Hello, I'm your host Alex Friedberg and this is the Alex the Analyst Show. Thank you so much for joining me today. We are discussing no code analytics. What on earth is no code analytics? Should I be worried? Why do I keep seeing advertisements on every social media platform about no code analytics? We are going to be discussing this today going, you know, hopefully a little bit in depth about this topic. What is it? You know, is this for you? Is this something that you should be interested in? Should you be worried? And then we have some other really good segments at the end. I hope you stick around for that. So let's jump right into it to answer the question that we all want to know. What is no code analytics? I'm trying to see how many times I can say no code analytics within the first minute of this video. So far it's a lot. So what it does is theoretically what it's supposed to do is it's supposed to allow you to build an entire ETL pipeline, gather, you know, your insights, create dashboards and automate this whole process and do it in a unique way. From what I've seen just right off the bat, we'll get into some better examples, more specific examples. It looks to me like it's just kind of a fancy different way of automating certain features of everything. You're automating some of the ETL stuff, there's apps for that.  There's apps for that. So it's kind of trying to combine everything almost into one platform in a sense and do all the work for you so you don't need developers, you don't need data architects, all of these things. It's trying to really mostly be a solution for small companies, small to medium companies is kind of what it's targeted at. It's not for big companies because I think there's just a lot more complexity in that. So it's definitely targeted towards smaller, smaller to medium sized companies and like startups really. I'm going to pull up some stuff really quick. Has anyone seen the advertisement that has been going around for bubble? It boasts that you can build a world class web app in days, no experience required. And the advertisement, the one that I laugh at every single time I see it, the caption is, I'm a CTO and I don't know how to code. And in the comments section is just a bunch of programmers and developers who are literally just roasting this guy. And every time I look at it, every time I see that thing, I always go into the comments and read or I always go to the comment section and read those comments because they're just roasting this guy. And it's so funny to me. And I totally get it. It's just so pompous to be like, I'm a CTO and I don't know how to do any of this stuff when there's people who are like absolute experts at this and could probably be a lot more beneficial, but maybe he has a business background or some type of technical background, but it's just super ironic. And the whole idea of it is kind of saying, we don't really need developers anymore. We've automated this process. You don't need them with this. And so it's just really, really interesting. I'm going to go to this thing. It's called Quirvy. Now, Quirvy is a no-code analytics platform. Never heard of them before I started doing this research. None of that. But they give a kind of a good description of what no-code analytics is. And I want to read that to you. It says, this is way down in the article. And I don't know if I can remember. I'm going to link all these articles below just so you can read them. Look, this website says, analytic apps are built around the same charts, reports, metrics, and dashboards that you already know. Only now they're wrapped inside a modern application framework that offers powerful features like automation and information distribution along with data collection and security. So real quick, all that really told us is, you're getting a lot of the things that you're already getting, but we're going to automate it and we're going to distribute that information. Now, it talks a little bit more about that. And what they do is they create custom URLs that instead of having to, for you to go and pull up the report and actually look at it and run the report, I mean, which can take half a minute, it saves you all that time by sending you a link. And so you can just click on that link and brings you it and it pulls up all the information. So, you know, it saves you a little bit of time to be fair. Could be very valuable to some people who don't have the tech savvy to go into a dashboard and pull up yourself. I want to read the next one because it's also super interesting. The whole article was super interesting. I rolled my eyes a few times. This one kind of made me roll my eyes. And so I'm just going to read it. But, and this is literally the next paragraph. It says, but even in analytic apps are not enough for today's business world if they require a fleet of developers and tons of time and money to develop and maintain. So true. I've been there. That's why Corby has pioneered the no code analytic app complete analytic solutions that can be built and maintained by average business users. You don't need anyone who knows anything about what they're doing an average business user. That's all you need. What are my thoughts on this? Here's my initial thoughts. I'm going to give you an example. And this isn't my entire belief. I think it's a pretty good representation of how I feel. Let's take for example, and this may or may not be 100% true. But you know, let's say for example, a father takes his son, they go into the kitchen, they start making a pie. Now that kid, he's like two years old. He's just doing whatever, not really paying attention to almost making things worse. And the dad is doing 95% of the work, bakes the pie or not bakes the pie, but gets all the ingredients ready, gets the very end and says, hey son, come over here and help me put the crust on. The son helps put the crust on. He watches his dad put it in the oven. And when it's done, the dad gives him a hug and says, you're a chef, my friend.  