I'm going to make this quick because it was a really long day and it was the first day of its type in quite some time. I hope you agree that this was great, seeing people again and everything actually. It's not really full anymore, but whatever. Thank you to everyone, in particular those who kept their masks on at all times, because it's not that hard. Please, even though we are here in peace and quiet and we are about to have drinks and everything, keep others in mind who might not be as lucky. There's three upcoming things, two Prometheus events, mark your calendars. And there is another event upcoming today, at 1800, there will be the reception. I believe you can, yeah, I can't hear you, 1700, okay, cool, in 20 minutes, perfect, cool. And with that, be excellent to each other, see you next time.


HISTORY by Maxwell Bodenheim Red for LibriVox.org by April 690, California, United States of America Sunlight stuck to the gray floor like a curdled honey, and clung to the black wall like a visible fever on the breast of a savage. This contradiction gave a fugitive radiance to the room in which King Ferdinand stood, molding figures of happiness. On sunless days the room was a depressed insult to his rejoicing, forcing it into adroit retorts. He had made this chamber a necessary enemy. As he molded his figures of happiness, his wife stood beside him, ready with colors.  She said as though the sound of her words made their obviousness subtle. What color shall I use to excite your design? King Ferdinand turned to her, like a blind man peering into fantastically returning sight. Creative absorption had ruffled his middle-aged face into an ageless insurrection, but when he spoke a wrinkled order once more reigned beneath the granite lull of his forehead. Give each eye a different shade of color, and for the wall. Make a blue of inhuman brightness, a blue that has swallowed a constellation and defies night. This form symbolizes my last happiness, wherein the clashing sequences of my life have been smashed to a challenging glare I have become immortal, until I voluntarily tender my immortality to death if he takes it. The wrinkles on King Ferdinand's cheeks ascended to a sentence of belief hacked upon his forehead.  His wife played with her dark green gown as though it were relaxed gaiety. Her body, like a plump blunder, ended in the deft recklessness of her head. The high amber of her face raised it slightly turned the lines of brooding abandon. She looked at her husband as though she considered his flesh an unimportant tragedy calmed by his words. The smell of listening earth drifted through a window and bird cries violated the air like expiring emotions. King Ferdinand stood in the manner of one to whom motion has become a dim travesty, and the blood in his veins was a prisoned resonance. His folded arms were weighted in a marble posture beneath his long sleeves. Queen Muriel touched his arm and gave him life. She led him to a corner of the room and unveiled a small figure in her hands, and her hands were pliant consumations. My first happiness, she said in a voice of climbing distinctness, they carried the figure to the light. Just as slim as a personified plant stem, a conventionalized monk grew straight from the center of two lean hands cut into the semblance of a flowerpot. The hands met each other in an effortless tenderness. The thinly high monk bore the suggestions of hood and cassock and his face wore a look of indistinct triumph. And so I'd like to believe that your happiness has grown uncertainly from the rarely caught touch of my hands, she said. The door of the room opened and two men strode in, one of them curved upward, impumpest in patience. The tight inquisitiveness of a gaudy uniform revealed his tall body. His face was like an expansive fallacy, large rolls of flesh indecisively interrogated the thin slant of his nose, and slid into the refuge of his brown beard. The second man which was washfishly abbreviated and clad in minceme castrations of color.   Three men of your guard will murder you, with restrained admiration, tomorrow, noon, answered the other man, in whose voice a sneer and apprehension were partners in a minuet. You will be killed on the palace steps, and the cheers of a huge audience will make death's leer articulate to you. While you have taken the role of a hermit in an aesthetic petticoat, your friends have been arranging a last happiness for you. You are considered an imbecile, who paints pretty figures with the blood of his country. The flashing hardness of a wintry repose assaulted King Ferdinand's face. My brothers are quite willing to use this blood as an unsolicited rouge for the lips of their mistresses. He answered in a tone of remotely amused approach. I have not assailed my subjects with taxes or led them to wars, and that has been a serious error. They are probably in the position of a man with his chains removed, who is angry because he has forgotten how to dance. They accurately shortened man spoke. When you are dead, sire, your brothers will gamble for your throne by throwing roses at your head. He who first exceeds in striking your bulging eyes will win. Death does not like to be made a cheated jester, said King Ferdinand. He will doubtless devise a better joke for my winning brother.  Now that your shrewd bantering has made itself sufficiently nude, tell us why you have come, she said. The tall man who carried with him the air of an animated mausoleum spoke. Today I saw an old libertine tottering down the boulevard. Glancing to his feet, he spied a lily, clipped and fresh. He sidled blithely to the edge of the walk to avoid stepping on the flower.  My carriage will take you to the frontier to night. My caprices have never been able to strut gorgeously because they hold a sincere sympathy for emotion, said King Ferdinand, still mechanically jesting. His hand rose to one cheek as though signalling for a friendly trance, and his eyes closed unceremoniously. We will take your carriage, he said in a voice of an abstracted tightrope walker. The two men tilted their godliness into imperceptible bows and departed. King Ferdinand and his wife stood staring at each other as though their bodies were teasing curtains. Then without remembering what had occurred they let gay words poke each other and began to discuss colours for the monk's figure rising from cupped hands and blossoming into indistinct triumph. That night their carriage stopped upon a hilltop and they were killed by three men. One of the three had a thin nose and a brown beard. The tight inquisitiveness of a bright uniform revealed his tall body. Among historians he was to be noted as the man who killed an imbecile king and led his country to glory and prosperity. End of story. This recording is in the public domain. Psychic Phenomena by Maxwell Bodenheim Read for LibriVox.org by Jason in Canada. Carl Dell and Anita Starr were speaking of a dead woman who had influenced their eyes. He had also refined their heads to a chill protest. Their faces, involved and disconsolate, had not solved her absence and their voices were freighted with a primitive martyrdom. Carl was fencing with the end of his youth. His body held that impenetrable cringing which pretends to ignore the coming of middle age and is only betrayed by rare gestures. He was tall, with a slenderness that barely escaped being feminine. The upper part of his face was scholarly and the lower part roguish, and the two gave him the effect of a sprite who has become erudite but still retains the memory of his former identity. His protruding eyes were embarrassed as though someone behind them had unexpectedly pushed them from a refuge. With immense finesse they apologized for intruding upon the world. It is almost tautology to say that they were grey. His small brown moustache had a candidly misplaced air as it touched the thin bacchanal of his lips. It was a mourner at the feast. Anita Starr's form would have seemed stout but for the sweeping discipline of its lines, but this careful suppression ended in a riot when it came to her face. Her face was a small, lyrical rebel that had terminated in a fight. Her nose and chin were strident, but her cheeks and mouth were studdily unassuming. Her blue eyes brilliantly and impartially aided both sides of the conflict. Glistening spirals of reddish brown hair courted her head. Sitting in the parlor of the Starr home, Anita and Carl spoke of a dead woman who had influenced their eyes. It was 2 a.m., and the atmosphere resembled a disillusion reminiscence, still and heavy. They had talked about this dead woman throughout the evening, welcoming any sound that might surprise her profile into life. When alive she had been the chanting whirlpool of their existences, and when she died sound ceased for them. Their voices became mere copies of its past reign. Because I loved her any common pebble became a chance word concerning her, and flowers were enthusiastic anecdotes of her presence, said Carl. For an hour he had been breaking his love into insatiable variations, one who seduces the fleeting expressions of a past torture. She may have been an august vagabond from another planet, a planet where loitering is a solemn profession, said Anita. Even when she performed a menial task she awed it with her thoughtful reluctance. Like a fitful gleener she crept through bare fields of people accepting their bits of laughter and refusal. When she met us she stepped backward, as from attempting unreality and knocked against death. Carl sat like a groveling fantasy weary of attempting to capture a genuine animation, but Anita had forced herself into a tormented erectness. The clock struck three. Without a word or glance in each other's direction they left their chairs, turned out the lights, and ascended the stairway, Carl slightly in advance. They halted at the first landing and faced each other with the uncomplaining helplessness of people suddenly scalded by reality. In the morning we will eat oranges from a silver dish, and glibly cheat our emotions, said Carl. This deftly impolite proceeding never stops to ask our consent, said Anita in a voice whose lethargy barely observed a satirical twinkle.  