Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on from where you are joining us this morning. My name is Steve Hadley, and I'm a member of the board of directors of the US Institute of Peace and the moderator for today's discussion. USIP is pleased to have with us today Tom West, the United States special representative for Afghanistan, for an hour long discussion on US engagement with Afghanistan. I'd like to thank everyone tuning in to the live stream, and you can engage with us and with each other on Twitter throughout the event using today's hashtag USIP Afghanistan. We also invite all of you to take part in today's discussion by asking a question using the chat box function located just below the video player on the USIP event page. We ask that you please include your name and specify from where you are joining us. We'll select several questions from among those we receive and use them in the second part of the discussion this morning. As many of you know, USIP was founded by the US Congress over 35 years ago as an independent, nonpartisan national institute with the goal of preventing, mitigating, and resolving violent conflict. USIP has been actively engaged in Afghanistan since 2002, focusing on research, training, and dialogues to reduce the drivers of conflict and enable a durable, inclusive, and peaceful end to the conflict. As we see from the daily headlines coming out of Afghanistan, there is still much more work to be done. USIP continues to support efforts towards an inclusive political process and settlement that will ensure lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan and in the region while protecting the security interests of the United States and our friends and allies and the fundamental rights of all Afghans. Today marks six months since the Taliban's takeover of Kabul. The changes since then have fundamentally altered the US approach to Afghanistan, although the goals of countering terrorism, maintaining regional stability, seeking an inclusive peace, and protecting Afghans' human rights remain. Afghanistan's already struggling economy has deteriorated dramatically and the Afghan people are facing a grave humanitarian crisis. Special Representative and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Afghanistan, Tom West, now has the difficult task of representing and advancing US objectives in Afghanistan. As part of his efforts, he engages in dialogue with representatives of the Taliban, regional leaders, the international community, and Afghan political, civil society, and diaspora, representatives seeking to find ways to assist the Afghan people while protecting US national security. America is lucky to have Tom in this role, given his deep experience in the region and with Afghanistan. And Special Representative West will first provide some introductory remarks on current US policies and priorities in Afghanistan. After that, I will conduct a brief conversation with Tom and then field questions to him from our online audience. So Tom, welcome to USIP. We're grateful to have you. Thank you for taking the time today. Over to you. Steve, thank you for this opportunity. Thank you to those watching virtually, and particular those from Afghanistan and the region. It's a pleasure to be here. USIP, let me first say, has been an extraordinary partner of the United States on Afghanistan issues over four American administrations. I cannot think of an organization on the planet that brings a greater depth of expertise on every enduring national priority that we have in Afghanistan and the region. And so, Steve, we look forward to continuing this partnership with you under very changed and challenging circumstances. I don't want to take up too much time with prepared remarks, but I do want to touch on a few priorities. I want to offer thoughts about, as Steve said, where we are six months after the Taliban takeover in August. First, it struck me that our goals today in Afghanistan are not too terribly different from what they were a decade ago when we had over 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan. We wish to see and to support the emergence of a peaceful state that never again harbors terrorists who threaten the United States, our allies, or others, and in which the rights of all its people, women and men, girls and boys, are upheld. And in our strong view, diplomacy with the Taliban, diplomacy with our allies, diplomacy with powers in the region, is an essential means as we seek to achieve these objectives. I want to assure this group that the most urgent priority animating diplomacy as well as American decision-making on Afghanistan is to meaningfully address the humanitarian and economic crises in Afghanistan. I think we could spend a lot of time exanimating the causes of the current humanitarian and economic collapse. It is a fact that Afghanistan is undergoing the worst drought it has seen in 30 years. It's a fact that Afghanistan is continuing to suffer from the COVID-19 pandemic that the economy has enduring structural weaknesses that we grappled with during the time of the Republic as well. But too many Afghans are starving today. Too many Afghans are cold this winter. We must all act faster. That goes for the United States. That goes for our allies. That goes for partners in the region. And that goes for the Taliban as well. United States is the leading humanitarian assistance donor. We contributed over half a billion dollars between August and December last year. We've pledged already 308 million as a means to begin to meet the $4.4 billion appeal that Martin Griffiths announced last year. We welcomed very much Pakistan's hosting of an OIC extraordinary ministerial in December. And we hope that the establishment of a trust fund led by the Islamic Development Bank will result in pledges that help to meet that $4.4 billion appeal. I want to say that humanitarian aid worker access across Afghanistan today is better than it has been in over a decade. And this is a continuing report that we have directly from implementers on the ground. When we began interagency dialogue with the Taliban, I remember that female humanitarian aid workers really only had access in about five or six provinces. Today that number is 34. It's country-wide. And so I think the Taliban deserve some credit for solid humanitarian aid access across the country. The United States has worked together with other leading members of the World Bank to ensure that the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund is best utilized to support Afghanistan at this time. We've ensured that over $300 million is allocated to the Sahab Mandi Health Program and we are in active discussions with World Bank leadership on the disposition of the remaining $1.2 billion. We have passed six general licenses and a UN Security Council Resolution 2615 on December 22nd with the aim of having humanitarian aid workers in their activities fundamentally eased as well as to pave the way for the provision of basic services country-wide. We have backed an arrangement with the private sector in Europe that has paved the way for the shipment of hundreds of millions in physical cash into private banks in Afghanistan explicitly for the purpose of helping humanitarian aid workers and relief organizations scale up. We are also closely tracking talks between the World Bank, the UN and private sector actors regarding the establishment of a humanitarian exchange facility that we hope will also contribute to addressing deep and concerning liquidity shortages in the economy. I want to assure this audience that we continue to look at our domestic licensing posture as well as our posture at the UN. We want to see greater illicit economic activity in the economy. And on Friday, the president signed an executive order that I frankly think is deeply misunderstood in which I think has been reported on incorrectly in some outlets. Fundamentally, this action was about protecting $3.5 billion for the Afghan people, for the benefit of the Afghan people. There remains $3.5 billion in a court process but I want to make very clear that no decisions have been made by that court on awards to litigants in that process. And I look forward to tough questions on this issue as we start the Q&A. I want to touch on just a couple other campaigns of work that we have when it comes to the economic crisis underway. The first is that from the very outside of our talks with the Taliban, they have brought professional technocrats from the Afghanistan Bank, the central bank, to engage with us on critical issues. And we welcome their presence and we welcome their continuing work. A range of senior technocrats left Kabul from that central bank after the events of August and we see saw certain functions atrophy or altogether disappear. But rather than simply admire the problem, we have engaged in a professional dialogue with these technocrats and with the Taliban leadership over steps that they can take to enhance functionality, to bring in third party contractors to both audit as well as deliver capacity building assistance and also to enhance the central bank's independence. And so that's an ongoing discussion. I also just want to highlight as a part of how we think about the economic crisis that we do run into challenges that are simply very hard to solve. And I'll mention just one. When I talk to big American banks, when I talk to foreign banks as well, they have shareholders and when they look at the market in Afghanistan, it is not just risky, it is not profitable. And so we cannot compel banks to engage in Afghanistan. We can encourage them to do so but that is an ongoing challenge for which there are no easy solutions and for which we would invite good ideas within the audience and here at USIP as well. Now I hear in this job criticism on an almost daily basis that the United States is not acting fast enough, that the World Bank is not acting fast enough, that the UN is not acting fast enough. Countries of the region need to move faster. It is truly not for a dearth of attention among the senior most American policy makers and leaders on these issues. These problems simply are quite hard to solve. And again, I would invite good ideas from the audience and from USIP as we work through this. Now together with the Treasury Department, with USAID, with intelligence community colleagues, we are in regular touch with the Taliban. We have a relatively honest and productive dialogue with the Taliban, with leaders from across their organization. So I wanna mention several priority efforts. First, on terrorism. We have an enduring interest in ensuring that the Taliban fulfill their commitments not to allow Afghan territory to be used by foreign terrorists to harm anyone. And I have to say that month on month I have found our dialogue on this subject become more honest and more candid. I believe that the Taliban are sincere in their efforts to contain ISIS-K. We have deep concerns about widespread reports of EJKs as part of that process of collective punishment. But I think their intent to contain ISIS-K is very sincere and I certainly join others in condemning the horrific attacks in Kabul and Kanduz in Kandahar and in others against Afghan civilians. Our dialogue on al-Qaida remains a challenge. I think we wanna have greater confidence in the steps that are being taken to contain AQIS as well as al-Qaida core. But we wanna see no terrorist organizations operating in Afghanistan. So that includes TTP and Jaisi Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayvah as well. On the education of women and girls, Steve, I have to say that among the Taliban's first requests of us in October was this, help put our civil servants back to work. 500,000 strong. And there is a readiness in the international community to start with the education sector after health. We applaud very much the steps forward that the EU and Germany have taken in pledging assistance. The World Bank is currently considering a quite large sum to support the education sector as well. We've seen positive statements from Taliban leaders about a readiness to see the enrollment of women and girls at all levels across large swaths of the country after Nauruz. At this point, statements are not