Now, is that child actually a chef? No. Does that son know what he's really doing? No. But is the pie made? Yes. But it was done 95% by the father. If you understood why that analogy applies to this, that's basically how I feel about it. I think that you need to know about what you're doing in order to really make this work. And I'm sure, and maybe I'll show a link, or no, I'll probably show a video. What am I even saying? I'll show you this diagram and I'm going to try to pull it up real quick. Give me a second. No, that's not the one I'm looking for. That's not the one I'm looking for. This is the one I'm looking for. I just found it's on bubble. Bubble is that app, that advertisement app. It has this display of how you build it out. And there are things like design, workflow, data, styles, plugins, settings and logs. Those are all the options that are available to you. And it's literally like a tableau style where you drag and drop things into place. I mean, I like the idea. I really do. I like the idea. I understand the concept. And I think for small companies, this may be very useful. Now, will this replace a data analyst? No, this will not replace data analytics. This will not replace this will not replace developers, data analytics, anything at scale. For small companies, they might save money. And this might be useful to them. And they might not have to buy developer or buy developers, hire developers to do this work where they may have in the future. So it may save companies money. But at established companies, they will never use these things. And I'll kind of go into why. Complex data, data that is dirty and messy and all of and everything that goes along with that will never work in these systems ever. And if you try to use them in these systems, it will never work. The kind of data that's going to be useful in this are probably coming out of like CRM systems, online based data collection systems that are automated.  So the data is pretty clean. It's about as clean as you're probably going to get. If you're working with any type of, you know, system that could have potentially dirty data, this will not work. So that's why these small startups and these small companies and might be useful to them. Because it takes away the hassle of having to hire somebody and do all that work and set up your user interface on the front end, as well as build the workflows and the data and all that stuff. So, you know, I go back to will this replace data analysts? No, this won't replace data analysts. And here's why. The first thing is, is this is not data analysts work. This is like, you know, a ton of different jobs put into one done effectively if all the conditions are correct. So, for developers, you're probably not going to be missing out on a ton of jobs. For analysts and architects, you're probably not missing out on a lot of jobs. These are probably places that weren't going to hire analysts and developers anyways. These are small companies like that. Also, data analysts do not only do data visualizations. That is, and I've said it before, 5 to 10%. Now, that's not true. Like 10 to 20% typically of somebody's job as an analyst. A lot of it is data cleaning, creating business rules, ETL process, and you know, finding the insights. Now, it is possible that this, I know, I haven't, I've looked into a little bit and some of these options do help with insights. Like you type in, you know, or you say, I, you know, here are the data points that I want to look at and give me insights into that data. And they automatically take that data and give you insights into it. Maybe useful, maybe not, but one or two might be perfect for you. You click on those and you have those and you can have it refresh the data and send you that report every single morning. Not something that is unique to this. I could do that myself now. If I wanted to, I could do this exact same thing within Tableau and SQL. And it's not crazy hard, right? It is a little bit different in fact that the person doesn't get a URL sent to them, like these people are saying that they do, you have to go and check it yourself. It doesn't save you that much time. So, you know, it's just a very interesting concept. Now I have seen other analytics channels cover this topic. And, you know, I think for the most part what people have said is pretty accurate. And I watched some of these videos because I didn't want to be this uneducated person coming on, you know, my show and saying things that just weren't very accurate or that nobody else agreed with. Not that I would change my opinion. If somebody said that differently, this is my show. I can say whatever I want. But I will say that most of what they said was what I agreed with and what I thought as well, which is this might be good for a small company. But once you get into it, the more advanced things, this probably will, you'll have to, you know, there's plugins that you can add. You'll probably have to start using those plugins. You'll probably have to use some external stuff to get the data cleaner or, you know, for the more advanced things that you want to do with your data. This might not work. So it's just, it's just, it was such, it's such a hot topic to me because I kept seeing it everywhere. Advertisements, I'm seeing people, a few people put out videos for it. I'm, and I'm watching these videos and I'm seeing it on Twitter and I'm seeing, I have to talk about this. The people need to know are people losing jobs over this? They're not. And I just really want to stress to everyone who thought I was kidding earlier, please, if you see the bubble guy, check out the comments. It is so funny. I crack up laughing every single time. I'm not even joking about that. So that's my, those are really my thoughts. I don't, I don't even think I can go too much more in depth on that. I don't want to pull up like the actual website and walk you through it. It's just not worth it. And for all the people on here who are probably watching this are people who are either wanting to get into analytics or are analysts themselves. And so I'm just wanting to encourage you that this should not be anything that is discouraging to you. Maybe in 10 years, they just make crazy advancements to this and have like automated data cleaning and automated like everything that's everything we do. It's probably not going to happen anytime soon. Well, but that might be something down the road that I need to revisit. So I just want to reassure you that if that's something that you were worried about and you're watching this, I don't want you to be worried. It's not something you should be concerned about. The, well, one second, I was going to go off on a different tangent, but I want to say real quick thank you to all the amazing, incredible, fantastic, beautiful, lovely people over on Patreon who are supporting this channel who are supporting this video series specifically this show because they are making this possible. And so if you want to support the channel, if you want to feed Max who's sleeping right next to me, he's just so happy because he's been getting fed lately. Thanks to the people over at Patreon and I asked the beautiful people over at Patreon what they wanted me to do in this episode or in the show and they voted for me to talk about a funny