Everybody, we're going to heat up, it's just 30, our next speaker is called Damien. Yeah, that's it. And he's gonna talk about the open decision framework as you can see. Please, a big round of applause. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Do I speak enough loud for everyone? Okay, so, this is about how to make everybody IP. Spoiler alert, you can't. So, a little bit about me, my name is Damien. I'm not a designer, I'm a database guy. And there's somewhat a long journey that came, bring me here. My story is that I founded a post-classical consulting company, anybody here using Postgres? Oh yeah, okay, cool. And so I'm also, so I'm kind of a director of a 30 people company. And I'm also involved in the Postgres community. So I've got this two minds on two spaces. Two more, two more about me. Just check out my GitHub account. So my story, we actually started like a kind of joke. We should make a company and do open source. And so we did, let's make a company like we make open source. So yeah, clear principles that we all know, transparency, open discussion, working remotely, a result of structure, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So on paper it's really, really good. When I explain this to people, they say, oh wow, this is cool. Until they come to us, to our company, they realize our decision workflow looks like this. No, actually we don't throw fishes at each other, but anyway, it's pretty much like this. So problems, well, consensus does not scale. When you grow the group, it's harder to get everybody on the same page and everybody agreed on the same questions. Something you see on open source communities is that, yeah, meetings and meetings and meetings, or which is not better, hundreds of emails. We reached a point where we would meet like two hours and at the end of the meeting, we were not even able to agree on if we had decided something. So we had people going out of the meeting saying, okay, we need to discuss this next time. And some people saying, okay, this was a good meeting. And so, total mess. This leads to someone which is more problematic, which is silent disapproval, which is terrible actually, because at some point people are so bored with the meetings, they just stop talking because, yeah, they don't trust the process anymore. And, yeah, they say, okay, let them talk and we'll do what we want afterwards. And also, you got to realize that at some point, not taking a decision is a decision. And you have people that are very skilled at the idea. If they don't want a decision, they can make sure that no decision will be made. So here comes an open decision from us. So it's not something I came up with. It's developed by Red Hat. It's published on GitHub. So I will give the link at the end. It was published last year, but I guess it's a long process for them to write this. And what we did is just we translated it in French, okay? So which is, by the way, a great way to contribute to open sources. You don't know where to start. Just start translating in your own language. It's a nice idea, easy to start. And so we forked this open decision from us to make our own decision from us. So yeah, I think I need there to be clear that I have no relationship with Red Hat and I'm not, anything I'm gonna say is in a way, of course, related to their vision of it. It's my vision of it. It's how we use it, of course. So let's start by definition. What is an open decision? Well, for another audience, I would spend more time on this, but yeah, if you're here, you already know what are the open source principle, transparency, inclusive, use a soundtrack. Yeah, just keep this in mind along the decision process. So what is it? It's just four steps, actually. Well, when I saw that, my first thought was, this is very poor. This is just, it's too easy. I mean, it looks too simple. But when we 12th edited, we found that there were principles and little ideas in every steps that are really, really helpful and powerful, actually. So first step, concept, define, plan, ideate. Just start with asking a few questions. What's the problem? What the problem is? How we will make a decision? Do we need to vote on this? Do we need, I don't know, some kind of a simple agreement or anything? Do we need lawyers to review the decision, et cetera, et cetera? Fine, who's likely to disagree? Who's likely to reject this decision from the start? And people that's likely to opt out, you know? You already know when you start tackling a problem that there are people that maybe don't want you to go there. Maybe people that have already tried to do this. So this is basically build a clear roadmap for your process. The first one is a tricky one because I find it incredibly difficult to state the problem within one or two sentences. Actually, it's very complicated. And, yeah, it can be revealing. And so, yeah, you got potential frameworks along the way, so these first steps is here to avoid these frameworks afterwards, okay? So communication channels where we will discuss, will we be public or not? Is it on IRC, is it on, I don't know, mailing list or is it on a forum? Do we need to do video calls or not? I don't know, will be the video calls recorded or not? And, of course, deadlines because some people, when they have a problem, they want you to fix it right away. Some people want to, you know, calm down with the things a little bit. So, yeah, be very clear from the start or how you want to go. Phase two, sorry. So, again, questions. Let's go back then. Let's see who already tried to solve this, what they tried, what they did. Let's look at, maybe there's another problem beyond this problem. It's a very common scheme. And, yeah, you get your feedback. You go to people and try to understand what is a problem. And, again, you try to identify all the different kinds of people that are involved in this problem. This is clearly the most difficult part because, and this is common but especially in tech people and open source people, they have a tendency to rush to the solution, to rush through the tools, to say, okay, let's just use this tool. It's perfect and everything. For instance, if I ask this question about a project of mine and I say, okay, I have problem managing my bug, my bug submissions. Yeah, lots of people will go and ask me, I say, okay, just use GitHub issues or GitHub or whatever ticket system there is. But that's not exactly what I'm my question. And you need to take your time and embrace complexity. I really liked the presentation before because it was about that. There's this principle in open source which says, keep in simple. But the solution must be simple. But you must not have a simple view on reality. Reality is complex. Humanity complex, human are not binary machines. So do not be afraid of complexity. And of course, maintain a safe environment so let people talk and don't judge them for what they have to say. And of course, take your time to explore the problem. Just don't rush to the solution, take your time, explore all the problem and all the complexity of it. Okay, design test developed. So yeah, just now you have put the problem in place. Just imagine, what if we had unlimited access to any kind of money? What if we were like 10 years ago? What if, I don't know, what if we start from scratch? Et cetera, et cetera. A lot of these ideas, you're gonna throw them away. But in the process of this, you will find some other ideas on other. And also again, identify people that will be early adopters and people that will give you feedbacks on your prototypes. So this is the fun part because you try to build a prototype, whatever that means. You're gonna search for alternative.  And in the end, you simplify and reduce the obscurant. And also, prepare an escape plan because you might fail. So that's at this point, you might also want to just say what if it fails? It's interesting to think about this ahead of time. And in the end, launch deploy closed. So pretty much like a development process when you're putting your code in production. Just like that. You will ask your question about, well, did we answer the initial question? So a lot of time, we realize that we have maybe spent four hours of meetings and at the end, we found a great solution, but it's not the solution for the question. And it's really, really common. How do we monitor the impact of our decision? How do we know if our decision will fail or be a success? How do we make revision based on feedback? So our decision will have an impact on people. So we will receive feedback and what will we do with this? What will we leave to the future generation? We have found some things. So maybe later other people can use what we've done here and also what have we learned. And yes, just take a rendezvous for, I don't know, six months, one hour later, sit back again and just look back to what we have done. So again, very simple things, but be proud, it's difficult to take a decision. It's very difficult, especially in a decentralized environment where a lot of people have strong opinions. It's very difficult to cut it and come up with something. So tell the story. I have experienced that when you take a very difficult decision, people will accept it more if you explain that you have spent hours and hours of meetings, if you have spent lots of prototypes and everything. If people can understand how much you have worked to get this decision, they will accept it even if that's not their solution that has been chosen. And contribute us, which means, yeah, maybe again, you may have learned some things along the way. So push that back to other people and stay engaged with people, reject the decision. Again, you can't make everyone happy, but don't act like you have won and other people have lost, because in the end, maybe they were right, maybe you were wrong, maybe you took the wrong decision and maybe in six months, when you realize you failed, you will be happy to come back at them and say, okay, we had this idea, it failed, you were right, can you help us fix it?  If you stay engaged with them, saying, okay, I know you have this issue, I know you have this critic, we are monitoring it, we are following on it, yeah, it helps. So in practice, we use this framework for one year now, we used it in six different work groups, especially for marketing decision, which is hard because under 30 people in the company, we have like, I said 20 database guys, so not people already accustomed to marketing. And it steps to, yeah, like from one to four hours, each group was very small, and some people didn't like the framework, it found it was a bit messy, and others really liked it, and especially for newcomers in the company, it was really, really easier to get involved because there is a clear path, you know where you're going, you know when you can contribute.  And we found the compromise, in another situation, we had two very opposite groups who say, we want A, and the other group say, we want B, and so kind of stuck in some clueless opposition, and we found some compromise, and it really worked well. And of course, it failed, and on some other decision we made, because it's not magic, but the idea is that they failed fast, and I wouldn't stress enough the importance of failing fast, yeah. You need to fail fast, learn, and go back at it. And so, instead of getting stuck on decision you can do, we did something, and we learned by failing, and we tried other things. So yeah, so I'm not telling you to do what we do, what we did, I'm just telling you to do your own decision framework in your community or in your company. So obviously Red Hat has done it, published it on GitHub. You have GitHub that has a great book that I would recommend, and they have a page on leadership too, and also Valve, the game computing company, which has a very interesting concept called Cabal. I don't have time to talk about this, but all three links are really, very worth it. And yeah, Acup company. I'm really interested in being, I spent 10 years being at the same time the director of the company, and at the same time the community members, and I'm very interested of what Open Source principle can do for corporate management, because the actual state of corporate management is garbage to be polite. I go in a lot of clients that I want name of course, but yeah, most of the corporate management practices I see are just mostly new men, and just disrespectful for people. So we have a common ground of Open Source principle that we can use to put inside our own companies. So obviously a company is not an open source project, but yeah, we can use a lot of this in our daily jobs. And that's it, and everyone is happy. Thank you. So this is- Can you do half of the minutes for questions? Great. That's okay, yeah. Now by the way, this is a bit new for me. I do most database talks. So if you can take a few times to give me feedback on what I did, it would be great. You should consider that there are alternatives. So I understand that why that's necessary.  You shouldn't stop looking left and right, but doesn't that kind of reopen the gray area of the whole decision kind of? Yeah, the question is, if I understand, is that on step three, when you search for alternative, you can reopen questions that you have should have closed in the previous steps. Yeah, this is a common mistake. Obviously, this is, if I would say, if you did your jobs on this part, on the complexity, it doesn't really happen because we all, the problem has been clearly stated. So yeah, you, again, this is a very important part of it, let complexity be. And I'd say it's a risk, but yeah, you need to prepare for that before I think. If, so, but it's not, it's okay, you can go back.  I mean, you can realize that, okay, we missed that part of the problem that we did not explore. Looking at this solution showed us that, yeah, we must go back. It's okay to go back. Yeah, well. Okay, but first, first we translated in French. So as long as you translate it, it's not exactly the same. And then we kind of, we have our own handbook. So we change the format and we simplify the content so that it can be included in our handbook, which fully should be open source in a few months. We have a decision on this too. So yeah, mostly adapting things. And yeah, some things on phase one, phase two, there are some items we move from one phase two on another, but really it's not that big deal. We're pretty much stick to the thing. Yeah. I think you had the consensus, isn't there? Well, not a consensus. That's important too. Yes, that was my question. Because sometimes if you find a consensus, then it happens that both groups are really happy because they both have to concede at key points. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, that was that one. Yeah, we don't, consensus doesn't scale. So we don't try to reach consensus at all costs. What we want is to recognize that some people are against this decision and acknowledge that and being able to go back at them if we need. But instead of everybody is okay with the decision, what we want is everybody can live with it. It's not the same thing. You can say, okay, I'm not okay at all with what you're doing, but I can live with it. It's not against my principle. It's just a bad idea, but I will continue to say it's a bad idea, but I can live with it. It's very different from consensus. Yeah. So the question is, did we, it's similar to project management and did we use it for project management? Not really. We don't do project management the way people would think we are because we're not a really project-based company. We're not a developing company. We're much a support company, consulting company, training company. So there's not that much of projects inside the company, but we did use it here for big projects, bigger decision that can be, I mean, looked at from outside like projects. Yeah. Yeah, everything starts with a problem and someone able to state the problem clearly. Which is not simple. So a lot of, yeah, a lot of people are very, sometimes are very unhappy with the situation and there are very, there are a lot of problems to express the real problematic behind it. So this is where phase two is important to give them confidence, let them talk and let them give them the time to explain what is their problem behind the simple expression of unhappiness. Sorry. Thanks a lot, thanks a lot.