enough. We wanna examine the situation after Nauruz, but again, I repeat that I detect a real readiness within the international community to support the education sector. And the last thing I would say on education is I believe the Taliban will make decisions to enroll women and girls at all levels, not out of a response to international pressure at all. I think this is a genuine domestic Afghan demand and a basic human right that we hear from across the country. On human rights, our dialogue is blunt and two-way. I welcome very much the appointment of Special Envoy Reena Amiri to her position as the lead in our government on Afghan women and girls and human rights. She has just hit the road yesterday. She brings incredible experience and credibility to this role. And she joined us in Oslo for the last round of talks. She and I raised reprisal killings and increase in disappearances. I'd say on this issue that the Taliban continue to assert that these are inconsistent with their policy of general amnesty, which we welcome, but that we wanna see greater steps to bring to justice the hold accountable those who are acting inconsistent with this policy. And our general sense is that reprisals and disappearances are underreported. Second, on media, it is positive that we see a range of outlets that are a reflection of one of the greatest pieces of our legacy, the international community's legacy in Afghanistan over the 20 years that are continuing to operate today. I know of particular outlets who since August have hired scores of additional women reporters. This is positive and they will hold the Taliban accountable and be in touch with the Afghan people. But there are widespread reports of beatings, of intimidation, of efforts to curtail honest reporting. That do give us great pause. Reena and I are extremely concerned about a rise in arbitrary detentions. I think it was positive that we saw the release of particular women protesters in recent days, but this tactic must end. I find it troubling, I think, that the Taliban don't fully appreciate the level of scrutiny by the international community on this issue. And the depth of concern and resonance around harassment of women protesters in the societies and among the parliaments and congresses of every potential supporter of Afghanistan in the future. I wanna raise just one final issue before we turn to Q&A, and that is that I find an encouraging and significant consensus within the international community, both between the West, as well as the major powers of the region, to see the richness of Afghan society reflected in Afghan's leadership. It's our collective view that that is not the case today. And I'll give you the example that obviously we have a lot of disagreements with Iran and Russia, but I think in Iran and Russia as public statements and in my knowledge of their diplomatic engagement as well, this is a consistent call by them here to see the richness of Afghan society reflected in leadership. And Afghans are calling for national dialogue. It's not for the United States, it's not for the international community, I think to be prescriptive about what steps the Taliban take as they seek to consult their people on a move from an acting government to a permanent government, on a move from a suggestion of the laws of the land to a permanent constitution. But that's a process that needs to begin and unfortunately at the moment we haven't seen it. So thank you, Steve. Tom, thank you for a very complete and detailed statement about the challenges but also what our administration, the administration is doing to meet them. I'm gonna follow up on four or five of them and then we'll turn to audience Q and A. I wanna pick up on the central bank asset question which you raised in the recent executive order.  The litigants wonder why you've reduced a potential recovery fund from seven billion to 3.5 and the Afghans wonder why you've given way 3.5 billion of their money to potential litigants here in the United States. The reaction has been pretty vociferous within Afghanistan, not just Taliban but other aspects of society. And the Taliban I think this morning was saying that if this issue is not resolved it could cause them to reconsider the relationship between the United States and the Taliban which as you suggested has been fairly constructive in many respects. What do you say to the Afghans and do you think we can, you can reassure them to the point where this doesn't get in the way of cooperation in other areas such as you mentioned in your opening statement? Well first Steve let me say that this is an issue of extraordinary legal complexity that our administration has been grappling with for over six months at this point. I wanna talk about where we were on Thursday before the executive order and then I wanna talk about where we are today and then look ahead to a process that will include Afghan consultation on the uses of some of these monies. Now where were we on Thursday before the executive order? The Afghan people did not have access to suspended $7 billion worth of reserves that the courts had ordered the Fed as well as other banks to suspend access to while their process continued. So the action on Friday fundamentally was about making available $3.5 billion for the benefit of the Afghan people and to not wait for these court processes to conclude. Now the $3.5 billion that remains within the court process, that is simply half of what it was on Thursday. That court process now will continue and we haven't said as an administration we haven't prejudged what conclusions the court and the juries will come to on whether or not to award some or none or all of that $3.5 billion to litigants, to victims of terrorism. That is a court process. You know that our system involves three branches of government that are separate. We cannot compel the courts to act in any particular way. But again, I wanna just make very clear that the administration is allowing a court process that was ongoing on Thursday to continue but with half the resources at its disposal while $3.5 billion has been protected and preserved for the benefit of the Afghan people. Now, I know in some of our rollout on Friday and Saturday that there's been discussion of a temporary finance mechanism. And I think we've been very honest that we are early in our discussions with other countries over the establishment of this mechanism. But I wanna assure folks who are listening today that as we seek to establish a mechanism that it's governance and the stewardship of this $3.5 billion, it must involve consultation, meaningful consultation with professional Afghans with deep experience in this space. Second, there's been I think a lot of speculation about uses, and this is one where some of the press coverage has not been correct. We have not made a judgment that all $3.5 billion of these dollars will be channeled through the United Nations and spent on humanitarian assistance. In fact, as I have spoken with economists as well as Afghans who've been leaders of the central bank, who've been leaders of the finance ministry over the past several weeks, the consistent opinion that I hear is that it would be not a good use of these resources to channel them through the United Nations and for humanitarian assistance. Rather, this $3.5 billion represents the potential recapitalization of a future central bank that is recognized and a future recapitalization of a financial system. So again, we are early in our discussions with other countries around the establishment of a temporary finance mechanism, and I just want to assure everyone listening here that there will be professional Afghans involved in this process as we move ahead. So this is going to be not a U.S. diktat, but this is going to be an Afghan decision. Others will participate, but it will be in the end of the day an Afghan decision about how these funds will be used. I think there will be Afghans absolutely involved in this decision. I don't want to pretend that it will be solely an Afghan decision. And when I say Afghan, I do not mean the Taliban to be very clear. I mean professional Afghans with deep experience in this space. Great. I'm going to jump around a bit if I can. I want to ask you a little bit about civil society and its current status in Afghanistan. Obviously, before the Taliban takeover, there were hundreds of U.S. programs funding Afghan media, civil society organizations. Since the Taliban takeover, most of that funding has, of course, been stopped or diverted for humanitarian assistance and basic health and education services, which is wholly appropriate. But what is the United States now doing and what can it do to continue to support Afghan civil society as a voice for those who favor an inclusive society and are not really represented by the current configuration of the Taliban regime? Steve, thank you. Before I answer your question on what the United States can do, let me commend Norway's initiative on the 24th and 25th to host a dialogue that 14 courageous members of civil society attended. Let me welcome the Taliban's honest and open engagement with that group. I think what you saw were assembled in Oslo, a group of journalists, former public servants, heads of private sector entities, as well as women rights activists, who put their differences aside and came together, organized cogently and delivered a unified message to the Taliban, that they wanna see women and girls' rights protected, that they wanna see space for media and journalists to do their work freely, that they wanna see freedom of expression protected, that they wanna see a national political process unfold. Now that is a dialogue that we very much hope will continue. We hope that it takes place inside of Afghanistan. I think it's unfortunate that this meeting took place in some ways outside of Afghanistan when a lot of these figures, a lot of these leaders continue to live in Afghanistan today. Now, when it comes to what the United States can do, I'm not able to get into a whole lot of detail, but let me just say that we ran through a diligent exercise internally to review our entire assistance portfolio after August 15th. And we greenlit a wide range of programs that today continue to support civil society actors for precisely the reasons that you outline. Now, that support will continue, and as you say, I think we will need to consult with the Congress regarding an enduring commitment to civil society actors who, as I said at the outset, represent some of the best of our legacy. Thank you for that. Let me ask you a little bit about counterterrorism commitments. The U.S. withdrawal, of course, was predicated on the Doha Agreement of February 2020, which committed the Taliban not to allow terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda and ISIS. And I quote, to use Afghan soil to shelter, train, fundraise, or plan attacks against the United States or its friends and allies. So the question is, you touched on a little bit in your remarks. How is the Taliban doing? Do they consider themselves to continue to be bound by that commitment? How would you rate their progress in making good on that commitment? And quite frankly, it's been pretty clear that ISIS continues to be, ISIS-K continues to be active, and in a little bit, the Taliban are having their hands full dealing with ISIS-K. Is this an area where the United States actually, through intelligence channels or elsewhere, might cooperate with the Taliban in dealing with the problem of ISIS-K in Afghanistan? Steve, I'll share with you that this is one issue that where I think the Taliban are frustrated with, in their view, the lack of a recognition by the international community of the progress in their view that they have achieved since coming to power. Now, I'm not gonna tell you that that's our assessment, but I would just share with you that the Taliban assessment is that they have made very significant gains against ISIS-K over the past several months. Now, I myself am very worried that what we are seeing now, between early November and now, we haven't, thank goodness, seen a massive attack on the order of the attacks that we saw in Kabul and Kunduz and Kandahar that targeted civilians, and that is a good thing. I