story. And what's funnier than tattoos? So I'm going to tell you about my one and only tattoo that I got, why I got it. It's going to be interesting. I think it's going to be fun. You'll get to know me. I don't think, I don't think anybody here knows that I have a tattoo. So if you're listening to this, you are exclusively amongst the people who are subscribed and watch my channel. You are exclusively the people who now know that I have a tattoo. That is a fact. So I'm going to tell you about kind of why I got a tattoo many, many, many, many years ago. I owned a granola company. I started it with my friend, still one of my very good friends, and one of our logo was a bear. Remember that for later. And it was just a really cool logo. Love the logo. We ran it for a while. I got out of it. He stayed in it. Then he passed it along to his friend. It's still up and running. Not going to give you the name of it. But, you know, the logo was not only cool. It had a lot of sentimental value to me. And the reason behind it was because a few years ago, you know, I went hiking with some of my friends. We went, we slept. We hung the bear trap like we always do. Yet we woke up one morning to a bear attacking our bear trap. And when I woke up, I woke up all the others and I was like, guys, guys, there is, I hope you can hear me. I'm really close to the mic. Like walk back. So I start whispering at him. And then we start walking back and the bear looks at us and starts walking towards us. I, I sprint. I had, I totally panicked and we all just started sprinting as fast as we possibly could for like 10 minutes straight. Nobody was looking back. Nobody was checking. 99% sure that that bear didn't chase us at all. But when we got back home, we told everyone that it was chasing us, that we escaped death near, near imminent death. Just making sure I'm on time. The story, who knows how long the story is going near imminent death. And the story just kept evolving from there.  You know, we tossed him the salmon. Who knows? It just, it evolved from there. And so then I even more formed a bear connection.  And one of those decisions was this tattoo. And I decided to not get a small tattoo. I got a big tattoo on my ribs right here. And it is, it has that logo, as well as some of the forests, some of the trails that I used to hike. And the mountains that I used to go on. And I personally really like it. But who knows if you like it. Maybe it is a terrible tattoo. And it's one of those like bear tattoos that's like, on the worst tattoo list, and people make fun of it, you won't know. Maybe, just maybe if I get to like 100,000 subscribers, I will show you that tattoo. Maybe. That might be like some super big, super big push to get me my subscribers, just like skyrocket it in like a week. If I start, if I start telling people, I'll show them my tattoo. So that's my story. I think it's a really funny story. My wife really likes the tattoo. That's all that matters. My kids like it.  And, you know, it's just a, it's just a running joke. And it's fun. And I like it. I personally like it a lot. So that's my funny story for today. You know, I'm curious as to what you think about it, what you think it looks like. That'll be interesting to hear in the comments, I'm sure. Now we have the next segment of our show, which is the comment or question of the week that comes from Bala Samer. I'm going to tell him that's how I'm going to say it. He said, what about Udacity's nanodegree program? What about Udacity's nanodegree program? What about it? We're all asking the same thing, man. Here's my thoughts on Udacity's nanodegree program is that one, it's, it is, it's, I, and to be fair, I have looked into it. I know what the course goes through. I, and they have a business analyst when I believe in the data analyst one. So, but I've looked at both. I'm pretty sure. Don't quote me on that. Do not look this up. Please. The information that they go through in that course that I'm specifically remembering is on there, whichever one it is, whether it says data analyst or business analyst, the information in there is good, right? It goes through, I believe SQL, Tableau, Excel, and I may go through Python off the top of my head. I can't remember. I should, I probably should have pulled this up beforehand to somewhere educated on it. But my thoughts are, it is pretty expensive. It's like 3,000 bucks or 2,300 or if you paid all upfront, it's like 2,000 and nail all the way, you know, you can finance it. Here's my, my end thoughts on it is it's expensive. It's a lot of the information that you can learn elsewhere. A nanodegree does not have a lot of weight to it. I don't go see a nanodegree and I'm like, man, this guy, he's got a nanodegree. That's basically like a master's degree, but in a nano form. So you know, I don't recommend it. I don't think it's worth it unless you can get some really good discount. I don't think it's worth it. If you could pay maybe like 600 bucks for it. I bet it would be worth it, but it's a lot more expensive than that. So I would say no, I don't recommend it. I don't think it's anything super special. And you know, that's my overall thoughts. We are coming to a close in this fantastic episode. Something that I like to do at the end of every episode is have some type of keyword, something to show that, something that you can put in the comments to show that you made it to the end. You watched all of this. You were engaged. You were intrigued.  You care about no code analytics and your career and your future. And so the keyword today sticking with theme vegetable based and I want to before I say what it is, do not look up how to spell this that is against the rules. Do not look up how to spell this word. And if it auto corrects, if it auto corrects you, you cannot auto correct it back. Whatever you, however you spell it, you have to keep it and put that in the, in the comments below. The keyword today to type in the comments to show that you care about me in the show is root omega. I have no idea how to spell that word, but I really want to, I'm really interested in how you spell it. So do not look it up. Do not use the auto correct that comes with YouTube comment section. Just type it in there. Whatever comes up comes up and we'll all know what you're talking about and we'll all laugh together. That's our show. I hope it was good. I hope you found it useful. Thank you guys so much. You guys are fantastic. I wish you a wonderful week, a wonderful month. The holidays are around the corner.  They're really close. So I hope you guys have a fantastic time. Be safe. Be healthy. And I will see you in the next episode. Bye.