They started and entered their rooms. Flower scents filtered through Carl's open window like softly dismayed sins and the cool repentance of a summer night gilded into his room upon a pathway of moonlight. For a while he sat absentmindedly burnishing the knives that had divided his evening. After he had undressed he fell upon his bed like one hurriedly obliterating an ordeal. His consciousness played with a black hood. Then a crash mastered the room and the door swung open. His blanched face paid a spasmodic tribute to the sound and his grey eyes greeted the darkness as though it were an advancing mob. With a strange stoicism he waited for a repetition of the sound. The moments were sledge-hammers fanning his face with their close passage.  The darkness tingled lifelessly like an electrocuted man. Carl's waiting began to feel sharply disgraced and his senses planned a revolt. He tried to rise to a sitting posture, but his body insulted his desire. At this point the darkness softened to the disguised struggle of a woman striving to reach him. The significance of this cast an impalpable but potent consolation upon the straining of his chained body. The rocking of his bed measured a powerfully cryptic welcome and he tried to decipher it with the beat of his heart. Each of its syllables became the cadence impact of another person against a toughly pliant wall. His body demolished its tenseness and pressed a refrain into the swaying bed. He decorated the darkness with the crisp flight of his voice. Parish upon the turmoil of each day and make it inaudible but let the night be our hermitage, he cried to a dead woman. As though replying, the rocking of his bed gradually lessened and the darkness became an opaque farewell. He turned to the shaft of moonlight which was tactfully intercepting the floor of his room. It had the unobtrusive intensity of a melted Chinaman. For hours he gave it his eyes and dimly contradicted it with his heart. When the dawn made his room aware of its limitations, he closed his eyes. At the breakfast table he and Anita greeted each other with a worn brevity.  For a while the tinkle of their spoons amably pardoned their constraint but Anita finally spoke with the staccato of one who snaps unbearable thongs. She came to me last night. I heard a sound like a huge menace stumbling over a chair. The door opened and the darkness grew as heavy as dead flesh. My bed swayed with the precision of a grieving head. Carl's face broke and gleamed like a soft ground flogged by sudden rain. The same things happened to me, he said in the voice of a child wrestling with a minor chord. They sat heavily disputing each other with their eyes. Did you lie afterwards censuring the moonlight, asked Anita? Carl nodded.  She flattered a chair at the table. Wasn't that a terrible storm we had last night, she babbled? The rain kept me awake for hours. I'm such a light sleeper, you know. I do hope you children managed to rest. End of story. This recording is in the public domain. The night to receive the moonlight in the manner of a sophisticated braggart who slaps the face of an old and passive man, Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor, observed the solution and painted it upon one of the lanterns lighting a little party within her heart.  If Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor had been a philosopher or a scientist, she would have changed the night to an unseen background, or chemical diagram. She would have ignored the pleading of her heart for pictorial distraction. But since she was a society woman, tired of sensual toys and a mental twilight, she welcomed the night as her first effectual lover. Sitting in the garden of her country home, she could see the lighted windows of her crowded ballroom and hear the saccharine pandemonium of a jazz orchestra. The noise reminded her of a middle-aged roux, snickering as he rolled his huge dice while gambling for a new mistress. She felt glad that her new lover, the night, did not seek to court her with such a blustering platter. The night was incredibly sophisticated but held the pungently awkward body of a youth crashing against trees and bushes. This mixture pierced Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor and slid far beneath those sensual routines which are the delight of psychoanalysts, slid to a depth where aesthetic passion slays the flesh and blends it into a sexless potency. She felt a sense, a bodiless conflagration striding with wide steps beside the night. When the limitless glow died within her, she glanced down and found that she was naked. The complicated shrewdness of her clothes had disappeared. By this time she had ceased to be Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor. She had become an expectant novice in a new world and even the jazz music and ballroom laughter had changed to the mumbled rumours of a past existence. Therefore her nakedness failed to disconcert her. She touched her shoulder with a gesture of matter-of-fact congratulation and loosened her hair to rid herself of a last dab of incongruity. Then she rose from the stone bench and walked on a pathway leading to the Great Lake that bounded one side of her country estate. She felt the powerful and sober curiosity of one who's decided become a recluse and examines the deserted possibilities of his ruthless plateau. She reached a high bluff rising over the placid vanity at the huge lake, combing its bluish black hair with moonlight. Suddenly she became aware of a figure standing beside her. She turned with a gasp of strangled aloofness. The ethereal composure of her small face, defended by moonlight, sheared into an ebony cast of hermit-like annoyance. But when the colour and outlines of the figure shrunk within her eyes, her face changed again.  The slightly deteriorated slenderness of her short body lowered a bit toward the earth, not from fear, but because of a weakening incredulity. The figure before her was that of a sexless human being, small and slim of statute, nude, and hewed with an inhumanely concentrated black. The head held large eyes that shone like metaphysical diamonds, as though ten thousand stars were crowsing together in a realm of compressed light. The figure spoke to Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor, and its voice seemed thrown forth by the rays from its eyes. The voice was distinct and subdued. You are not a hermit who has turned a garden into a solitary castle, said the figure. What am I? asked Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor. Your mind and heart are no longer clad in their heavy mirages of love, fear, and sleep, said the figure. The surface pictures have gone, and the twin bazaars of your heart and mind are exchanging a long deferred greeting. Within the now mingled bazaars emotions and thoughts have become friends, and sell each other endless variations in color, light, and form. I am the being who rules this proceeding. With you in name, asked Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor, using the unashamed naivety of a child. Men, call me aesthetics, answered the figure. In my weakest form I make the eyes of the shop girl hesitate a bit, as she views an unusually gaudy sunset. In my strongest manifestations I help poets and artists to contradict their personal lives. But these are merely my outward indications. I line the hearts and minds of all human beings, often remaining within them, unfelt, until they die. In rare cases such as yours, the mirages hiding and dividing me are slain, and I clap my hands, sending motion to the twin bazaars of heart and mind. What to cause me to uncover you within myself? Said Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor. You yielded to a whim and made the night your lover. To satisfied with the loves and fears he found within you, the night threw them aside, one by one, thus slaying the mirages that hid me. Your other lovers of the past were content with more material gifts, and did not seek to uncover you. I am bare now. What will you do with me? Said Mrs. Robert Calvin Taylor. The figure laid a hand upon her shoulder. His eyes burnt her to a petal of ashes that fell down between them. Mr. Robert Calvin Taylor stood over the form of his young wife, who sat slouched down upon a stone bench within their garden. He shook her shoulder lightly. She uttered a perturbed mumble and did not raise the head resting upon one of her arms. The moonlight fell upon the silken complexities of her dress. Poor Dott, I warned her not to take a third glass, he muttered to himself as he raised her in his arms and staggered down the garden pathway. End of story. This recording is in the public domain. End of Introducing Irony by Maxwell Bodenheim