worry that this is a pause and that when the weather warms up, we are going to see attacks pick up, including potentially large-scale attacks. But when it comes to ISIS-K, I truly believe it's not a matter of capability, it's a matter of will, or sorry, it's not a matter of will, it's a matter of capability, and when it comes to the falseness and effectiveness of their response. And as I said, and I know there are limits to what I'm able to say, our dialogue in these issues is much more honest and much more candid today than it was during the life of the part of the negotiation that I was a part of between January and August 15th, and it's more honest than it was in September and October as well. You mentioned, Steve, the possibility of cooperation with the Taliban, and I'll tell you that the Taliban has no interest in cooperating with the United States when it comes to fulfillment of their commitments in the Doha agreement. And so we have an honest dialogue. There are limits, I think, within our system, which I can't get into regarding ways in which we can cooperate with entities in this space and certainly concerns about respect for the law of armed conflict that we have, but from their perspective, this is a program and a commitment that they will handle on their own. Interesting. I wanna ask you a little bit about Pakistan and US-Pakistan relations. Let me put it this way. How does Pakistan see the situation in Afghanistan today and their relationship with the Taliban? There have been some disagreements. In some sense, the Pakistan has not recognized the Taliban, there's been disputes about the border. There are questions about the Taliban's willingness to crack down on the TTP, which is a terrorist group that is opposed to the Pakistan government and very active in trying to disrupt it. How much influence does Pakistan have now over the Afghan Taliban? And how much alignment is there between the United States and Pakistan now with respect to our respective Afghanistan policy? Steve, during the life of the negotiation, as I said, from January until August, and as I understand it in the years beforehand as well, we were in very close touch with the leadership of Pakistan regarding steps that we urged Pakistan to take to enhance the prospects of a negotiated settlement to this conflict. And I think had Pakistan taken some of those steps in a more meaningful and consistent way, I think we would be in a different place today. I genuinely do. Now, it is a mark of our pragmatism in my view that in Washington, you are not hearing political leaders from across the spectrum spending time and energy criticizing Pakistan and looking backwards. I frankly think that that energy is not called for given the situation in Afghanistan today. And so I think when it comes to Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan today, they face challenges. They face real challenges of capacity. I think there's a recognition in Pakistan that the current leadership of the interim authorities in Afghanistan is not truly representative and potentially not sustainable. They face challenges that have to do with the Taliban's longstanding relationships with Tariki Taliban Pakistan. And so when it comes to border management, TTP, representative government, I think Pakistan faces challenges. I will say just in recent weeks, we saw significant visits, including by the national security advisor to Kabul. I think that within the leadership of the Pakistani both security and civilian establishment that they share many of our priorities. It's always a question of what kind of leverage they're willing to use in order to see those priorities advanced. Lastly, I'd say that I have productive and good and honest relationships, I think, with Pakistani leaders, and they have a huge amount of expertise in their system on these matters, and I think we don't have a choice but to work with Pakistan on the way ahead. I wanna ask you a little bit of an indelicate question. You have said some positive things about cooperation with the Taliban at this point, but the history of the Taliban, both through the conflict and during the time they were in power, is a pretty grisly history. The question is really, is there a viable opposition within Afghanistan to the Taliban at the present time? And should we, as a matter of policy, be encouraging that opposition to the Taliban, or do we really accept this as a sort of fetica plea? What's our policy on this question about opposition to the Taliban? What we wanna see, Steve, is the emergence of a stable and sustainable political dispensation via peaceful means. Now, I'll give you the example of the 14 civil society who showed up in Oslo. They told me that they are among Afghans who believe that the better way forward at the moment is to work with and seek to shape Taliban policies. That is the view of the United States today as well. So we are not supporting organized armed opposition to the Taliban, and we would discourage other powers from doing so as well. I would also tell you though that I worry as any student of Afghanistan of history would that there is a window where Afghans will make their own decisions, where powers in the regions will make their own decisions, to begin supporting armed opposition in a fundamentally more stepped up way. I'm not gonna venture a guess on when that window closes, but I worry that the Taliban do not share a sense of great urgency around these questions. I worry that they are making the same mistake that Burhanedin Rabani made in 1992. They're making the same mistake that they made when they came to power between 96 and 98. Frankly Steve, they're making the same mistake that the United States made in the early 2000s, not to reconcile when we had a chance with the Taliban in the early 2000s, to allow them to return to Afghanistan and live in a dignified manner. But again, they are making the same mistake today, and we do wanna see genuine meaningful outreach and inclusion of Afghanistan's rich society when it comes to movement to a permanent government. I'm gonna ask you one question, and then we'll go to questions from the audience, and it's what you just talked about, the regional consensus at this point. There seems to be a consensus to not recognize the Taliban at this point, and to demand that it demonstrate greater respect for human rights, respect for women's rights, and establish, as you said, a more inclusive government that reflects all aspects of Taliban, of Afghan society. How durable is that consensus? And how long will it last, and at what point, as you suggested, do the centripetal forces in the region begin to reemerge and outside powers to start picking champions within Afghanistan's society and make it more difficult to achieve the kind of outcome you described? Our diplomacy with the powers of the region is incredibly important. So there has been an expanded Troika format in operation for years at this point that includes the United States, Russia, China, and Pakistan. Iran is an important power in the region, and so is India. These countries all have a vote on the way ahead. And as you say, I find so far an encouraging degree of unity when it comes to holding on recognition for more meaningful steps toward respect for the rights of all Afghans, for a move toward a more representative government, toward a responsible stewardship of the economy. To your question on how durable that consensus is, we are already seeing certain countries in the region take steps that I think we would not take. For instance, having Taliban diplomats serve in their capitals and at their consulates, that's not a step we would take by any stretch of the imagination. But on the whole, I do find a pretty strong degree of consensus, and the Troika Plus is a format that we do find viable and valuable, and one in which we intend to continue to invest. Let me ask you some now questions from the audience. One comes from Zilla Nouri for Voice of America. Has President Biden's decision to unfreeze the Afghan foreign assets paved the path for Taliban recognition? How far are the Taliban from being recognized by the United States and the rest of the world you touched on this? Is there something more you want to say on this subject? I think the short answer to your question is the EO, the executive order, to protect and preserve $3.5 billion for the benefit of the Afghan people a step toward recognition. The answer is no. The intent of that move is really to protect and preserve these assets, and I talked a lot about their potential uses in the future. When it comes to recognition more broadly, I think there is a consensus within the international community as well as two UN Security Council resolutions that chart up the kind of conduct we want to see. The way we think about it in our system, we do want to see the establishment of a solid record of responsible conduct before we take fundamental steps toward normalization. Got it. Sami Jabara Markel asks, do you think America's regional competitors benefit from U.S. disengagement with Afghanistan? There was some initial celebration, I think on the part of Pakistan, China, and maybe Russia, but certainly Pakistan and China, and I think a little bit of a second thought of oh my goodness now, this is our problem. What is their attitude at this point towards the U.S. disengagement? I think they do not benefit from American fundamental disengagement from the region. Now look, we can't call Afghanistan over the past 20 years basically stable. I think that's an unfair characterization. But today, is there a real possibility of seeing refugee outflows in the coming months in the hundreds of thousands or more? Yes, I think that is a worrying possibility. Is there a danger of seeing an even greater uptick in the movement of narcotics outside of Afghanistan into neighboring countries? Yes, I think there is. Is there a concern, as we said, about not the will but the capability of the Taliban to contain terrorists who may wish neighbors harm? Yes, I think there are. And so for those reasons, if I were neighbors, I might worry about American disengagement. This is a question from Naseed Hajari of Bloomberg. What else can we do to revive the Afghan private sector? Fear of sanction appears to be scaring foreign banks away from doing business with any counterparties in Afghanistan. How can the US alleviate that fear? It's an issue you touched on a little bit of it. How do we incentivize the private sector to engage in what is certainly an uncertain economic and political situation in Afghanistan? You know, one, I suspect that the Afghan private sector is in close touch with the Taliban. I suspect that they are in close touch with central bank authorities as well. But I'd say that I hope that engagement is robust and continues. We may consider steps that would signal a support for greater activity in the economy, greater listed commercial and private activity. And so that's certainly something we're continuing to deliberate on. But as for the role of the Afghan private sector, be in touch with the central bank and make clear that you have a strong demand signal from the United States for that institution's professionalization as well as steps to make it more independent. This is a question from Jennifer Hansler of CNN. I'm curious how many Afghan allies, SIV applicants and others, has the US gotten out since the US withdrawal? And what are you telling desperate Afghans who want to leave the country still? And how many SIV applicants remain in Afghanistan? You might explain what SIV is to the audience. Sure, and SIV is a special immigrant visa. So I have to say, I am not meaning to pass the buck on this one, but there is a whole office at the State Department led by my very capable colleague, Ambassador Beth Jones, called CARE, which is chiefly in charge of the entire effort both to support the continuing departure from Afghanistan of SIVs, of American citizens, of LPRs, as well as the diligent movement of Afghans who are on lily pads abroad into the United States, and then their resettlement together with DHS. Steve, the demand signal for departures from Afghanistan, if I'm speaking honestly, probably outstrips our ability to absorb them into our country, and that is a