Are you suffering from insomnia, heart palpitations, headaches, perhaps candida, sebo, joint pain? There are many ways iron overload in your liver can manifest itself. I'm going to share my understanding of it and I was planning on selling this as a video course but you guys can support me by sharing the YouTube video or purchasing my book down in the description below. So there are many blood tests related to iron status. Unfortunately, none of these are indicative of liver iron status. You have to get an actual liver biopsy or an MRI scan of your liver to see the iron deposits. However, we can use some of these markers as an indicator there might be something wrong. Ferritin is a protein in the body in the blood containing iron that releases it when needed. This can mark inflammation in the liver. Serum iron is iron contained in the liquid left over from blood so there are no blood cells present. Transferrin is a protein that binds to iron and transfers it. Uibc is unsaturated iron binding capacity. This is transferrin not bound to iron. Tibc is total iron binding capacity calculated with serum iron and unsaturated iron binding capacity. Then we have transferrin saturation which is serum iron divided by total iron binding capacity. These are usually used as markers for anemia. Ceruloplasmin is a ferroxidous enzyme. It is the major copper carrying protein. It is regulated by retinol, the animal form of vitamin A. We have liver enzymes which can be irregular in states of damage but if you only have slight iron storage in your liver these might not be elevated. So very important to check your liver enzymes to mark liver inflammation. And then we have hemoglobin which is the red blood cell count. This is important later as your hemoglobin needs to be above a certain number in order for you to actually donate blood to reduce your iron overload. In my case my ferritin was slightly elevated. It was 470 and the maximum in the range is 450 and my liver enzymes were high as well. So thankfully you have come across this video and we'll be able to address this issue before it gets any worse. And regardless of whether you've been on a carnivore diet, a standard American diet, a vegan diet, it's very likely that there is some iron deposited in your liver because modern diets are deficient in zinc, copper, vitamin A, retinol, magnesium, various nutrients needed to regulate iron in the body. So let's go over this hypothetical scenario. First you come across Frankie's video and you thank him by sharing the video with your friends. Then you get a blood test and something is irregular. Your ferritin slightly elevated, your liver enzymes are off, or maybe you do have candida or SIBO and you speculate your past diet was deficient in copper and zinc and maybe had too much iron whether it's fortified foods or meat. If you can get a scan or a biopsy of your liver, unfortunately I don't have health insurance at this point in time so I'm unable to do this. This is important because we don't have a gauge for how much iron is stored in your liver so we don't know how much blood we have to donate. So ideally you see a hematologist, unfortunately hematologists which are blood doctors aren't usually educated on this issue. Some of them are. Some of them have dealt with iron overload and people with hemochromatosis, people that have iron issues in their liver, but you might have to shop around quite a bit to find a good one. You don't have access to either of these things. Even if you do, you should donate blood ASAP. You can only donate blood every three to four months and you might have to donate blood 20, 30 times to remove all of the iron from your liver. As you can imagine, four or five, six years to fix this issue at a rate of donating blood every three months isn't what we want. You can have that hematologist schedule phlebotomies which are blood draws that can be done more often in circumstances such as this. There is no way for your body to remove all of that iron from your liver once it has reached that point. Yes, the body does lose some iron through sweating. It uses iron for various metabolic processes, but we are talking such a large amount of iron that it would take lifetimes of activities like that to remove it. A lot of people say, oh, can I fast? Can I go on a raw diet? Can I take this? Can I take that? You need to donate blood or there are various mineral chelators that are injected intravenously. If you're not putting a needle in your arm, you're not reducing your iron intake. This is a substantial amount that needs to be removed from our bodies. I'm sorry, guys, but this is the only way to do it. So you start donating blood, that's the first step. You start mobilizing iron out of your liver back to make red blood cells. Now we have to address the diet because that was what caused the issue in the first place. It's helpful to get a hair mineral analysis to know what our copper to zinc ratio was as we don't only need to balance copper and zinc, we need to make sure we're getting enough of it. Even if you have too much zinc from a past carnivore diet, even if you're deficient in copper, the real issue is that we're not getting enough of either as well as the fat side of the vitamins, especially vitamin A in the form of retinol. This can be done by following the dietary principles that I advocate in my carnivore diet course, in my book The Ancestral Indigenous Diet, as well as my YouTube video How to Get Started on a Carnivore Diet. You can also consume dairy. Calcium is the only substance known to inhibit iron absorption to some degree. This is not a definite, it's not like you have some butter with your steak and the iron doesn't get absorbed, but it has been shown to help. Can you be anemic and have this issue? I believe you can because anemia doesn't really have anything to do with liver iron stores. You could have plenty of iron stored in your liver, but if you don't have the B vitamins to make red blood cells, if you don't have the copper, the zinc, the retinol to mobilize iron, you're going to be anemic despite your liver turning into a solid block of steel. Iron is the most dangerous oxidant. You don't want anything to do with this.  