Hey, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat interview and I'm here with Rocky. Hey, good morning. Hey, how you doing, Chris? Good afternoon, I guess. Yeah, that's true. It is good afternoon, isn't it?  Who you are, where you are and what you do? Sure. I'm Rocky Lovka. I am the CTO at a company called Magenic and we're a big, well, I don't know if we're big, but a reasonably good sized software development consulting company and also over the last long time I've been doing writing books and speaking and building open source software in the dotnet development space. And we were just chatting about before we started recording. Rocky and I, I think we've so we've been in the same room a few times and I think I've seen you in passing and crowds, but never really chatted before this. But you're pretty steady on the regional director, the RD email lists and some interesting topics to go in there. I usually when people are getting so in depth down the weeds of what's going on with Azure, I don't really weigh in. If there's any discussion that's around the collaboration technologies or more the front end or on the partner side, then I mean, I'm right inside those conversations. But yeah, so the, so with everything kind of going on now, a lot of the different discussions.  How are things with Magenic? Is business still hopping along? Well, it's definitely a different time for everybody. And we're doing quite well. But there's definitely an impact. And I think the longer this goes on, the bigger the impact will be on our clients and therefore on us, right? It's because we exist purely to build software for our customers. And so when our customers are struggling, obviously that has a ripple effect. We were fortunate in that our company was our consultants were already, man, I got to say over half of them were worked remote, either always or sometimes prior to all of this. And so for most of our technical staff, it's been as easy as it could be. I wouldn't say easy, right? But certainly for our office staff, this idea of working from home for accounting, HR, ever marketing, it was a big adjustment for a lot of folks. And some people like it and some people are struggling. And I think it's microcosm of the bigger world. The group that's really struggling the most is our sales group, probably on a couple different levels. One, because if you're in sales, almost by definition, you like people, right? You enjoy interaction. And all of a sudden, you're deprived of that.  But then we've got some customers too that are in industries that are under how to put it. But they're very busy because of various aspects of what's going on right now with COVID. And so some of them are scrambling to build software or complete projects that were in process that can help. So that's good too. Well, I'm interested to know, speaking of that process, obviously going out and I felt the impact is an independent of closing deals of meeting with people like that side of things. So talk about it. So, you know, Majenek, and I'd like to hear a little bit about your methodology and CSLA.net and the process that you work with clients to build software. Is that something that came out of the company or was the company, what's the background of Majenek, you know, was it more built on some of this process of methodology that you've developed? Well, it's kind of interesting because they're actually in parallel. I started working on CSLA back in the 90s. It was a comm-based deal at that point in time, you know, predated.net. And at that time, I worked for a different consulting company. And I'd started writing books and speaking at conferences and building this essentially open source software, but the internet didn't exist back then the way we think of it now. And my employer at the time was like, hey, that's really great. Yeah, if you want to speak at a conference, you know, take some vacation, go for it. Yeah, if you want to write books, you know, that's a nice hobby for your evenings and weekends. And to start with, that was fine with me. But then after two or three years, the company started benefiting greatly from both the sales and recruiting perspective. And they were unwilling to recognize that, I guess, or at least in a way that I had little kids at the time. And so ultimately, I was getting coaching from another gentleman, you know, how in any given city, I think there's a relatively small community of active tech people, right? The ones that go to meetups, user groups, and so forth. And so, and I knew that this guy owned and ran a competing consulting company. But, you know, he's a smart guy and was giving me, literally giving me advice on how to succeed where I was, even though I was working for a competing firm that didn't go anywhere.  And he said, bye. And I said, well, because maybe I should come work for you. And so I switched, that was the year 2000. I switched and started working for Majenek. And so, yeah, so for a while, Majenek did quite a lot of work, CSLA based just because my writing and speaking brought in a bunch of business around CSLA. But it's always been a minority of what we've done as a company. We've always had our own sales force and brought in a wide array of different customers. Sometimes they do CSLA and sometimes they don't. And we don't pressure them one way or the other. You know, CSLA when the over the last 10 years when people largely quit writing smart client apps in favor of writing web apps, especially Angular and that sort of thing, CSLA, I can't say that it's not with, it doesn't have value, but it's value proposition is limited or is lessened if your client isn't a smart client, basically. If your client is written in JavaScript or TypeScript, you obviously can't share that code with server side code that's C sharp, right? And now there's the blazer in particular, but also Xamarin resurgence. I'm just, I can't express how excited I am. Now by the fact that we're looking at, you know, we can build apps that run in the browser, but we don't have to, we're not limited just to JavaScript anymore. We can use, you know, C C plus C sharp Java, maybe Java Ruby go. What's driving a lot of that change? I mean, what's different now? Is it just a lot of the, because I know that there was a kind of a delayed response for a lot of enterprise organizations with their kind of legacy solutions that they've gone and built. Is that part of what we're now seeing the change happen? Because these companies that have this massive investments in prior technologies saying, how do we actually move these things over to the cloud? And they just weren't willing to go in and completely re architect, build them from the ground up and then want to leverage or, you know, what is driving some of the shift that's happening now? I think a lot of it, I give credit to a technology called WebAssembly, which has been, comes out of the Mozilla originally, but now it's an internet standard and it's built into all of the modern browsers and it allows the browser to run JavaScript like normal and also now all of the browsers have an assembly language engine that, so instead of JavaScript or in addition to JavaScript, you can now run compiled code. So like take C or C++ or Rosti or whatever, compile it into WebAssembly instead of like x86 assembly and it will run in any browser anywhere. And so that's the technical thing that's happened. The business driver to your point is that there's just a massive amount of, especially Windows forms and WPF applications out there that have never been migrated onto the web, I think in not in small part because the early web couldn't do what those apps did, the rich interactivity, but as we now know, the modern web, like you look at Word, who would have ever thought Word or Excel could run in a browser? And okay, so all of Excel doesn't run in the browser, but a pretty good chunk of it does, right? And that's even without WebAssembly. So now you take the fact that modern web development really can create smart client apps comparable to WPF or Windows forms. And then you tell all of those developers that they don't have to switch their entire skill set to JavaScript, but yet they can continue to do .NET and C-sharp. It's like, okay, maybe the dam is breaking here. Maybe now I can, I've got a path forward that still lets me do smart client development, give my users the same type of experience that they're accustomed to, let me use relatively familiar development tools, but I've got a complete deployment and a web deployment without all of the complexity of installing software. But it certainly opens up just the job field so that you're not, again, looking for that specific skill set, you've got more, a wider net you can cast for solutions that you need to build for an organization. Yeah, I think so. And then there's a lot of, I don't know, angst, whatever. It's like, oh man, is WebAssembly going to completely replace Angular? That's not the way this industry has ever worked. A technology becomes successful, enterprise apps get built in that technology, and the technology then often lasts for like 20 years. Now it might not be the forefront of our thought process. And for all we know, Angular, we were at the inception of all this, so it's hard to sit here today and look forward five or 10 years, and oh man, in 10 years the world is going to be X or Y or Z. All I can say is that as somebody who has never been particularly excited about JavaScript web development, this WebAssembly stuff makes me very excited. But I work with people, tons of people at Magenic that absolutely love building Angular and react apps and use TypeScript and JavaScript. And we're going to be able to continue to that for many years also. So I don't. We were just talking, somebody posted out on a group that they were looking for help with a client, and they were looking for people that had COBOL skills. And I was just joking that back in the early 90s, I was working for EDS. I was a business analyst, and I got pulled aside. My manager said, hey, you've been identified as somebody that we'd love to pay for, go through COBOL training, become a COBOL programmer. And I declined. It was all, you know, as they were starting to ramp up for, it was like 94. They were, I think, ahead of the curve a bit on Y2K stuff. And so I had friends that went and went through that process, and they financially have done very well. Both of them have retired early, you know? I have no doubt. Well, and now that's been in the, certainly on Twitter, but I think in the news a little bit too about how some of these unemployment systems at the state level, like in New Jersey, are all written in COBOL, and they're falling on their face because the unemployment claims are, what, 10 or 100 times? I've just massively higher than they've ever been before. And so there's this huge cry. It's like, hey, you know, anybody who knows COBOL, please come help us out. Well, that was it. The project I was on, it was a California MediCal, so massive systems and all built on COBOL. But yeah, it depressed me then to think about going that direction down that path. But financially, it would have done okay. But to your point, it's, you know, you have these massive enterprise systems, these legacy systems, someone has to maintain those. There's going to be, it's not the exciting sexy new technology that the kids want to go and study in school. And yet you have massive investments that are still made in upkeeping these systems. And, and while we can, it's nice to sit and talk sometimes about upgrading, re-architecting, moving things over to the latest technology. And some of these systems, it's like, it's just not cost effective to go in and do that. It's actually cheaper to maintain and then build new systems on new technology. Well, another question, I know that you're still doing a lot of events, a lot of speaking. So what, what are some of the topics? Like, what are you out there talking about what, what's kind of the latest exciting stuff that gets you off the couch to go and speak in an event? My focus is really, I would say, been on three areas. I'm interested in a lot of things, but you can't get deep enough in all of them to speak credibly, right? So