Good afternoon, I am Destiny Marmour and this is the News Brief. The Independent National Electoral Commission has declared a matter of fintery as the winner of the Adamawa state governorship election. The Returning Officer Mohamed Mele declared incumbent fintery of the People's Democratic Party winner on Tuesday after pulling 430,861 votes to defeat his major counterpart Aisha Binani of the All Progressive Congress, who pulled 398,788 votes. Inna Ibrahim PRP 1108 1188 Arto Umar SDP 6,870 Magana Ismaila Musa YPP 1431 1431 Dadu Hamron ZLB 200,000 that Umar Ahmad al-Fintiri of PDP having satisfied the requirement of the law, has declared the winner. In his acceptance speech after being declared winner, the governor-elect said he was humbled the more while congratulating his co-contenders for their struggle in the governorship race. Fintiri condemned the action of Hudu, who had earlier declared Binani as the winner of the election. We are at a point where history is made. It is made because of you. It is made because you affirm your willingness to support the good works we have started in Adamawa state. It is made because we have reached a consensus that Adamawa state must work. It is made because we have collectively agreed that we desire a better Adamawa state that is lifted from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope. We believe that, well, each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an Adamawa family. And out of this family, each of us is at liberty to aspire to any height without any human hindrance. Dear citizens, what we also was a flagrant display of desperation, deliberate impunity and cross-opportunity, which is surrounded by a whole wave of uncertainty. In the mix of all these, as your leader, I remain calm and appeal for same from you. I call for appreciatively hacking too. Once again, you have brought out our strike and Spartan spirit as Adamawa people to bear. For this, I can't thank you enough. Thank you and thank you again. Fellow students, you did all this for us. You did all this for democracy. You did all this for our dear state. You did all this for the present generation and perhaps the generation yet unborn. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


How's it going guys? It's your boy Noah from kicking their bass TV here with a Q&A number three Like I said, I was gonna be doing these every two weeks. I'm sure your questions a load up I'm sure new people come on to the page. So Like let's just do one every two weeks Keep you guys informed By the way, Tuesday today's Sunday Tuesday is gonna be the first tackle Tuesday video I know you guys are excited about that And in that video, I'm taking suggestions for the next week's tackle Tuesday. So make sure you Stay tuned for that. It's coming out Tuesday probably seven o'clock. I have it scheduled and everything Seven o'clock 7 p.m. Tuesday. So stay tuned for that. So let's go ahead and get started with the Q&A guys What is your favorite place to fish and why my favorite place by Lake I guess that's what you're asking if you're talking about a lake. I would say Lake Lanier I really like spot fishing. I am a big fan of largemouth fishing like up shallow and stuff But my home lakes Lake Lanier, so I'm used to fishing out deep for spots every brush and stuff like that So Lake Lanier if you're talking about a lake, that's what it would be What encourage you encourages you to keep fishing and how did you get all the accessories like you have on the boat? Like like you have like accessories you have like boat, etc Also shout out to JWH fishing What encourage me to keep fishing you guys encourage me to keep fishing you guys encourage me to make more videos And just the excitement of it guys You never know what's gonna happen. You can go out on the lake and not catch a fish You can go out on the lake another day and catch a 10 pounder. You just don't know what's gonna happen every cast It's just a mystery and it's really neat. Yeah, you guys encourage me a lot on not only to make these videos But just the fish in general fish tournaments Um And how did you get all the accessories on the boat on guys? I have really great parents and really great sponsors Bunch of support along the way Especially the sponsors and my parents and a lot of support from you guys and just fishing tournaments getting your name out there If you guys don't know I am sponsored by ranger boats Have you ever caught a striper? And if so, how big um, yeah, I've caught stripers I've only been striper fishing probably three times like dedicated striper fishing. We're going out We're gonna catch some striper Just so the few buddies But my biggest one I would say is 30 pounds A decent striper on linear What editing software do you use? For your videos and how did you learn how to use it? Sony movie studio is what I use It's Sony it's kind of like Sony Vegas. Have you guys have heard of that? So I'm pretty complicated to be honest, but once you get it you get it. It's really simple you just got to fool around with it and How did I learn to use it? Pretty much just messing around with it, man I really didn't have anyone to teach me everyone I know uses on the Apple programs and everything so I was clueless to it when I first got it So I just pulled around with it Are you thinking to be a fisherman as a career to be honest man? Yes a hundred percent I finally made a decision of that as you guys know I have a Jeep right now and I would say in about a year I'm gonna be getting a truck I'm gonna be getting a tundra or I'm gonna give my dad's tundra because he'll probably upgrade to a new truck So he'll hand that down to me But yeah guys if I had the opportunity to do this and then I'm gonna do it I'm gonna get full force at it like I said in my other vlog If I have the opportunity definitely I'm gonna do it not many people have the opportunity to so if I have the opportunity I'm just gonna go for it Have you ever fished Lake Altoona? If so, what is your biggest fish there and what did you use? Sorry, but I've never fished it. I actually want to fish it If that's your home lake hit me up with a message man I'm gonna get fishing some time. Have you ever fished Lake Gaston and if so What did you use? No, I've never fished that lake How does it feel to be a gangster man? I'm a G I'm a G. You know Come on.  You kind of messed up on the comment. What do you normally use got bass? I guess that's supposed to be for four bass. Um, it all it all varies man. It all depends if you're throwing a Reaction bite bait like a fast-moving bait if you're throwing a finesse bait if I'm throwing a finesse bait I'm most likely throwing a jig a Worm or a wobble head if I'm throwing a moving bait. It's most likely a chatter bait crank bait Stuff jerk bait top water My favorite bait as most of you guys know favorite bait chatter bait all the way I really like throwing a jig and also a wobble head as well But if it was for moving bait definitely definitely a chatter bait For a slow-moving bait finesse bait Like a jig or a wobble head really big fan of that also a shaky head at points if it's really tough How long do you use a bait slash technique before you determine it's not working? Um It's really hard to say because I can tell you one thing Some tournaments.   You're looking down at your graph. You're seeing them on the bottom You're gonna have to adjust They're not they're clearly not biting that moving bait. They're on the bottom.  They're foot off the bottom. Let's throw Carolina rig. I mean just Gotta adjust like that How do you start a successful YouTube slash social media? You just got to keep on posting good content man, honestly, I'm nowhere where I want to be right now I want to be at 150 K I set a goal for this year for Instagram and it's 100 K I don't know if I want to be able to hit it, but that's my goal But just post good content deep productive be active on that account You're gonna have to keep on posting keep your viewers informed You have to keep at it. You can't just stop for two weeks.  Some kid just calm his sponsor I don't know if that means Winner of the GoPro. Come on man, you know, I'm gonna say 6,500 subscribers. I'll be giving it away How to locate fish when fishing the shore at local ponds? That's kind of difficult to be honest But say you're fishing off the bank and you're casting all out cast over here when you get your bait in So you're throwing a chatter bait.  Pretty much by tournaments guys in promotion through your page What kind of boat do you have? We have a ranger Z520c Favorite bait for spawning bass.   