Iron is a building block of life. Like bacteria, these fungus, they love iron. All they want is iron and sugar, and as long as you have a liver that's overloaded with iron, it won't be functioning. Every time you eat something, the bile that is secreted from your liver will essentially be toxic.  Despite doing all of these things, you might be suffering from SIBO, Candida, things like histamine intolerance, which is why you're getting heart palpitations and insomnia, just from the bacterial overgrowth. In a way, the bacterial overgrowth is preventing you from getting damaged by the metals because the fungus is growing using the metals and then you excrete that in the bowel movements. This makes things very complicated because despite doing all of these things, then you have to do an antimicrobial protocol and fix these things, which is very difficult to do. I can go over that if you guys want to reach out to me for a consultation, but this is where it gets complex. We have to use certain herbals like oregano oil, clear it out, constantly make sure we're not overdoing it, get the probiotic bacteria in there, and if you do this correctly, if you do everything correctly, you should be able to conquer the SIBO or Candida within a few weeks to a few months, and then hopefully your liver function is restored in a high enough capacity, so you're producing bile, you're producing stomach acid, everything is working enough to prevent the pathogenic bacteria from overgrowing. One thing I want to be very clear is that everything needs to be in check. There is no quick fix, there is no simple solution, vegan might make this worse, a raw diet might make this worse, fasting makes this worse. Most things might have prevented an iron overload in the first place in some capacity, but at this point in time, there is far too much iron in your liver, hypothetically, for any of these to have any impact whatsoever. Just going to make things worse. So the base diet that I recommend, it really depends on your past dietary experience, but you need to get a certain amount of copper and a certain amount of zinc in your diet. You want plenty of animal foods, the shellfish, the seafood, squid, things like beef liver are going to be copper dominant, and muscle meat, eggs, dairy, that stuff is zinc dominant. So we definitely want to get at least two, three, four milligrams of copper every day, and a corresponding amount of zinc anywhere between eight to 15 times the amount of copper. See what ratio works for you, but you want to make sure you're getting both copper and zinc, but if your hair mineral analysis indicated you were copper deficient or you were zinc deficient, maybe focus on more copper foods or more zinc foods depending on what that scenario was. We also want to make sure that we're getting plenty of retinol, vitamin A, and fat soluble vitamins in general to make sure everything is being utilized. Nutrients are synergistic. That's why we don't really want to supplement anything specifically unless you know 100%, you did something wacky. Like you followed a grain fed corn of war diet for three years and now your zinc is out of control. That's the only scenario where you would want to use like a copper supplement. There's also hypotheticals like taking a small amount of magnesium might help. You might need to take vitamin D3 if you're not getting any sun. You might need to take iodine if you're not eating seafood. There's a bunch of things that can help with the nutrients energy and the absorption.  Things will correct themselves over time. Granted, you're donating blood, you have scheduled phlebotomy. So hopefully none of you guys are suffering this at least to the extent that I have and that this helps you discover it early on or have comfort in knowing you're addressing and doing things that will prevent this from happening. The modern corn of war diet is incredibly dangerous, primarily for this reason. Even if you were following a high quality animal food diet, it's possible that if you're not getting enough copper, something like this could manifest itself. When you start following a grain fed corn of war diet, that's where you have pollutants, estrogenic chemicals in the meat that make this happen quicker and it's even worse. I'd be interested to see blood work, liver scans, liver biopsies of all these people that have been long term corn of war. They either have good genetics or they have an iron overload in their liver. There's no two ways about it. Perhaps there's a mechanism where indulging in alcohol, doing certain things prevent this from happening. Hopefully there's more further research on this subject. One thing I didn't mention is that hemochromatosis and these iron disorders in general are something that's relatively new even in modern medicine. We've only been studying it for a matter of years. This is really unfortunate that a 27, 28 year old former bartender is the man to go to on this. There are other resources. Morley Robbins has the root cause protocol, but I've heard negative things about that. As soon as I mentioned it, there were maybe like half a dozen people that reached out to me that suffered from issues following the root cause protocol. I've had people mention repeat, but there are people with issues from repeat protocol as well. So definitely be careful about how you're addressing this. Get opinions from as many people as possible and hopefully you guys can figure this out. So thank you guys for watching. As I said, check out my book down below. Share the YouTube video. Those are ways you guys can support me. If you need a source for liver, high quality animal foods, you can check out Frankie's Syringe Meat. We have high quality raw cheeses right now, likely cheaper than your supermarket. Thanks again for joining me, guys. If you do want to reach out for consultations, everything is down in the description below. Take care.


