance Pack also is you get the Magnaride Suspension. So this vehicle was over engineered. It's a very stiff body for being a convertible. The Magnaride, that's the electric magnetic filings in the suspension. Adjust the suspension in milliseconds over and over again for you depending on road conditions. But yeah, excellent example. Very clean and we're happy to, we're excited to hear what you think about it. Thanks a bunch. Talk to you soon.


Yeah. So I guess we're live and good morning everybody. This is the Senate Agricultural Committee on Friday, the 22nd maybe or first, I don't know, lose track of the days here. But we're going to be talking this morning with our congressional delegation people. We have Tom Berry with us, Erica Campbell. I don't know if Ryan's on yet or not. Andrew, are you representing one of the groups? Are you on to listen? Good morning. Andrew is my DC colleague. He's the one that gets the stuff done. Yeah. Well, it's good to have somebody that'll get the stuff done, right? But I'd like to have the committee introduce themselves so that we'll all know each other. We do have one new member on the Senate Ed committee. So Mr. Vice Chairman, would you like to start? Be happy to. Good morning everybody. Chris Pearson from the Chittenden District. Glad to have you here. Hi all, I'm Anthony Polin of Washington County. Ryan Colomore representing the Rutland District. Welcome. We also have Corey Parrant from St. Albans, Franklin County, and I'm Corey. He's speechless. My video went out. Sorry about that, but Corey Parrant from Franklin County. And I'm Bobby Shar from Essex, Orleans County. Well, it's good to have you folks with us this morning. And I think before we get started, on behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you guys for being here and thank your bosses for all the hard work that they've been doing through this pandemic to help us Vermonters out. And it certainly has been a great help to the state of Vermont, and our local citizens as well as our businesses around the state. You know, we've had farm equipment dealerships in and of spoken feed dealers. And they've all been very grateful for the financial help that has come from you folks in Washington passed down to the states. And then we had, you know, the two ag committees set up a program for agricultural people. So their accounts receivable have been halfway decent and their sales have been pretty stable. So it's really made a big difference to our ag community as well as all of our communities. So with that, we'd like to, you know, we wanted to get you in to both thank you for what you've done in the past and give us a little overview on what you think may occur in the future and move forward. I don't know if there's any particular order that you want to go in. If some of you have time restraints, if we've got an hour. So but if there is not none, I would start with Tom and and then go to Erica and then to Ryan. So I don't know if any of the committee members have anything to say before we get started or not. If if not, I'll turn it over to you, Tom. Thank you. I think what we'll do is sort of introduce ourselves and just a little bit of 30,000 foot perspective on where we are at the start of the Congress and then we can take a deeper dive into some of the issues of interest. Again, Tom Barry here, I handle the state outreach side of Senator Leahy's agriculture environment and energy portfolio. And my colleague Andrew can introduce himself. He takes the DC side of things. And I'm sure everybody on the call is familiar with Senator Leahy's current role. But, you know, sort of where things stand right now. Very obviously we have a new incoming majority in the Senate and a new administration we're working with with the inauguration of President Biden. And so sort of big picture what that means. Senator Leahy has been on the Senate, the Senate Agriculture Committee beginning in 1975. And I expect he will stay there for this next 117th Congress. His other committees are judiciary and appropriations. And his leadership role in this Congress is as the chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee. And we can get more into what that means as we have our conversation today. And he's also assumed the role of President Pro Tem of the Senate, which goes to the senior member of the majority party. And that role is to some extent ceremonial. He is, you know, sits as the president of the Senate and is in the line of succession to the presidency after the Speaker of the House. So it's important role automatically makes him part of the Senate leadership team. And so, you know, the senator seniority has never been greater. His priorities will remain, you know, strong on the areas that he's always represented on for agriculture. He's seen as a dairy leader in the Senate. He wrote the Organic Standards Act, et cetera. So, you know, we can take a deeper dive into what some of that looks like. The other, you know, what we know about the change in administration, of course, is that Secretary Vilsack has been nominated to return as secretary. We knew him well as President Obama's ex-secretary. And in that role, he was in Vermont twice. Early on, he came and attended the St. Albans Dairy Cooperative Annual Meeting, as well as the NOFA Annual Meeting. And then he came back a few years later to announce additional funding for clean water and conservation programs as we really, as the state began to tackle those issues. So Andrew may know more or Erica about the schedule for confirmation hearings. But with that, it's sort of that's who I am and where we are with the new Congress, the new administration. I'm happy to hand it to Erica. Yeah. Thank you, Tom. Welcome, Erica. Thanks, Senator Starr. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for having us today. Erica Campbell, I work for Senator Sanders as outreach rep and policy advisor, agriculture and nutrition is my main area as well as small business and economic development. And I won't say too much for my introduction. I'm looking forward to kind of getting into giving you an update today. I also covered nutrition issues for the senator. So looking forward to giving you a little update on that today and some of the small business provisions and how they've impacted agriculture in Vermont, as well as some of the new changes in the recent bill and how that will may look for agriculture businesses accessing it. This time around, I just given giving a quick overview. Senator Sanders is like is going to be chairing the budget committee. And that as a rank, you know, he's been ranking member in the minority for that as a as a chair is going to really take on a new role and new prominence, especially given the way in Washington that it's been prominent to have budget reconciliation as part of the process. So to move bills forward. So certainly he is very willing and to use that to move important things forward, especially to address our coronavirus and our health crisis and economic crisis and in a role in recovery, infrastructure development, et cetera, moving forward. So we will see what this session holds and yeah, look, that's look forward to giving you a little update today. Yeah. And Ryan. Yeah, hi. Thanks for having us. Ryan McLaren work for Congressman Peter Welch here in Vermont in agriculture. Obviously, I also my portfolio also includes transportation, education, labor and first responder issues. And yeah, we'll dive into some of the details here in a minute. But Peter currently serves on energy and commerce, government oversight and reform and the House Select Committee on intelligence, which is kind of rarries on three committees. But so he's got a lot of work, but we're looking forward to working with the new administration and hopeful, not only that we have more in terms of COVID relief here in the near future, but we can move forward on some of the more pressing issues like climate change and some of the other things that have been pent up for the last few years. So yeah, I'll leave it there. Let Andrew introduce himself and we'll dive into some of the details. Yeah. Welcome Andrew. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Andrew Barenberg with Senator Leahy's office, as Tom said, I am his counterpart in the Senator's DC office, working on a range of natural resource issues, but agriculture included. I will just briefly touch on the process that we anticipate going forward for Secretary Vilsack's confirmation. We are in a bit of a limbo here. Well, leaders McConnell and Schumer negotiate an organizing resolution for the Senate. So technically, Democrats do not yet share the Ag Committee, which we've not been able to set a date for a hearing. Though, Senator Leahy was able to meet with Secretary Vilsack via Zoom, of course, last week and was able to reiterate his priorities for Vermont, including dairy, including the importance of nutrition programs to our state. Secretary Vilsack is, of course, well aware of Vermont priorities having worked with the delegation over the eight year period during the Obama administration. So looking forward to him getting into place. I'll also just briefly mention announced this morning. The Biden administration announced a few nutrition related executive orders, most notably expanding the pandemic EBT program by as much as 15%. So although it remains to be seen the pace at which Congress can pass another coronavirus stimulus. And of course, Biden has put his preferred plan out at $1.9 trillion. We certainly are starting to see some of the quick executive actions that that they're able to take to try and rework some of the formulas and try and get as much support out to to folks who need nutrition assistance as quickly as possible. So hopefully we'll see more of that as it comes. Well, that all that all sounds good. And we our committee has been charged by our leadership here in Vermont to work on food security, nutrition for all, you know, from school children to our senior citizens. And, you know, it's really been the money that's flowed to us so far has been very helpful in making sure everybody has been bad and cared for a couple of issues in the nutrition area that we've talked about. And we've heard from our constituents in regards to, and I don't know, you know, if it's going to be able to happen, but it's out of Washington where it would have to have. We've had a quite a few farmers and and rule groups ask about trying to move to whole milk and schools school lunch programs to try to get away from, you know, the skim milk or whatever they're using 2% boost that up and the other big issue that would that we've heard about that would really make a difference in Vermont is a universal meals program. And, you know, we, we've worked on that, trying to do it on a statewide basis. But financially, we've never been in a position here in Vermont, or accounts haven't to be able to pull that off. But during this past year, with the help of what you folks have been getting done in in Washington is basically work into a universal meals program where all kids at school schools at the age of one are from K K through or preschool through 18 years of age, eat for free and And it's, it's really made a major difference for for folks. So I don't know if any of the other committee members have something they want to throw in here or not, but we'll, if not, we'll get right to the program, Corey. Yeah, I just want to reiterate the whole milk. I've only been Franklin County Senator going into my second term but in both my campaigns and in my time in the house before that, you know, just even symbolically having the ability to To have whole milk in the schools is critical to our farmers and, you know, you look a lot of communities where these kids are drinking whole milk at home because they're producing the milk and they go into their school and are being told it's not nutritious forum or You know, it's not great. I think that that causes an issue. And then, you know, you know, I'm really excited, you know, with the shifts in Washington And where our federal delegation is, I think, you know, we punch what