Hey guys, it's Monica. You know, sometimes we are inspired by other content creators and sometimes when the inspiration hits us we may not quite know what it's going to look like in the end and I've had a couple of weeks of inspiration and I'm not there yet.  The river is beautiful. The tide was in. It's the salt water. It goes out to the ocean. The tide was in and there was nobody around. There's just like maybe a few people on the river path, but I walked all the way down to the end and then I decided I was going to walk up the street and when I walked up the street, I saw a shop that I hadn't noticed before and I've walked this path before this walk and but most of time I just go back along the water rather than going up the street, but for some reason I was inspired to go up the street and I saw the shop and I said, I saw the mannequin outside the shop window and immediately it said to me, this is going to be a type of store that Susan, aka little poet would love.  What would she say about this? Would this inspire her music? You know, she's got a beautiful voice and she does the most amazing music and of course I can't sing. I don't have any musical ability at all, but I was just mesmerized by the beauty of the shop and the vintage pieces and I kept thinking of Susan and I still don't know where I'm going to go with the clips. I'm going to go back to the shop, I'm going to film some more. They said I could do that and maybe I'll try on some of the hats or just, you know, look at the jewelry a little closer, but I couldn't help but think of Susan little poet as I walked through the shop. I pictured her in my mind's eye and I pictured her looking at the jewels and looking at the hats and looking at the shoes and just looking at everything in the shop and all I could picture was a big smile on her face and I kept saying to myself, what would her camera record if she was here? It made me happy. It also inspired me, so I filmed in there a little bit, but it inspired me to try to get a little bit better with my storytelling, so that's going to be one of my channel goals is to try to get a little bit better with my storytelling. There is no way that I'm going to be Susan little poet ever, but she inspires me and so I'm going to try to achieve to be a little bit better with storytelling. The other person that inspired me recently and this was probably about a month or so ago, people, some people love the wig talk, some people don't. I wear wigs in a lot of my videos. I find that they are an awesome fashion accessory. It also makes it super easy for a content creator to film a video and it's just an easy process. So I have been reviewing and talking about wigs. I'm not a professional wig reviewer. I'm not at all like some of the women that I watch that really know the product inside and out.  So I had an opportunity, the very first opportunity I had ever to do any wig reviews was a company called Uni Wigs and they had sent me about two years ago a number of wigs. So recently watching Taz's video, she did now Taz's wig closet. If you don't know who that is and I'm sure if you're not into wigs you might not be, but I'll tell you this woman is absolutely beautiful. She also does some fashion. She also talks a little bit about skincare and she does review her wigs beautifully. So I'm going to link her channel below of course as well as little poet in case you're not familiar with her which would be unbelievable if you weren't. But anyways I'm going to link their channel below because both these women have inspired me recently and Taz in particular she did a series on the summer short looks and she had she modeled a bunch of different wigs and I said wow I said you know what I've got a number of wigs from Uni Wigs that I could show people. Uni Wigs is an affordable wig. They have many different styles and I thought I'm going to pull them out and look at them again.  So I decided I would reach out to the Uni Wigs the libibid collection. I would reach out to the person that had sent me the wigs originally and ask if the coupon code was still good because I figured if I was going to talk about the wigs I would you know obviously would like the coupon code to still be good and so he said yeah absolutely and he said well give you a new code and he goes how about you try a new wig. So I went oh okay so I really wanted to try one that was more like a page boy and for whatever reason they weren't willing to send that one and then that's okay. So he said how about you try Lisa. It's a very very popular look and it's a short and it would fit perfectly with the summer dew and I said well you know I've had Lisa. I love Lisa. I have Lisa in almond frost and he said well we'll send it to you in a different color. So I picked a different color but they were all out and so he suggested the color and it's actually called maple swirl and I was a little hesitant because I didn't think it would be my color but they sent me the wig. They sent me the wig and as you can see here from me opening up the box on the wigs it came beautifully packaged but I want to show it to you before I put it on my head so that you can see what the wig looks like. So this is maple swirl. This is Lisa and for me this is a blonder look. Now this is totally unaltered. I just am shaking her up. I'm not doing anything to this wig at all. It is your traditional cap. It is not a monofilament. There is no lace front just very much a traditional cap very very comfortable on. This is an extremely affordable wig and right now with the coupon code and the sales it really is affordable. So I'm going to put this on so that you can see this color wig maple swirl with the rooted look. So you can see it on me which I think for me is too bright of a color but I wanted you to see it. So I'm going to put it on and then at the very tail end I'm going to put all the clips of all the other uni wigs that I have worn over the last two to three years. I did get a dark brown one that I had given away and then I had my favorite is definitely going to be Patsy and I'll put Patsy on again at the end of the video but when I come back I'm going to be wearing this one just so you can see what Lisa looks like in this color if you're interested. If not hang around anyways. All right so this is Lisa. Now this is totally unaltered. I would probably use a little bit of dry shampoo to bring down some of the shine. I think you can probably all see the shine that I'm talking about and I probably if I were to wear this for myself I probably would tone down the brighter blonde because to me this is too gold for me. So I'm going to turn so that you can see what this looks like in the back. So anyways um Lisa Maple Swirl. I love the cut. I think the you know the shorter cut in the summer. I mean this is perfect. You can put this on. It fits really wonderful. You can put this on. You can go out and about. It's a very very affordable look and I think because of the permities up here whether or not you have a monofilament and you know you can or a lace front you know I mean you can get away without having that and you can even though it's not a monofilament you could actually park this if you wanted. You can train it to be parted whichever side you really feel more comfortable. So this was sent to me because I asked about a coupon code this is sent to me from the Libib collection designer collection unique alternative hair. So if you like this warmer blonde with the gold and the dark roots and you're looking for an affordable piece I think this might be an option for you. So now I'm going to put on Patsy my favorite and that's an almond frost. I think why I like this one a lot is that it is it's a little bit longer. It's a little bit more of um I gotta turn around you can you can see it's a little bit more of um shaggy look which I think I really like. So this is the color that I like a lot on me almond frost. I think this is a really great color and I'll put this color side by side comparison so you can see the difference in the gold tones. I don't know if you can see but in the gold tones of the maple swirl. What do you think? So anyways I just you know was like I said inspired by Taz who showed all the summer looks and I said well I can act on the inspiration that Taz gave me. The inspiration that Susan Little Poet gave me I'm going to have to work on a while because I have a lot of ideas but I just haven't put them I haven't put them into action yet but with Taz I did have these short wigs and I was able to demo this and then when Andy from Uniwigs said hey you know I'll send you another one to show I said sure why not. So this will give someone who is on the fence about the color an idea about what this color really looks like. So that's my sort of fun little wig. So anyways I'm going to go ahead and insert the clip so you can see the different wig looks that I had from Uniwigs. All of these were sent to me courtesy in exchange for a demo you know and I really hate to even say a review because I'm not a wig reviewer but they were sent to me courtesy to demonstrate them to show them what they look like on for my viewers and I think they look pretty good and again I have a coupon code for Uniwigs anything off of their website that you might like and these are just really cute little summer wigs I think. Very very comfortable on. This one like I said this is Patsy and Patsy is actually I believe my I think it's my favorite. Thank you all so much for watching guys.