So, yeah I am PM Sahu and I am a software engineer working at the Ansible DevTools team from Red Hat India. So, for the next 10 to 12 minutes I will be talking about what actually a language server is and how does it actually work then we take a look at the fact that why do we need a language server today and now and after that probably we will just I will just show some steps so that we can learn how to build our own language server.  So yeah, what is language server and how does it work? So a small question, have you ever imagined working on a code editor that does not understand the programming language you are working on? Probably not because today as the complexity is increasing we cannot imagine working in a code editor that does not provide autocompletion for us, maybe linting for us, syntax highlighting, hovering, go to definitions etc. And all these features that I explained are known as language services for a programming language. Now traditionally what used to happen was someone had to develop an extension for a programming language per code editor to support that particular programming language in that particular editor. And you can imagine how time consuming it is and to support different editors one had to repeat the same underlying logic again and again but with the different APIs because every tool provides different APIs and this is where language server comes into picture back in 2015 Microsoft along with Red Hat came up with the idea for the language server protocol. What actually is a language server? Language server is basically a tool that provides all these language features in a decentralized manner. There is this tool, those are the extensions which can directly communicate with the language server and can give you the results. This is a clear example that shows that this is the first example that explains how this thing works without a language server. Basically, if I want to support Python for VS code, Atom and Wim, I'll have to develop all the three extensions for these three editors. But now what happens is with the language server, if I want to support Python, I would just need to create one language server and all these three tools would have the would have tools or libraries that would communicate with the language server and there you go. You get all the language features. Moving ahead, just a small introduction about how this particular thing works. So we have a development tool that is the IDEs and the extensions and the other hand we have the language server, the language server basically. Now when the user opens a document, a notification for did open is sent to the language server and when the user starts typing something or starts editing the text document, it sends a notification called did change. And now let's say we want to provide diagnostics when some when user starts writing. So now the server sees that the diagnostic provider has been registered in the did change life cycle. So it analyzes, creates the diagnostic reports and sends back to the extension. The same goes with the go to definitions, the auto completions and the hoverings that things would be much more clear when I show you the code. So I'll just proceed. Yeah, now before moving further, just wanted to clarify some differences. There are three terms, language server, the language client and the language server protocol. Basically, what is the language server? As I explained, this is the tool where you define all the language capabilities and write the logic and basically like the logic for the providers. What's the language client? This is the code editor that communicates with the language server and leverages the services. The language server protocol, that's the set of rules that governs the communication between the server and the client, which is basically based on the JSON, RPC request and response mechanism. So yeah, now comes the important question. Why do we actually need to learn language server today? So obviously the very first two points are clearly if you have your own custom programming language or a scripting language, you will definitely want to create a language server for that so that other people can use it with ease. The second is again, if you are working on a code editor and you want to support some important programming languages, just go get an extension, build an extension that could communicate with the existing language servers. But for the last two days, I was there in FOSS Asia and I have just recently noticed a lot of you guys have developed projects and almost all of them require some sort of a configuration file for that project to work. And this is where I find the importance of language server comes into picture. For example, you're working on a project and you need a set of configuration files that the user needs to type in so that he or she can actually work on that project. You can actually write language features particularly for that particular config file so that the user will be able to easily adapt to the configuration settings and can work accordingly. And for this part, I'll be demoing this particular example with the Ansible config files. Yeah, let's quickly go ahead and see how you can build your language server. Basically, first of all, choose an SDK. You don't need to rely on the internal workings. How you send a notification, how you receive a notification, you don't need to know that. Just go pick an SDK and there's a huge set of SDKs that are available. You can just go and based on your programming language, you can choose one. Next, choose the tool. For example, if I want to develop an extension, I would go ahead and use the VS Code tool and I would like to and I will start the development of the extension. Next, structure the project. You know, while starting the language server, it's very small, but as you grow, the code complexity increases. So it's better. It's a very good idea to structure the project and then finally define the language capabilities in the server. And in the client side, it's just a matter of initializing the server. This is how I like to structure the project. I have a client, I have a server and the extension.ts is the place where I initiate the language server and now comes the server part. We have a server.ts file. This is where I actually push in the provider logic at a particular event cycle. And then I have providers like completion provider and the validation provider. List can go on the definition provider, however, providers, etc. And then some utility files if you have some. Okay, now we'll move to the code and I can show you some good stuff here. So let me switch to the VS code and here. So initially I was talking about the event cycle. So this is how the event cycle works. So we have something called connection dot on completion. You just read register your logic for the completion provider in this particular, in this particular piece of code. For me, it is do completion. And then there's a complete, there's an again, an event cycle called as on completion resolve where I would like to return do completion resolve. Particularly do completion and do do completion reserve are my custom functions that I've created and the logic that I've written over there. Now there's something known as on date change. Let me find that out. Yeah, on date change. And as I said you I would like to validate a particular document when something changes in the document. So I just call validate text document on this particular part. And this is how the code is and that should work. And just a small demo. So we have an Ansible config file over here and this is how it looks without the language server. It's very hard to identify if there are some mistakes or not. And if you want to type something, we actually don't get a feedback and I don't know what could go inside this particular section. But now we'll see this with the with the language server. Now the language server is activated for this file and I already can see some results over here. The first quickly line says that yeah, this is an unknown option. So I need to verify that and I know it's debug. There you go. This is correct. And this says there's an unknown tag known as unknown option known as tag. I need to correct it, but I know it is tags. I'll do this this week. And now to demo some auto completion and I start typing. It tells me there's no suggestion. That means I have no other options available here. But inside default, if I come and start typing, I get all the available options inside default. And now what's even interesting is it is context aware. After a gap line, if I ask for auto completion, it knows that this is a section and there you go. The completion works this way. And now when I'm in Jinja, I know there's one option, particularly in that particular section. I get the auto completion here as well. So this is how the auto completion works. And yeah, probably I will end. And before concluding, I would just like to add one more small thing over here. Yeah, so how successful is a language server, basically? I can tell you the success of this because I am the author of the Ansible language server and the VS code extension. And within the past 1.5 years, there have been around 330 plus K downloads in the marketplace and 46,000 downloads in the open VSX repository. Talking about the language server particularly, this already Ansible extension made for the Emacs and the NeoVim editors using our language server. So this is the power of open source and I hope in my presentation I was able to convey the importance as well as it could act as a starting guide for someone who would like to develop a language server. So thank you. Any questions? Very nice session. One question, though. How are multiple versions handled? Next is an example. I have version 1, and say in version 2, there is some feature which is removed. Now, again, that change will need to reflect in the language server, right? Even for my usual development as an example, OK. Some syntax was valid for version 1, but it's no longer valid for version 2. So how are the versions controlled? So there's nothing fancy that is going on over here. For example, if I can understand correctly, while using this particular thing, I have something called as always that let me find that out and simple config options. Let's say in the new version. I don't have this particular option for me. Agnostic become prompt. It's just a matter of fact that I would need to remove that particular thing from here. And that's how you don't need to change anything. But if you develop your code in such a way where you have one single source of truth for all the facts that the language server can particularly use, you just need to modify that particular file and the rest of things would be taken care of. I hope this answers your question. Thank you.