we've always punch well above our weight, but even even more so now You know, we look at what DFA and some of the other groups have done on cutting back on production, you know that 15% that's hurt a lot of our farmers and Folks are being creative in Franklin County with bottling their own milk and finding resources, but anything, you know, that we can do to help them kind of Localize some of their production and take some of the surplus milk that can't go to the co-ops, if you will, that, you know, they can do some cool stuff where they think would would be helpful and just to have on your radar. Yep. Thank you, Corey. Sharon Pearson. Yeah, thank you. Just In a related ag thing, but not very specifically, we've been looking at how to boost school meals and shift to universal and in particular, try to get more local food into schools and what part of that challenge is unquestionably the complexity that the federal government puts on schools and The agency of Ed does a really good job trying to navigate between the federal government and local schools and I gather that the Republicans have been talking in recent years about a block grant kind of idea. For states and to me, there's, you know, I don't I don't I understand some of the concerns about that. But what I guess I wonder if it suggests that there is maybe some way to meet so that we get continue to get money in, hopefully, maybe a little bit more money to support school nutrition, but also greater flexibility. I mean, it is It is truly wild what the schools have to go through and we've just scratched the surface, but I'm not sure it could be more complex. So any any help you could you could give our schools and the state generally to Have a little more flexibility with some of that money would be greatly appreciated. Tom, do you want me to jump in with a nutrition update. And then we can move to add just to since we're sort of been on the topic and then we can kind of move off of it and jump into CFAP and other other things and I can I can wrap up maybe later with the small business PPP idle provisions. Does that sound okay. Okay, great. So the Vermont delegation. All three offices have been working incredibly closely this past year with the state agencies DCF Department of Health and agency agency of Education. And agency of agriculture on all of these nutrition provisions Vermont was incredible how quickly it pivoted and Developed plans and used every possible waiver for to have the flexibility to get it get food out to Vermonters and it's really it is really remarkable how well We did that in the state and you also used your coronavirus relief funds incredibly well everyone needs is a phenomenal model across the country. So kudos to that. Thank you. So just a quick update on what kind of came into Vermont in 2020 we had About a normal year with snap almost $100 million in 2020, which is is actually not much more than a normal year. Interestingly, I think some people didn't Because of their unemployment income didn't that boost they they actually fell off snap. There was a change in this newest that that they that extra $300 boost won't actually count. So that that will be helpful. But we had an an an emergent an emergency allotment and that brought in another $10 million into the state to families on snap. And we also had as Andrew mentioned the pandemic EBT program. So really unique thing that went out to school kids Who Who are either on a universal meals in a universal meals school or Are free and reduced hot lunch Eligible and that was $15 million to those families that received EBT cards and a lot of those families actually aren't on snap. So it's really just a really incredible thing to help families get through School meals. Again, they pivoted. They were amazing. They did to go. They did the school bus routes. They used every waiver and flexibility. And in the most recent bill, there was a reimbursement increase because I think a lot of schools did have some extra costs that were Acute and cared and basically You know from the to go containers and all of that as well. As well Just on the school meals topic. Well, everyone was talking about universal meals Senator sanders Did introduce a bill last year with congresswoman omar. It's called the universal school meals bill and we are considering reintroducing it in this session this year this coming year and You know, there's also the child nutrition reauthorization and that would be sort of an opportunity Again to address things like whole milk And other nutrition requirements in school is the streamlining and the simplification of some of the programs. It's extremely honorous and Really cumbersome all these different programs from the summer to the after school to you know, the various types of ways that you can see e p and Way ways you can try to work in the universal meals Categorical eligibility the list goes on. It's complicated and so simplifying that in any way possible While we continue to work towards federally federally funded universal meals for for all for all all children. Yeah And that would be and we do have a local food food procurement Uh extra reimbursement worked into that bill So that's that's definitely on the table and and I would hope it would be if if Vermont moves forward with any kind of state legislation for that farmers to families that was the USDA program and Abby group got the first two contracts as you know, they had I think close to 600,000 boxes went out Of lots of local food to people the next two contracts were to Two different out of state companies and then the most recent round Another a new jersey company just got the bid And that will bring in another 15,000 boxes So it's it's kind of disappointing that we didn't get an in-state contractor But there will be some boxes and I think you probably are all aware the Vermont food bank Is running their own farmers to family program with their philanthropic dollars that they received That's about 20,000 boxes that are they're currently having go out through the about the um early march And I think