the three things that I've been talking about moving from .NET framework into .NET core, .NET standard, and .NET five is around the corner. And then the, and that's part technology and a lot of its process though, it's actually, right, it's just like any software migration thing. There, there certainly are technical tips and tricks and approaches, but at the end of the day, it's a lot about process. Not surprisingly, I've been talking a lot about WebAssembly and Blazor and a similar technology called UNO that both are UI frameworks for .NET running in the browser. And then the third area is Kubernetes and container based server computing, because I have this picture of the near future where modern, you know, like new software that gets built, all the server stuff gets written in, to run in containers and probably runs in either Azure, AWS or Kubernetes or maybe both. And the client software is all running, is written using WebAssembly and is running in the browser. And so you've got portable code on the server and portable code on the client. And you know, the only, the only place that even like Windows ends up being relevant in this whole picture is the Visual Studio runs on Windows. So I, as a developer, use Windows, but really my end users, they're using a browser on any device and they're talking to containers that are almost certainly running in Linux and then are running on some cloud somewhere. What are your, what topics have you written about, like your books? I'm sorry, don't know your stuff. Don't live in the dev world. You know, other than, I've known your name for years. I've seen you inside occasionally when you, and then of course, I've become an RD and within the program, I see you there, but you're not familiar with the body of written word that you've put together. Yeah. And I think about that. It's almost sound like a broken record. What I've been writing about for years is how to architect enterprise software using Microsoft's tools so that you end up with maintainable scalable software, primarily in a distributed setting. And so I've been, you know, all this time talking about how to create app servers and talk to them efficiently. And so I think things like containers and Kubernetes are just an extension of that. And similarly, I spent all of my books have focused on whatever kind of UI technology is current at the time. So it's gone through Windows forms and web forms and ASPMVC. And I wrote a book using Silverlight at one point, which Silverlight was so nice for the whole year and a half we had it. And, you know, so, so really, I guess it's been a consistent theme, which is basically how do you create maintainable software that hopefully as the UI technologies change over time, because they will, they always have. How do you not have to rewrite your entire app just because there's a new UI framework? And how do you have to not rewrite your entire app just because there's a new app server technology? That's kind of the core focus of the things I've written over the years. You know, it's just observation, too, with the community stuff that I do. And here is where I live in South Salt Lake City. I'm in Lehigh, which is kind of the tech hub for the region. They call it Silicon Slopes. And there's a heavy investment, a lot of startups in the fintech area. And there's user groups on various technologies and so much of the training. And in fact, there's a couple of the schools of the software schools, kind of the new flavor of trade school for technology development that have kind of sprung out of this area here in the Bay Area. But you see a lot of them where they go in and do this, do these rapid programs in specific languages and technology areas. What guidance would you give to people that are still in school or that they're looking to add to their career? That's more, I guess, I look at it as more of the kind of the DevOps training of there's the specific shovel in hand, how do I go and dig this trench versus the, let's step back and look at how you organize DevOps inside of an organization. One of the best practices. Is there, what guidance would you give to students that, of how to approach development in kind of the modern era, rather than just go focus on a specific technology? Because again, my perception is a lot of these students, this is certainly true when I was closer to the DevOps space in the late 90s and early 2000s, that students came in really smart in coding and solve these specific problems, but then had absolutely no idea how to apply that in real world scenarios and then had to be kind of re-educated on how companies built software. So what guidance would you give of where people should start and what they should consider? Well, about 10 years ago, a little maybe 12, Mugenic started a thing that we call the delivery center, which is, because normally all of our consultants have maybe 10 years, 7, 10, 15 years more experience. But we created the delivery center with the intent of hiring folks right out of school or that had just made a career change. I think initially our vision was, oh, it's just all going to be right out of school, but it ended up being kind of a mix. But some of the people we've hired are like 40-something, and I've switched careers. So kind of the same, but the idea of being coming in without a wealth of pre-existing software development experience. And the way that what we've, I guess, found over time is like those boot camps or other quick, kind of quick hit coding camp type deals vary in quality a lot. And also individual people vary in their attitude and aptitude a great deal. And so, and these two in my mind are synergistic in that what makes somebody successful is in part, like if you go to a boot camp that teaches you Angular and you never learn JavaScript, which we encounter people like that, you're not useful, at least not in our world because you got to build software and just creating the UI is not sufficient. You have to be able to talk to servers and so forth. And so some, you know, some code camps are better about that than others, right? So they take a slightly more holistic approach that's good. But then a lot of it ends up coming down on the student too.  I don't know. I'm going to write a recipe tracker. I basically have your own little projects. And so by the time that you're done with the class, you've learned all the things your program has to offer. Plus, you've actually tried to exercise it on your own. Now, those people are like gold, right? Right. Well, yeah, the people that go in and get their hands dirt. I mean, look, there's a, so I, when I started at university, I was an industrial design major. And part of why I changed my major two and a half years into the program was because I had friends that were older, that were graduating, were having difficulty finding jobs within that space at that time in the late 80s, early 90s. And but then also looking at what kind of jobs and things were possible and what those roles actually looked like. And I started getting feedback that you'll get the kind of the comparison here, but the, you know, that I didn't want to do the jobs that people were actually getting jobs doing with that training. And so it sounds like your advice is always like, look, that's why doing fellowships. That's why doing, going and, you know, between your, you know, generally between the sophomore and junior and before your senior year of university, that you go and do these, you know, these fellowships and other projects, go get, you know, feet on the ground, experience real world experience, even if it's, you know, for hourly or even some, some cases, free projects to get that experience and get a taste for it. Is this something that I actually want to go and do? That's exactly right. You know, and I mean, it's just, it sets the, sets people into two different categories, right? The category of folks that learn, that they assume that whatever they learn in those classes, and this is true if you go to university too, right? You can go through and just learn what you need to get good grades. And that's fine. Or you can actually be applying that, you know, that information and knowledge and trying to, like you said, contribute to the, there's all sorts of, especially now, right? There's open source projects you can contribute.  And so the ability to just pick something and say, hey, I'm a comic collector. Can I catalog all my comics? Or, you know, and in the end of that software may or may not be something that's useful to anybody or even you. But in the process of building it, you will have learned way more. And it kind of comes back now that comes back to your DevOps question, right? Which is I have yet to see any educational programs that focus on the software development as a process and the actual mechanics of like, what is it like to really build, debug and deploy a piece of software, right? Classes usually are like, oh, here's some algorithms or here's a web page or, but as a positive example, my wife is the executive director for Missing Children Minnesota, which is a nonprofit that, as you might expect, helps find missing kids. And a, one of these boot camp teachers approached her and said, hey, my students need a project. Can we do something for you? And she said, well, why it'd be really great if I had a way to just type in a bunch of this data and get some reports out of it.  And so they did. They built a website. They used Angular and Node.js on the server.  No. Did it end up really solving the problem? In the short term, the answer is yes. Actually, it got used. But in the long run, you know, it's not enterprise software. But my point being, those students that built that software, built real software, debugged it, actually had to get a user, get my wife to approve it. It had to be rolled out and running on a real server. I mean, they got the end to end story. And so I got to believe that I have no way of knowing, but I got to believe that every one of those students got snapped up by somebody and who was very happy to hire them. Yeah, just to make you think too, so I was, I started, I got into technical project management and, and, and so I built for a number of years, I built out project management organizations for companies. And so I was always, you know, side by side and those roles with IT, with, with development teams. And then I got into and started building out and supporting software configuration management systems and helping build the process side of that. I remember having a conversation around 2000, 2002, somewhere right there where so my, I had a company, I sold my software company in 2001 and, and went to another startup, but was also doing advisory projects for student run startups coming out of UC Berkeley and out of Stanford and, and we had some client projects and things. But I remember talking with an undergrad student at the time, I think at UC Berkeley was just like, well, what are your recommendations? What do you see? Like, where do I have the best chance of making the most money in this role and coming out of it? And I said back then, I said, look, you know, if you go and focus on SCM and focus on this, the operational activities around it, we didn't, you have, of course, the phrase, the term DevOps back then, but that was all those, those tools. And if you go in this, everybody's going and again, learning that program that they want to go build this other thing, there is a bleeding need, you know, behind the scenes for all the operational aspects in support of every like every single company needs to do this, whether you have a dedicated IT team or not, or you provide it as a service to these smaller companies, they need those capabilities. And like, you know, I've not ever seen a program develop specifically looking at those things, I have to believe there's something out there. And, you know, now that's focused on, I've not come across that. I'll certainly tout it if I, if I find a company, an organization, an educational institution that has a DevOps focus program. And as soon as I hit publish on this video, I'm sure people will email me and point out all the ones. I have no doubt. I'm not aware either. I do think it's challenging, right? Because true DevOps is really, it encompasses the process of everything to do with development, everything to do with QA, everything to do with security, everything to do with deployment, release management and operations. And, you know, so what we just described is like four different careers that people make their entire living in. And somebody who's a DevOps expert may not be an expert developer, but they have to understand development. And they may not be an expert ops manager, right? Or Linux, you know, system admin, but they have to have a pretty good grasp of how all that stuff work. It's, you know, it's a tall order. It's a very broad skill set that can't be too shallow in any of those areas because they are, they have to be able to at least interact intelligently with the experts in each one of those spaces, right? So it makes me a little skeptical to think that DevOps itself is an entry-level position, you know, just just because there's so much there. Yeah, you're right. You're right. It is. And look, and I'm not trying to, like, suggest there, say, hey, what's the quick fix solution to come in and take some of these more senior roles? I think the reality, you're right. You need to get your hands dirty. You need to have that experience.  