As in pre-fishing wise it may be a week to even two weeks to even three weeks like we pre-fished for The back high school bassmaster classic we pre-fished months before that And we just had tons of turns in the middle of that so we had to kind of pre-fish But as in getting your poles ready and everything Just a couple days to be honest What bait casting combo do you recommend for a new bass fisherman? For rod, I like a St. Croix mojo bass and I also like some of ad-weaver seas reels I'm I like the Revo series reels, but if you want to get something a little bit cheaper They have the ad-weaver sea of black max, which is pretty decent for my new bass fisherman Your opinion on a chatterbait like I said, man, it's my favorite bait. I love it. Um, I'm Stay tuned Tuesday That's a hit right there What is your favorite structure to throw a wobble head? I'm definitely rock rock a hundred percent A lot of those fish love the stage on rocks. Definitely good on wood as well And it depends what type of bass or fishing for your fishing for a spot. I like rock fishing for bass Wood What is your best advice for someone getting into fishing tournaments? I'm just just start off with a couple club tournaments, man and Just fish a couple of those say say you're in high school fish a couple regular club tournaments get used to the flow get used to Go into the tournaments launching and everything Get used to weighing in and then if you're wanting to go into high school fishing or college fishing or whatever you're doing Jump into that once you're comfortable But make sure you jump into it man a lot of people want to hold back don't hold back Just getting the fishing in What month is the best time to fish for bass especially large mouth? Honestly, I couldn't give you a Specific month on just the seasons is a lot of good months Just like summers summers really good screens really good falls really good Down in the winter. I mean, it's just kind of hard to Figure it down. I Have another post where I was more calm. It's on give me one second How often do you fish? I would say like one day a week on the weekends or the weekends And if I can more I will and every once in a while I get Not bored with it, but I'll overdo myself I must be a really really sluggish really tired. So everyone's want to take a week off like this week I haven't fished And there's there's to a point where I believe it was in the fall last year Where I didn't fish for two to three months. It was crazy Something just killed me man. It's bad So don't overdo yourself if you think you're undo that because that's not a good thing The people from your highs The people from your high school know you fish competitively and have a YouTube for the most part No, some people do some people don't a lot of my close friends do and Yeah, at school. I'm Noah outside of school kicking their bass TV That's weird What motivated you to pursue bass fishing and how do you make your baits? Well motivating me is pretty much the excitement of the guys and you guys motivate me the most I really mean that you guys motivate me the most fish and everything and I have somebody make my baits is more high quality How much money have you made off your YouTube so far? Honestly, I haven't monetized. I didn't have my videos monetized till about a month or two ago, so I can't really say it's not much Do you play on going to college? Yes, I do plan on going to college and most likely Alabama College I'm just for the fact that there's a lot of lakes on nearby, but I'm not I'm not sure I'm not definite on that yet.  I don't I don't fish any duckets or lose. Let's just say I use the fish Duckets and I switched them all over to St. Croix. I really love my St. Croix and I'll love my Abbey reels How do people at your school respond to you having a YouTube? Like I said, not too many people No, I have a YouTube but the ones I do actually think is pretty cool I'm for the most part. I see it kind of not like not the coolest thing But most people think it's pretty cool, especially on my action videos FLW or bass I like bass per bass over FLW What is your favorite rod and reel combo for fishing ponds? I'm like I said St. Croix legend extreme and an Abbey MGX That's my overall favorite combo any really St. Croix and Abbey's really good combo favorite lure of all time It has to be the chatterbait man try to be hands down. I love the chatterbait How to read sonar down scan side scan If you guys want a video on that leave a comment below I could definitely do a video on that sonar If you see a fish, it's gonna be kind of like a upside down like a symbol. It's gonna be like a little hump And when you see that and you look at the down scan the down scan is gonna have a little dot on the little dots Gonna represent the fish Side scan you can kind of see from the sides. You can see the rocks and everything is really neat I kind of go too much in the detail of that. It's hard to go into detail to sit in here What is your favorite type of soft plastic and why my favorite type is like a finesse worm That's my favorite Do I kayak fish? No Just salt-ordered fish Just want to go out of town for the most part Where did you make your logo intro to your YouTube videos? My logo I did not make I got somebody to make me that a while ago and I make everything from my YouTube biggest bass ten pounds What software do I use Sony movie studio? software that use What is my boat run wide open around 75 we took the stuff out it would run much faster How did you get in the fishing what age? I'm I would say around 10 to 13 I was fishing just like catfish and from 13 to 17 where I'm at now bass fishing Okay, I'll possibly do a video on Lake Oconee. I mean if I'm ever down there man I would definitely do that. It's just the schedule is so compact right now How do I fish my jigs depending on the lake and how the day is I'm I'll drag my jig or I'll hop my jig What is your favorite all-purpose rod and reel combo like I said, I'm same Chloe's legend extreme and I will go see it Mgx my favorite What is the frist of north you have fished? I'm honestly not too far. I invite you to take a trip to Michigan. Man if I can I will definitely be up for that Man, I know you stay tuned on my stuff. I'm definitely up for that Make a video and everything Do you have a fishing club and if so how many people do you have? I do a fishing club at my school not too many people. I mean there's 4,000 people at my school But there's not too many people at fish to be honest We only have two high school teams from my school right now What are your favorite ways to cover water quickly? I'm pretty much just get a moving bait like for an example a rattle trap And I'm just keep on covering water. Just put the troll motor down and go How much money do you think you have put towards your equipment for fishing to get where you are? If it's personal don't bother answering Honestly, I couldn't really put a number on it. I can say it's a lot of money you guys It's a lot of money. I'm best fishing expensive support. You know how it is They come up to me really you want it. It's just it's really crazy and I'm also have some really great sponsors That are treating me really well. I'm through on my whole journey I've officially got tuna. I answered that one Where do I work? I actually own some vending machines. So I do vending machines like I restock vending machines Also work at a retail shop Selling equipment and stuff and I did have an internship for fish flicks adventure advertising But I'm not doing that right now. I may start it back this summer I'm gonna go talk to them about that and also kicking their bass. That's a lot of work It's starting to get to the point where it's a lot of work and kicking their ass and everything So yeah guys, that's all the questions and I hope you guys are enjoying these questioning answers Like I said, I'm gonna be doing these every two weeks Just to keep you guys informed in everything Keep you guys updated the new crowd if you guys want to answer or ask some questions. I'll Answer them for you. So thank you guys for watching Tuesday tackle Tuesday's first video it was supposed to start last week But I just got caught up in a lot of stuff. I was sick and everything just didn't turn out So this Tuesday first tackle Tuesday video. I'm remember to enter my GoPro giveaway My rod giveaway my bait giveaway my rod giveaway is actually over But I just haven't had time to draw the winners for that and I'm sorry about that guys So I will let you guys keep on entering right now Throughout till I do it. It'll be some time this week. I'm sure so thank you guys for watching See you guys next time You


So if I'm listening to a podcast at two, two and a half speeds, I can go through tons and tons of knowledge on pretty much any topic that's important to me, whether it be medicine, whether it be business, whether it be personal fitness or personal progress. And because of speed listing, I become addicted to how quickly you can absorb amazing pieces of knowledge that now I try to find other mundane tasks that I'm doing on a daily and a weekly basis and try to include it there. So for example, next week I'll be running a half marathon. I mean, some of my runs on my trainings end up being anywhere hour, hour and a half to maybe up to two hours. So now instead of listening to music, I actually listen to podcasts and audio books that I speed up at two, two and a half X. And essentially it's amazing people that want to share their knowledge. I'm able to absorb it in half the amount of time.


It is important to reconcile and forgive each other. And we want to reach out to the PF that we as your colleagues in politics we want to reconcile and forgive you.  We will visit you in the spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness. So forgiveness and reconciliation is conditional? There's nothing conditional about it. If you know you stole, bring back what you stole, we forgive you, we reconcile, but you stealing is against the law and we are not the law so you must answer to the law. So when the law says because you have been found guilty and you are put to prison, now since you and me we reconcile and we forgive each other I will come visit you in prison. That's a good thing.