yeah, I think I said that 20,000 boxes. I think for that Is there is there any way to control those contracts like I mean if if the abbey group had continued getting those um seems like it would have helped the employment in Franklin County and and basically all over Vermont to some extent plus Some of that produce that would have been locally Gathered rather than going to New Jersey or I mean That was a that was a you know a trump administration USDA decision. I know senator Leahy was working very hard on you know, ensuring that there was Fair bids and and it ended up coming, you know, and to especially try to get abbey group and brahman vendors um To be competitive and it ended up coming down to the lowest bidder and you know, a lot of these were just these big huge companies It was pretty pretty disappointing of a program. But you know, I think it's safe to say that um with the biden administration and uh the The democratically controlled senate that if we if this program continues, we will see changes with it I think there's a question of whether it will continue. We made the best of it in brahman but You know, I think it wasn't an easy program and put a lot of the burden on on the charitable food system And didn't really help a lot of small medium-sized farmers. So Uh So, yeah, so that was that I think that's the nutrition update. Um We also did see a wick increase Um caseload in brahman. So that was good. They the department of health did a really great job there Got just about every way were possible and uh continued to serve I think they had about an eight percent increase caseload Any questions from any of the members In regards, uh, just one quick one, uh in regards to the universal meals program You know, I I think it would be important If if you folks as you work on that and talk about it in dc if even if you can't cover The the whole bill because it it's very expensive um, you know, I think I think a state like brahman Would participate in a cost sharing program So if we got some money from You folks to get it going And then we states could opt in to help out And then the municipalities should you know They ought to have a little skin in the game as well. So You know local state and feds. I think could put together a pretty A pretty decent program where all our young people Would be fed without having to carry cash to school and and You know and all that so anyway, I just wanted to throw that out That's great to know um senator star and when uh, we reintroduce the bill. I'm happy to look take that into consideration and Share the bill with you if you want to take a look at it. Thank you. Yeah, be very interested so where Who's up next? um, I could I could touch briefly on that. Oh, sure. I was going to touch briefly on some of the dairy issues That you raised and that senator parent raised as well. Um so on On uh, whole milk in schools USDA did issue a few rules in the last few years to allow for flexibility on low-fat flavored milk in schools Frankly the last time that congress reauthorized The child nutrition reauthorization was 10 years ago now. Um, that help Healthy hungry free kids act Was passed in 2010 typically that's Reauthorized every five years So certainly overdue for A new look at those programs. Uh, the outgoing chairman of the senate agriculture committee pat roberts from kansas Made it his goal to get that done during the last congress, but uh, obviously with with plenty else going on I think the clock just ran out on that. Um, so certainly an issue and Um, we we've heard all the arguments. Um About getting whole milk into schools Uh, you know, my non expert opinion is that whole milk is is far better to drink and more delicious. Uh, and I think there's a certainly an argument About starting kids. Um, introducing them to milk By putting the best the best dairy foot forward, I guess um On the senator parent mentioned a lot of the very kind of Creative pivoting that a lot of dairy farmers in verman have had to do Certainly the the CFAT payments and the the state program particularly with all of its flexibility has helped Provide a bit of a a bridge and a cushion To allow for some of that creativity but one one additional program that I I want to mention is The northeast dairy business innovation center That the agency of agriculture recently announced That was a authorized in the 2018 farm bill with the help of senator lehi To to establish three regional centers across the country. Um, of course vermont applied Was successful in in landing that bid and since then Senator lehi has been able to increase the funding for that program to 20 million dollars a year 22 million dollars a year in the in the fy 21 bill And that's thus far has been divided equally among the three centers so that Certainly was in the works prior to the the beginning of the pandemic. Um, but but certainly couldn't Come any sooner and part of the intent of that program is to help dairy producers diversify their products reach new markets Things like rotational grazing it's a whole range and and now with um, you know At minimum six million dollars a year coming to vermont for for that specific purpose. I think that'll Both help farmers capitalize on the the creativity and pivoting that they've already done but also You know help help to expand that And increase their resilience to to the types of market disruptions that Now we've certainly seen before this pandemic, but reached new levels in the last year I are you all sad andrew Yes, excuse me. Thanks. I'll stop there kicking over to ryan maybe Yeah, um any questions for andrew, uh, that's fresh in your minds. Um But we'll we'll uh go on to ryan Or tom Maybe tom. Um for beauty what i i'd be had. Yeah, sure. Um Um You know, thank you. Thank you, uh senator star for uh, your recognition early on of of how important the federal support was You know, I can quickly summarize because there were a lot of programs. Um, I'll talk more about the direct payments to uh vermont agricultural producers This sets aside any small business programs or the nutrition