For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. The Chinese tech giant Huawei is increasingly being pushed out of western markets. The most recent blow came last week when the United Kingdom banned the use of Huawei manufactured components from its 5G networks. This move against Huawei is a direct result of US pressure on its allies to not allow the Chinese company into their markets. For the US, Huawei isn't just another foreign tech company. Huawei represents the massive growth in China's hardware and technology sector. The US considers this to be a major threat to its global domination. The 5G network has become the bone of contention because this is one area China is clearly ahead of the rest. Both in terms of the technology itself, they have been the pioneers of this technology in terms of rolling out the network and rolling out the entire gamut of equipment which is necessary for the network from the phones to the network to all the other components which make it interface with other systems. So to better understand this conflict, let's look at a brief timeline of some of the major incidents in this standoff. For the longest time, US has been citing security concerns as a reason for not letting Huawei into US manufacturing. In 2008, for instance, Huawei had wanted to buy 16.5% of 3Com. 3Com is a US manufacturer of networking products which had a deal to supply networking security software to the US military. Huawei's investment was blocked by US authorities over concerns that Chinese spies could have the US military using Huawei's equipment. Then in 2012, the US Congressional House Intelligence Committee declared Huawei and another Chinese company, ZTE, to be a threat to national security. The company's report recommended that US telecom firms not do business with them. However, this report was never made public. Similar allegations of spying and national security concerns have been leveraged in multiple times in the subsequent years. But no evidence has ever been provided. If we jump ahead to 2018, in January, US telecom providers AT&T and Verizon cancelled plans to offer Huawei phones in the US because of the government's security concerns. Pentagon also banned sales of Huawei and ZTE products on US military bases in May. And in August, Australia barred Huawei from bidding for Australia's 5G network again citing national security concerns. It should be pointed out that Australia, along with the US, New Zealand, Canada and Britain are part of the 5I's intelligence sharing network. Three months later in November, New Zealand also excluded Huawei from participating in the 5G rollout because of national security concerns. The whole argument that is coming from the United States, that all of this is because Huawei has backdoor and Steels technology, is all bunkered. They've never provided an iota of proof. It's just sheer campaign. It's more the reflection of the American US war on China, which is not a hot war, but it's not in a cold war either. It is at the moment a tech war, a communication war, an information war. All of this are taking place and I think it's really a part of that campaign that we are hearing. Time and again, US has also blamed Huawei for doing business with Iran in breach of US sanctions. In December 2018, Meng Wanzu was arrested in Canada. She is Huawei's CFO and also the daughter of founder Renzi Fee. She was arrested as part of the charge of violating US sanctions. This arrest led to a dramatic escalation of hostilities. Meng continues to be under house arrest in Canada. So while the US has been making attempts to limit Huawei's rise in global markets, since a long time, we see that in the last couple of years, these efforts have been scaled up considerably under President Donald Trump. These escalations continued in 2019. In May, the Trump administration placed a complete ban on US firms doing business with Huawei. These sanctions on Huawei are a part of the trade and technological war that the US is waging against China. While Huawei has been preparing for a day like this, it is not yet completely technologically independent. What is really going to hurt them, the critical area in which they could have a problem is that the armed processors are the ones which are used widely by all companies who use what are called embedded systems. Those where you embed the computer, quote unquote, the processor as a part of an equipment. Now, armed has literally taken over most of these applications worldwide. So this is the crucial question that faces Huawei, that how far behind are they going to be if they have to develop their own processes. This move will also adversely impact the US companies that sell their equipment to Huawei. Many of these are largely dependent on Huawei's business. Now, with UK falling in line with the US, the five eyes intelligence sharing alliance has solidified against Huawei, opening up the market for other companies. This does not necessarily mean that all of EU and other nations will follow suit. Huawei at the moment is in the position to offer working for technology, which no one else can. This is something that is going to damage the both sides. Certainly Huawei is going to be damaged in terms of the market that it is going to get, but it doesn't come with no damage to the other side as well, because they are going to get behind a certain set of countries and certain set of companies in not having access to technology as quickly as they would have if Huawei, the tested, tried and the clear front leader in the technology was available to service its needs.