fact that we have to grapple with on a daily basis. It's something that I know members of Congress are grappling with as well as constituents reach out to them looking for support. We've certainly had to prioritize American citizens, LPRs, green card holders, and SIVs. And we have seen the Taliban not excise from any list that we have sought to have depart from Afghanistan, any SIV or American citizen or LPR who had proper documentation. And that is a good thing. It's just a question of our observative capacity and demand from the ground. I'm in touch with Afghans on a daily basis to do fear the situation, as well as coming to harm at the hands of the Taliban. And there are no easy answers to those questions. You were very eloquent about the status of women and the need for the arbitrary detention of women to end, the disappearance of women needs to end. The Taliban have talked about they will allow women's education to resume at all levels. The question really is, will it happen and how do we ensure that it's happened? And I would say there's a question really about how we will know whether it is happening or not. Because many of our international partners, as well as the United States, don't have active missions in Kabul. There's been a shrinking of media space, of civil society space. We know a lot less about what's going on in Afghanistan now than we did before. So the question is, how will we know whether these commitments are in fact being carried out throughout the country? And what do we do to enhance our ability to monitor what's going on? And then what do we do to hold the Taliban accountable for performing on their statements in these two areas? So on the first question, Steve, it's something we grapple with on an almost daily basis. To go from a situation where we had a very large embassy, one of the largest in the country, a terrific and courageous and knowledgeable local staff across the country to a situation where we do not have those assets in place. And so you're right. I think we have fundamentally lost a finger touch feel for what's happening in Afghanistan. I found it encouraging that the Taliban have said they will support an independent verification mechanism when it comes to whether or not women and girls are enrolled at all levels across the country. I think the role of the special rapporteur, a decision on that position, I think will be made within the UN in March. That person's role, how that person is staffed will be very, very important. And I think Yunama's mandate is critical in this regard too. I think Yunama's mandate needs to remain dual. It must have both a political and governance component as well as a humanitarian component. But monitoring and verification will be essential in this regard as well. And what kind of leverage do we have realistically over the Taliban if they don't perform? Well, I'll give you the example of education. Right now, we don't have terrific data on enrollment and I think we probably won't for a period of months. But if it becomes clear, and this is just one example I'll cite to you, if it becomes clear that judging on the basis of data from 2019 regarding enrollment of women and girls country-wide, if it becomes clear that we've seen just a dramatic turn backwards in certain parts of the country where during the Republic's time women and girls were in school at all levels, then I think we have to think about consequences. I think we have to think about suspension of stipends, suspension of support for that sector and see if that doesn't encourage the right kind of policy and the right kind of conduct. I mean, when it comes to respect for women and girls' rights, arbitrary pretensions, ceasing and so forth, I do think that that public pressure is important. I do think the Taliban are mindful of their reputation internationally and I do think there's a variation within the Taliban on these issues. I don't wanna go into too much detail about that, but we have forced a conversation within the Taliban between those who don't support these moves and those who do and we have to see the continuation of that conversation spurred not just by the United States or our allies, but also by the region. What are the prospects for internal pressure? There were some demonstrations, smalls to be sure, in support of women's rights, the disappearances, the detentions you talked about really have snuffed that out. How much space is there for internal pressure on the Taliban at this point? I think internal pressure can take a lot of forms. So from my time in Kunar, which admittedly was a long time ago and very different circumstances, when a local community did not like how a particular policy was being unveiled, it could be a collection of dozens of men who go to a district governor and vociferously complain about how something is happening. So I wouldn't say that public protests by women are the only form of potential internal pressure. I think that elders from across Afghanistan, women and men, are exerting pressure. But to your point on space, we are continuing to assess the degree to which that space really does exist. This is a question from Sue Sosowski. She asks, with the current difficulty getting humanitarian funds into Afghanistan, how will the Biden administration increase that funding? And what are the biggest obstacles to increasing that funding? And what are the targeted solutions? When it comes to humanitarian aid? Yes, yes, humanitarian funds. What do you think funds for humanitarian assistance into the country?  And I take my cues from the United Nations and from ICRC and IRC and Norwegian Refugee Council and other organizations. I don't think we face a big hurdle when it comes to getting funds into the country explicitly for humanitarian use. I think the problem is that a purely humanitarian response to what is unfolding is deeply insufficient. And so the bigger challenge is greater liquidity within the economy writ large. And there, you need to see a restoration of professional and independent central bank functions. And we also need to see the introduction of new Afghan currency, which we support by Polish and French manufacturers. That I think is the bigger challenge. Certainly humanitarian assistance, then getting the financial system up and running. But at some point to be sustainable, the economy needs to get back in operation. The private sector needs to get back in operation. The agricultural sector needs to get back in operation. Is the US government prepared and do you have plans in preparation to assist in those sort of second and third order steps that are really required for this country to get back on its feet in a more sustainable way? To be honest with you, Steve, at this stage, we are not planning, I don't wanna mislead you, we're not planning for a major bilateral program of development assistance, for instance. I think this question of how the international community supports a smaller but still sustainable Afghan economy that sees Afghanistan stay in Afghanistan is an enormous challenge that deserves our attention. This is a question from Shama Munechel and I'm gonna edit it slightly. I think he will allow me to do so. For the Taliban to have national and international legitimacy, they need to have a roadmap for governance, and I think he means the kind of inclusive governance you've been talking about. At what point will the US continue to engage with the Taliban without domestic legitimacy and without their having come up with that kind of roadmap? At what point do we say, you know, they have not kept faith with what is, what we believe is required for a really sustainable, peaceful Afghanistan to perhaps change our policy? So I think what the honorable minister is asking is, is there a point at which the United States decides to stop engaging the Taliban? And among the criteria in his contention would be whether they've pursued a national political process. You know, at the moment, I think the jury is out on what diplomacy with the Taliban produces. You know, when it comes to education, safe passage and terrorism, I'd say that our diplomacy has clarified where we stand. When it comes to human rights, a political process and reprisal killings, I'll say our diplomacy has not produced what we want it to. But as for a particular moment in time when we will decide not to engage the Taliban anymore, I don't think we will reach that conclusion in the coming weeks or months. I have two questions and then we'll call it a day. This one, you've been across the table from the Taliban when they were in insurgency and now as de facto rulers of Afghanistan. Are there changes in Taliban positions before and after the takeover? And what does that tell you about how they will rule going forward? I think that the substance of what we discussed before the takeover and after the takeover have changed and they have had to change because of the situation in the country. So, you know, we did not have a significant dialogue on going with the Taliban regarding humanitarian relief. We did not have a, before August 15th. We were not discussing central bank functionality and it has been positive that they have brought professionals to the table on that subject. On some issues, worryingly, their positions have remained obdurate. And I think particularly on the question of representative government and inclusivity, there has been a troubling commonality between August 15th and after. I'll say that on, when it comes to women's rights, again, without going into too much detail, I detect a true variation in positions among and within the Taliban. That was true before August 15th and it's true today. Last question. The UN has become a primary provider of humanitarian assistance and the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan has a robust political mission on the ground in Kabul that includes monitoring of human rights. So, for a lot of things we've been talking about, they seem to have a central role. Their mandate is up for renewal in March. Do you expect obstacles at the UN to the renewing of Yunama's current mandate? When it comes to big UN missions in countries that are either post-conflict or in ongoing conflict, I think there are very often disagreements among security council members, among those with influence on these questions. So, do I expect there to be disagreement? I expect there to be a very healthy debate. I think it's in all of our collective interests to see the UN continue to play a very robust role both on professional questions of governance as well as on monitoring and humanitarian response. And so there will be a healthy debate but I hope that's where we land. Great, we are about out of time. I just want to thank you, Tom, for being with us today and giving us time. You have a big response, but there's a lot on your shoulders and we're glad that you're in that position. So I want to thank you for being with us. I want to thank our audience for participating today. And this concludes our program. Thanks so much. Thank you, Steve. Thank you.


Okay, let's go ahead and attempt to balance this nuclear chemical equation. So remember it's just like balancing a regular chemical equation, so the number of neutrons and protons that you have on this side of the reaction, you have to have the same number over here. So if we add up our total number, our total mass number, right, that's going to be 28 here and this is 27, so this mass number has to be 1. Is everybody okay with that? There. And we look for our number of protons, we have 11 plus 2, that's 13, and over here we have 13 as well. So this is going to be zero. Okay, so the particle that's here is just a neutron. So something that has a mass of 1 and 0 protons. Okay, so if you see something like this, you could identify what type of nuclear reaction this is, can anybody identify the type of nuclear reaction? This is fission, yeah, very good, this is fission. So fission is when you have a heavy atom that's bombarded with a small particle and is broken up, and here's another nuclear particle that we often see, so a decayed particle, does anybody know what it is called? What type of particle? This is an alpha particle. Are there any questions on this one? And the rest are going to be very simple.