programs like the uh The food box program, but through what we came to know as cfap one and cfap two As well as the uh, crf that were federal dollars that the vermont legislature got Involved with obviously y'all got pretty deeply involved in that and did a good job putting those out the door um The uh total and direct payments to vermont agricultural producers Among those three programs was, uh, 104 million dollars last year And in addition, although it wasn't corona relief, uh, the nrcs Put about 11 million dollars out the door in conservation funding to vermont farmers continuing their programs despite the pandemic and so in total among the crf the Um cfap and the nrcs equip program. There was about Uh about 115 million dollars that um Hit the ground in vermont, uh in payments direct payments to agricultural producers. So, uh, it was An unprecedented level of support at a very important time, uh, and uh The committee can be proud of your role in helping to put it out some of the usda Programs didn't roll out quite as quickly as we would have liked in the spring, but ultimately they got up and running where we are at this time, uh, is that the usda There was a a uh crown virus relief bill that was passed just before the end of the year In case you missed it. There was a lot going on and what with the election and other interesting things, but um, there was a A relief bill that was passed and and that among other things Adds funding to the uh cfap program and late last week the usda put out notice that They're continuing Maybe i haven't seen a call this but maybe cfap 2.5 uh, and that's the program that can make direct payments to Darry's as well as uh diversified uh agriculture from you know, uh, especially crops to maple And it provides producers with the opportunity to come back in And have another run at that cfap program to adjust where they landed In the first round. I haven't seen a lot of details or Talk with any farmers who have been back in but certainly directing any farmers who you uh deal with Who are looking for additional federal support or field? Maybe they need to adjust where they landed under the cfap programs to contact their fsa office to Engage uh in in those programs going forward so The uh as has been met. I think andrew or maybe erica mentioned The first thing we'll see out of the gate with the new administration as far as uh assistance will be through the uh The plan that president biden has announced in uh 1.2 trillion 1.9 trillion dollars in in covet relief and The agricultural component of that is not well defined but um The there is a lot of attention given in what we've seen so far to nutrition and to supporting schools and so some of what you talked about Related to school meals and nutrition Will certainly be a part of the priorities and I see my colleague. Uh poly has joined us I said a quick note help poly when uh, we're considering your interest in in uh The school meals programs and nutrition Uh, uh, certainly erica and ryan and andrew cover those issues but poly Is the senator's lead on nutrition in vermont. So she's been able to join us too Well poly it's great to have you with us. We're all very hungry this morning um You bring us any nutritious food? Uh, just kidding. Uh, welcome. I'm welcome and we've talked quite a bit earlier in regards to You know universal meals and Uh Farmed family foods all kinds of uh food issues and uh very interested in that and I don't know I think tom the things you are just talking about maybe uh poly could Tell us more about in regards to nutrition But these are based are they going to be run by the federal government or will that That be passed through to like the States to to manage Do you know how that though how it's going to work? So thanks for having me and uh glad to be part of this conversation. I think we'll have many more in the future and um You I'm sure heard a good summary of the nutrition provisions in the last bill and what we can see coming up from Erica and and dry and we work very close on these issues um with regards to whether it will be Passed through to the states or will be managed through the federal government. It's going to depend on um on the individual funding source so The the next bill leans heavily on um Funding through existing federal programs I believe and many of those are run through the federal government and kind of sub-granted With guidelines through the states such as the existing school meal program So the the large programs with the state discretion like the coronavirus relief fund I've had a tvd Yep Senator call more Thank you, mr. Chair So I picked up on a couple of uh times And I think ryan mentioned it and tom did as well. And by the way, I just want to echo our chairs Thanks for your efforts on behalf of the moderates with the last round of strf There was uh, it's just really nice to know we have some people that are working hard for all of us In washington and and so thank you for all your efforts You mentioned a 1.9 trillion that at least is What the number is right now that probably isn't going to be the exact number at the end of the Drive, but is it likely that vermont will get the same part of that? In other words, we got 1.2 billion from the last round of crf funding Is it likely and I realize you're you don't have a crystal ball So you don't know but is it likely we're going to get about the same sort of cut of the pie The from what I've seen and uh, what's been outlined thus far it lays out a lot more Uh channels for the money to flow through the cares act was you know, uh, very It needed to be very quick And so there was not a lot of detail in the legislation as far as the rollout of those dollars And it was possible to say here's this big chunk of money that's going to come to states at their discretion And uh, the vermont delegation, you know, senator lehi and his work on appropriations Three of his favorite words are small state minimum And uh, and I know the other members of the delegation worked on that as well But I guess that's the long answer the short answer