This 2014 Ford F350 Crew Cab Short Box Single Rear Wheel is stock number 1-2-3-4-3-Z. We're here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, you're new and used heavy-duty truck. Headquarter is this 2014 Ford F350 has the 6.7 liter Power Stroke diesel. This truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off and this truck is 100% ready to go. BlueJeans Metallic is the color we shoot all of our videos in 1080p 60 frames per second. So if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or television, I highly recommend turning them on right now because it is your best way to check out the quality and condition and options of the truck before seeing it in person. And if you like the video and want to subscribe to our YouTube channel and the upper right hand part of the screen is a subscribe button, click that and then click the bell notifications. You'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at Summit Auto of our new and used inventory. Pretty nice. On that side comes with the painted 17-inch alloy rims and it has Michelin Defender LTX LT24575R17 tires. And these tires look like they have a really good amount of tread left. I'd say probably about 80 to 90% of the tread left on those tires. You can see just how clean that frame and underbody is. This is a one owner out of Colorado. Front fenders in nice shape. Headlight lenses are nice and clear. Front bumper and lower valance are in pretty nice condition. I didn't see any major dents or dings on there. Passengers side front fender. Pretty nice shape as well. No major dents or dings on that. And the passengers side rim. No major scuffs or scrapes. As you go down this side of the truck, take note of how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror-like that paint is. We take these HD videos, so if you are far away from the car, you can go to our YouTube channel. Take note of how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror-like that paint is. We take these HD videos, so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just cannot make the trip down, but you're still interested in purchasing the truck, you can see the truck, hear the truck, and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. So when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. There is one little dent on the cab there. Do want to point that out. These are used vehicles. Down this side, very nice. And if this video helps you make a buying decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video and that it helped you out and that Brett sent you. Back tires have just as much tread as the front tires. And the frame and underbody on this truck is exceptionally clean. You do get the anti-sway bars there. That's part of the camper package. And you can see that the bed rails are in excellent condition. Absolutely no corrosion on them. That's where you really want to look for corrosion is on those bed rails. Because if those are all rusted out, then you know the truck's been in a lot of salt, which is not the case on this one. It has all the remaining factory exhaust. Cab corners, lower rockers all look really good. It does come with a set of aftermarket chrome step bars. They go wheel to wheel. So you can get into the bed pretty easy. Coming around to the back, the rear bumper on this truck is in absolutely perfect condition. No dents or dings on that. Full towing package, which includes a receiver hitch, four pin and seven pin wiring. The tailgate, I will point out, does have a couple dents right above the handle there. It's actually kind of like one big dent, but doesn't affect the function of the tailgate at all. This one comes with a Truxedo soft roll-up tonneau cover. I didn't see any rips or tears on that. The bed does have a little bit of light duty usage. But for the most part, pretty nice back here. And that tailgate shuts nice and solidly. As you go down the driver's side, just as clean as that passenger's side. Driver's side box looks really good. And for full disclosure, this back rim, no scuffs or scrapes on that. As you go down the rest of the side of the vehicle, check out those doors. They look pretty good. It does have the driver's side door code entry. We do have the code for that. And if you ever want to figure out your 11 to 16 super duty door code in the upper right-hand part of the screen in this video, I'll show you how to find that. Here's directional signals. These power fold in. They power telescope out as well. I'll show you how that works too. Inside the XLT package gives you the gray cloth interior. There are no rips or tears on the seats. They're in really nice shape. Power driver's seat with lumbar, factory floor mats, auto headlamps, power pedals, telescopic steering wheel, power windows, power locks, and power mirrors. So these mirrors do power fold in. And then you have to have the ignition on for the power telescope to work. I always like showing both sides so that you know that all the options are working on the vehicle you're looking at. As we hop inside here, we'll turn the ignition on so you can check out the radio, the miles, and everything that this truck has to offer. So you can see that this one has 60,074 miles on it. Compass outside temperature display. I'll dim it down there there. Instrument cluster is very nice and clean. And I did want to show you those telescopic tow mirrors so they telescope out and in. And once again showing both sides so that you know that both sides are working properly. Steering wheel's in nice shape. You get a multifunction with information and cruise controls on the left. And then Bluetooth and audio controls on the right has a six speed automatic transmission with the optional tap shift. Comes with a CD player, AM, FM, and Serious Satellite radio capabilities. You have your four by four shifter on the floor. And then your climate controls and heated mirror buttons right there. Factory brake controller, stability control, and it does have the sync system for your Bluetooth cell phone. It has an AUX and a USB jack, passenger side format, carpeting, and seat are in excellent condition. No rips or tears on that. And the headliner is very clean on this truck. I don't think it's ever been smoked in. Side curtain airbags and map lights up there. We'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we will check out under the hood. I did want to show you the backup camera there as well. That's where it shows up and that's working nicely.  No rips or tears back here. Has the fixed glass rear window. You get lockable storage underneath these back seats and that locks with the ignition key, which is pretty handy. Factory floor mats and carpeting are in excellent condition as well. Child safety locks on the back doors. And the bottoms of the doors all look very good on this truck. Also has window etch security, so if your truck ever gets thought of getting stolen, they'd have to replace all the windows because it has that etch security on it on every piece of glass. We'll start it up and take a quick look under the hood. Starts right up. No check engine lights or anything like that. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today. And hopefully from this HD video you will have been able to verify the quality and condition of this truck inside and out. Under the hood we have the 6.7 liter power stroke diesel engine. This truck has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop. Has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. And this truck is 100% ready to go. There's your mission sticker. And to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, half tons, three quarter tons, one tons. You name it, we got to go to that website right there at www.summitauto.com. Full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at www.summitauto.com. And if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to www.youtube.com.com. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos that you see there. Click the bell notifications. You'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at www.summitauto.com. In fact, in a second you'll see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel in the upper left. Link to more F-350 videos like this one in the upper right. Link to this vehicle on our website in the lower left. And a link to one of our latest YouTube videos in the lower right. Click those, check us out. And we really look forward to helping with this Super Clean 2014 Ford F-350 Crew Cab Short Box XLT in Blue Jeans Metallic. Thanks again for checking out the video. Remember to like, subscribe, and share.


Okay. Okay, let's start. My name is Thomas. I work at SAP like, like my two predecessors and I'm going to talk about MetaSpace. I've been working with GBMs for about 15 years at SAP and I've worked on and off with MetaSpace in the last maybe four years. I've contributed a number of patches and I thought it's actually a nice topic for a talk. Some legalese. Okay. Why do we even care? The thing is MetaSpace is kind of a bit of a dusty and forgotten corner of the VM. So there are more exciting topics usually, but the thing is MetaSpace can actually contribute quite a bit to memory consumption, to non-Yavaheeb memory consumption within the JVM. So it pays to actually look from time to time at it and to look whether we can improve things and the answer is yes, we can improve things within a reason. Some basics first. MetaSpace is a region within the, it's a memory region within the hotspot VM which contains class metadata. Very shortly, class metadata is basically everything contained within the class file sucked up and digested by the VM and rolled out into runtime for easy consumption by the VM and things like constant pooling methods and notations but also purely runtime stuff like JIT profile account and so on. Really enough not for instance a code cache but which would be kind of a candidate for MetaSpace but it isn't that. So all this stuff used to live in the Java heap like in ancient times in something called the permanent generation and this had a number of disadvantages. One thing is that it made, it was kind of difficult for users to configure correctly. So it was difficult to size and because it has an inbuilt limit I mean it couldn't grow beyond the size of the permanent generation. And another thing is that it was difficult to work with and hotspot engineers had problems with it because it used to, it used to move around and because GC gets compacted, it's not at a stable so and then it was decided at some point in time to move all that stuff to native memory and this was inspired by J rocket VM which had