It's me, John Park, and we are in my workshop. Thanks, everyone, for coming. It's time for the show, for John Park's workshop here on Thursday on Adafruit channels everywhere. Thanks for joining us over in the chats, checking out our YouTube chat, and we've got a bunch of people over in there. Hi, S. Kelvin Govindur, nice to see you. Dave Odessa, Lord Helix, Johnny Bergdahl. Welcome one and all. Lord Helix, dig in the music. Thank you, absolutely. And over in our Discord, if you're somewhere else and you're wondering where the chat is, like Twitch or somewhere like that, Facebook, you can come over to our Discord by heading to adafruit.it, adafruit.it, just to take the word adafruit, but put a dot, I guess we're Italian, and discord slash discord, adafruit.it slash discord. That will give you an instant invite. Click that link. Hop open Discord or a Discord-like webpage and you can jump onto the server and look for the live broadcast chat channel, that's it right there, and hang out. And we've got a whole bunch of channels. I cut them off on the side there, I cropped that, but there's a whole bunch of channels such as our general chat, live broadcast chat, which is this one right here, it's a pet photos channel. There are channels for help with CircuitPython, Arduino, adafruit.io, 3D printing, audio, Git, hardware design, Linux, single board computers, make code, projects, radio, robotics, wearables, and help with community, as well as the topics for CircuitPython development and more and more and more. So jump on over there, Mondo five, let's go. Okay, we're going, here we are. We've got some fun stuff to do together today, I think. I'm excited about it. I've got a coupon code for you that'll let you get 10% off in the store if you want to buy stuff and it's good until midnight tonight, I think roughly thereabouts, East Coast United States of America time. And I'll hand that code off to you in a second. What else do we have? I'll do a little wrap up of my product pick of the week this week, a couple of new cool little products. I've got a CircuitPython parsec for you that I'm very excited about. I kept sticking more and more features in it, but the central one is really simple. It's just the dressing and the icing and the things that got really fun and exciting. I worked on that most of the morning, in fact. I just couldn't stop adding fun features. And yet there's more I want to do with it. So yeah, not to hype it up too much, but that'll be a fun CircuitPython parsec, I think. And then I've got the melding of worlds. I've been working on this computer perfection project over here, this thing right here. This is the gutted one, but that's the computer perfection. Get these on eBay for anywhere from $25 to $40 or so shipped. And you can see mine doesn't have the parts in it because we're doing stuff with those. And I was working on the button code to use the original PCB, the original buttons from that and switches. And meld those into the SynthIO work that Jepler has been working on in the Metro M7 to get real synthesis happening, polyphonic synthesis happening right on the microcontroller in CircuitPython. My demo today, until we start poking around with it and maybe we'll do some coding, is actually just one note at a time. But it can do, I've done 12 notes at a time, which is really cool, really impressive. Lars is back there playing Frogger, I guess.  And of course, I'm always checking out the chat so let me know if you've got questions or thoughts, suggestions. And always looking for concepts and ideas to do, especially for the CircuitPython Parsec, but also projects. Let's see, do I have, oh, I'll do a little update. I was working on this guy last week, making a controller based on Robert Smith. Is it Robert Dale Smith? Sorry, I'm forgetting the middle name now. I'm gonna look that up, in fact. Robert Dale Smith, right? Right? Yes, Robert Dale Smith. Robert's gonna do a learn guide for us on this and he's got some cool tricks up his sleeve to share, but this is the conversion of a kid's toy controller into a proper USB-C game controller for Switch for direct input, which is modern computers as well as PS3, as well as a, what is it, X input? I can't remember, there's a sort of older controller type as well that works mostly, I think, on Windows. I've built a couple of these and I also, beyond the one from last week, I added a little button for killing the speaker, but I think we're gonna, let's talk a little more and I think we're gonna see if we can reuse one of the built-in slide switches to do some audio stuff, so that you don't have to cut into the case. So look for that, look forward to that. And I have some other controller ideas, some other possibly Bluetooth controller, as well as possibly a little retro gaming handheld, so some ideas in there coming up. All right, so much promised, we've got a coupon code. That's it right there, synth stuffing. That's your coupon code. Use that coupon code on the way out when you head on over to the store. There's the store, go to Adafruit.com, you'll be at the store, you can check out products, just click on the products link there and use a little link there for view all new products, view all featured products, as well as a bunch of categories. There's some new stuff in the store. Maybe pick up some floppy drive costumes, these are adorable, I haven't had any yet, but I want some, they're little stickers for your full-size SD cards that will make them look like floppy disks, adorable. As well as, this is exciting here, I ordered a couple of these, the Adafruit Feather RP2040 with USB type A host, which will allow you, I believe this is gonna be an Arduino probably only for the foreseeable futures because of the nature of how it's being done on a PIO to bit-bang USB host, but it will allow us to do some cool stuff, particularly plugging in USB devices that you can host such as MIDI controllers and probably mice, maybe keyboards, and then filter that and do things and massage that data and then send it out over, you aren't over serial through USB back to your computer after having done some stuff, so that's a cool one. 1750, use your coupon code SynthStuffing and you'll get 10% off on that. And if my math is correct, that'll be $1.75 less. I won't attempt the subtraction math necessary to tell you how much that'll be, but you can do that and you can use this coupon code, where'd it go, SynthStuffing. SynthStuffing, by the way, was one of the proposed names for this topic that Phil Turone, PT, had for cramming modern synthesizers or modern electronics into very cool retro futuristic 1970s and 80s consumer electronics toy shells and things like that. By the way, while I'm on the topic of this, I'll remind you again later about that coupon code, but while I'm on the topic of this, I had to show you this is a look familiar. That is the toy right there, the computer perfection, being used in an episode of Buck Rogers and I don't know if it's a 25th century bedpan or Ashtray or if it's his doctor. I actually don't know, if I saw this episode, I don't remember it. I probably saw this episode. I watched all these when I was a kid, but there's Buck Rogers. There's also a film, Ice Pirates, that made use of this gorgeous piece of design here. So look it up, look up the computer perfection. Just put that in quotes and you'll find all you want to find. All right, so let's see. The next thing I'll do is I'll mention I have a show on Tuesdays. That's it right there, JP's product pick of the week. And on that, I like to grab something from the store, maybe something new, cut the price in half with the help of the highly excellent new products team. Thank you everyone for doing that every week. We stash some in advance and then we deploy them when the show starts. So if you ever wondering by the way, if you figure out what the product is gonna be because you're watching the YouTube thumbnail or something like that or the name I think on the YouTube. And then it looks like it's not in stock. That's probably because the stock has entirely gone into stashage storage for deploying right when the show starts and then we cut that price usually in half if it's a native fruit product, sometimes less if it's something from a outside seller that we don't have those kind of margins on. But no coupon code necessary on that one.  You get them at a deep discount. And I like to do some little demos with them, show you some code maybe, show you how they work this week. It was these two AT Tiny breakout boards that I am very fond of. And here is a little one minute recap. It is the AT Tiny 816 and the AT Tiny 616 breakout boards with Seesaw. I can program this AT Tiny just like it's a baby Arduino. I've simply coded something that is reading button presses on this little step switch and is writing out to that LED. I've got a QT Pi and it's plugged in using the STEM at QT cable to my AT Tiny 1616. I am running these seven potentiometers into seven of the ADC pins on the AT Tiny. So that's able to read all of those analog values and then report them back to my QT Pi. All I'm doing is adjusting values and showing them on this display here. You could use these up to nine of these analog inputs for anything you want on your project. The AT Tiny 816 and 1616 Seesaw breakout boards. 1616, that's the most awkward number I've ever said. But there it is. Go if you didn't get them during the show, I think we still have some in stock and you can use the synth stuff and coupon code on those.  That's not nothing. I think they're $5 normal. Let's get 50 cents off again, me with my math. All right, so next up, the much hyped circuit Python parsec. Let's prepare ourselves emotionally. Here we go. Yes, circuit parsec. All right. Here we go. For the circuit Python parsec today, I wanted to show you how you can use a UDRAW peripheral with the WeChuck library. So you're familiar with the WeChuck, the little nunchuck for We. There is a community bundle library called WeChuck and it supports a whole lot more than just the nunchuck, including this drawing tablet. You can see here it comes with a wired pen. It has pressure sensitivity, a couple of buttons you can press. The tip is also a button besides being pressure sensitive and we can record the XY positioning of this as we press this down. Now, you can see at first what I'm doing here is I just have a little OLED display on the left here and I'm tracking a little dot there as I draw. But now check what happens when I press the button here, I can draw some neopixels here and I can change their color. So you can see what I'm doing is I'm mapping the X axis to which neopixel I'm lighting and the Y axis is the color. Do a little gradient there by going in a diagonal and I'm even doing pressure sensitivity for brightness. So I can press on that and change the brightness as I go. The way I'm doing this, if you look in the code window here is first of all, import from we chuck dot you draw, import you draw, that's this specific peripheral here. And then I'm setting up the controller as you draw on the STEMMQT I squared C port of the board. So it's plugged in over STEMMQT using one of our little we chuck adapters. And then the key thing that's happening in the main loop is I cast these variables, position buttons and pressure to be the controller dot values. Then I go and use those to extract the position X and remap that the position Y and remap that both to a position for my OLED as well as the position and color of my neopixels. And then I'm also reading buttons. So if a button gets pressed, it's true. So if the button is C, that's C is true. That's when I'm changing the color of my neopixels here. And if I press the Z button, I'm just turning them off. So that is how you can use the you draw class inside of the we chuck library from the community bundle inside of circuit Python. And that is your circuit Python Parsec. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's circuit Python. Look at that, look at that. How cool is that? This is a kind of a just fun, let me lower the brightness a little there. This is kind of a just a fun toy for playing around with. It doesn't do anything in particular other than hey, I'm having fun. But you can imagine that you could use this for a fairly low resolution drawing. It doesn't have a ton of resolution. I think the range is about, I don't know, 1,200 or something in one axis and 900 in the other, something like that. So it's not super high res for drawing, but you could definitely use this for things like a kind of like a version of a chaos a later for adjusting a couple of synthesizer values for say reverb and delay or a filter. Those are typical uses for this kind of pad for non drawing stuff. You could use it as a mouse if you, especially if you had a smaller display like a 800 by 600 display for some reason. This would work pretty well. And I think it's just fun. Let me, let me show you here. This is the connections involved since I didn't show those before. You can see the key here is that all of these Nintendo peripherals for the Wii use I square C with this standardized connector. And that plugs right into our little WeChuck adapter board here over STEMIQT. And then I also got my little display added on there as well. But once you get that hooked up, you can use anything from the guitar to the controller, little classic controller to the, I believe the turntable. I haven't tried the DJ turntable on this in a long time, but I'm looking forward to trying that out. Guitars, I think any of the instruments that were available for rock band should work. Anyone have any drums? I got rid of mine, sadly. So that's the super, super fun UDRAW tablet. I think I might even have the game cartridge somewhere, but I don't think it was all that much fun, not as fun as this. This is just the best. All right. So that, that'll do it from our standpoint of our circuit Python parsec. And just heading over the chat. Oh, I was looking in the YouTube chat actually. CreativeEye says, hey JP, watching from Kenya Africa. I'm a big fan of your channel. Oh, thank you so much. We're glad to have you in the chat here today with us. Appreciate you stopping by. All right, let's see. What is this device? What is this device you're showing? Handicalla Way, what do you have there? Looks like it's a piece of industrial equipment that shows up in movies as a prop a lot of the time. There's a Reddit for that, subreddit for that. It's called, I think it's called something like that's a book light. I think that's what it is. That's a book light. And it's a Reddit for people who spot really common everyday things that have been used as sci-fi or high tech props in a TV show or a movie. A lot of fun. Yeah, oh, there's a whole YouTube video about it. Okay, I gotta check it out. It's great. What is the thing? Is it a lathe? What is that? Some kind of motor? Part of a generator? I don't know what it is. All right, so let's see, that brings us to working on our project here today. So, I'm gonna, let me jump over to the workbench here. And I'll show you where things are at, how things are getting connected together for this, what some of the goals are with this. So we've got, let me just pull open my Discord here. Hmm, there we go. So, starting off, we've got the computer perfection. And this is the circuit board that lives inside here. And you can see we have a whole bunch of these metal switches, sort of spring steel switches that get pressed by these plastic buttons. And if you flip this up, you can see while they kind of all move, cause they're joined together around the rim, it moves a lot more at this little point here that contacts one of the switches. So that one will go enough just to press that one. So, they do work independently. There is a piezo buzzer here that I'm not using. I left that, I desoldered the wires from that and left that in there. Otherwise, everything just came right out of there. Whoops. And it has a couple of nine volt battery connectors that were part of how it worked. Here's my speaker or piezo connector. And then there's also, I showed this before, there's also a switch built into the side here, which gets contacted when the clamshell is opened. So when this is in its normal position, when the clamshell goes all the way, it closes that switch. So that's actually how you turn it on. I may restore that functionality just cause that's neat and then I wouldn't need a separate power switch. And the way to do that, by the way, if you haven't before, one of the better ways to do that with especially a small switch is by grounding the enable pin on the microcontroller to the, to ground. So the switch just connects the enable pin to ground. That has the effect of turning off the microcontroller.  So for now though, I have this out entirely because I've removed the four bit microcontrollers, Panasonic, Matsushita microcontroller that was there that ran the game. And I've been able to plug in, zoom in here. If you see here, this is a set of stacky header pins with 0.1 spacing. Those are really nice and thin compared to other headers. So they actually work really well for piggybacking on that little socket that the microcontroller went into. So I didn't have to desolder anything. I was able to just pull that microcontroller carefully and then put in a couple of sets of these stacky headers. And then I can put regular jumper cables, these nice deluxe DuPont connector jumper cables into there. So that works really well for being able to test out how I think the wiring should work and then test out how the microcontroller is gonna work with that. Eventually I could do anything from desoldering the socket and soldering wires into it from below because that's where I want all my electronics to be. This needs to be flat on top because it's gonna be sitting right underneath there, these buttons poke or rather these switches poke up through the little holes inside of the top there. Also these are, I forgot about these. Yeah, I'm glad we were looking at this. I forgot there were two more buttons that I haven't used for anything yet that I forgot to account for. These two little pegs, these are sort of extensions for buttons. So there's these 10, but there's actually two more I forgot all about until right now just cause they're kind of hidden the way I normally have this on my desk. I'm looking at these switches and they're blocking the fact that there's actually two more of these switches here. So I gotta add those later. This was my temporary on-off switch after desoldering those wires from the little lid switch there. So that'll be again helpful for testing before I put that all back together just to rewire that. So what I was doing is working with Jepler on the Synth.io library which has existed for a while now. I just had never used it inside of Circuit Python and it allows you to specify MIDI notes which will play synthesis. Originally it was just I believe square waves and now it's been extended to allow you to use single cycle wave forms. So Jepler added in a sine wave. I think there's pulse width modulation of some kind but we haven't dug into that too much yet. Todd Bott has been working on this. He sent me some code that had a nice sawtooth wave which gives you a much richer, grittier sound with a lot more harmonics in it. And so interestingly the way the library was written it expects you to send MIDI notes to it. So it takes in a value like 48 and then the library converts that to the proper frequency tone to play. So I'm not using MIDI but I am when I press these buttons saying okay we're gonna use Synth.io to play a note 60 and that's gonna correspond to a frequency that's a musical note. So on the M7 here I'd worked on just that synth code then on a separate Metro M4 which has the same pin out. I was working on the button code. I've now merged the two together. I also have an I2S amplifier and a nice little enclosed speaker here. And let's see with this thing on what I should get is when I press these it doesn't have to be metal or anything like that. In fact it probably shouldn't be. Let me use a piece of plastic here. When I press these we'll hear a tone and I have it just droning. So I press one it just plays. So part of my idea with this is to make sort of a moody drone synth of some kind. Right now I'm reading two of these switches and one of them allows me to just turn it off so that sends the turn off all notes that are playing. Even though I only have one right now it would turn off all notes that are playing. And I will, my goal is to stack these so that you can play chords up to, you can play up to 12 notes and in fact maybe I'll add those two and we'll get the full 12 note polyphony. I think that's the max that the library in synthio can handle on the M7. And the other thing I can do is flip the left switch here, that's the mode switch on the original there, so that's what it'll poke up out of there. And that'll change the wave type. So right now this is a sine wave and here's a sawtooth wave. And actually right now it's playing two at the same time. Just an artifact of my code. If I press a new note it'll drop the sine out and now it's just sawtooth and then turn them off. So interesting things I found out about this and I was looking at the circuit on the show I think it was last week or the week before. The four bit microcontroller that was in here and the way it was programmed did a whole bunch of interesting stuff without having a whole lot of IO. It does not have enough IO pins to handle all of these buttons, all of these switches and all of the LEDs. You can see there are 10 LEDs on there with just one pin per. It's not quite a matrix but what it did was I think it very rapidly switched pins from being inputs to outputs. So the LEDs are actually on the same pins as the buttons. And I started writing some code to try to do that in circuit Python and it got really messy really quick. So what I may do is concede defeat there and simply cut the traces that are connecting these LEDs and their resistors into the same circuit or same pins as the switches there and instead just I probably can add a little expander, a little PWM expander and handle all 10 of those LEDs really nicely and maybe be able to do some neat stuff with them like fading them instead of just on off. And the same goes for these switches. They're not all independent. They're actually kind of interdependent so that the position of this value will change as this four position switch value changes. So I need to dig into that more to see what the sort of easiest way to get the most use out of these is right now even though these are three position switches I'm using center for on, right for off and left for off on that one. Same with this one. This one's a sine wave in the middle or rather a sine wave on the right, a sawtooth in the middle and nothing on the left. So, and let's see if I, yeah, you can see this center one is also some of its positions are the same as this one here. So it's turning it off. So that's what I have running on this so far. I can't, unfortunately I can't test it inside of the cool enclosure yet, zoom out a little simply because I don't have the clearance to do that with all of that wiring in the way right now but eventually that'll run that much, much lower profile or underneath to get that to fit in there. I did just for a test of it, I had most of it inside of here if I just unplug, let's see, I do, I don't think this'll fit, will it? No, it's not gonna fit up in there but I did have the microcontroller since I didn't have this board on it yesterday I didn't have the microcontroller and the amp and speaker inside of it and it sounds good, it's kinda nice to have the sound emanating out of here. It's possible that using a non-closed speaker that's mounted to the plastic would act as a soundboard and give me a nice effect but these kinda do that by themselves these enclosed speakers and these also seem to run lower current. The enclosed speaker of this one runs a little lower current than this guy here so since I'm running the amp I think off of three volts that's a good thing I have less current to work with. So that's the state of that. I'll show you the code that's running on that. Mouse says over in the chat, if there weren't enough eye-opens they should have just bought a different feather there's plenty to choose from. This was 1979 I think that Ralph Baer made this and I read up some more on Ralph and there's a really great collection of his engineering notebooks, patents, photographs of his workshop photographs of his inventions in the Smithsonian as well as some other places so if you look up Ralph Baer, B-A-E-R the father of video games, created the Magnifox