For whatever discipline that you're coming from, you need to have that real experience. And I mean, there's plenty of opportunity. If people, I think it's, it is good to have people, to have that focus, to know that there's that need and go in with the intent of learning these different parts and being in that DevOps space. The reality is most people develop into that, those roles through those, those different disciplines from different areas. I mean, my, look at my background, I used to work in the space was building your project portfolio management solutions. That's how I got into information management. And that's how I found SharePoint kind of got into the micro system, Microsoft ecosystem, that direction. I was a, I was a big rational software guy. I wrote a book for IBM, you know, like I was in that world. And it was your SharePoint that kind of sucked me in and I've stayed. But that, you know, again, it was one of those things where, you know, I started down one path and saw that there was a need. There was a, you know, there was a fundamental misunderstanding of the need of the collaboration technology and support of all these things, project portfolio management. I did a deployment of project server back in 2005 and got introduced to the SharePoint, but again, all those different pieces. And so in fact, I started at Microsoft in 2006. So I was an employee for three and a half years. And like two months after I started, my IBM book was published finally. And they wanted me to promote it. And I'm like, sorry, can't. I'm no longer in the SEM world and I work for Microsoft. No, I will not be able to go and do any other things in support of the book that you just published. But thank you for the book. I think what you just touched on something though, that to me has always been a big, a big deal. And that is careers are, folks get focused on a job. But realistically, if you're going to be in this industry, you're going to, you need a career and a career lasts, it transcends jobs, and it lasts probably 30 or more years, right? 40 years, whatever. And you can be intentional about that, or you can stumble into things. And I think most of us do some combination of the two, especially early in, like in my career, I graduated from university in a recession. And so I just took the first job I could get. I'm like, just get me out of the part time jobs I was doing to pay the rent and let me have a real job. And my second job was actually kind of accidental, but I got it through a relationship that I had developed in my first job. But from there, my career became a lot more intentional, or by that point, I was six years, seven years into my career, I kind of had a pretty good idea of what I did and didn't enjoy doing. And so as I moved further in my career, and it's not like I didn't go do some things that I found out I very much disliked, but I did it by choice, right? For example, I took a job managing a group of about 40 consultants at one point. And dealing with sales, managing the consultants, all this stuff, I hated that job. And what I discovered out of that is I don't, I do enjoy aspects of sales, but I don't particularly enjoy being the manager over a large group of people. And, you know, I don't know if 30 is a large, but 30 was large enough that I'm like, eh, that's not what I want to do. We know the magic number for direct reports is it's only five. Yeah, I know. Well, and I had people, yeah. But in consulting, it's, yeah, at least the companies I've worked with, usually you have some sort of a manager that manages maybe like 20 people and then they report up into a unit manager. And so I was at the unit level. So I actually, I did have a couple folks that helped, you know, manage this, but then the unit level, it's like, well, now I've got a, I own the profit and loss for these people and I have to keep them billable. I have to work with, you know, and I know people that thrive on that. I work daily now with people that do that and they thrive on it and enjoy immensely. Yeah. And I don't. And I guess that's my point is that as you get in far enough into your career and those first couple of three years, it's difficult to know, I think. But when you get into the five to seven range, you probably start to think, ah, you know, am I going to be happy writing code for the next 20 years? No, I'm not. Or yes, I am, right? But that should inform your decision.   And he's like, it was fun for a while, but I just didn't, you know, it turns out that what seems romantic to one person, you start doing it on a daily basis. And it's like, yeah, this is kind of a grind. You know, one of my favorite management books, you just reminded me, what's that guy? He's the YouTube star that was a NASA rocket scientist. And now he does videos, one of the best ones that he does. Do you know who I'm describing? I don't know his name, but he does these video YouTube videos where it's all science-based. He created a tracking package to solve some of the stealing packages off front porches, and it does a glitter bomb, and it sprays auto sprays, fart spray, and that guy, he was a NASA scientist like that. Yeah, that's that's a guy that's just like, yeah, it was a cool job. But this sounds a lot more fun over here. You know, there's a one of my favorite leadership development books is by Marcus Buckingham. In fact, when I was at Microsoft, and I was part of the, probably not familiar, but it was the management excellence community mech inside of Microsoft for people managers, I was part of the leadership team for that. And so we got to meet with Marcus a couple times. He was out there advising bomber on something and had some extra time. And so like 10 of us got to go meet with him for a couple hours and talk about it. His book called First Break All the Rules. I don't know if you've ever read that. What are my all-time favorites? And it's my management style, but it kind of speaks to what you described. It's the best, the most highly functional teams, the highest successful teams are those where the manager is able to understand, to discover, understand the strengths of the individuals and team and to build teams based on their strengths. And when you can do that for yourself, like I had a team where I had an analyst who was just had just a brilliant mind for data analysis. I then had a PM who didn't have a technical bone in her body, but was fantastic people person.   But then a PM who thrived on that and could make it just look, you know, those people that are good at PowerPoint and it's beautiful and functional and all of that. That's a gift to do that. But going paired together, I mean, it was just, it was fantastic. And so I've built a couple teams based off of since reading that book and that philosophy. But when you understand that about yourself, I know what some of my core skills are. I know what my weakness skills are or my non skills. And so I will, like I've gone, as you said, I've kind of built my career where I gravitate towards those things where I know those are my strengths. And I've been blessed that I've been able to do that. You can't always do that, obviously, we all have. There's a reason they call it work. And I think in our industry in particular, and by our industry, I'm including BAs, PMs, developers, designers, right? I mean, that's the people, these are the types of roles that I work with on a regular basis. And so I think all of us are so fortunate in that we there's enough variety in the software development industry that you can almost certainly find something that lights your passion, and that's going to pay well. And so we get to go to work. And for the most part, we probably get to do something that we actually enjoy and get paid well for. But it's not, I mean, it's also the real world. So even if you're in the middle of doing something you truly love, bad things happen, right?  And so that's why it's called work, too. But I do think though that and so I think I've been in bad spots a few times where working with people I didn't like or whatever it was. And sometimes you just kind of push through it or sometimes it's like, well, there's enough opportunity out there that I don't have to, I'm not trapped, right? And although I get it, everybody's, as soon as I say that, no, you're going to get stuff on this video about how well I'm trapped. And I get that. I understand, right? Everybody's got different life circumstances, but I do think that we are generally very fortunate in our industry to have the just I used to work for a company that so many people would would get out of the tech space into management because that was the kind of the way that was the path, right? Well, that was to move up and make more and do that. But yeah. And that was true, I think, broadly in our industry for a time back in the 90s and maybe even early 2000s. But nowadays, like developers and designers, a lot of these roles pay so well that from a money perspective, becoming a manager isn't necessarily an up. It's more of an over. And so I think that's awesome because then you can look at that and say, hey, maybe I'm tired of being a developer or a designer. Maybe I don't want to do this for the next decade or more. Maybe I want to and that this is the mind shift, switch careers and become the best manager, the best leader. And I think that's the key because if you think, oh, I'm a technologist and I'm just going to manage people and you don't like to your point, right? You start reading books and you start studying and you really start learning the skills about what it is to be an effective leader. It's a different skill set. And I think because a lot of organizations and like this was a problem when I was at Microsoft and I know that they've been doing a lot of work on their culture, recognizing this, but creating a path for individual contributors. We're all technologists. I mean, that's part of it. There has to be that path there. And then this idea that just because you're really good at technology does not equate into a good manager. They're horrible managers that never should have been in charge of other human beings. I had a couple and just shouldn't have been in the management. We're fantastic at the technology at the work itself, but you can't as a business owner, you cannot move people into those management positions because they're good at the technology. I think you're right. Some things have changed within the technology space just because I think companies have started to recognize that and then created those paths where they can continue keeping holding on to their their best tech people by providing that icy path for them. I agree. I think whatever path a person chooses, I'm pontificating, I guess, but it seems to me that whatever path a person chooses, it's important to strive for constant improvement. And, you know, like I just was talking to somebody not that long ago about public speaking because I do a lot of that. I have for over 20 years and I've been speaking and teaching and presenting and I said something about using a speech coach and they said, why would you use a speech coach? I'm like, am I as good as I could be? I don't think so. We all have our little ticks and quirks and patterns that you fall into. And sometimes just sticking on the public speaking trend, sometimes you watch yourself in a video and you're like, oh my God, is that what I really am doing? Or sometimes if you have the chance to avail yourself of a coach that can listen and give you directed feedback, that's how you get better. And I think that's true. That's like code reviews, right? If you're a software developer, and a lot of times code reviews are not treated this way, but they should be treated as a coaching, mentoring, career, skill building. Yeah, we're improving the quality of individual bits of code, but we're also improving my quality and the other people's quality, whoever's reviewing my code. I just, I don't know, I think it behooves all of us to take advantage of that sort of thing whenever we can. I agree.  