been acquired some time before by Oracle and so this was the JEP 122 and remove permanent generation and so that was the birth of the MetaSpace and we have been involved since quite a while in MetaSpace development mainly because SAP has customers which tend to have large installation large more lethic installation which do a lot of class loading and unloading and so we had all the sweet spots of MetaSpace and had a lot of issues in the beginning especially with JDK8 and so we contributed quite a bit of work to the MetaSpace and improved Metas especially in JDK11 and also provide a number of analysis tools and all those were culminated in a way with JDK15 in a rewrite we did which has not been published yet but I will talk about this presently okay to understand MetaSpace it's difficult to understand the life cycle metadata are located when class are loaded which is not really that surprising and exciting more important metadata are tight lives from a lifetime are tied to the loading class loader so all metadata are get released when the class loader is collected which means that we actually have a byte delete scenario which makes things a lot simpler there are some exceptions to those rules for instance class redefinition and you have to throw away all bytecode and stuff but that's the uncommon path that's not what MetaSpace is designed for so which brings us to the question why actually both are writing a custom that allocator I mean can we cut use like a general purpose allocator like Maloch or so and the basic answer is because we think we can do better and because we have byte delete scenario we can get away with arena style allocation which is actually pretty fast and very memory efficient and we do not have to track individual allocations for the purpose of freeing them so a general purpose allocator is actually not the bad fit because it does a lot of work which we don't have to do and especially in the case of Maloch and there are different cases against Maloch and one thing is that we couldn't do compressed class space I will come shortly to this and we also have platform specific limitations with Maloch so compressed class space I see this in block entries and so on I see this often confused with MetaSpace it's not the same compressed class space is actually only a part of MetaSpace and not even a very large one at that and it's an optimization we do for 64 bit platforms and only exists there and can also be switched off the story is like this so we have a Java object which lives in heap and it has a header part of this header is a pointer which points to a class in MetaSpace which in a structure in MetaSpace a native structure which is called class really written with k and contains the central metadata for this class and and stuff like V table I table so it's also um it's also variable sized and on 64 bit this pointer is 8 byte which is kind of annoying because it uses up space so we reduce the size to 32 bit which says pair Java object 8 4 bytes which is actually good and can save Java heap in about 5 to 8 percent depending on how many Java objects and and what small granularity you have so the 32 bit index is actually an index into a pre-arranged memory range which contains which of course has to contain now all the class structures and also may contain the shared classes and the if cds is enabled so um this the way the class the little class point has calculated this would give us in theory a range of 32 gigabyte but the compressed class space size is actually limited to 3 gigabyte max artificially this brings us to the fact that MetaSpace consists of two parts the one thing is the compressed class space which has to be of course reserved at any random VM comes up and into the compressed class space go all the class structures and the compressed class space is committed on demand and because we have to reserve it when the VM come up we need of course to know its size so so and this is the compressed class space size switch which by default is one gigabyte um this is only reserved space so so I will not explain the difference between reserved and committed because um because I assume you guys know this I mean on most modern platforms reserved size doesn't really cost that much or anything at all actually so depending on how the page table is implemented so and and so with one gigabyte and in general each each class structure is an average 1k size and this is a this is a good size so okay and so in general with one gigabyte you have clear you have space for about one million classes which is enough usually so everything else so everything which is not a class structure goes into the non-class MetaSpace which is a chain of memory mappings which grows on demand is is committed on demand and so on and note that this is a bit of a misnomer the compressed class space is neither compressed nor is it really the sole container for class data and non-class MetaSpace is also not really non-class but it is what it is current implementation and I will speed a bit through this um very much simplified as we have said we have a byte delete scenario every loader has a chunk of memory which can vary in size between 1k 64k and so on and usually also much larger and we allocate from this with very cheap variation pointer bump and pointer bump so one someone wants to have a constant pool from us for 15 bytes we point 15 bytes is not much so let's say 100 bytes so we we bump the top pointer by 100 bytes so and then we accumulate a series of chunks which are full or almost full and they are can get a chain to so-called retained chunks retire chunks and this means that we have when we have several loaders each loader accumulates a series of chunks and these chunks are carved out of the MetaSpace in the order they are allocated usually and which means that the MetaSpace fills this chunks which are which belong to different loaders which potentially different lifetimes which is what I call actually MetaSpace documentation and note also that that if you think you only have one loader and this is usually not correct because the VM also creates like tiny loaders for reflection glue code or for things like in the classes for lambdas and they get all over the way and so when a loader dies and is collected its chunks are marked as free and added to a free list and and they may be reused in the future if if if you resume class loading if you never do this is wasted memory basically basically wasted memory this is very much simplified the the whole design is way more intricate but this is like the gist of it the problems the current implementation is is the following and free list can get really huge we have seen a customer slide used to free ratios of one two three which means like we have an off of I don't know an only a quarter of the of the memory allocated actually for for MetaSpace is actually used for MetaSpace this is about actually worse and JDK8 it has to be somewhat in a mitigator with JDK11 which is by the way a good reason to upgrade but it's not it's far from perfect so another thing is intra chunk waste which is can make up between two and actually 15 percent which is also kind of annoying basically if you have a loader a typically every loader at some point in time stops loading classes and the remainder of its current trunk is wasted and the the the problem gets worse the smaller grain the the loaders are actually on so this is an example for the first problem the the we are not really elastic at all so I mean I mean we we if we have a spike in a MetaSpace usage we do not really recover from it so um as we can see we load a bunch of classes and then we release them in batches of four there's an example and for batches and as you can see the the first the the committed space which is the blue line doesn't really budge at all until maybe four fifths of all the loaders are really released it's really bad like in this case we have like retained in three quarter of of of the memory is actually in free list and and idles around and you can see this for instance with our command we added and and Retta also had was j command via MetaSpace which um weirdly enough is not really that well known as they are even not at Oracle which is kind of weird and we contributed this command for JK11 which shows a lot of fine-grained details about the MetaSpace if you want to look at MetaSpace details this is the thing to do um shows basically class loader um class loader's classes the whole occupation your trunk geometry and everything and it has a nice waste section as you can see here you can see at one glance where waste of course so as a Java programmer you usually kind of do something and it's basically you can stare helplessly at these numbers but for hotspot engineers it's good because we know where to optimize okay so um last year we were thinking about this and I was kind of unhappy with the state of affairs I was kind of thinking about about re-implementing this I yeah okay I was thinking about re-implementing this and so I did this as a kind of exercise coding exercise and the basic idea is that we try to make MetaSpace way more elastic by uncommitting the trunks in the free list I mean the thing is we cannot do anything about fragmentation we cannot we cannot move this stuff it has to be at a stable so we cannot compact however what we can do is when the trunks are on free list have a certain size we can basically decommit the memory below the trunks which is especially good when you have large continuous free ranges and a spin-off of this idea is actually that we can delay committing trunks until they are really used I mean I mean that's that has a lot of that helps with intra-trunk waste actually and so I won't go into details because time is running away the thing is one concern one main concern with decommitting memory is you do not want to do this in a too fine granular fashion because this increases the number of virtual memory areas which for instance in the case of linux means that we performance of kernel memory management may suffer because VMA lookup gets slower and so on and we also may certain hit certain process limits so this is something to keep an eye on so we introduce something called commit granules so where today we have basically a contiguous area of committed stuff we divide the memory range into into commit granules and to so-called commit granules of adjustable sizes it was amazing mainly to to play around the sizes yes so and to to be open for for whatever comes we also had to we had to improve the chunk allocation scheme it it's currently really unused and unsuitable for for for decommitting