Odyssey really the first home video game system, prolific inventor and seems like a really interesting neat guy so he was doing, he did Simon, a little memory game I think a similar microcontroller is this one but not the same one but I think there were like three games that used the same microcontroller around that time and he worked for a lot of different toy manufacturers so his stuff is all over the place really interesting. So let's see, let me open up the code that's running on there and look at that, it is not this, this is confusing let me unplug that. By the way these Wii accessories unlike the Xbox guitars and PlayStation guitars the Wii ones always used the Wii Mote or rather the, yeah the Wii Mote as the wireless controller so they didn't have to, they were cheap because they didn't have to have, there's so much that this didn't have to have in it it was just the I2C sensor essentially plugged into that using this so they always are inexpensive and lightweight and lack, they always have a nice big space for you to put stuff in fact this one also has a little spot I think where you could just tuck this connector in seems like an unnecessary little box there you'd think there was like a battery or something in there but there's not, there's also by the way a spot for the pen there, kind of a space there. I got that one I think for a dollar at a yard sale or something like that, really cheap. Okay so code here for our computer perfection synth you can see here some of the key things going on I'm importing synth IO library and I'm importing keypad, I don't need random anymore the keypad library I'm setting up kind of two sets of things I've got the buttons and those you can see there on pins D0 through D8 and then A5 and then I have right now two switches and that's a sort of a different keypad object which just makes it easier for me for my code to do the same thing with all the buttons and then a different set of things with all the switches then I have the setup for my I square C or rather I2S amplifier and that's on these pins D9, 10 and 12 I'm setting up the I2S out here for the amplifier and then for the synthesizer I've got a sample size of 128 and your volume I think this goes up to 3600, 3200 so I have this fairly high, it could go higher and obviously you can hear there's a difference between the sine wave and the sawtooth and this is just kind of the nature of having a pure-ish sine wave versus lots of harmonics, square waves and saws they'll always sound louder than like a triangle or particularly a sine so it might be interesting to have that change along with the wave type just to make the relative perceived volume seem the same. Hem asks, the synth aisle looks amazing wonder if it'll work with an M4? I don't think it will, I think this synth stuff requires enough speed that it's really gonna work on the M7 only I don't think you'll have that work on the M4 maybe a RP2040, I think maybe Todd, did you, if you're in the chat Todd I think had some of this working on an RP2040 but I don't think it'll work on an M4 I could be wrong though the thing here is that it's not an Arduino and we did port the PJRC audio library which runs on teensy over to the M4 and that worked but just the overhead of having the interpreted language of circuit Python here gives us less speed to work with even though it's like a 500 megahertz chip on the M7 if I'm not mistaken so then here's our sine wave set up and sawtooth set up and you could create other wave types I've just got these two right now and then I've got the synth object here which is synth equals synth IO, synthesizer and then a sample rate and a wave form being used as the synth sound and then the synth is told to play so it starts playing but it can have notes running or not so it doesn't actually make any sound at first I tell it we're gonna be using a sine wave to begin with and then in my main loop here you can see I have two of these event loops for the keypad library the first one says event is button events get the other one is switch event get and I could probably call this first one button event and to differentiate it from switch event so if there is an event I'm giving the event key number to this variable i just makes the rest of my code sort of neater if the event is that something I pressed then the synth will do this which is release all notes and then press a new note so this is where I think I can start to look at the synth IO library which I know not at all look at that for the how I can do polyphony so one way to do it is to give it a list of notes so I could create a queue of maybe which notes are pressed all at once or just always add to it so we can build up that list because this command actually is expecting a list and you can see here synth IO release all and then press even though I'm pressing let's say the first button which is going to be this midi note 64 it has to be in the form of a list that's what this synth IO command expects so I give it the note list index I which would be zero for the first note but then I also have to put in a comma and make it like a tuple inside of quotes so two sets of quotes and a comma it didn't I didn't have that at first it was I was like why won't this work and then I started adding commas and parentheses until it worked which is my my basic approach to a list like thing is is throwing a type error about not being able to use the use the list object what is the command I wrote it down is yeah type error int object is not iterable so if I just give it an integer it's not happy throw in an extra set of parentheses in a comma it works so I'm printing the note letter press this is just part of debugging for me and then previously I was using this just as a I had a little function that would play midi notes when I was first testing this so that I can get rid of the released doesn't do anything right now so that's just an artifact since I want this to add notes what I think I might do is change these to be toggles so I can press something and it just toggles the state from being oh that note is one of the notes that playing press it a second time and it takes it out I think that'll be nice for just building up these big chords liked mouse's comment in the in the chat here uh parentheses comma parentheses parentheses ha ha parentheses comma parentheses it's appropriate all right the switch event is similar so uses keypad just checks for anything that happens on whatever objects were part of that keypad instance and then if there is an event I'm casting this variable s to be a key number of the switch event if it was pressed which meant it went from off to on if it is switch zero which is the one on the left on the computer perfection then I change the waveform to a sign if it's a one I change the waveform to a sawtooth and then you can see with the other switch all I'm doing right now is just release all so all that all that is likely to change if I start stacking up notes in polyphony there um so if you don't mind hanging around what I for a moment and watching me try something what I'll do is head over to oh here's I think I might have shown this last week but this was a nice museum of design and plastics had some really nice photographs of the computer perfection here closed and open and missing the battery cover like all of them are it seems there's the box my box is a little different so that might have been a uk one or just an earlier iteration of it but that's the that's the box there yeah mine's from lakeside and I wonder if that was distributed by someone else in the uk because that one says gt action gt is that the manufacturer there don't know uh yeah injection molded and manufactured by action gt oh interesting huh so it's for it's it's designed by lakeside games manufactured by action gt and they got their name on it instead of lakeside for this version that's wild um okay so what I wanted to do is try to dig into the synth i o commands so give me one second I'm just going to look for I might have a note from uh Jeff that includes a link and that'll be a fast way for me to get it so one second okay I'm assuming this is updated uh so synth i o from file you can throw a midi track at it and it'll try to play that a dot mid file uh I tried that with a couple of midi files but it didn't like the formatting of it so I've got to play around and find out what formats it likes and that could be another another interesting way to use this is to have each button play some arpeggio or melody or something like that uh synth i o midi track what am I missing here synth i o from file midi track synthesizer blue right past okay create a synthesizer object the apis experimental uh two notes supported the mimics rt 10 and rp 24 platform support up to 12 notes so 60 is the c4 middle c approximately 262 hertz uh you can pick a sample rate and the lower the sample rate the grittier and chip more chiptuny it'll sound but uh we can this I think we have a 128 on here right now which sounds good uh waveform single cycle waveform default is 50 duty cycle square wave um and then it tells you you can you can specify a readable buffer sign 16 bit for these other other single cycle waveforms sample rate uh okay so pressed sequence of currently pressed notes max polyphony press turn some notes on release then press release all then press release all yeah so it seems like there's definitely enough in there to be able to uh build up some some polyphony uh over in the chatlet city said I haven't been able to get it to recognize a midi file either so if you find a trick in your travels please let me know yeah I wish there were one file and and they're binary so you can't really find out that much about it but I would love if there's like one file that the original author of this can point us to that that works or if if Jeff can look at it at the code to see what it's whether it's not loving about the midi tracks um okay so let's try let me try to adjust the code here so um let me bring this up here um okay so I've got release then press turn some notes off and on all right let's just do press I'm just going to build up notes so whatever I press it just adds to it um so what I'll do is take that out of there and this if we press something it'll just be synth press and then let's see if it just takes one in note list I and let's grab this pile of wires here if anyone sees uh mistakes or improvements as I go please speak up over in the chat hey FX music nice to see you sorry I I saw you you popped up earlier over in YouTube nice to nice to have you here um so let's do a by the way here uh you won't see this but one one thing I do often uh let me close this one thing I'll do often is when I go to save uh a chunk of code I'll just right click on the circuit python drive uh code dot pi and duplicate it just in lieu of proper um file management while I'm working directly on the disk so basically I'm about to save this merged underscore code dot pi as code dot pi on my circuit python drive but I right clicked on the existing code dot pi duplicated it so now there's a copy sitting there so if I if I do something terrible I can go back to that uh it's not great but it's it sort of works um so I'm going to replace the existing code dot pi with this one and let me disco tool dash n m7 by the way disco tool lets you just pick a unique part of the name so I might have another metro plugged into the computer but I know this is the only m7 because I only own one so that that should connect to that okay so let's see let's restart okay into objects is not iterable so even uh you can see there that's the error I was getting line 51 so let's uh check some parentheses and a comma in there yeah now let's see if I switch that waveform nope so the new notes in the new waveform oh wait what's going on it's not reading my switches did I unplug something what wiggled let's see do they work on their own right now oh I bet it's the position of that one sorry yeah remember I said these switches are all interrelated I uh I think my I'll brighten this up and take that saturation down my bottom switch here was in such a position that I wasn't able to get these read okay so this is on and this is in I think that's a sine wave nope that's the sawtooth okay but here's and then I should be able to change to sine yeah you can see it's just quieter and that one has like