is I don't know What the vermont share may sugar off to But it'll be harder to apply a small state minimum to a big bundle of those dollars would be my perception because It's going to be a lot more Targeted to schools to towns to states to businesses and not come out in In a few large pieces where it's pretty easy to attach a small state minimum. I don't know if others Among the delegation staff No, I think that's right. You know, I don't I also don't know but um, I think, you know, one of the differences in the Concept of state and local aid in the new bill is that it would it could truly be Local at least what that came out of the house at the end of last year. Um, not even then in the middle of last year in may um included Funding directly to municipalities So how that changes the proportion of what goes to the state and what goes to towns. I don't know but um You know, it's it's a centerpiece of the plan state and local aid so that at the very least is positive Yep And we have a summary of that bill um that I can share with Your committee clerk who can share it with you and that lays out the Biden's proposal for how that money will flow through from the federal government Yeah, that would that would be most helpful if you could send linda a copy of that then we can You know work work from that. Yep. That'd be real good. We'll do Yeah, um questions of uh the committee so we we've down to uh, the clean water issue in the environmental sector of You know our natural resources committee looks at that and and they They sort of think they have a full jurisdiction over that But our dairy farms and in ag lands You know cover a lot of clean water issues and so we're we and the ag committee are very Involved with that working through the ag agency and natural resources and You know I while you folks would know because you're from Vermont here But our farmers have done a pretty damn good job Putting in different water quality improvements on the farms of no till and and cover cropping and and You know, they've really done well to help with with our water quality problem that we have in the lake and so Could you give us any more info on the environmental side of What's happening in dc to help with water quality? I'll take a first swing at that if if okay with folks. Um You know, certainly the federal government plays a huge role in Helping farmers and uh, you've probably already had farmers in to testify or heard from others, you know you from on agency of agriculture that as far as phosphorus reductions thus far under the tmdl well over 90 of the accountable phosphorus reductions have been made by the agricultural sector primarily dairy farms and Um 60 of that has been paid for with federal dollars under nrcs. So To the extent we're making progress on Our phosphorus gulls under the tmdl, you know agriculture is way out ahead and uh, you know, they were early on the the regulated community and had the biggest Chunk handed to them or to bite off uh in under the tmdl. So There's been a lot of progress made there. Um, You know with with that said there was a tremendous focus and now nrcs Uh in vermont is going through a strategic planning process and uh our state uh Our state director state conservationist vicky drew, um would be good to hear from on this where they're asking questions now of Stakeholder groups include including farmers as to whether they maintain an absolute laser beam focus on ag water quality or whether they Um take a look at some of the other programs that they can also work with under equip And the total dollars available for ag conservation work are determined in the farm bill and It's not annual appropriations But we've got solid farm bill funding and secretary vilsack pushed a little extra money vermont's way When he you know Last time he sat in that seat. So we'll certainly be in touch with him. But I think the We're always looking at the next farm bill and and the conservation programs, but those programs are in place one thing you'll see with this administration is the You know really doesn't impact vermont that much but the one law that uh, I know is is um Of great interest to the ag community is the waters of the united states Lotus uh and what waters fall within federal jurisdiction and nationally farms and agricultural groups have Pushed back against federal jurisdiction and the the trump administration had adopted rules that greatly Loosen federal or reduce federal jurisdiction We can expect to see I think the biden administration move in a different direction on that It's a very slow process and the uh, ultimately the impact in vermont isn't All that's significant because the federal I mean the the state water quality regulations and the required agricultural practices probably go beyond what um May or may not uh Fall within the jurisdiction as determined by the clean water act and waters of the us so Yeah, that's sort of where we stand at this point. I don't know if others have more to add Um, I'll jump in if that's all right Thank you Just to just to add a few things Kind of foreshadowing what might be to come based on his public comments and conversation with the senator last week secretary vilsack And the biden administration I guess more generally Do plan to make climate change a top priority As that applies to usda The secretary and his transition staff have been talking about finding new ways to incentivize You know climate smart ag practices One of the vehicles Would be the 30 billion dollar commodity credit corporation That is an existing authority at usda that that the trump administration and secretary perdu primarily used For direct payments to producers to offset the the trade war impact But the flexibility baked into that account You know could allow a lot of direct payments for Different types of practices including You know water quality I'm sure I mean there's plenty of overlap of course between you know things like cover cropping and soil health Climate change and water quality The you know the secretary comes from The dairy sector I mean in the Between