so first thing I did was replacing the current body allocation the current allocating allocation scheme with with with 1k 4k 64k chunk sizes with power 2 based body allocation scheme which is basically a very old venerable algorithm like 70 years old and and the cool thing is that it's really very easy and very cheap to split and merge chunks it's it's an old algorithm everyone knows this and it has a very low externality for a fragmentation so so you can really you arrive at at you have a high chance of at arriving at contiguous free areas which then are good targets for uncommitting and it also doesn't hurt that it's a it's a good standard algorithm everyone knows it so it's good for for for maintenance and the allocation and works like this you someone gives back a chunk and releases a chunk and through the allocator and we merge it with their bodies and with their bodies recursively until you either arrive at the largest possible chunk size or you cannot merge anymore and this works actually quite well so one thing was that chunks had headers and headers needed to go the reason for that is if you have a header you cannot decommit the page where the headers in which it does not only cost memory but also even more importantly increases fragmentation because you have like a fence page like at every chunk which is kind of annoying so we remove the trunk headers and put them somewhere else and now the whole chunk is payload can completely decommit it in one go and even more importantly you have like swathes of chunks if you have like swathes of free chunks you can decommit them all and basically at the operating system level you only have like one contiguous free virtual memory area struct so okay so these concepts work very well together and the funny thing is they are kind of independent so there are not many chunks and granules there are not many dependencies so we can actually change one implementation or the other and do not affect the whole thing at all so I think the design is quite robust so as you can see like a one chunk can spend multiple granules and multiple granules, multiple chunks can be contained within one granule the only condition we have is that every all the sizes are power two sizes and it works like this so we have if someone frees a chunk and we fuse it with the neighboring chunks and reach a size which is one commit granule or more we can actually decommit the underlying memory and this is good so we actually return this memory to the operating system similarly when we have a large chunk which covers multiple commit granules we can actually give this chunk completely uncommitted or only partly committed over to a loader and then he can commit it as he goes so if he does power to bump allocation and if the pointer the top pointer moves into a new commit granule that new commit granule gets committed only when needed I think let's speak through this so we have seen this before this was bad and this is you know the result basically this is really really elastic yeah same same example patched VM as we can see we do not retain any memory at all this is also a bit tunable if we want to retain memory for any way for any reason we could do but I do not see actually a reason why we would want to and the chance to the it's it's way better to give this memory back to the operating system to be reused somewhere else or maybe somewhere else in within our own process and instead of only ear marking it for this one case maybe someone does class loading there's a difference between the stock VM patched VM jdk 14 dark low stock like to patched as we can see we save about 200 megabyte 250 megabytes here nice is also that the spike that the spike is not as high so so we also save even if with no class unloading involved we save a little bit this is because we have done some optimizations that the code is just better yes I mean I mean we have we have tighter memory packing and stuff rss yeah I think it's the battery okay you guys hear me yeah okay and this is rss just to just to show that I don't lie and I don't have hidden somewhere memory okay so this is outside bottom line the result of our work at the moment the work is not finished but basically meta space is now elastic which is a good thing for large monolithic applications which do a lot of class unloading and we also see a modest decrease in consumption as I had shown before even if without mass class unloading between one and maybe 10 percent and these are all examples which are very very simple and which don't do much at all and this is still ongoing work we still have a lot of ideas to to to follow through let's see how it goes I also think that the coding is overall way better I mean I mean it's way better maintain a long term I think so um how do we go patch is stable I think it it needs a little bit more tdc but I think it's okay um it lives in a jdk sandbox directory um repository and everyone can build it and and play around with it and I did made a jeff with it currently in draft state and called elastic meta space I'm not really sure but this is actually the right we hike it for this kind of work but but I did it it's there so I would really love very much to get this into jdk 15 and the problem is that it's quite difficult to bring such a large patch upstream into the open gdk if you don't work at oratory but but let's see I will try I will try and finally yeah finally it's a good candidate actually for backpotting I think because because um honestly I mean meta space role is somewhat diminished in in modern modern VMs because we have cds and stuff like that but like in older VMs like jdk 8 and jdk 11 which are actually mostly used like in large legacy scenarios where you don't have micro kernels microservices and stuff but but large installations I think that would be very good and especially in jdk 8 it would um make a lot of sense so of course I'm at the mercy of the maintainers so let's see okay thank you and any follow-up questions I'm reachable and in various means and yeah we've got a couple of minutes it's going to be a bit awkward with only one microphone you'll have to repeat the questions but does anybody have anything to ask well you've won oh that's a question will there be like a pause time cost for doing this uncommitting I know we've seen that when we're uncommitted memory I sorry I don't understand I guess the uncommit is done in the pause and I don't think that much we didn't see any differences I did like like very micro


So, I'm here this morning with Tom Wambeka and he's going to be giving a keynote this afternoon on technology enhanced learning and how it's influencing our, how technology is really influencing the way that we teach and that we learn. I guess my first question is kind of a general question. How do you see technology enhanced learning impacting education in the broadest sense? Okay, well it's an interesting entry point because if you're at a conference here like Eden diving through all the different sessions, what I actually did in the last two days, extracting almost 120 different signals of the future and I mean the future of technology enhanced learning going from learning analytics to micro credentials towards all kinds of let's say futuristic terms of where actually education is driving us. What I think is more difficult for organization institutions, what do these future trends in educational technology mean for you as a professional, as a learning institute because as we are always aware we are changing a bit slower than let's say the fast technological innovation rhythm of the tools that we are currently exploring here and in my presentation I'm trying to give some foresight processes which are basically conversational tools on how you can together with your colleagues actually create a future for your own institution and that is happening through actually human conversation, not really through the technologies they facilitate, they accelerate but they're in function of the objectives that you want to achieve as a team. Okay, how do you see the role of teachers changing with technology enhanced learning? Do you see the role changing? Well, there will be a tool if you look at the big change in tools that in the last 20, 30 years moved from a kind of one to all broadcasting type of trend to many, too many interaction collaboration and communication and that all these tools actually are now nurtured towards how can we crowdsource collective intelligence in a very interactive way then my role is in parallel changing as the whole teaching paradigm, I'm not anymore the sage on the stage moving towards the guide on the side and trying to guide and facilitate my students in the proper effective and efficient use of these tools. So they become more enables facilitators, it's a parallel let's say relation on how we see now actually the profession of a teacher, the tools are actually following the same kind of direction, of course there's a gap between theory and practice, not everybody is a kind of digital native surfing on these tools facilitating these elements but you can see clearly a trend which is not new, I mean it's already in the last 20, 30 years it's only accentuated and emphasized more and more and also in this conference again. And the learner, where do you see the role of the learner? Is that also changing as a result? What I see there that the learner, I don't see less and less I see the learner as an individual kind of learner because I'm working in the international training center of the ILO, we're dealing with real life problems just to, if you look at, let's say the migration issue, if you look at climate change, these are profoundly complex problems, we call them, yeah there's a high degree of complexity, so if you want to address these kind of challenges, we also will need not only the one expert, we will need a whole multidisciplinary team of experts trying to grasp the complexity and as a learner, as an individual learner, I'm not there anymore to absorb anything from one specific subject matter domain but I will need the skills, the creativity, the communication, the collaboration to work with other like minded individuals to grasp let's say the issue that I want to learn about, so moving from individual learning towards more collaborative learning and there I see the role of students very much and hope that also translates into higher education and universities, they have also been slow in adapting these new trends but as I said innovation is a very slow innovator, sometimes for good reason but sometimes for reasons that they probably will have to run a bit faster