Hello everybody HoodedCoverCommander78 here and it is time for another GI Joe comic book review and we are up to issue number 20. Recapping last month's issue we saw the death of important characters Quinn, Dr. Venom, General Flag and Scarface. Major Blood and the Baroness escaped from GI Joe and none of those events have any bearing on issue number 20. This is not a true follow up to last month's issue. After the conclusion of a long running story arc we get a bit of a break with one of the few issues not written by Larry Hama. Looking at the cover for issue number 20 we are looking straight down at the ground and Clutch is falling, presumably to his death. It's pretty good artwork and it is very suspenseful and exciting. It kind of makes you wonder what's happening in this issue, how did Clutch find himself in this predicament? There is a caption that says Clutch goes home the hard way. On page one we have a splash page and we have a title, Home is Where the War Is. We have a creative team of Steven Grant, writer, Jeff Isherwood, penciler, dagistino and tar tag anchors. So yes this is not a Larry Hama issue and it shows. On the splash page we have a small squad of Joes and the focus is on Clutch. There is an airplane shooting at them and Clutch is yelling at everyone to move it. On the next page the Joes are diving for cover and Jung Ho takes out the airplane with his grenade launcher, which is apparently a multi shot grenade launcher now that can take out airplanes. Clutch seems to be in a hurry, he is careless and sets off a mine, which somehow does not kill him to death. Scarlett fires a line across the mine field to a tree so that Joes can shimmy across the line and avoid the mines. Uh, Jung Ho shoots the mines, I guess? Clutch shows up, much to Clutch's surprise. But it turns out to be a cardboard cut out of Clutch and there's a Cobra officer behind it. The Cobra officer yells die American, but considering Cobra's origin, this Cobra officer is probably American. Clutch shoots the Cobra officer and that's the end of that. They run into an electric fence which flashed, disables and the Joes climb over it. The team of Joes runs up a hill to find Pot and another uniformed officer next to the vamp. And who exactly is this other officer? Could that be General Flag? Has this issue written before General Flag died? The whole thing turns out to be a training exercise, which is exactly the same device used in issue number 16. This Stephen Grant story is borrowing from an earlier Larry Hama story. Clutch has his furlough papers, he is overdue for a vacation, that's why Clutch was in such a hurry, he is getting some time off. He takes the vamp with stalker in it to catch a bus to New Jersey, but he's a little late so he plays chicken with the bus to force it to stop. Several hours later the bus drops Clutch off in New Jersey. I believe this is supposed to be Clutch's hometown of Asbury Park, New Jersey. Apparently Asbury Park has no traffic on the highway in the middle of the day. Clutch crosses a bridge on foot only to nearly be hit by a weird purple car. The only car in Asbury Park apparently. The car happens to be driven by Clutch's friend Billy Klein. Billy invites Clutch to jump in. Billy is the head of an automotive manufacturing company and the weird purple car is one of his own design. He drives Clutch to Wattosh Inc. Automotive, his company's compound. Billy shows Clutch around a little bit. Wattosh Automotive seems to only have like three employees. There are living quarters in the building. Billy invites Clutch to use them so he can shower and freshen up. Clutch overhears Billy arguing with somebody over the phone. Something is not quite right, but Billy won't say what it is. As Billy Klein goes to the top security area of the building, Clutch quietly follows him. Clutch inspects the lock on the security door and a second later it swings open and it's Cobra! What a coincidence! Clutch's car just happened to be in Clutch's hometown and in the very building where Clutch was by pure happenstance. Clutch is unarmed and the Cobras are chasing him down. He sneaks behind one of the Cobras and knocks him out with a wrench. He then lures the other two Cobras under a car that's been hoisted up on a chain and then drops the car on them. Now Clutch is armed with a pistol. He sneaks into that top security area only to find it overrun with Cobras. They seem to be working on a secret project with Clutch's friend Billy Klein. Clutch has everyone covered, he orders them to freeze. But rather than help him out, Billy Klein knocks Clutch out. Clutch awakens to find himself suspended by a rope that's tied to his wrists. That's got to be uncomfortable. Billy reveals that Cobra is holding his family and he could not risk anything happening to them so he had to cooperate with Cobra. The secret project they were working on is a miniature jet pack, which I guess is something a car mechanic could build. If you are watching this video and you happen to be a car mechanic, please show me your miniature jet pack. Cobra straps the jet pack to Clutch, they're going to use Clutch to test it out, meaning they are going to launch Clutch into the air like a Roman candle. Billy gives Clutch a final hug before Clutch is launched into orbit and surreptitiously sneaks Clutch a shop knife which he can use to cut the ropes. Clutch is launched into the air with the jet pack, which of course proves the jet pack works.  