being ag secretary and now he served as the CEO of the us dairy export council So between I think this delegation and And the secretary's Interest in and work in dairy. I would expect certainly Dairy to have a seat at that table. So it's dollars are being allocated Erica did you have something you want to add or court wild quarry senator parent has a question Well, not really a question. I just think too along with water quality and what we're doing for dairy farmers as you know, we're taking the steps to To really mitigate the impacts of climate change in washington now anything we can do for even pilot programs on A carbon sequestration on our farms and other projects. I know our farmers are very I'm interested in and Figuring out a new revenue stream there. So Um, I know your delegation our delegation's excited probably about that work But you know, let's keep our guys at the top of the list for that you can Any other questions from uh committee members right now? No So Erica, did you have a question? Or a statement or Um, I if you'd like if you uh would like I'm happy to give a quick small business update Um, I know ryan also had a few other just sort of loose ends and other pieces of the bill he wanted to Are just of the last relief bill he wanted to share as well But if you're already really familiar with the new changes to ppp and idle like I can skip that Yeah, and ryan you want to jump in? We need support over in the house as well. So I think I think we're in good shape on the senate side We are in very good shape on the senate side senator, um, I just had a few Uh, I think odds and ends from the coronavirus relief package that aren't specific to ag but are important I think to highlight particularly for rural communities In vermont and anywhere else across the country, um, obviously we talked about the crf funds the first round And i'm sure you all know that the the deadline for that for spending that money has been extended to the end of um 2021 so I know we did a great job getting that money out the door you all did But uh, there's a little bit more of a longer time horizon on that. Um I hope your constituents have started seeing The the second round of direct payments $600 to everyone um We're hearing from a lot of folks that had we heard from a A lot of constituents that had problems the first time around that didn't see it or thought they got short changed so if you hear any If you hear from constituents about that just feel free to send them our way. Um And what else am I looking at here? Uh, erica can touch on the small business stuff. There's a lot of really great changes, particularly for farmers.  So I'll let her talk about that. Um Um There was three billion dollars in additional funding for the provider relief funds which goes to um Hospitals and health care providers, which uh is has been a lifeline For particularly the rural health care health care system. Um, it's kept uh hospitals Smaller hospitals afloat There's 250 million dollars in there for telehealth, which I think has been an important lifeline for folks. Um, that aren't able to access Health care easily or they've traveled one way or they're at risk. So that's positive. Um, obviously the unemployment programs pandemic unemployment programs have been extended through march 14th, which um, I know our governor had talked a lot about. Um And uh was has is essential for so many folks um, and then one other Uh change is the the spending package waived the cost matching requirement for northern border regional commission grants Um, which will be great for communities and your neck of the woods senator star Actually, I mean really everywhere except chenney county. Um now so uh, a good forward-looking Uh win for us um And then finally, I think uh, you might have seen some Uh press about it, but peter was the house Lead um on what we call the save our stages act, which was 15 billion dollars, which is not a small amount of money dedicated for small independent, um Music venues or theaters Performing art spaces. So, you know the paramount theater in ruttland, for example the flin in burlington Would be eligible to uh for this new program that was intended to keep them afloat throughout this crisis because you know, they're Well, you know the first to close and might be the last to reopen After this pandemic and they're obviously vital parts of Our communities here in brahman across the country. So That was a huge win both for you know, peter, but especially for the folks that are operating these venues Yeah, uh, what about we haven't talked about I don't think um a lot of There's been a lot of discussion here in vermont in regards to extending broadband out to the rural areas um, is there Yeah, it's and i'm sure you've all heard this We we as a state don't have the money alone to To fund that and people have talked about Well, what we need is a program like rural electrification had back in the late thirties To to get this finally get this done Is there money in any of these different programs that would help push broadband? to You know the the last house Served into the rural communities. Yeah, there absolutely was and It's you know The broadband issue has been something peter's worked on his whole career and plans to work on Into the future because they haven't quite solved it the top the top line number from the bill was seven billion dollars So like no not not nothing to shake a stick at um included 300 million Directed towards rural areas. I'm not the our broadband experts. So I don't know exactly how that money is going to flow into those communities, but it also included 65 million to complete broadband maps because to have a real An accurate estimate of what um An accurate understanding of what areas are in need because if you rely on the providers they basically will tell you that every inch of the state is covered with sell and broadband and We know that that's not true in the the 250 million dollars in telehealth funding I talked about is is um really broadband funding it's through an FCC program that um Is