I was going to advocate for, well, you know, the PowerPoint online has that coaching, that AI based coaching tool, so you can actually go in there, hit the record button, it will actually track all of the pregnant pauses, the ums and aws, it'll look at, you know, like gender specific languages you're presenting and make recommendations, just a bunch of really cool stuff that's coming from that. There was a guy that spoke of, trying to remember his name escapes me here, but was speaking at a conference that I put together back in like 2002, 2003 in the Bay Area, and he did something which was, I think just brilliant, but he is a keynote that he had given a couple other times. He had the entire thing down in a binder, so all of his slides, the points he was going to make, the jokes he was going to tell, and what he gave the presentation, there was a guy that he hired sitting in the audience with this binder and was taking notes, and after it was like, what was that all about? He said, yeah, so I've gone through it, I've gotten feedback on it, he gives this same speech to large enterprises and audiences like ours that we had about 500 people in the audience, and he says, he's going through, this is a relatively new talk, and so he was writing notes like, this joke didn't land, this one was great, this wording, it didn't, like when you expected people to be nodding, no one was nodding, you know, just took those kinds of observational notes, I'm like, that's brilliant, because you can get the record, have the recording and watch it, you're going to still attach some of the same biases that you have, you won't hear some of the feedback, but to have somebody go and specifically like this, you know, when you said this, this like, it resonated, you know, hey, there could be other opportunities within that. Anyway, that's, that's phenomenal. I'm fascinated by that kind of stuff, you know. It makes me think of a book, now I can't think the name, but Neil Stevenson, he wrote it with somebody else and it was about the perfect candidate where they put a chip in this guy's head, and then they were doing real-time polling or had mood monitoring things in crowds as he was speaking, and of course, he was undefeatable, because in real time, he was able to, it's fiction, right, but yeah, so you say. Not that fictional, right, if you think about the short feedback loops that we have now with media. It's happened to all of the, all of the devices that we're wearing, it's like, you know, I said, heart rate went up across two-thirds of the crowd. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly. It's just IoT, Rocky, come on, you know, we go. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There you go. It's like the new thing. Yeah, I don't think we're too far from that world, but, well, here, Rocky, really appreciate your time today. So I'd like to wrap all these by just asking, though, people want to find out more about you, get in touch with you, kind of, where can they find you through social channels? Where are you active? How can people reach out to you? I tend to be probably most publicly active on Twitter. I also have a presence on LinkedIn. And those are probably the easiest you can go to about.me slash Rockford Latka. And I've got all my contact information and socials are there. So that's good. Yeah. And I tend to be out there a lot. So I'm pretty easy to find. Well, Rocky, I won't be seeing you in any Microsoft events here for the next 12 months, but stay safe, stay healthy. And hopefully, we'll see you sooner rather than later at one of these events. This thing's open back up. I look forward to it, Christian. Hey, thank you so much for this. I appreciate it. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot for taking the time and have a great weekend. Bye.


Well, the Edge Center in Big Fork had been bringing creativity to the small community for over a decade now. Lakeland News reporter Cheryl Moore tells us how it's inspiring people to break into the spotlight for this week's in focus. It's just a great space to create and people come in here and they feel creative. They want to, they want to make art. With the 288 seat theater and a gallery open to artists from all over the state, the Edge Center has made Big Fork a town of 400 people, a must-visit for all creatives. It's great because I retired up here and found this place and was thrilled to find it and all of the people that work here are volunteers. We only have one part-time paid staff member, otherwise everybody volunteers their time. Every month there is a new featured exhibit, not to mention theater productions put on by Big Fork community members. With things changing every month, you're bound to see something new every time you visit. I draw inspiration from the environment. I'm, you know, I'm an environmentalist, I guess if I was to say it, kind of, paint about the human relationship with the natural world and, you know, alternative energy sources and things, our relationship with animals and humans are animals, that sort of thing. So that's kind of stuff that gets me excited. The Edge Center is connected right to the school in Big Fork, so you can imagine that there are a lot of student productions that go on here. Over the years, the Edge Center has grown into something more than just a place for the schools. Now it's a place where everyone in the community can come to break out of their shell. Before we built the Edge Center, we were pretty sure that it would be used by the school and by the local community theater group and we had no idea how much this theater is used. Staying on the cutting edge of the new and the now has been the center's goal ever since it was built in 2005. The many volunteers who put their time and heart into the Edge hope to keep it that way in the future, while also inspiring more creativity in the Big Fork community. I really do believe it has stimulated arts. People think, well, there's a place here that honors painting and I kind of like painting. Maybe I'll take it up again and then they turn out to have, you know, fulfilled and enriched their lives because the place is here. Reporting in Big Fork with this week's In Focus, Shawmore, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


This is Coach Mack. Welcome to Beneath the Surface powered by Microsoft Surface. Today we're going to look at four great plays by Malcolm Butler as the cornerback matched up with the leading receiver, the Jacksonville Jaguars, DJ Chart. This was a beautiful, beautiful demonstration of man-to-man technique, tenacity, production, just what a day Malcolm Butler had as a cornerback. Malcolm Butler is to the top of the screen. He's matched up on a deep dig on the inside. Watch Malcolm Butler match up to DJ Chart. Watch the footwork. Watch how he gets in phase. He gets on the backside hip in a tailpipe position, perfect position, gets the knockdown hand around, incomplete pass. This is beautiful coverage on an inside route by Malcolm Butler. Next play we're going to look at is second and five. They're in a stack formation now with a cut split. Watch Malcolm Butler down here at the bottom of the screen. He wins the red line. We talk about the red line. The red line is a midpoint between the numbers and the sideline that the cornerback has to win and push the receiver out of bounds. Look at this perfect coverage. He is in perfect shape. No way for the receiver to get back to the ball. Does not interfere. Beautiful position. This is classic, classic training tape winning the red line on a takeoff route. Next play we're looking at second and seven. It's 24-3 and now what we see Malcolm Butler is man-to-man on the outside. Watch the beautiful positioning that he takes on this deep post. Watch Malcolm Butler get in position, not panic, be able to get in a perfect hip position, goes high, high points the ball, catches it, beautiful interception. You can't play that any better when you're alone in man-to-man on a deep post route. Last play we're going to look at. Now we're down here in the red zone. Watch Malcolm Butler when they try to throw the fade in the red zone. Again, the DJ chart. Watch Malcolm Butler's positioning. Watch his hand get up into the basket for this throw. It goes right to the end zone. That is the best that you can do in the low red zone on a takeoff. Malcolm Butler was perfect all day man-to-man matchup against the type receiver. What a great day for number 21, Malcolm Butler.


Hi, and how are you all today? The question says prove that the curve x is equal to y square and xy is equal to k cut at y-tangles if 8k square is equal to 1. Now here we are given two equations that is x is equal to y square and xy is equal to k. Now here let this be the first equation and this be the second equation. Now putting the value 1 in second, we get that is if we substitute the value of x as y square in the second equation we have y square into y is equal to k that implies y cube is equal to k that gives us the value of y as k raised to the power 1 by 3 and if the value of y is equal to k raised to the power 1 by 3 then the value of x is equal to y square that will be k raised to the power 1 by 3 into 2 that is further equal to x is equal to k 2 by 3. So now here we can say that therefore intersection k raised to the power 2 by 3 that is x comma k raised to the power 1 by 3 which is seen as x comma y and we have assumed it. Now from first we get x is equal to y square. Now on differentiating this equation with respect to x we have 1 is equal to 2y dy by dx or we can see that dy by dx is equal to 1 upon 2 y at this be the third equation. Now also let this be m1. Now from second equation we get x y is equal to k. Now on differentiating it with respect to x we have x that is on using product truth we have first function to derivative of second plus second function to derivative of first that is 1. Zero because derivative of a constant is equal to zero. So we can write it as therefore dy by dx is equal to minus y by x and let this be m since the curves that is 1 first and second cut each other at right angles at their intersection that we have above as x y let's say so we say that therefore m1 into m2 should be equal to minus 1. Let us substitute the value of m1 and m2 from third and fourth equation. So m1 is found out above as 1 upon 2y into m2 as minus y upon x that is equal to minus 1. Or we have minus 1 upon 2x equal to minus 1 that further implies 2x is equal to 1 that is 2 into we know that value of x that we have found out above in respect to k was k raised to the power 2 by 3 right it is equal to 1 that further implies if we cube both the sides we have 2k 2 by 3 the whole cube equal to 1 cube that is after cubing both sides. So now we have 8k square equal to 1 and this is what we were required to prove. So we can write that we hence we have proved the given question. So this completes the session hope you understood it well and enjoyed it too. Do you remember that if two curves cut each other at right angles at their intersection x y? So m1 into m2 that is where both curves slope is equal to minus 1 right bye for now.