in this quickly changing landscape. Okay, one of the things that we've often talked about at these conferences is the digital divide that often emerges with technology, do you see technology enhanced learning contributing to that divide, increasing exclusiveness or do you see it increasing inclusiveness? Yeah, it's a debate that you also can look at from different perspectives, you hear the classic discussion coming back between divides between digital migrants and digital natives, you hear coming back to the degree of digital literacy, you hear it coming to access to infrastructure, now you see some things democratizing, for example on the level of tools and infrastructure, thanks to the whole open source movement, thanks to the open educational resources, things became more accessible, does that mean that there's more, let's say, there's no divides, I don't think so, even some of the newest tools almost reproduce some of the inequalities that were there before, so that's why I say you can look it from two angles, I work a lot in the African continent where you would see this kind of traditional divides coming back the reproduction of the digital divide but on the interesting side sometimes these let's say groups or countries or institutions that you would say okay we're gonna reproduce the digital divide here, sometimes they're doing very quick loop holes and actually advanced in innovation much faster than others, the mobile penetration of devices and for example in Nairobi is really a good example out of that, again we have to look at it, it's all its complexity, there's plenty of opportunities which would reduce the digital divide and we need to look it also from a multi-dimensional point of view, not only in terms of digital literacy and digital infrastructure, digital new codes that are actually are generating, digital attitudes, so it's good that we can, I think these are debates that emerge and that will be redone almost on an annual base in these type of conferences and also there the complexity is rising, also it's not anymore there's no or there's yes digital divide, it depends also it's very contextual also. You've had an opportunity to attend a number of different sessions throughout the conference, correct? Yes. What role do you see technology having within the different presentations or how is it being presented, what are some of your impressions about how it's been positioned within the conference and the presentations? Yeah, what I like about the conference is that you know I'm jumping from innovation to innovation, I dived into the micro-credential sessions and explore all the potential and the possibilities there, I really enjoyed the blockchain session where we looked for new decentralized ways of actually building relationships, contracts, even assessment systems, now they inspire but there's still a gap between you know getting inspired by some of the new trends and really effectually also using them, so far I haven't heard anyone who actively used blockchain in an educational context, so that is also what I'm going to handle in my keynote, okay you get a good idea but how you really start, I think it's with one of the quotes if you want to do something, the best way to predict the future is to invent it, so basically start doing something on a small scale and then basically lessons learned from that and it's from many of let's say the new trends, I only named two but I can call also the learning analytics and that's from the kind of hyped buzzwords that you see in annual conferences, we also see very concrete projects, what is nice also that you see that some of the terms that were hyped ten years ago and I'm looking for example at the rise of MOOCs that basically they reached the kind of maturity that people are already talking about let's say big scale implementation, not everywhere again but that they're not projected as you know the newest innovation but that people now with a realistic perspective can say what is the added value of these kind of tools, the main lesson that's maybe also because of my educational background is that we're not talking about the tools to talk about the tools itself but what kind of pedagogical added value can they bring to the conversation and that's where it really becomes interested and then we're not talking anymore about pure technologies, then you see the different subject matter, expert backgrounds coming up whether it's from an educational, whether it's from a very specific subject matter, that's also the beauty of this conference that you talk with people coming from chemistry, physics, with educational specialist, with anyone else even people that you would not think that are active in the field of distance education, it's not just maybe that's a good thing in other conferences you would have a very specific profession with a very specific background while here in the field of distance education it's much more hybrid, it's much more complex so the diversity of backgrounds also contributes to the richness of the conversation I guess. You mentioned pedagogies, which pedagogies do you see having a stronger role within technology enhanced learning or within an environment that has more technology where technology takes a much stronger role? Yeah. Are there specific pedagogies? Yeah, what we need to get rid of is that we try to translate the pedagogy that we're used to from our traditional face-to-face learning and just apply it into the new let's say distance learning because then we're doing the old things in a kind of a new digital jacket and where we need to explore really the potential of new media and their new models of people, I mean experts are constructing the new models but it would be the same if I said I'm sitting here I was sitting yesterday in the aula there were about 400 people I was sitting at the last row I was saying this is distance education because there's almost 400 meters distance between me and the professor so that would be also a wrong way of using terminologies methods of one discipline and apply it in another discipline where we really start to think from the discipline itself come up with kind of new models where the added value not only of the pedagogy but also of the technology adds something for me it's really looking is there something we can do with the technology that we cannot do without which I would unable be to do in like in a physical classroom. What I liked also that some of the new trends for example on augmented and virtual reality we're not talking just for the immersive virtual experience but I've seen at least two or three key or keynotes or speakers talking about social augmented reality so also that we use these kind of new immersive experiences again in a collaborative communicative way and that's maybe also the beauty in one of the conversations as technology is advancing so much that we're almost unaware of the technology we're starting to completely view what is now the human side what is now the added value we as human beings can bring into this conversation and that is making it rich again not as again I said the technology itself. I have one last question and that is what did you enjoy the most about the conference or being in Ginoa? Actually I'll answer this with a very technical term it's called acceptance and acceptance basically means that you learn things again from a completely different discipline that you never have expected and you try to actually insert some of the lessons learned from that domain into your own domain and yesterday when we had this beautiful dinner at the aquarium out there where we were sitting next to the dolphins I had a discussion where there were 14 things you could learn from dolphins and it was one guy specialist in biology telling me all kinds of things that dolphins only use half of their brain while they basically sleep to be able to wake for predators so that means that they can run about 15 days without actually sleeping so looking at some completely different materials and trying to extract insights for the learning that we are doing is kind of inspiring and I think these moments of I mean it happened now in an informal talk at the aquarium but it also happened here at a coffee break with some people that I have the moments where you expected the least the kind of serendipity that's what I would nurture in conferences like even besides of course the interesting keynotes and the sessions that we have but we need more time where informal learning where unintentional learning could create it and of course Italy I live and work in Italy is a very enabling environment for that. Great well thank you for taking the time this morning to talk with me and to share some of your thoughts about technology enhanced learning and impressions about the conference and good luck with your your keynote this afternoon. Okay thank you. Thank you.


And post-embella tinnable on the sidelines of the G20 Compact with Africa Economic Conference on Monday met with German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz where he noted that Nigeria is determined to pursue German investments in targeted sectors of the Nigerian economy. The President expressed his keen interest in the role Simmons can play in modernizing and expanding Nigeria's rail network with the provision of ultra-modern trains and railways presently operating in Nigeria. Never is the reason for promises of the past not being fulfilled. Let's regard that as a nightmare where we fulfill our promises. All obligations. All I'm here to thank the Chancellor for his visit and putting together a Compact with Africa that gave us the opportunity of today. I'm looking forward to having you in Nigeria invest more and getting the highest return on your investments. I assure you we do. Economic matters challenge the risk factor in investment. It's always going to be that. People will have expected what is happening in Ukraine. First investment opportunity you have the opportunity. Here are short potential investors that Nigeria had moved beyond restrictive policies and today capital could be moved in and out of the country freely providing flexibility for investors. There are other reforms. The arbitrage regime exchange rate is gone. Gone forever. Now you can bring your money in and out as you wish. Easy in, easy out. But I want to appeal to you. Forget the past. My friend here said no money, no alleluia. No investment, no development, no alleluia. The relationship that we seek is for all to remove all others to progress. To put Nigerian-German relationship on the first class seat of development and prosperity.