In this video, I will describe the role of the primary lymphoid organs, the bone marrow, and the thymus, in lymphocyte development and contrast the functions of the primary lymphoid organs with the functions of secondary lymphoid organs. The major organs of the lymphatic and immune system are called lymphoid organs. The functions of lymphoid organs include housing lymphocytes, regulating their development, and the lymphoid organs clean body fluids. And as they clean the body fluids, lymphocytes within lymphoid organs coordinate the adaptive immunity to defend the body against specific infections. An antigen is any substance capable of binding to the receptors of lymphocytes to provoke an adaptive immune response. You can see here the antibody is a receptor that's found on the surface of a B cell or B lymphocyte when a specific molecular pattern on the surface of a pathogen such as a protein on the surface of a bacterial cell Binds to the antigen binding site of the B cell receptor. This activates the B cell and the B cell can stimulate the adaptive immunity to help defend the body against that specific bacterium, that specific infection. Here we can see an example of a B lymphocyte or B cell becoming activated when the antigen on the surface of a bacterial cell binds to the B cell receptor or antibody. Then this B cell becomes activated to start secreting antibodies that are the pentameric IgM antibodies that will then help to defend against bacteria as the antibody concentration of the blood rises. These antibodies will bind to the bacteria and prevent that bacteria from spreading, will help to neutralize the bacteria and coordinate labeling that bacteria for other leukocytes that come and destroy. Now there's another type of lymphocyte, aside from B lymphocytes, there are also T lymphocytes. This illustration shows us T cell dependent activation of humoral immunity, so this is the activation of a B lymphocyte by a helper T cell. So a T lymphocyte also has a receptor called a T cell receptor which, similar to an antibody, the T cell receptor can bind to an antigen and become activated. And when this T helper cell is becoming activated by the antigen, it's releasing a chemical message called cytokines that will stimulate the B lymphocyte to help activate the B lymphocyte that can then start to produce antibodies. The activated form of the B lymphocyte that secretes the antibodies into the blood are the plasma cells, and so plasma cells are the effector cells in the humoral immunity that secrete antibodies into the blood, and those antibodies can then help to defend against that specific infection. Primary lymphoid organs are the bone marrow and thymus. These organs are the location where lymphocytes mature and become immunocompetent, enabling them to defend the body against infections. An immunocompetent lymphocyte is mature and capable of recognizing an antigen while all lymphocytes are produced from the hematopoietic stem cells in red bone marrow. B lymphocytes remain in red bone marrow to mature, becoming immunocompetent and capable of responding to a specific infection to coordinate the adaptive immunity. Immature T lymphocytes leave the red bone marrow and migrate to the thymus where they complete maturation to become immunocompetent, and so the T cells become immunocompetent in the thymus and thymus begins with T, whereas the B cells become immunocompetent in the bone marrow and bone marrow begins with B. After becoming immunocompetent, mature lymphocytes migrate from the primary lymphoid organs to the secondary lymphoid organs, which are the lymph nodes, the spleen, and the mucosa-associated lymphoid tissues, which include the tonsils as well as numerous patches of lymphoid tissue that are distributed throughout mucous membranes in the body through the digestive tract. Lymph nodes function to filter lymph before it returns to the blood, so lymph forms from interstitial fluid, and interstitial fluid is able to drain into lymphatic capillaries and lymphatic capillaries, then drain into larger lymphatic vessels. These lymphatic vessels will be filtered through lymph nodes before eventually draining into lymphatic ducts that empty into the veins. The lymph nodes contain naïve lymphocytes, that is lymphocytes that are immunocompetent but have not yet become activated by an antigen, and these lymphocytes can then encounter antigen from a pathogen as the lymph is being filtered through a lymph node, and if that antigen can bind to the receptor for that lymphocyte, the lymphocyte will become activated, stimulating the adaptive immunity. These spleen filters and monitors the blood for infection, and so lymphocytes that are in the spleen can help identify infection that's in the blood, and then there are also lymphocytes in the mucosa-associated lymphoid tissues that are able to monitor the mucus and detect any infection in that mucus help to coordinate an adaptive immune response to defend against that infection.


Γεια σας και ευχαριστώ να πάμε στον άλλο Mixed Media Tuesday. Σήμερα θα φτιάχνουμε ένα 6x6 Mixed Media προσχέση και η εξωγή από αυτήν την δάσσα. Είναι λοιπόν Φανκί τοίχι και είναι δημιουργημένη από Team Holes4C6. Είχαμε τον σύνομο του σύνομο, οπότε την ώρα που δαξαίνω αυτό το δάσσαμε, νέα μου είχα πένει. Τώρα, η πιο εξηγή για αυτό, που είναι πολύ καλύτερη, είναι ότι όλες τα πάντα για το τοίχι είναι σε ένα τάχο. και αυτή η τέτοια ημέρα καταφέρει 4 βασίες για τα σχέδια σας που δεν θα χρησιμοποιήσω για το σχέδιο σήμερα. Για το background θα δοκιμάσω με αξιόδιες και θα αγαπηθώ να δοκιμάσω με αξιόδιες για τα βασίες μου γιατί τα τελείωσαν πολύ καλύτες, γιατί δεν απαθάνουν το θάναρ της φοκάλιδας. Τώρα, θα πάω με σαμπιστάτρες, στυμπλό και κρακτ-πιστέσιο. Θα δοκιμάσω με καλύτερο σχέδιο στυμπλό και αυτό είναι 6 x 6 στις στυμπλός, που θα σκορταστούν να αγαπηθώ μετά για τη σχέδια μου. Αν θέλεις να αντιμετωπιθεί το σχέδιο σε αυτό το ζωήδι, φυσικά μπορείς να δοκιμάσεις από λίγο τα σχέδια σας, μπορείς να δοκιμάσεις από ένα πάνελο ή και σε ένα κανβάσ. Πλέον μεσαγότητα, με νερός, όταν δοκιμάμαι με σφραίες, όχι δεν το κάνω τώρα. Από όλοι αυτές είναι πραγματικές κόλες και δεν θέλω να τα αφήσω ακόμα. Τώρα είχα βοηθήσει τα κόλες να μιλήσουν με ένας άλλος μόνος για να μιλήσω το κομμάτι και χρησιμοποιηθώ με το κομμάτι μου για να μιλήσω ότι όλοι είναι δύσκολες. Και τώρα να δώσω σε κάποιες από τις τεχνικές μου για να μιλήσω βιζιωτική τεχνική. Είμαι δουλειάζοντας με ένα κομμάτι από ένα στενσίλ. Αυτό είναι ένα από τα πιο χρήματα που χρησιμοποιηθώ με όλοι τα κόμματα. Θα μιλήσω ένα λίγο χρήμα από το πίσω. Και μπορείτε να έχετε ένα σύμβολο βιζιωτικό για να μιλήσεις βιζιωτικό από το στενσίλ, όχι με το βιζιωτικό, έχω πιο πιο κομμάτι από τα αρκετά που θέλω να έχω αυτό το διεθνικό. Είμαι χρησιμοποιηθώ με το κομμάτι μου για να αφήσω το τραγικό πρόσσο, δεν μπορώ να δώσω πράγματα να δώσω ευκολογικά. Και τώρα θα πάρω για ένα άλλο τραγικό πρόσσο, που θα κάνω κάποια στενσίλ. Έχω ένα πολλή στενσίλ από τα πιο αρκετά που θέλω να χρησιμοποιηθώ με όλοι τα κόμματα. Μαίρες στενσίλ που έχουν πάνω στον πόνο, βλέπω ότι αυτά είναι πολύ δύσκολο και μπορεί να είναι χρησιμοποιηθώ με όλοι τα κόμματα. Και όλοι εγώ πάνω με ένα τόνο στον στενσίλ, που θα πάρω με ένα τόνο που είναι σχετικό νερό από το πόνο, αυτό το time I decided to go with plug, just to have more definition. The more you create projects, the more you will find that you tend to work with certain techniques again and again that they make you happy and they turn into results that are pleasing to your eyes. And the more you create you will find out that you tend to repeat techniques again and again or to combine different techniques that just because you like the look or they make you happy, και αυτό είναι όταν βρίσκεις your very own style. So here is a technique that I tend to do again and again on my projects lately. I love to have darker edges on my projects. I find that they frame them somehow. And stamping with text all around to create kind of a black frame is a technique that I love to repeat again and again. Now another thing that I absolutely love is using vintage photo. I cannot stay away from this color. I find that it helps when I have that on the edges to draw the eye more to the center and it helps the brighter colors to pop even more. Now I'm going to finish it off by inking up only the very edge with black ink. This is thick watercolor paper so you can still see the white edge and that's exactly what I'm trying to cover up. And finally my favorite white splashes. I'm doing my splashes lately with this bottle just because I find it very convenient. This is a paint spray, white paint spray by Altenew. But you can use your just if you water it down with water or even white paint. Now I'm going to create my own colored paper so that I can do the die cutting and I need a red one for the mushrooms. I could go ahead and use my sprays on top of my paper. I'm working with watercolor paper here. I'm showing you here however that if you don't have the sprays you can definitely go with the stress inks if you have those. Just use the infamous smouching technique. And you could definitely do that for your background as well. I'm going to dry this first layer and repeat the same process. This way I will end up having a more vibrant look. The benefit of this technique is that you don't end up with a completely smooth or flat color. And this way you create a panel where you can die cut different pieces that they are not all going to look the same. They will have some variation which is going to look at the end as an interesting texture with highlights and shadows. For the red part of my mushrooms I combined barn door and fired brick. And for this panel I combined spiced marmalade, wild honey and sprayed just a touch of vintage photo to add a little bit more texture.   It's really convenient that you get all the pieces for one mushroom in one die. So all I did was to choose the three mushrooms that I wanted to work with. Run them through with that red panel and then one more time with that orange one. Of course you can use colored cardstock to do that step or you can even cut them out from white cardstock and then just color it in with your favorite mediums. Now for each of those mushrooms there are parts that you need to layer one on top of the other and for those I'm just going to use my finger dabbers and ink up some parts to make them look darker. I'm not producing any new colors. This is the darkest color of the two that I used for the base when I did that smushing technique. I also used vintage photo on some of those pieces to introduce some shadows and then it's not difficult to put those mushrooms together and there are only a few pieces for each one of them. All you do is to just layer one on top of the other and you can follow the layout on the packaging. I'm using my liquid glue here. I normally go with a Nouveau Deluxe Glue but I'm out of it and the delivery is so slow that they haven't arrived yet. So I run out of Nouveau Deluxe Glue if you can believe that. But in any case that gave me the opportunity to try out the Taki Glue by Simon Says Stamp I had that in my stash for a long time and I find that it works just fine. Anyway, I put together my dodge tools and now it's time to put everything together on my project. I'm going to lay them on top and try to decide how I want them to look and this is where I want you to create a ground and my go-to technique for creating ground is to use corrugated cardstock. Now I have this piece which is one of the textures by Tim Holtz but you can definitely work with a scrap piece of paper from a box. So this one is self-adhesive but I'm not always very sure that this is going to hold nicely that's why I added a little bit of my white glue. I'm going to cut off the excess and now I have a ground for all my dodge tools to stand on top. I love the funky look of those dodge tools. They can be used to create a fairy garden. You can even use them depending on the colors that you decide to work with. As trees, I decided to go with a monochromatic look on these mushrooms for all of them I went with red and I'm going to stick two of them close to each other. I like them to touch so that they look as if they are part of the same composition and for the other one I'll go all the way to the other side just to add something interesting and a touch of red color on the other side. Now I'm going to bring out my paper dolls and I got inspiration from Tim's latest YouTube video where he was introducing the latest collection for ideology and he came up with new paper dolls and that reminded me that I haven't used the bunch of paper dolls that I still have on my stash. I always tend to use the paper dolls that they look as if they are doing something. So here I'm using the little guy who is sitting and I put him on top of the mushroom. I'm also going to use the other guy who looks as if he's leaning on top of something and I'm going to place him leaning on top of the mushroom. Here is where I needed a base that's why I'm going with that wooden ruler and this is also from a very old ideology collection and I like that these boys interact with the elements that I have already on my page. This way they become a part of the image, a part of the story and I absolutely love the look. You can tint them if you like.  