What's up guys take down here with my second vlog. I'm extremely happy the first one. I did I'm really surprised with the Feedback that I got a lot of positive feedback people telling me to just continue doing it sharing your life That's what vlogs about Bringing your viewers into your almost everyday life But I will just say I cannot do this daily or even weekly. So I hope to bring a vlog out Possibly every two weeks. I recently uploaded my first one And it got really good not as many views as I would have hoped for But a lot of people gave me some really good tips Really good encouragement telling me to keep going at it and you know people will be interested the longer you do it So I'm gonna take their word for it. I'm gonna try to keep doing it a little bit longer Don't know if it's gonna be like I said, hopefully every two weeks. I'll bring out a new vlog. So if you're interested in vlogs Subscribe right now. It is still winter here in Canada But I'll show you a minute the view from if you watch the last vlog to this vlog All the ice is gone. But today is a lot colder day than it was the last Vlog so it's pretty interesting. It's been about a week a week Maybe two since I recorded anything for the last vlog So it's it's pretty interesting, but here I'll show you the view first Look at that water open water Beautiful, it's a it's a really cold day compared to the last time I did it and I'm back at the beach at St. Lawrence because Basically, it's the best place to vlog for me Not too many especially this time of year not too many people come down this way So I get quiet and I can go and see whatever I want and it's actually really peaceful to vlog in so I'm happy for that and Just enjoy the view So as always whenever I'm vlogging it's for a purpose. So I actually went out to do something It's not just me sitting at home Recording a video or editing a video. So today I went to the bank I'm not gonna show footage of inside the bank to me I don't I don't feel right doing that But I just had to go to the ATM at the bank take money out because I do have to pay rent even though I live at home I offer to pay I'm not gonna get into details of how much I pay per month, but It's not too bad. It's nice, but actually oh for the next three months. So I decided I'll go to the bank today and As I was going out anyways, I decided to do that Also while I was out to the dollar store is really close within walking distance So I just walked to the dollar store. I picked up some stuff and actually I'll just show you really quick Since I am getting my own vehicle I already have one of these but it just it's something that I really need because you guys know the love of music to me So $1.50 at the dollar store Really cheap and it's just an ox cord plug it into the van plug it into my phone Listen to my music rock it while I'm driving. That's usually what I do and I love doing it I do it safe though and as you can see You can actually see him behind me today. I am parts last vlog whenever I started off I was parts to I was really concerned that people are gonna say you're driving while vlogging which I would never do I don't even call or text while driving because I don't believe in it And that's just me, but I did go pick that up at the dollar store. So I was really happy about that also Have picked up at the dollar store because last time I was there. There was literally nothing I pretty much got him sold out So he has some upper-deck series one and series two so I picked up two packs They're more expensive than any other packs have purchased at the dollar store And the dollar store is the only local store that actually sells hockey cards So I'm glad he has some in now. So I'll open these up tonight. I'll probably show you that But really quick, I'm gonna be on my way to the post office Hopefully if I can get some good footage of Inside I'll show you what I'm getting. I do know there's something there today for me It's either gonna be a hopefully a taste test or an unboxing video I do have multiple things on the way, but you guys will see everything tonight. So let's just go to the post office Okay, so I am home got back from the post office a little while ago and here's what I got It's actually really lights Really small light box from Thailand I know exactly what it is or I'm pretty sure I know what it is because I only have one thing come from Thailand And that is going to be an Easter video. I can't wait to do it. It's gonna be really interesting It's gonna be a taste test slash unboxing. So we'll get ready for that. It's either gonna be up Sunday Easter Sunday or Easter Monday depends on which day I have off because I know one year The store closed on the Sunday and one year the store closed on the Monday, so it depends also, I went back to the dollar store after I recorded my intro and As I said, I picked up two packs of upper-deck series to I Decided I wanted more because I know I'm not gonna go back to the dollar store and be able to get hockey herds in the next Couple weeks. So I got another pack of series two and also I got three packs of series one So I'm hoping to get some young guns. I'm gonna go eat really quick I'm probably gonna edit a video Listen to music maybe before I record these videos. Alright, so now I'm just editing a another video really quick This one should be up in a couple weeks If not April 1st or 2nd week of April, I hope It's gonna be the big game jerky taste test. So stay tuned for that if you're interested But I'm gonna try to edit this really quick and then I'm gonna go and record the Unboxing for what I got today. I'm pretty sure it's pocky But that's the only thing I think of that came from Thailand and then I'll open up my hockey cards And I'll give you guys the update on that. Alright, so I am back. I just opened up the box and recorded it It's for Easter. I'll show you guys that in a second of what product it was I also just did open up my series one and series two hockey cards from upper-deck this year Let me show you what was in the box really quick I don't know if you guys can see that or even if you guys know what it is, but it is pocky sticks This is what my Easter video is going to be me taste testing a bunch of pocky flavors No spoilers I'm not letting you guys know what I liked best or what I liked worst But that is my Easter video now that I'm done recording those videos I'm probably gonna go edit them now And then I'm probably gonna go on my ps4 game for the rest of the night. So that's what I do That's kind of how I wind down for the night probably put some music on listen to it So hope you guys did enjoy this is my second vlog. I do hope to make more in the future Like I said, I hope to do one every two weeks It might not always be like this where I show you just stuff that happened one day I might split it up. I might show you like over the course of the two weeks different things I did really quick and smaller clips, but I like doing these you guys have some really good support and I just thank you guys so much for it.  I hope to do another video another vlog soon. I'm really enjoying it I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's that I'm sharing my life with you guys more and sharing my life On the channel is more or if it's just I really enjoy doing it I'm not comfortable filming in public yet. Hopefully one day But it is what it is. I've already talked way too much in this vlog It might be way longer than what I wanted. So I will end it here. Take care. Peace


The study investigates the complexities of cellular senescence, a state resulting from genotoxic injury that alters cellular metabolism and lysosomal activity. The secretory phenotype, SASP, produced by senescent cells has both beneficial and harmful effects on health. A meta-analysis of protein content in SASP obtained from different research groups was conducted, categorizing the data based on cell type, harmful agent, and senescent stage. Genontology and network analysis identified common and specific features of different senescent phenotypes, potentially paving the way for the development of new senopherapeutic drugs aimed at combating negative consequences associated with senescence. This article was authored by Yoho Gouma, Nicola Olesio, Domenico April, and others.


Residents of a besieged Afghan city have been urged to evacuate ahead of an army operation against the Taliban. General Sami Sadat, who is leading the battle against the Taliban in the southern province of Helmad, called on the people to leave its capital, Laxargarh as soon as possible. At least 40 civilians have been killed in Laxargarh in the past day amid intense fighting, the UN says. The Taliban are reported to have captured most of the city, but the fighting is continuing and the government forces have vowed not to let it fall into militant hands.


What better day than the day that we're celebrating the resurrection power of Jesus Christ? Because baptism, what it is, it's symbolic of our old man going into the water and as we come out of the water, our new man is coming to life through the power of Jesus Christ, the resurrection power of Jesus living inside of us. And so right now, we have seven lovely people who are going to be getting baptized today. So let's put our hands together for Jesus Christ, for saving their souls and their dedication to Jesus Christ. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll the first clip. Hi, my name is Sarah Jardinship and I'm a Savior now, seven years old. Since then, I've been practicing to join the worship team with Elixandra. I've been reading my Bible and my life's been more happy. Today I'm getting baptized because I want everyone to know that I'm following Jesus Christ. Sarah, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes. And do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes. Based on your faith, your confession and your commitment, will baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hi, my name is Francisco. I've been coming to Hungry Gen for three years. God has saved me from depression and suicidal thoughts. I've been serving faithfully all this time in camera team, security, and anywhere where I can help.  So, Francisco, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes. And do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes. Based on your faith, your confession, and your commitment, will baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is Omar Pulido. I was raised in a Catholic household. I always knew about the idea of following Jesus. I never really dabbled in it too much. My parents had an idea of, hey, maybe you guys should do this. They would never really pressure us into doing it. Just the idea of having a place like that was never something we messed with. A couple years ago, I had friends trying to get me to visit church with them. I never really went. I really saw a reason to didn't think about what people think.  It wasn't until my life started spiraling, started, you know, heavy on drugs, heavy on alcohol, started dabbling into things I shouldn't be doing, not really content and happy with what was going on that I said maybe this isn't for me. On December 23rd, this last year, I went to service for the first time and it's probably the best decision I ever made. I dedicated my life to following Jesus at that very service and I haven't looked back since. And today, I'm choosing to be baptized in my next step in this path to following Jesus Christ. So Omar, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Do you promise to follow Him with good and fair conscience for the rest of your life? Yes.  This is Anna from Salis. I dedicated my life to Christ about a year ago. Some of the good things that he's helped me get through is my depression and anxiety. And today, I'm getting baptized to let the world know that I'm giving my life to Jesus. Come on, let's put our hands together for Jesus. Amen. So Anna, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes. And do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes.  I'm dedicated my life to Jesus. One of the things I used to struggle with was isolation and depression and just not thinking I was worthy enough of anything. At the Race to Deliver Conference, I really dedicated myself to Jesus. My life since then has been so much better, full of joy. I believe in myself and I just want to continue sharing it to the world. And today, I'm getting baptized because I want the world to know that I'm following Jesus. Amen. Ricardo, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes. And do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes.  I've been a hungry generation church often for a couple of years. I recently, about four months ago, came to a prophetic word on a Saturday. I was extremely, extremely touched. And at that moment, I rededicated my life to Christ. And prior to my rededication, I had extreme anxiety and had struggled for less with sleeping, not being able to sleep, waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares. But since my rededication, I have not had one sleepless night, not one. I constantly am praying throughout my day. Just, it's like a normal conversation, but it's just Him and me. And everything I do, I know. I peace there with me every day. I feel joy and I feel peace that I've never felt ever before. And I'm going to get baptized because I want the world to know that I live for Jesus. Sherry, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes. And do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes.  This is Selena and I rededicated my life to Jesus a week ago. Before that, I was dealing with a lot of anxiety, depression and isolation for over four years. And after my baptism, I'm really excited to see what the Lord has in store for me. And today I'm getting baptized because I want everyone to know I'm following Jesus. Selena, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes. And do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes.  To Christ, I'm getting baptized to show the world I'm following Jesus. Amen. So Aliana, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes. And do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes.  I gave my life to Christ when I was 17. After that, though, I fell into some sin. I had a really heavy sin with drugs and unhealthy toxic abusive relationships. Now that I've been rebuilding my relationship with Jesus Christ and coming to church, I am just full of joy and I'm so grateful. I wake up every morning with a grateful heart. And wanting to live for Him, wanting to serve Him, it's no longer all about me and what I can get, it's what I can give. Today I'm getting baptized because I want everyone to know that I'm following Jesus. So Katie, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes. Do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes.  Thank you for watching this content. I know this was a blessing to you. We would like to ask you to subscribe to our channel and click on the bell on our channel so that each time we upload something, you can be notified. Don't forget to share this content with your friends and family and on social media. We're so thankful to you. Better is not good enough. The best is yet to come.