some nice beating frequencies because it's a half step off let me just kill them all there um I believe from something that Jeff said that there is um essentially a unity gain mixing happening so the volume when you add a note is halved I think uh uh or equalized to unity so that all the notes you have stack up to the same volume which is great because otherwise you could get it um seeming much louder when there are more notes and much quieter when there are fewer I could be butchering that explanation of it but I think that's I think that is how that's working in there okay so let's see we've also got uh the release all release then press so turn some notes on or off notes use midi numbering 60 without being middle c okay to release a note that was not actually turned on that's nice pressing a note that was already on has no effect yeah so I don't need to use that I was wondering if it was gonna like stack up if I pressed one note twice but it's not like it's increasing in volume or anything that that could be the gain thing I was talking about or it may just ignore um it sounds like from the API here it ignores any notes that are already pressed um so let's see I could do if we want to um just play it more like a momentary switch like a keyboard what we could do is say um if an event is released then we'll do synth dot I think it's release is it no is that not there okay how do we release a note release then press release all release all can we not release a specific note that's weird really I guess if I release and then press nothing okay so let's try release that's a maybe something we could get me release then press is the pressed note optional let's find out yeah that works okay so release then press but don't tell it to press anything works works the same so let me do this as a sawtooth cool all right so weird syntax but that works just well enough um I guess you could also use this you know to have one note just kind of iterate through some different list of notes like a like a simple arpeggio kind of thing um so there's some options in there but play around with it if you especially if you've got an m7 or rp2040 that'll work on I think it should just be a feather rp2040 or a would work maybe any rp24 I don't know the the library is called synthio and it's in the core module so you don't need to add it it's just there also if you've got mid dot mid you can go to a lot of websites and have them generate new ones or pull them from libraries so I think it says in here the kind of it's got to be a single track midi file I tried making some with use score and then didn't like those at all but play around with it synthio and this is the I'll put the link over in the chat if you want to go check out the the read the docs on it um I think that's about it it's not a lot to it the other since since we're like it's an experimental one we're okay changing this api and breaking things so if you're interested in helping break stuff and suggest stuff this would be a good time to do it I would love to maybe open it up to having tuning overrides because you may find that even though this is claiming to be a middle C it doesn't sound in tune with anything else that you're playing and and so since it just accepts this note 60 to be a 262 hertz maybe having offsets or maybe just telling it giving it frequencies and having a helper object for for the midi stuff that might be a sensible way to do it and the other thing that we're looking to do is add envelopes so right now as you can hear it's very harsh just on off sometimes can even give you a little clicks be really nice to be able to do some simple like attack release envelopes so that it can ease slowly or quickly into the note and ease out I don't think we have to get wild with it but an ADSR would be amazing ASR will be fine ADR AR any kind of envelope would be helpful all right I think that's going to do it so I will I'm excited this is working this well this is really the first time we've had a real synthesis polyphonic real synthesis happening in circuit python we've been able to play you know samples and mixed samples really incredible stuff that we can do with the mixer inside of the audio library that stuff's amazing but synthesis a little different animal from from doing sample playback so this is really exciting and I will be working on adjusting this thing to fit it into there and see if there's any other features to add I wouldn't mind doing a line out instead of just a speaker so that I can then go into like a small reverb or something like that that would be great have a little chorus and reverb on there and I'll be attacking the lights figuring out how to get these lights work I may I may take one more effort to see if there's any reasonable way to do lighting and buttons but I don't know it's a little wacky because it involves really fast switching of digital inputs to digital outputs which I don't think is going to happen fast enough to to make sense so all right before I go I'll remind you you can go and get yourself some cool stuff for 10% off over in the store so head over to Adafruit type in synth stuffing because we're stuffing synths sizes into things like that and you can use that coupon up till midnight tonight all of the great freebie options we have are in effect in fact let me since we're talking about coupons in the store let me jump over here real quick and and point out if you are interested in picking up some stuff with a larger order not fee but free adafruit.com slash free who doesn't like free stuff here's what you can get if your order is 149 or more you get a free kb2040 this little guy right here if your order is 200 or more you get free ups ground shipping in the continental us a if it's 2.99 or more you get a free circuit playground express we have those in stock now which is awesome and you can get all of them they all stack so if you get the circuit playground express you'll also get the free ground shipping and the free kb2040 so order has however much you want and get yourself 10 off using that coupon code synth stuffing right there um before i go i'll just take a look again at the chat see if there's any thoughts or questions um thanks jim henricksey you have a great weekend too thank you andy callaway thanks mouse and just to build custom pcb would be cool as heck oh my gosh with a display now you're talking that is that is a pretty cool idea considers making the scene for monsters versus alien with a president played by steven colbert tries to greet the aliens with funky tunes wait don't they blow up the poor aliens i didn't remember that was steven colbert either about that uh thanks paul cutler nice to see you and i appreciate you stopping by all right everyone thanks so much for a different industries i'm john park this has been john park's workshop and i will see you next time uh join us tomorrow for a deep dive with foamy guy i believe he's doing one tim uh we'll have shows starting again on tuesday with my product pick of the week wednesday we should have 3d hangouts return of the 3d hangouts uh show and tell i believe hosted by liz with co-host erin we'll have ask an engineer and then this thing happens again and cycle that endlessly uh all right thanks everyone for a different gem job park i will see you next time bye


I'll break or make some noise if you want to see Tweety do it from the Midwest. Let me hear you That's all you got for the hometown hero Dang that was it. It's actually a different state Here's Jackie and this is the matchup that we saw on the winners side Sonic Fox You know after that loss immediately took a little lap look for more options look for how Tweety plays Solotate knew that he would have to go through Tweety in order to win this event It's very difficult to be confident against a sonic fox who you just beat before because like you said you know He's done the lab work. You know he's tested it out So what are the counter adjustments gonna be by Tweety? What is he gonna do differently that sonic fox is not gonna see coming well so far it's a mauling So far the response is okay, let's get in press a lot of buttons Can't blame him on that okay a little interruption there with the down three from Baraka They're trading them Loving the attempt by Tweety just not opening up sonic fox at all so far to start off Loser's final to the corner we go back through to stagger no dash punch no mind game behind net here We go stagger with the one one and he is just looking so strong right now again Confidence coming up with two game box into this set Super ready right now. Is this the crush? No, but still very close For just a second but not for very long sonic fox like I said when you've beaten him before and it's time to do it yet Again in the same tournament that is a tough draw all you've done is give him information to use against you David That is all that you have done at the end of the day to see him again And you just saw the anti-air down one of the four four. Oh my goodness full combo in that Parties you for the throw as well here is sonic. This has been a Absolutely obliteration. It's been a mulling. Yeah, you think of The Tarkat and as being the one who would ball but not here. Okay. There it is the neutral jump into the rest will there be a break Yes It's not playing that scar style of just taking all that damage to the dome. No, he's out of there Unlike that get me out of here that get out of jail free card It seems against at least one gutted from Baraka, right? Got avoided a few more but not needing in here one. Oh sonic fox up around Trying to put up a bit of a wall there with the blade sparks It's not an option that Jackie has Baraka does here in this match not ready for the graph Tweedy stuck no it's here. I Mean that might be a lack of belief right there. We saw how coffee was earlier with the stand ones Conversion These are supposed to go that way. They're just not Well, they're back in place. It's okay standing back up under his own power. It was a quick rehab, but it worked Yeah, that's no longer your turn is Baraka right there here's sonic box with a crush is there meter to escape there's not Trying to end it right down to you give Tweedy a little bit of health with it with a damn schedule like Baraka must be an escape Yes into the corner though and The reversal and doesn't matter on the crusher now We already saw that take place sonic fox has won these two games I mean maybe even faster than Tweedy won his 2-0 against sonic fox yesterday absolutely Sonic fox how game changing is a character like yeah, that punishes you for going for throws and getting them teched I hear you. There's an absolute key game changer against anyone else. He still would have been alive right there So here you go It's the switch Baraka's done most of the work for him this weekend But he did say to me that he would go for gears in some situations and why not it's a character He's been playing a lot. It's a very strong character. It's a pretty good character This is a match-up that I'm a little surprised to see him purposely go into Versus Jackie here. Yeah, he's gonna try it out because clearly Baraka was not working It's definitely one that sonic box is confident in yeah And even against Tweedy's that we saw at some a couple weeks ago Where he infamously said bring that game, but that was in the mirror not the Jackie one here But he was really confident against gears with this character on Twitter. Remember on my box Jackie versus gear us Look the ox is 3-0. Yes, and the opposite gear is was looking like one of the strongest in the world So here Tweedy tries his own so far. It's not working. He's caught in the corner. It's already in trouble Already a crush and blows loaded. Oh There's been a Tweedy looks like a deer and headlights with sonic fox jumps at him. I think you're right I think you're right. Yeah, I don't know if there's been an anti or a true anti or quite yet Or even in a test right now. He's eating these jump ins or they're just incredibly late. Oh, yeah He's definitely in trouble here. Sonic Fox already has it It's Tweedy feeling the pressure sonic fox on match point with a healthy with the car position.  Oh That's what's crushing blow. It's all sonic fox and he's been who sent him to loser side He just inputted the fatality without even looking at the screen folks. That's somebody who has confidence Tweedy