I think they add so much as they are. I'm also going to give them a pet so I'm just going to audition the pet right to say it where I want him to be and I decided to stick him just next to the second boy so I'm going to first do some dry brushing. This is going to help the texture pop even more and then I can stick the took down. I like to use the paper dolls in unexpected ways so here you see I have completely different proportion and they look as if they are super tiny and the idea came from a quote that I decided to work with today that says it's the little things in life. That's why my two boys are tiny, smaller than the mushrooms. The wooden ruler at the bottom also adds to the whole idea since it is a way to measure things and there are many ways to add a quote on your page. You can write it down with your handwriting if you want to. You can combine stickers with stamped words just like I did today. You can even use your printer or your label maker to print out your quotes which is another technique that I tend to do a lot. Just whatever works every time. Here I just used words from a sticker booklet by Tim Holtz. On my quotes I tend to emphasize on a word by having it larger. The word that sums up the meaning of the quote and in this case I love the fact that the word little is the larger one which is oxymoron. Also notice that I do add white glue at the back of the stickers just to make sure that I am going to stay put. Now I'm back to my spring box and here I'm using rustic wilderness. I just want to have a paper panel that is green so that I can cut out a couple of leaves to add them on my composition to make it look fuller. So these are the funky toads tools and I find that they go perfectly together with the funky flowers. I will use just one of the leaves which is quite big so that I can cut out a few. And if you combine flowers and leaves from this set with the mushrooms that I am using today I think you can create a lovely project that would look like a secret garden or a fairy garden which is on my to-do list for another project. Here I'm just using a piece of cardboard from a box that I cut out. I just want to have some dimension there a dimensional element so that I can go up to the level of the ruler of the wooden ruler. This way I can stick on top a piece of washi tape. And then on top I am going to add the leaves as well. Notice that I went with leaves that are actually about the size of the boys just so that I can continue that theme all over the project. I'm also going to stick there a sticker that says Stay Simple which kind of completes the whole quote for today. And now let's do some highlighting and some finishing touches before we call this project done. This is another one of my go-to techniques. I like to add some highlights here and there on the die-cut elements. I'm also going to add some highlights on the words as well as on the stickers. The green leaves as well as the ruler were looking too plain to me so I'm going to add some white splashes. This is going to kind of bring all the elements together since they will have the same details on top. But I don't want to have any white splashes on top of the boys. That's why I'm protecting everything with a baby wipe there. Finally as I was looking at my project I decided that the second boy and the dog needed something extra to help them pop. That's why I'm adding a very thin strip of black cutstock underneath their legs. It's a tiny detail but I think it makes a difference since it helps them pop even more. And that was the mixed media project for today. I hope that you had fun and that you got inspired. Here are some closer photos where you can see all the details better. Just like always you will find the full list of all the products that I used down below in the description area. Don't forget to like and subscribe so that I don't only post mixed media projects on Tuesdays. Sometimes I do post mixed media projects on other days of the week as well which is the case with my steam pack cowl that I'm going to link on this video at the end. If you missed that video last week make sure to check it out where I am mainly focusing on dry brushing. A big thank you to all of you for visiting today and watching. I hope that you had fun and that you got inspired and I'll see you all next time.


Good morning, and welcome to the first meeting of session 6 of the Public Audit Committee. I'm Colin Beattie, MSP from Midlothian North and Musselburn, and as the oldest member of the committee, I have the pleasure of convening this meeting for the first three items of business. I'd like to take the opportunity to welcome all members, and I look forward to working with you in the future in this committee. Before we move to the first item on the agenda, I'd like to remind everyone to switch to the mobile phones to silent. I understand that no apologies have been received, so I'll move first of all to agenda item 1. The agenda item 1 is a decision to take agenda item 6 in private. I'm assuming that everyone agrees unless a member indicates otherwise. Does any member object to taking item 6 in private? Only raise your hand if you object. Members agree to take item 6 in private. I'll move now to agenda item 2, and agenda item 2 is for each of us to declare any interests that we have that are relevant to the work of the committee. Now, background information is provided in the declaration of interest paper, which is paper 1. I will start by declaring my own interests and then I will ask the members in alphabetical order to do similarly. I declare an interest as director trustee of the national mining museum of Scotland in view of the fact that this committee has a remit in tourism. I have no other interests to declare. I call on Willie Coffey. Thank you, convener. I have no additional interests other than those in my register, and those are as our former councillor on East Asia Council. I am a former employee of learning into Scotland, and I own a small number of shares in Comanic Football Club. I own a heritable property and I have no other declaration of interest. I call Craig Hoy. I am an elected member of East Lothian Council and also a board member of the South East Scotland Transport Partnership. Thank you, convener. I do not have any declarable interests, but for the record I would draw people's attention to my voluntary register of interests, which includes financial support, given to my local Labour Party by Unite the Union, the RMT, Unison, CWU, ASLEF and the TSSA trade unions. I will now move straight on to agenda item 3, which is the most important item. The committee's next task is to choose a convener. The procedure is explained in the choice of convener paper, which is paper 2. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Labour Party are eligible for nomination as convener of this committee. I understand that Richard Leonard MSP is that party's nominee. Is that correct? No seconder is required. Do we agree to choose Richard Leonard MSP as our convener? We are agreed. I congratulate Richard Leonard on his appointment and I will vacate the chair and hand over to him. Thank you, Colin. I am honoured to be elected as convener of this committee. My role will be to work inclusively without fear of favour, to hold power to account, to promote the common good and the public interest, to be a guardian of openness, transparency and democracy and, through evidence and scrutiny, to shine a bright light on public governance, public working practices, investment and outcomes on behalf of the people. Can I turn now to the next item on the agenda, which is the election of a deputy convener? Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party are eligible for nomination for this position. I also understand that Sharon Dowie is the party's nomination for this post. So, do we agree to endorse Sharon Dowie's nomination as our deputy convener? If anybody disagrees, could they put that in the chat? I see no signs of disagreement. So, Sharon, congratulations on your election as the deputy convener of the Public Audit Committee. The next item that we have to consider is the legacy paper, which has been circulated in advance of this morning's meeting. First of all, I ask the committee to place on record our thanks to the session 5 public audit and post-legislative scrutiny committee for its legacy report. I am conscious of the fact that two of our own members in this session were also members of the session 5 committee who played a part in putting together that legacy paper. The legacy paper clearly will be an important part of the consideration that we need to give to our work programme. I would invite any member of the committee if you have any comments or wish to add anything in connection with the legacy paper to indicate whether you want to come in. Willie Coffey, Willie Coffey. Thank you, convener. It is a pleasure to be back on the audit committee, particularly with my friend and colleague Colin Beattie. Both of us have been a number of years' service to the audit committee, and I really enjoy the work that we do. I have read through the legacy paper, convener, and there are a number of recurring themes that always seem to be in an audit report from one session to the next. One of those issues is following up on our work that we do at the audit committee to try to engender a spirit of continuous improvement, let's say, within the public sector. I think that the Audit Scotland and our committee did a lot of very good work, but, sometimes, convener, I felt that we did not see the outcome of that in terms of performance improvement and how various public bodies in Scotland embraced it to get that improvement. Sometimes, I felt that the public bodies thought that we were there to punish them, and, in fact, we were an instrument of some torture, but we were not. We were there to provide opportunities for continuous improvement and to help public bodies. I think that a lot of the public bodies need to begin to embrace that. For me, convener, I would like to be able to see at some stage in the work that we do, some evidence of continuing improvement from the bodies that we shine our gaze on. I think that that would be a good development of the work that the committee can do in this session, and I would very much hope to see a little more of that. I know that the legacy paper talks about the defensiveness of accountable officers who come before the committee. I hope that we see a changing approach from those people who are brought before the committee to give evidence. We have a job to do, and we are here to serve the interests of Parliament and the people. We will do whatever is required in order to do that, but it is important that we have an oversight of what happens in the future, not just an issue or even a crisis that has arisen. We need to have that longer-term reach, so that is a really well-made point. I have also got Colin Beattie and Craig Hoy, so I am going to call Colin Beattie first of all. There are really three areas in the legacy document that I would like to look at more closely.  