I've got to say, we are living in the weirdest timeline ever, and I feel like this article headline that I'm about to read to you is evidence that we are, in fact, living in a simulation. So Newsweek reports, J.K. Rowling and YouTuber Vosh spar over International Women's Day tweet. Yes, you heard that correctly. This is real. This is a Newsweek article about a Twitter fight between J.K. Rowling and Vosh.  She thought that she would kind of own him by screenshotting something that he said in response, but she made herself look so unreasonable here. So let's read a little bit of the article and then we'll get into the back and forth and I'll tell you my thoughts on it. Matt Keely of Newsweek explains on Tuesday, Rowling shared a tweet that some users found transphobic. That day, the U.K.'s left-wing Labour Party's Equality Shadow Minister, Annalise Dodds, said on the BBC Women's Hour Radio program that there were different definitions about what makes a woman. Dodds was speaking in a discussion about Scotland's gender recognition reform bill, which would make it easier for transgender people to change their legal gender. Someone please send the Shadow Minister for Equalities, a Dictionary, and a Backbone. Hashtag Happy International Women's Day, Rowling tweeted, apparently under a Labour government, today will become We Who Must Not Be Named Day, she added. In response, popular left-wing YouTube personality Ian Vash Kaczynski slammed the writer Tuesday afternoon.  Women be quieter and start apologizing challenge. Now, he's very obviously being facetious. Vash sometimes memes a little bit too close to the sun, but that's why we all love him. He's very edgy and he's entertaining. So he explained later on and during that stream that he actually didn't expect her to see this obviously, because she is incredibly famous. Like a lot of YouTubers, Vash shitposts into what you think is the ether, and he explained that. He didn't think she'd see this tweet. I oftentimes will just tweet at politicians, almost never expect them to see it. For example, not too long ago, I think like a couple of weeks ago, I tweeted about how Rick Scott looks eerily similar to a Titan, but I didn't actually expect him to see that and respond. And, you know, sometimes celebrities will see our responses and they'll block us. I've been blocked by Patricia Arquette, Megan McCain, Neera Tandon. There's also some country star. He blocked me. I have never even heard of him. So, you know, oftentimes they'll see us and then they'll just block us. Rarely do they ever engage, but in this instance, J.K. Rowling actually chose to engage and I really shouldn't say engage, but she tried to do a gotcha of Vash. And she ends up saying something so stupid, I think that she has to feel embarrassed, right? If this were me, I would delete my Twitter. She compared what Vash said to her abusive ex-husband. So she screenshotted what he said and she responded by saying, Right, but in this situation, you're the bully. You're the abuser who's trying to silence trans people into compliance.  You're the one who's the abuser here. Now, Vash responded by low-key bodying her. He said, Listen, Joanne, you don't get to play the victim card when you're the advocate for taking away women's rights here.  Quit making your feelings other people's oppression. He added complaining about how victimized you are when you're a billionaire being mocked for opposing civil rights is the height of crybullying. And he absolutely nailed it. I mean, it's so ironic that she would compare Vash to her ex-husband who's an abuser when Vash is sticking up to trans people who she currently is abusing. She's using her gigantic platform, millions of followers to advocate against trans rights. And, you know, she's not the victim here, as Vash pointed out. She is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. She might actually be a billionaire. I don't know how much her net worth is currently. But I mean, this is someone in a position of power so advantageous that most human beings on this planet will not experience her level of privilege. But here she is pretending as if she's this victim and she's getting bullied by Vash on Twitter.   You're the abuser here. Now, Vash reacted to all of this in real time during his 24-hour charity stream for Ukraine. And here's his immediate reaction when he responded. How does it feel to be living in the timeline where JK Rowling compares you to her ex-husband? I gotta say, I have absolutely no respect for people who allow their trauma to become other people's problems. JK Rowling has been doing this for like two years now. Well, it's like, well, I may want to take away people's civil rights. But when the people are mean to me in response that reminds me of my abuse of ex- I don't give a f***. Yeah, just go to therapy, lady. Yeah, so there you have it. I tuned in. He talked about this a little bit more. He found out that Newsweek wrote an article about this while he was trying to beat Margit. It's the first boss in Elden Ring. Great game, by the way. That was a very entertaining stream. But yeah, it's just it's so weird to see JK Rowling, one of the most powerful people, one of the richest people on the planet respond to a YouTuber. Because I mean, I'm also a YouTuber. So, you know, oftentimes, we will say things that we never expect people in power to see. But in this instance, it's so strange that JK Rowling chose to respond. And the way that she responded to Vosh was so unhinged, so weird, that it almost feels surreal, like it's difficult to actually believe that this is reality. She not only responded to Vosh, but she had the audacity to compare him to her violent ex-husband.  You are what you used to hate.  Sorry, but it's true. The way that you constantly demonize and vilify trans people who are fighting for their lives currently and their rights, it's despicable. It's abusive. It's violence. And you should be ashamed of yourself. But she has no shame. And she's going to continue to double and triple and quadruple down, because she feels as if I don't know, she's backed into a corner. And she, you know, there's no way out of this. So she just has to prove her point. But unfortunately for you, history is not going to go in your direction. We're going to go in the direction of justice.  But if you are going to say things about trans people, be unnecessarily antagonistic, we know how you feel you hate trans people, we get it.