intended to extend make sure people have the ability to access telehealth through broadband Um, so there's some money there for that as well. And then there's three three and a quarter billion dollars for low-income A low-income uh broadband program Uh through the FCC's lifeline program. So it's it would provide um, I think $50 a month to households that are eligible for that program or or Are eligible for Pell grants Recently unemployed or are eligible for free and reduced lunch. So that's you know cash to the consumer to help pay for broadband it doesn't solve the access issue but um It it will help with folks that don't have access for economic reasons And we senator sir, we also just had 32 million dollars come into the state through the FCC program um the The rural digital program that that they run You're probably all know that the the USDA program. We don't have an easy time accessing Any at at at this point. So most of those funds in the last bill A lot of those will go through grant programs rather than the state block grant that we were hoping for so We do need a lot more money. It will hopefully be in infrastructure bills in the future We know we need to have a massive federal investment in this as you said But we did get that to four providers that 32 million So those are that's already starting to be rolled out. There's a map if you're interested I'm happy to I don't know if I can dig it right now to put in the chat by 10 o'clock. We are at right now Um, but I'm happy to send that to linda. Um, and it has a map of all of the um It was put together by um by dps in vermont. So but I'm happy to send it to you So you could send that to linda when you get it and she'll disperse it You know get it out to us um Well, um, I guess we're running out of time Are there any other questions from any of the committee members to our delegation or with us? And and I'm happy to send you some a summary Are you I guess you're probably all up to speed on the ppp and the idle changes? Because they were pretty significant for farmers. So um, but if you're not I'm happy to send you a written summary of that Yeah, that wouldn't do any harm. We try to stay abreast of it, but You know with everything that's happening. You miss some things um Well, you know in in the future if there's anything That we can help You folks with um, you know, feel free to to uh call on us and um Want to thank thank all of you for your time this morning and uh, thank you for your hard work you've been doing and wish you well into the Next year to help us some more um, so thanks a lot and um We um, we appreciate your time Thank you senator. Hopefully we'll see you in person by then Yeah, I hope so Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah um, so committee we we had somebody with us, uh I don't really know who he is, but somebody's on our screen Uh, hey, did any of you want to take a quick break before we get started? You want to take a break Michael? That'd be lovely senator. Thank you um, why don't we Why don't we take You know a couple of minutes and five minutes and then we'll be right back and be with you Michael You can get your thoughts all in a row to Give us a good a good presentation. I want it senator. Thank you. Yeah, we'll catch you in a minute


Hi, this video is called Area of the Shaded Region 1. You are going to see a lot of problems like this from here until the end of geometry class. So get used to the idea of finding areas of shaded regions. The most important thing you can do is to make sense of the picture. I look at this picture and I see a giant rectangle and then I see two smaller squares.  Like green or brown or purple or something like that.  So now you can see through the paper there. It's almost like it's a mask where the two squares are the part where your eyes could see through. That's how I like to imagine it. So to find the area of the shaded region, well I think I'm going to start by finding the area of the whole thing. So in this particular problem the whole thing is the big rectangle. And then I'm going to subtract out the two squares I cut out, the parts I can see through now. So I'm going to do the area of the whole thing minus the area of the white. So in this problem we have two parts to it. We need to find the area of the whole thing. We need to find the area of the white cutouts and then we'll see if we can combine like terms at the end. Well the area of the white square should be easy.  Sorry about that. And then the other square is also a three by three. Three times three is nine. Sorry they like the overhead today. Anyway, so the area of the white parts we've got nine plus nine which is going to be eighteen. So the area of the white part is eighteen units squared. I'm not going to worry about putting the label on until I'm totally done. So I'm just going to write eighteen for the white part. Now onto the area of the whole thing. This isn't too much worse because you look at the area of the whole thing. Well we have a big rectangle and area of a rectangle is base times height. So it looks like we're simply going to have to do two root five times six root five. Remember the two and the six can multiply to become twelve because they're both outside the square root. The five and the five is the square root of twenty five. Well the square root of twenty five is five. Twelve times five is sixty. So the area of the whole thing is sixty. So now all we have left to do is combine our answers. Sixty minus eighteen. Well sixty and eighteen are both constants so they are like terms. So we can do the subtraction and we get forty two. And here is where we'll put our label on. Since it's area it will be units squared. Like I said it's just important to make sense of the picture. Probably the most important part of this problem is figuring out the setup. It was the area of the whole minus the area of the white. Because then you just do it individually piece by piece and at the end try to put it all together. You have one more video for tonight and it's going to be another problem similar to this.