Our remit as a public audit committee is less than the remit of the equivalent down in Westminster. We are more passive in the approach that we can take. We are limited to what the Auditor General might put in front of us, whereas I think that a public audit committee should have a more proactive approach instead of a passive approach. We should be able to, if necessary, initiate our own investigations. It is not going to happen often, but where necessary, it should. I know that the Auditor General should be willing to put resources against that if it was required. It is not as if we are going to be launching an investigation every five minutes, but there have been occasions when we have looked at stuff and a more proactive approach from us—more drive, more push—might have got us better results. The second thing is that we are no longer responsible for post-legislative scrutiny, which I think is the correct way forward. It focuses us very tightly on the things that we need to look at, but there is one thing that we did as post-legislative scrutiny that we would like to find some way to bring forward into this session, and that is control of dangerous dogs. There are ways to do that. We took evidence that something like 7,000 people are admitted to A&E every year and require surgical intervention due to dog attacks, and on some occasions children are being killed by dangerous dogs. I have made the point before that if this was drunk and driving, we would have a policeman in every coma, but because it is dogs, we seem to sleep under a carpet. We need to address it. We need to protect good, sensible dog owners, and we need to deal with those who are not controlling their dogs and those who are not fit for the purpose of being a dog owner. The third item was in relation to a specific investigation that we did into Gordon Agallic. I know that the auditor general will bring that back to us, but there is a huge amount in there that still needs to be investigated. I think that there are serious issues in there, and I think that those serious issues continue. I urge the committee to follow up on that and ensure that we get to the bottom of everything and that proper rectification of those issues is put in place. Public money is being spent. It is not clear. It is being spent well. I think that Gordon Agallic is still part of our continuing work programme. There are other public agencies such as the Scottish Police Authority and a couple of NHS boards who are also within scope of our continuing work. It is essential that there is a seamless transition from the last committee to this committee to ensure that nothing slips through the net. I also hear what you are saying about the post legislative function of the committee, which is not part of our remit any more. Perhaps we can have a look at how best that work that has been undertaken can be advanced, whether it is advanced by us or whether it is advanced by another part of the Parliament. We need to examine that. One of the most telling points in the legacy paper that struck me was the continued demand for a power of initiative for this committee. We are not passive players in this, but we have a role to take initiative ourselves. Under the current structure, we can do that, but a more overt power to be able to do that is something that we should seek through the parliamentary opportunities that we have to try to secure as early as possible. I see that Craig Hoy wishes to come in, so Craig over to you. Thank you, Richard. I congratulate you on being elected as convener this morning. Just looking through the report, I picked up what I thought was a sense of frustration from your predecessor as convener, particularly in point 4 in the forward, where they say that we kept seeing the same issues again and again across the public sector. Leadership challenges, poor workforce planning, weak governance arrangements, failed ICT projects and an absence of key data making it impossible to determine whether policies and initiatives were actually making a difference in people's lives. I think that that is one observation that we should keep up and most in our mind as we set out on the work programme today. Just two points in terms of the committee's prior recommendations, which I think might mean that we end this Parliament without that same sense of frustration. One is in point 25, recommendation 25, that the incoming committee may also wish to consider inviting SPICE to prepare a briefing on mechanisms used in other jurisdictions to follow up on audit report recommendations so that we have action beyond the identification of the problems that we will no doubt find. I think that, as has been alluded to by Colin Beattie in relation to point 64 of the recommendations that the committee recommends that the remit of the public audit committee is reviewed with a view to enabling its successor committee to freely initiate its own inquiries. I hope that we can do that. I think that just a third observation really is obviously as we emerge out of Covid with the huge amounts of public monies that have been pumped into the economy, point 56 that was raised in the legacy paper in relation to ensuring that there is scrutiny of public money that has been used to support the economy and its recovery from Covid-19 and to examine what impact that has had on inequalities, including regional inequality in Scotland. I know that we will come to that other work programme later, but I just thought that perhaps those three issues might mean that we do not end this Parliament with that same sense of frustration that I was picking up from our predecessor committee. I think that there is a clear sense that we are going to be in very challenging times, especially for the public sector and organisations from the national health service to the court system. I think that the Auditor General has identified the importance of understanding the pressures that there are going to be, but to ensure that, despite those pressures, good governance, proper working practices, workforce planning and investments that are made are effective ones. That is something that we will return to. I was also struck by the sense that the previous committee understood that we are not just dealing on a case-by-case basis with people that come before us. There are often common themes that run through and, frankly, some systematic failures that need to be tackled. I think that it is important that we have that broader understanding that sometimes we are dealing with some pretty fundamental failings in the way that organisations are approaching their remits. Those can be common across the public sector, so we need to understand that there are common themes that we need to pursue and make sure that lessons are learned not just by the single organisation that may be before us, but by the whole of the public sector. The recommendation that we consider international experience is an important one, too. I am keen that we pursue when we discuss the work programme. I see that Willie Coffey wants to come back in. Willie, I will bring you back in. Thank you very much again, convener. It is basically on the following the public bound agenda that Craig was talking about. We also know that, because of the impact of withdrawing from the European Union, we are not quite clear where the scrutiny gaze will fall. I am hoping that Audit Scotland will give us a little bit of advice, too. Prior to that, we had some ability to see what was happening in terms of monitoring spend in Scotland from European Union structural funds, for example, things like that. However, I am not quite clear if we will have the same ability to look at things such as the UK Government's level on up funds and all the various other funds that may replace those. I think that we need to get a little bit clearer, convener, about what our role is if we do have a role, a scrutiny role at all there, because there will be substantial amounts of money basically being spent, albeit by a different jurisdiction. I hope that we have the ability to shine a light on some of that, too. Thanks, Willie. Again, I think that that point is really well made. There will be new funding instruments to support agriculture, to replace the European Union structural funds, the European Social Fund and so on. Some of the detail of that remains to be seen, but I absolutely think that it should be the job of this committee to scrutinise how that is being applied and whether there are reforms or improvements that can be made. I really think that it is important that we understand that there is a huge change taking place as a result of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union and what that means for the landscape that people are facing. I would like to thank members for those contributions. It is important that we get some of those points on the record as we are in public session. We are going to discuss our work programme in private session, as previously agreed. We are all clear that the legacy paper from the session 5 committee will form an important starting point for us in considering what our work programme is going to be in the short-term and medium-term future. If we are all agreed on that, can I bring this public session of the committee to a close? I thank members for their contribution and look forward to a constructive and productive working relationship in the future.


So humans, good bacteria aside, humans are rather obsessed and rightly so with killing bad bacteria which are considered pathogenic, pathogenic bacteria. And pathogenic bacteria are going to cause disease. And just for a little bit of perspective, pathogenic bacteria, it was pretty much a given back in the day. If you got a bacterial infection, chances were excellent that your game was over. Bacterial infections often meant death. When you think about wars back in the day when we had like dude, brilliant, let's go out and kill each other, what a great idea.    So I just did a face plant on the sidewalk the other day when I was out running. I totally tripped over something and like the hands face first down, hamburger palms, like the full nine yards. And I didn't even think about it because I came home, I washed it all up, like slightly humiliated that I crashed and burned. Very happy that no one around me had actually witnessed such a thing.  I got my neosporin, smeared it all over the wound, whacked on my little band-aids, whatever, and didn't even think about it again. And it's been, I don't know, six days since the wounding occurred. And you know, I can definitely tell that I did some damage, but it's much better. It's not red, it's not pussy, it's not disgusting, why? I threw some antibiotic ointment in there and kept it clean and killed any bacteria that might have been stoked about setting up home in my hand and maybe I would have had to chop my hand off. So thank you, antibiotics. Antibiotics, however, holy, we better be careful because the fact is that antibiotics are severely overused.     And we've tried all sorts of drugs, I do throw that drug in there, but it kills you. That's what causes side effects. So antibiotics are magic because they, for whatever reason, they target the bacterium and not you. And so you get to continue living but the bacterium gets killed. Now, I think it was World War II-ish when penicillin was discovered. This was our first antibiotic. It was produced by a fungus and the scientist had a little petri dish and he looked in there and he saw a little fungal colony and it was in the bacteria also in the colony and surrounding the fungus was this ring of no bacteria. He was like, dude, what's going on with that? So he attempted to isolate the substance and it was penicillin. He isolated this substance that killed bacteria. It was like a jackpot. He went out and started mass producing this stuff which back in the day was not an easy task but he started giving it to the soldiers when they got injured during World War II and they survived.  Antibiotics are a very good thing but I want you to take a second, push pause and think about what's the negative, what's the downside of using antibiotics. I'm going to give you a hint. We've been talking about evolution and it's related. So while you're thinking about that, you push pause. I have a little visual for you here. So I want you to think about the fact that if this, all these dots represented a population of bacteria living like infecting you. These are all bad bacteria but do you agree that their genetic makeup is going to lead to diversity? There's going to be some diversity amongst, within the population, they're all the same species but there's going to be some genetic diversity in there. And I've tried to illustrate the genetic diversity with different colors just so you could imagine it.  Antibiotics are awesome. On day one, a group of bacteria are killed by the antibiotic but did I kill all of them? No, and if you notice, I killed all the yellow ones. I'm not exactly sure why because yellow is my favorite color. It's just cold blooded. On day two of taking the antibiotics, I killed the next. It looks like I killed green, next. Green was slightly different. They had a slightly different phenotype or genotype and it let them survive an extra day. If you took one day of antibiotics, you would only kill the yellow bacteria. Remember, these are all the same species. These are all the same bacteria that are causing you to get sick. Day two, we kill a few more. Day three, the purple ones are done. Day four, let's get rid of those blue ones. You're probably feeling better now, aren't you? You've gotten your antibiotics. You were sicker than a dog. Now you're feeling better but you're only on day four of let's say an eight or nine day prescription. What's going to happen if you stop taking your antibiotics right now? Who's left? Who's left to repopulate the colony of bacteria that were living in you, that were infecting you? The guys that can survive against the antibiotics for four days, those guys are the only ones that are left.  Day six, finally, you've killed most of them but who's left? Dude, this is bad, bad bacteria. This is the one that's like, go ahead, man.  Seven days, eight days of antibiotics and this one still isn't dead. Do you think he's starting to get worried though? And this is a nine-day treatment. Finally, after nine days of being exposed to the antibiotic, that crazy guy died.  Think about that. What happened to your population? What used to be like awesome like that? You now have a whole population just of these red guys or a heck of a lot more of the red guys who are the only ones that are reproducing. This is a connection between natural selection, that's a fantastic example of natural selection and why we should be very careful about antibiotic use. Before we start talking about our eukaryotes, I want to take just a second to talk about our chians because they are not as familiar to us but they're actually really cool also.