Hi, everyone. My name's Thomas Payne. I'm here to talk about game co-monads and an equi-ranked variable homomorphism preservation conjecture, which is a bit of a mouthful, sorry about that, but the title just pretty much describes the two parts of the talk. So part one is on game co-monads and this is building on work. So there's one paper on the pebblin co-monad by Abramsky, Dawa and Wang, and then there's another paper on similar co-monads I think coming out soon by Abramsky and Shah. So those are the things that I'm going to talk about in the first section, just to sort of be able to discuss the application to a homomorphism preservation theorem, which is going to be a slight refinement of what's called the equi-ranked homomorphism preservation theorem, which was proved by Rossman. So just to set the scene, we'll be working in a category of relational structures. So we're going to have a finite vocabulary of solely consisting of relations and the associated category of sets which interpret those relations and morphisms between those sets. And then sometimes we like to talk about the category of those structures with an associated distinguished tuple and morphisms between those which preserve not only the relations but also the distinguished tuple. And we're going to consider the set of first-order sentences over the vocabulary sigma up to just first-order equivalents. And we're just going to consider that to be a poset. So we're going to identify things which are the same and have this order if one implies the other. And we would like to pick out at the beginning the positive existential sentences, which one's built using only exists and all. And also we'll talk about formulas with sorry, so we'll talk about sentences most of the time and then sometimes talk about formulas with some number of free variables. And when these formulas are interpreted by structures in C sigma with the tuples interpreting the free variables. So a nice picture we can draw between existential positive sentences and finite structures. Sorry, this category is a category of finite structures on the previous slide but I didn't say it. Is that of the canonical query and the canonical query is a first-order positive existential formula and it just picks out all of the relations that are true of a given structure. So we just take one quantifier for each element of the structure and then we just take the disjunction of all of the relations that they satisfy. And this is kind of you could describe this in a more abstract way. So it's the formula with these properties that is the largest, so it's the maximal positive existential formula according to this order that A satisfies. And we can phrase almost all there is to know about it by saying this is a surjective and full functor. So this is actually the sort of collapsing if you like of the category fc sigma. And this is an example so if you've got a functor, if you've got a morphism, then functoriality is telling you precisely that the canonical query of B should entail the canonical query of A. So what we're interested in doing is seeing how this picture works when we consider different fragments of first-order logic. So we can break down, first of all, by quantifier rank. So that's the nesting depth of quantifiers in a given sentence. And we can also break down by the number of variables as well as quantifier rank. So number of variables, you do have to do this funny thing where you quantify over a variable and then you at some point later introduce a new quantifier using the same variable. So that means you have to forget what it was before. So you kind of limited quantifier rank and then you have this other sort of limited memory or resource if you like. And we're going to see how this picture works that we drew before with regards to these smaller fragments. So the first thing we can do is define a sort of analog of the canonical query. And so it's going to have this property, it's going to be the maximal formula in ln plus that A satisfies. So that's property one and two. And we can define it in a much more direct way than before because ln plus is actually a finite poset unlike l plus. So we can just take the disjunction of all of the formulas that A satisfies. And this also works for infinite structures, which is nice. But this is no longer a full functor. It's still subjective. But sorry, I just sort of repeated it for emphasis on this slide. So we define this sort of 2n relation, which is kind of just the pre-image if you like of this relation here. And so a homomorphism is not implied. So just because the n canonical query of B implies the n canonical query of A, it doesn't mean there's a homomorphism from A to B unlike in the previous case with finite structures. So this is a kind of important relation in general in finite model theory and model theory. And so we're looking for the compositional structure behind this, if you like, in order to have a similar story to what we had before. So we can look at those structures whose pre-image, sorry, who mapped into ln plus under the canonical query. That's another good place to look. And those are structures with forest covers. So forest cover is just a forest on the same set. So forest cover of structure A is a forest on the same set. And you have to pick roots of the forest. And then you say that its depth is the length from the longest length of a path from the root to a leaf. And then if two elements of A ever occur together in a relation, then they must be on the same branch of the forest. So what's that got to do with restricted quantifier rank? Well, you imagine if you wanted to write, if you wanted to list the canonical query out in the same way that we did before, but this just tells you how to structure the canonical query. So you imagine just kind of writing it on this forest cover, and this condition that two elements of A who occur together in the same tuple must lie on the same branch tells you that you're not going to miss any relations. So this is quite important. And so this is called a structure with who, the least answer to that structure has a forest cover of depth N is called its tree depth. And this is an important parameter. And here's just an example. So I have my structure A, and I can give it a two forest cover. So if we look at, you know, let's say D is on the same, well D is on the same branch as everything. So B is on the same branches, C and A, which is good. And B and F, for example, are on different branches, but there's no there's no relation between B and F. So the relations are only between the things with arrows between them in the structure. We can put these together into a category. So we need to, you know, you could just take the subcategory of C sigma, which is structures with forest covers, but we get slightly more juice out of it than that by taking the category of pairs of structures and a forest cover. And then if you want amorphous in between them, you need amorphous and obviously of the underlying structures. And then you need to preserve what is the order that is induced by the forest cover. So really what you need is the branch relation being preserved. And we have then a pretty obvious functor that just forgets the relation. And what we're really interested in is the co monad that this will define on CN because this UN has a right adjoint and the co monad has a lot of nice properties that result in co monad. So in particular, so if we define EN to be this co monad, its co clisely category is the thing that kind of completes the picture, giving us this full and subjective functor using the N canonical query. So in other words, we if I had this relation, this relation is now captured by amorphism from ENA to be and co algebras again, because it is the because it is the co monad arising out of this particular adjunction, a co algebra will just be an end forest cover. So this gives us the compositional relation that we wanted and to boot it gives us a categorical description of tree depth.  And this is, you know, a lot of stuff to take in, but this is just a concrete definition. So you take lists of non empty sequences of length at most N, and you define the relations on us to be the set, and then you define the relations on it to be, well, you take, you say that two sequences are comparable, if one is a sequence of the other. So you can imagine this being like two elements lying on the same branch, if you like. And then you say that, but you also need to say that the last element, so this epsilon picks out the last element of a sequence, and the the relation should hold between the last elements. So there's kind of some intuition there that these pods maybe like sub trees of sub forests, perhaps of EN, are going to somehow correspond to co-algebras, why did they do correspond exactly to co-algebras, like we want them to. And what co-algebras and forest covers like we want them to. So sub trees are going to correspond to co-algebras, and they also correspond to forest covers, which is where that correspondence is going to come from. So this in terms of sets, it just is the or the non-empty list co-monad on sets. It's worth pointing out, so I didn't mention them, they just appeared on the slide, but there are these things called aerofoil-frase games, which capture the n-morphism relation. And we can equally have motivated this definition by looking at strategies in the aerofoil-frase game, so that's discussed in more detail in the paper. But it's nice to know that this is a kind of quite robust definition, because you can arrive at it in more than one way. So we can do a very similar thing when we also restrict the number of variables, we just have to carry along this restriction with us, but it's not too complicated. So how do we get, how do we pick out a structure whose canonical query can be written with most k variables, as well as quantifier n, well it needs to have this thing called an nk cover. So an nk cover, first of all you have an n-forest cover and then on top of it you have a labeling function. So if you want your, if you can only use k variables to talk about a structure, what happens when you relabel something is you forget the thing that you were talking about before. So this condition here I've written out in full, so if you have two elements who you want to be related somehow, then they should lie on the same branch because it's a forest cover and then one has to come before the other. So let's say a comes before b on the branch, then you can't repeat the label of a on the way to b, including at b. So that's kind of saying, well how do you, how do you then get this formula? Well you just take the label to be which, which variable you quantify over to talk about the element. And the least k such that you can find an nk cover for any n is called tree width and that's a very important wealth state parameter as well. So if we just take a little example of that, so this is going to need at least three labels to, so we had this forest cover from before and this will need at least three labels to forest cover it. So let's see why. Well if you imagine, if I take a look at d, so d is going to have a label, let's say it's got a label one. d and c have, there's an edge between d and c, so that means that d and c have to have, d and the label of d cannot be repeated. So b and c must have different labels to d, but there's also an edge bc, so that means b and c have to have different labels. So between db and c, I need at least three labels. It's worth noting that if the, the number of labels that you need is always at most the depth of the forest. So we can get a co-monad and we'll call that pnk in a very similar way. So we get one arising out of some junction between this category of pairs of structures and nk covers and then everything runs exactly as it did before. So the co-clisely category will give us a compositional structure behind this nk morphism. We can define nk queries and so on and nk covers will tell us about tree width I suppose as well as tree depth if you ignore k and tree width if you ignore n. And there's a corresponding game called the n round k pebble game and kind of as I noted you can always, if you don't care that much about k so you just want to get en back, then you can actually use pnn because it's not a restriction to be able to use n labels to label a tree of depth n. So the sort of concrete description is very similar to before but we need to carry around the labels of our elements within pnn. So the universe is sequences of length at most n of pairs a plus a label for a. When you define relations so you need the following two relations, two conditions as was there previously and then you need to say that if si is a subsequence of sj then the label which is I've denoted here pi a does not occur again in the sort of suffix of si and sj. So sj is remember a super sequence of si so you can't use the label of si again in t which is the suffix. So the the action on morphisms, the co-incommonplication etc are very similar to before you just carry on so this is the only place really where we say anything about the labels other than that they just sort of carried along and we will comment again that we can arrive at this definition as well by looking at strategies in the n round k pebble game much like we could look at strategies in the n round for a phrase again to get this co-monad so again this has this sort of robustness of having multiple ways to arrive at its definition. So I've just sort of summarized both on this page so you might like to pause it if I was going way too fast which I probably was. So this is what's nice here is that this kind of drives home the point is what we're doing is looking at things in finite model theory and then tidying it up using ideas of semantic ideas coming from category theory i.e our whole picture we can condense into the features of a single categorical construction which is this co-monad so it tells us about these n morphisms it tells us about these forest covers and it tells us about tree