To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to the recent flooding. My sympathies go to those who have been affected by the recent severe weather, and I would wish to pay tribute on behalf of the Government to the first class response offered by local authorities, emergency responders and the public themselves. The Scottish Government places a priority on reducing flood risk across Scotland, and we are committed to working with SEPA, local authorities and other partners. SEPA's recent flood risk strategy set out an agenda for the national direction of future flood risk management, helping to target investment and to coordinate actions across public bodies. The strategies explain what causes flooding in high risk areas, as well as the impacts when flooding does occur. This information is used as a basis for better decision making across flood risk management organisations and supporting actions such as flood protection schemes and warning schemes. I thank the minister for his answer. I am aware that the minister has himself visited the upper d-side area and seen for himself the conditions that have prevailed there. Would he at this stage be able to tell me what support the Government can offer to both the local authority and to individuals who have been seriously hit by this flooding damage? There are two specific pieces of support that the Government has been able to make available, but let me just, before I come on to those, say a word about the scale of the devastation in Balathe that I saw last Thursday. It is of quite an incomprehensible scale to be frank, and I pay tribute to the efforts of many individuals who worked very hard to protect their neighbours and their own properties and to support each other in that difficulty. I would single out a number of firefighters in the area who were out helping other people while their own properties themselves have been flooded. That tells us something about the extraordinary commitment that we are lucky to receive from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. On the two specific areas of assistance, I have activated the bellwind scheme, which, as Mr Johnson will be familiar, establishes a threshold that local authorities are expected to provide to deal with emergency situations of this type, but any costs beyond that threshold are met by the Government, and I have invited and encouraged Aberdeenshire Council to submit an application for financial support under the bellwind scheme. Secondly, in the budget statement in December, I made available some support to Perth and Kinross, Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders councils, exceptionally because of the impact of recent storm incidents. I intend to make a further financial allocation from which I would expect Aberdeenshire Council to relieve council tax payers of their council tax bills, to relieve business rate payers of their business rate bills and then also to contribute towards some of the regeneration that will clearly be required to recover the situation in the future. One of the features of the devastation in Upper Eastside has been the serious damage that has been done to the A93 trunk road. Can the minister at this stage tell us if there is any prospect of that damage being rectified in the near future and that all costs will be covered by the Scottish Government under its commitment to a trunk road? The first thing that I would say is that it is a bit early for me to give the type of commitment about timescale that Mr Johnson is looking for, because the photographs speak for themselves. There is a very serious piece of damage that has been done to the A93 at that particular stage. The A93 is a crucial route in terms of access. It is currently, it cannot be utilised in relation to providing a route from Braymar to Aberdeen. That is unsatisfactory. We have to resolve that as quickly as we possibly can do. There is access from the south through the A93 through Glenshee, but, of course, as we all know, that is a route that can be very vulnerable and susceptible to the normal weather conditions that we would have at this time of year of very heavy snow in the Glenshee area. We are taking forward discussions with Aberdeenshire Council on how the steps are taken to ensure that that route can be rectified. The Deputy First Minister will be aware of the good work going on in conjunction with Falkirk Council and the petrochemical industry in my constituency to provide flood defences for Grangemouth's refinery and petrochemical plants. Can the Deputy First Minister provide an assessment of the success of flood protection schemes to date in mitigating the impacts of flooding and extreme weather over recent days? We have been very fortunate in the sense that the flood protection schemes that we have in place have been successful to date. I was in regular discussion with Perth and Kinross Council and SIPA in my local area, as the city of Perth, faced a significant challenge last night and a significant test of the existing flood protection scheme. I was, frankly, relieved by the end of last night that the flood protection scheme had been successful in Perth. It shows the wisdom and the value of that type of sympathetic investment that is made that protects householders and protects communities. Today, in the city of Perth, we have had to wrestle with the challenges of surface water run-off and drainage challenges within the city itself, although the flood defences proved themselves to be entirely secure in the face of an astonishing volume of water that came down from the catchment area for the River Tey yesterday. Eileen Murray, followed by Alffs McInnes. I again pay tribute to Dumfries and Galloway's major emergency team in this latest flood. Cabinet Secretary, my constituents with small businesses in the White Sands, which have been flooded again, many of them already don't pay business rates and they can't be assisted through that route. Many have been unable to get insurance or else excess payments are prohibitive. I wonder if the Cabinet Secretary can provide advice on whether any assistance might be available for those businesses. Can I make it clear that I'm not referring to my own office, which is under 2.5 feet of water? Cabinet Secretary. I have to say to Dr Murray that, on the television footage that I saw of Dumfries, I regrettably saw her name in lights. She has my sympathies for the difficulties that she will undoubtedly be experiencing in wrestling with this issue. I take the point that Dr Murray makes. It's a fair point that there will be many of the smaller businesses that will not be paying business rates, that will not be covered by the assurance that I have given. She will know that I made a financial commitment through Dumfries and Galloway Council. I intend to look again at that in the light of the events of just the last seven days and the issues that have been wrestled with in Dumfries and Galloway. Given the financial commitment that I have made to the local authority, I would look to the council to make any provision that it can to support individuals in restoring their business and getting back to a situation where they can operate in those localities. There will of course be further discussions about flood prevention measures in the White Sands. I know that the council has recently come to some conclusions about the design of the preferred option for those flood protection schemes. Those issues will of course be taken forward as part of the discussion about how the resources that we allocate to this area of activity are deployed around the country in the course of the next spending review period. Alison MacKinnon is followed by Rob Gibson. Around the whole of the North East, communities have been affected by flooding, but in Aberdeenshire in particular, it's been unprecedented in its scale and in its scope. I hope that the Government can reassure us that its response to Aberdeenshire Council and to the agencies locally will reflect that. The Deputy First Minister mentioned access via Glenchee. He's right to say that it's at risk of closure if severe weather closes in. Is there therefore an urgency in moving as swiftly, as is safe, to protect the remaining road links and to restore what's there? What temporary support can you give? We are actively involved in discussions with Aberdeenshire Council about the recovery steps that are required to be undertaken. I'm sure that Alison MacKinnon will realise that the scale of the damage to the A93 on the D-side is such that the road has frankly gone for large parts of the route length. Therefore, we have to take considered and safe steps to make sure that we recover the situation and to do that as timid as we possibly can do. I can assure of the prompt attention of the Government in that respect. Rob Gibson, followed by Claudia Beamish. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I've got huge sympathy with the communities that are coping with the floods and in our case with the inundations from the sea. We're led to turn to ScotRail and the way in which they handle the Highland main line having experienced the two-hour delay myself and a bus all the way from Inverness to Perth. When there is only in the Cabinet Secretary's constituency a breach in the railway south of Pitlockery, this has been going on since long before Abelio. The information is dreadfully poor for the travelling public and, indeed, I think that this is something that they need to change quickly so that we can use our main spinal route with some confidence. I'll make sure that the transport minister is here and he's heard Mr Gibson's points in relation to the information from ScotRail. Having spent virtually every day of the Christmas and New Year parliamentary recess on a telephone call involving ScotRail, I feel as if I've heard a lot from ScotRail over the course of the last couple of weeks. We will take that point seriously because the Highland main line is a significant part of our rail infrastructure. The foundations and the ballast of the rail line at Inch McGranigan have been swept away by the flooding. There is work on going, which is difficult to access because of the volume of water that is surrounding the site to gain access to the foundations and to execute a repair as quickly as possible. The projected date for the completion of that work is 18 January, but that is dependent on being able to get access to the site. Of course, Mr Gibson makes the essential requirement for good quality information to be available to members of the travelling public is a point that is well made. Over the course of those incidents over the last few weeks, the use by public agencies and organisations and travel companies of social media has been really first class. I've seen a number of different organisations use this to tremendous effect capturing great degrees of public involvement and public interest to make sure that we can resolve and overcome some of those challenges. I'll make sure that the transport minister looks carefully at the points that Mr Gibson has raised about ScotRail communication. Claudia Beamish, followed by Alex Ferguson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Across South Scotland, my region, there are many communities who have been affected by the floods recently and in previous years. I want to focus in on New Cumnock. On 5 November last year, my colleague Graham Pearson asked the Minister, Aileen McLeod, about this area and she told the Chamber, I quote, to reassure the member, New Cumnock is now very much part and parcel of the national risk management planning process and will be considered accordingly. This is no reassurance to my constituents and those of Graham Pearson, my colleague, who found themselves yet again devastated by deluge. So I ask the Cabinet Secretary today, will he look again at the SEPA budget and review of the responsibilities they have for flooding and the cuts that have been made by the Scottish Government and will he also consider a review which Scottish Labour is calling for today and has done, my colleague Sarah Boyack has also called for, of flood strategy by the Scottish Government working with all local authorities across my region and more widely in Scotland. Cabinet Secretary. I'm a bit surprised by the line of argument that Claudia Beamish has taken today because I know that she takes a keen and acute interest in those issues, so I'm a bit surprised at the line of argument that she's taken today. The first thing that I would say is that SEPA have no responsibility for flood protection measures, none whatsoever. SEPA have a responsibility for the flood warning system which is fully and entirely funded by the Government and which is protected, utterly protected, 100 per cent by my budget settlement in December. Yes, SEPA is facing a 6.8 per cent reduction in its resource budget and that is because I have to require public authorities, public authorities across the board to contribute towards the financial challenge that we have to make. Of course it is up to Scottish Labour if they wish to change my budget and we've heard so much from Scottish Labour about this question that I will expect Scottish Labour to come back and rectify that reduction in the budget that they have been going on about. If they don't, we will know this just to be rhetoric from Scottish Labour. The second thing is in relation to the flood risk management strategies and the work that's been undertaken. Parliament in 2009 passed the Flood Risk Management Scotland Act. That required us to do the groundwork. That's why I'm so surprised at Claudia Beamish's question. That required us to do the groundwork of establishing flood risk management strategies around the country of which we now have 14 which have reported to the minister and they have generated the suggestions and propositions of 42 formal flood protection schemes costing an estimated £235 million and I have made provision within the budget for that to be delivered as part of my commitment to the local government finance settlement. I would have thought instead of having another review we should just get on with implementing those flood risk management strategies not having another talking shop but actually get on with delivering the action that Parliament legislated for in 2009 which this government is getting on with and which we are putting the resources in place to deliver. Alex Ferguson, followed by Dennis Robertson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Yesterday, Presiding Officer, I visited the village of Cass Fern in my constituency where almost every single house has been flooded some for the third time in three years. Today my officer has taken a number of calls from businesses in Newton Stuart which the First Minister and the Minister for the Environment visited last week. These people need financial help and they need it now and they are very aware that just across the border in Cumbria people in similar situations are receiving that help. So can I ask the Deputy First Minister whether he would consider giving urgently needed financial assistance to every business and individual household that has been so badly affected by the recent floods as is happening in other parts of the UK? In my inner answer to Mr Johnson in relation to the specific financial support that I have made available I made an announcement in December that affected the Freeson Galloway council area which would enable the local authority to remove any obligation for council tax bills for residents who were removed from their properties and for business rates for businesses that had to relocate. In the light of the events of the last couple of weeks I intend to provide a further allocation in relation to the costs that will be involved in localities that will inevitably have some additional consequences for the Freeson Galloway and I will make announcements in due course once I have had a due opportunity to have discussions with the local authority about how that can be taken forward. Dennis Robertson followed by Lewis MacDonald Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I echo the words of the Deputy First Minister when he congratulated the emergency services, the council workers and the army of volunteers in Ballotar and Aboyne? Yesterday I was in Ballotar again, Mr Sweeney and they appreciated your visit but they are asking the question who is going to help with the cleanup. There are caravans, cars and gardens. Someone needs to recover these and dispose of them. Can you give some assurance that the work will be done and there will be no costs to those people or no penalise to those people who the caravans and cars do not belong to them? Can you also give an assurance to the businesses that remain open that they will be given some financial assistance given that Ballotar is virtually cut off? In relation to the issue of cleanup and debris there is a complicated interaction here at local level between the needs of individuals if I take the caravan park for example in Ballotar where I assume there will be wider insurance claims that are required to be made by individuals and the caravan park operators an interaction between them properly having the opportunity to secure their insurance rectification and the need for there to be a clear-up within the town. Aberdeenshire Council is best placed to co-operate with individuals in that respect and we have open dialogue with Aberdeenshire Council and a compliment Aberdeenshire Council on the way in which they responded to what was a very dramatic situation last week. I think that that's the best way for that dialogue to be undertaken so that these issues can be resolved at local level and the necessary support put in place to try to address that point and precedented event in that particular locality. The Deputy First Minister has rightly focused on Upper D side but will he recognise that there have also been issues overnight in Upper Donside in Aberdeenshire and indeed at the mouth of both the dawn and the day in the city of Aberdeen as well. These are whole catchment area issues bridge of the court for example in Aberdeen, the residents of that sheltered housing had to be evacuated the other day. I confirm that his Government is working with both the City Council as well as the Aberdeenshire Council on whole catchment strategies and can he give an indication given that there are recommendations in the flood management strategies for the D and the dawn of when those will be taken forward? I acknowledge the issues that have been wrestled with in Cintor and in Verruri and in the city of Aberdeen both in terms of the incident and also in the recent events over the last couple of days. We are in discussion with both Aberdeen city and Aberdeenshire councils and the response has been very clear and comprehensive to ensure that the necessary support has been put in place. In relation to the development of the schemes that will of course be part and parcel of the discussion that we have with local government about how we take forward the development of the schemes over the next few years and ministers will be actively involved in that process and will report fully to Parliament in due course. To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on reopening the fourth road bridge to all vehicles. Following the successful completion of the complex and detailed interim repair by a dedicated team of highly skilled staff over the third, the fourth road bridge opened on the 23 December well ahead of schedule to 90% of traffic. A permanent repair to allow HDVs across the fourth road bridge will commence in the coming next few days and subject to favourable weather conditions and no further defects being identified the bridge will reopen to HDVs in mid-Febru. I thank the minister for that answer.  Minister? There has been on-going dialogue with Transport Scotland officials. Clearly there is a priority to get the bridge reopened to HDV traffic. We've engaged with both the road haulage association and the freight transport association on that announcement. An action plan has been produced Cabinet Secretary and the Deputy First Minister have engaged with industry and that action plan will support them in a range of areas while we work on the full repair to ensure that HDVs can cross the fourth. The reopening of the bridge to cars earlier than the original indicated date was indeed welcome but the minister will be aware of the dismay amongst many businesses in Fife and beyond that the bridge did not reopen to HDVs as originally hoped on 2 January and there will still be several weeks before that will be the case. What assessment has the Scottish Government made of the impact on the Fife economy of this further delay? The works were ahead of schedule. We want to get HDVs opened across as quickly as possible. Safety has to be paramount. We are working to that. I again thank the dedicated staff who have made it possible. We have undertaken an exercise of ongoing engagement with the local authorities. I think that many people appreciate the effort that Government and their agencies have put in to ensure that the bridge has been reopened and we will continue with that immense effort to get it reopened for HDVs to support commerce and the haulage industry. I would have thought that the Conservatives would support us in these measures to ensure that everything is back to business and the Government's interventions have been right and how we have handled this issue building the new bridge in the interim. I welcome the minister's announcement that the bridge will be open for HDVs. Can I place on record my thanks? I am sure that all members thanks for all the work that the workforce has had to carry out in appalling conditions over the past few months. Could you ask the minister if he could confirm that it is the active plan of the Scottish Government to provide compensation for hauliers who have lost out during the time that the bridge has been closed and the subsequent restrictions? Minister? No, the action plan specifically includes a number of other items such as an HDV hotline to allow drivers to alert traffic Scotland to incidents, extra supports for trunk road incident support service, fast-track maintenance along truck road diversions, support from local authorities in terms of keeping roads clear and the issue around drivers, and the relaxation that we are pursuing through the DFT to Europe. Those are the key areas in the action plan that had been agreed with industry, but of course dialogue continues and the priority has to be to get the fourth road bridge reopened to all traffic. I thank the minister for his constructive engagement on the west five travel plans which was causing particular problems for my constituents. The temporary fix was supposed to allow all vehicles to use the bridge until the new bridge opens but the permanent repair could be carried out. Why is the temporary fix insufficient for HDVs and why has the permanent repair had to be brought forward? Minister? I think it's clear that we're facing these works and I know that Willie Rennie to give him credit has taken a very active interest in the technical briefings that were offered to MSPs. I'm happy to provide even more. This temporary repair has allowed over 90 per cent of traffic to cross the forth. The further strengthening works will ensure that safety isn't compromised and that the bridge can carry HDV traffic. This is all based on the engineering expertise that we have depended upon and who I think are carrying out excellent works on the bridge and I'm happy to share even more information to show how these phase works will give the certainty that is being sought. Thank you. Thank you for your questions.