depth all in one. So I mentioned at the beginning we would talk about formulas with free variables and associated structures with distinguished tuples and you can run exactly the same story so I could have just done it with this along the way but it probably would have been more irritating just to carry them along. So all we really need to know is what are n forest covers and nk covers in order to make all of our definitions. So an nk cover of a with a distinguished tuple a bar is just an n plus l k cover of a but with the it's a special cover of a where you have to assume that you've put a one up to a l at the top of the forest so I suppose they'll make it into a tree because they're all at the top of the forest and you just color a well you label a one with one and a l with l. So yeah what's kind of going on there is everything should be able to see a one up to a l so you can think about a formula with free variables as kind of being like a formula with not free variables but you just quantified over those at the beginning and therefore everything should be in the scope of those and then the corresponding co monad we get we've used the same label for because it's identical pretty much is then going to be the the sub co monad or the sub set of p n plus l k um no sorry the definition's a bit wrong there so that should say p n k and this should say p n plus l k and it's all those sub sequences which start with this sequence um a one one up to a l or they don't necessarily start it could be a subsequence of that so they are the start they're comparable with that um and you can do the same thing for e n so I just did the slightly more uh complicated one which was p n okay so now we'll move on to talk briefly about the homomorphism preservation theorems there's going to be less detail in this section because there is a well there's a lot of detail on it in the paper um because it's sort of technical and fiddly so we're going to try and avoid talking about the technical and fiddly stuff um so what is the sort of the the basic homomorphism preservation theorem um so it's a classic uh theorem of model theory uh is that if you have a formula preserved under homomorphisms so that is to say if a models a formula um and there's a homomorphism from a to another structure b then b must also model that formula and I can find some existential positive phi which also models um or which is equivalent to sorry I said phi existential positive psi there's equivalent to phi uh rosman improved this um by by using uh or by even keep the quantifier rank constant so if I knew that the quantifier rank of my formula that I started with which was preserved under homomorphisms was n then the quantifier rank of the formula that I end up with um is also at most n so the you prove this as you might expect I suppose by you know you use a lot everywhere all of the definitions and theory from the last section um so we can reformulate the proof of it um phrasing things in terms of the encomonad rather than those sort of raw ideas in a slightly more uh categorical way I suppose um so that leads us to the following conjecture so this was from bransky just the the idea is pretty simple as well we we've got this theorem we proved using the encomonad um and we have this other comonad which looks very similar so uh can we just replace en by p and k and get the uh equi rank variable homomorphism preservation that I shouldn't say hp t I suppose it should just say hp um conjecture and uh which just says you can preserve as well as the the quantifier rank the number of variables um and get the same thing and so no this is currently still a sort of conjecture in the general case so we can prove it in the case where n is not that much bigger than k um so remember if n equals k that's just the equi uh equi rank theorem when n equals k so if n is a little bit bigger than k we can prove it so it's a slight refinement uh but not by much uh so the idea is can we just replace it and the answer is not in general so my story beforehand was that en and p and k share lots of similar properties um and in investigating this we found one that they didn't share um uh which is unfortunate because then we couldn't just carry over the proof uh so namely that is that uh en distributes over co-products in c sigma l so that was why I uh introduced how en uh acted on c sigma l so I can talk about this um so that's just to say in particular that I can find amorphism from en of a plus b to en of a plus en of b so just as a sort of heads up how what are these co-products look like in the category c sigma l you kind of you take the disjoint union of a and b you then uh then you identify as you take a quotient uh and you identify the elements of the tuple of a with the elements of the tuple uh the corresponding elements of the tuple of b and then the relations you take by just literally taking the disjoint union of the of the relations so we could phrase that um in terms of just um en morphism so the kind of property that we want is that if there is an en morphism from a to c and an en morphism from b to c then there should be an en morphism from a a plus b to c um but this fails in general um in c sigma l if n is anywhere bigger than k pretty much so if n is bigger than k plus one this fails um so just have a little look at the proof of how this um fact works um and what do you do you take so you take your so I want a homomorphism from en a plus b to en a plus en b um so I take an element of it uh and if so this is a horrible notation but it is sort of the correct notation um so if the last element of that sequence is in a but not um not one of the distinguished elements um then I just delete all of the elements of b to get a sequence of a um and if it was one of the distinguished elements um then I just set f of s to be um the sequence the subsequence um a one up to ai so why that kind of works is that this in this case it's kind of obvious why it works I suppose the fact that a and b don't interact so I'm going to preserve last elements of sequences I'm going to preserve subsequences um and that's exactly what you need to to be a homomorphism if you if you go back and double check the definition of en a um and then this will also preserve last elements and it's also going to preserve comparability of sequences precisely because uh all of the sequences were in the definition of um en a on uh en on the category with distinguished tubules or assumed to start be comparable to these sequences anyway um but so what's going to go wrong when we use p n k is there was that third condition in the definition is we needed to preserve comparability of sequences we needed to preserve last elements and then we also couldn't overwrite labels so we don't really know what to do when we're looking at the distinguished elements um and when we try and do this for p n k and in fact this just doesn't work so we'll just give a counter example in a second so here we go um so here's my counter example so this top one is my structure a so if i have some relation r and it's just this three cycle and then i have this seven length loop um so i'm just going to move this i have this seven length uh seven length loop um so what's going on is um well sorry i have my seven length path and then i have just a unary relation on b4 and if i take the co-products of a with distinguished element a1 and b with distinguished element b4 then i glue this onto this along a it's glued on to b um and the property is that a should now have a kind of path of three elements so the the resulting co-product will have a path of three elements such that the first element satisfies you and the second element satisfies you um so that will that will be satisfied by a plus b but both a and b uh map onto b and uh but then a b doesn't have this property that there is a path of three things with the first element satisfying you and the second element satisfying you so there's no way b um this will be a formula that a sat a plus b satisfies and b does not so that's you you just can't have this morphism in general that i claimed uh so let me move this back again um right so we're going to just give a very short sketch of the proof of the equi rank hbt um so we can reduce it pretty quickly um to a slightly easier thing to prove um so a formula is preserved under n morphisms uh implies that is equivalent to a positive existential formula so how do you do that you literally just take the disjunction uh of um all of the n canonical queries and again we're relying on the fact that there are only finitely many positive existential formulas so this is a finite disjunction and it's pretty easy to check the satisfy this well this formula is well it's pretty trivial that it has quantifier rank at most n and uh will be equivalent to um theta precisely because theta is preserved under n morphisms um and then using the comb on it we can kind of reduce this one step further because we can factor um uh general n morphism into uh the the special n morphism from a into e n of a and then um a homomorphism so we would all we need to prove now is that any formula preserved under homomorphisms is preserved under this particular n morphism from a into e m a b j um so we'll just give another one more definition uh so a this is a grading elementary equivalence so a is equivalent to m b if uh for every formula in l n a believes phi if and only if b believes phi so this is not just positive existential ones anymore um and why is this what uh we define this just to say this is now the um more thing another thing that we can sort of transport um formulas in l m through because obviously any formula or bounded quantifier rank is preserved under this thing and um so just we can use that to to restate the hp t at the bottom there um so because any formula of quantifier rank n is preserved under this thing so being we now need to prove that being preserved under this relation and homomorphisms implies being preserved under that and that will be sufficient um and just a few notes about this um why do we talk about it and why do we need this thing uh why do we need to consider extra um and why do we need to consider uh structures with distinguished elements when we you know we're not working in those categories at all um and the answer is it's to build these um partial isomorphisms uh which can be used to characterize uh this relation so this can be characterized by another version of the aerofoid phrase a game where you extend sequences of partial isomorphisms um and this this relation which should have an n here sorry um so if you have a morphism an n morphism one way and back then that implies a partial isomorphism between the distinguished elements which is what we use to build on so we use companion structures um in order to try and do this so if we want to prove being preserved under this move from a to e na is um implied by being preserved under morphisms and really what we need to do is you know chase some diagrams so if we can find an a tilde and e na tilde uh then that will be good enough so we could just chase theta around there because preserved under homomorphisms and then through here because it has quantifier at most n and then down again uh so i'm just going to give a very brief intuition on how you construct it because the the sort of quite detailed um so the idea is to build a superstructure of a which we'll call uh sigma uh well it's called a tilde uh which is very good at extending partial isomorphisms because then we'll be able to find this relation much easier um and we do that by taking an increasing sequence of structures sigma i and at each step we add elements from it in order to be able to extend partial isomorphisms that are involved with that uh or involve sigma i of a so we add elements so that it becomes better um at extending partial isomorphisms um and then if we take a co-limit all of those things uh it will be able to extend partial isomorphisms from itself essentially uh rather than just for the previous um sequence structure in the chain and so i've just included a note here that we do in fact use these co-products a lot um so i mean again these aren't structures in c sigma so we need to use this co-product over c sigma l um and then forget it back down into into c sigma um and e na is constructed in an identical way um and again they're both very good at extending partial isomorphisms because they have a sort of basic relationship between them that implies this um and elementary equivalence up here to complete the diagram for us um so as i stated here this is where it's not going to work in general for for p n k so this only works when again n is not that much bigger than k uh so it's smaller than k plus two we managed to approve just by kind of fudging something through so our previous gen more sort of general lemma that we needed failed about distribution over co-products failed when n was bigger than k plus one but we can get one better um so this is just a few comments so uh this is quite a complicated construction and a reasonable question is you know it does weigh more than is necessary so for example there's symmetry between en a tilde and a tilde and that's completely unnecessary you know they're both satisfying more properties than they need to because they need to satisfy different properties and they satisfy all the same properties um so we ask like can you tweak it and it turns out to be quite difficult so it seems every time you try and change one thing to get one property that you need then you happen to kind of lose another one um but it's not uh it's not necessary that this should work so we have found a difference between the co-pliesely categories of en and the co-pliesely categories of pnk so it might be that that is sufficient to find a counter example or force it uh force it there so that's the end of my talk so thanks for watching um and yeah just to say stay tuned because there's hopefully going to be more work in this vein about co-monuts and co-monuts similar to these coming out in the future