Clutch, being the resourceful lad that he is, cuts the ropes and hot wires the jet pack that he's never seen before and he doesn't know how it works, which gets it to fire up again which just saves him from being splattered on the ground. Clutch navigates himself over water and ditches the jet pack he safely splashes down. Clutch identifies the body of water as Yellowbrook, which is a real river in New Jersey. Clutch is a fair distance away from Asbury Park, so that jet pack must have flown pretty far. Clutch walks to his old school where he finds a former teacher named Mr. Vilsky. He has to ask Mr. Vilsky for a favor. On the next page we see what the favor is. They have built a car with an armored ram on the front. Clutch races it toward a house. Inside the house we see it is occupied by Cobra's. Clutch jumps from the car just before it rams the house and punches a hole in the wall.  That is not at all what just happened. This is not a small house and he didn't knock it off its foundation, he just punched through the wall. So I guess Clutch is talking about something he did before. How many houses has Clutch rammed with cars? This is Billy Cline's house where Cobra was holding his family hostage. Clutch finds them upstairs. Clutch didn't know they were upstairs. For all he knew they were sitting by the wall that he just rammed with that car. He could have killed them both. He just got lucky. Clutch calls in reinforcements. The Joes show up later and surround the auto plant. Clutch punches the guard so hard his entire head disappears leaving only his hat. The Joes observe the Cobra's through a skylight that always happens. The other side gets on the roof and looks down through the skylights and then they attack you. The Joes crash through the skylight and rappel down opening fire on the Cobra's.  Rock and another Joe come through the door and I'm a little confused about who this other Joe is. It's a guy with a blonde beard but it is not rock and roll because we just saw rock and roll come through the skylight and rock and roll had his ammunition bandoliers. This guy is wearing straps. I'm going to say this is Grunt who went through a brief beard phase for one issue. He was trying to look more mature. Cobra plans to get away with the prototype jetpack but first they want to eliminate Billy Klein. Despite being at close range they manage to only grace him on the shoulder. One of the Cobra officers straps on the jetpack and launches himself. Billy Klein reveals there is a second jetpack so clutch gets the idea of pursuing the Cobra with the other jetpack. In the sky the Cobra with the jetpack zips by Airborne on the Falcon Glider. It's nice that they got Airborne and the Falcon Glider in this issue but they made it look kind of useless against the jetpack. Clutch catches up with the Cobra and they have some banter while shooting at each other and missing. They are just plugging bullets randomly into Asbury Park, New Jersey. But according to this comic book, Asbury Park is basically deserted so they won't hit anyone. Clutch puts his jetpack in overdrive to catch up with the Cobra and we have a splash page with a down angle where Clutch dramatically punches the guy out. Clutch's jetpack sputters and seems to run out of fuel. Then we have a sequence of panels where Clutch and the Cobra struggle and Clutch pulls off the Cobra's jetpack. The Cobra then falls onto an oil tank and explodes. Was the Cobra made of explosives? The dialogue seems to tell a different story than the pictures. What I think they were trying to depict with this sequential art was Clutch's jetpack runs out of fuel. He grabs the Cobra jetpack that still has fuel and uses that to fly away. That would not leave anything that would cause the explosion unless the Cobra has a bunch of TNT in his back pocket. So they tried to fix it with a bit of dialogue. Instead of Clutch's jetpack running out of fuel, Clutch says the motor cut out for some reason. Clutch pulls the Cobra's jetpack off of him and that jetpack still has fuel, an unstable fuel according to the dialogue. But Clutch drops that jetpack with the unstable fuel and that's what causes the explosion. Clutch's jetpack then luckily restarts at the last second so Clutch doesn't die. But look, it doesn't matter. They wanted an explosion and they were going to have an explosion no matter what. Clutch flies back to his teammates where Billy Klein is being loaded into an ambulance. Billy says Clutch should join him and his family for the rest of his vacation. Perhaps they could stay at Billy's house where Clutch just rammed a hole into it with a car. Clutch declines the offer without telling Billy that his house now has a giant hole in it. Just between you and me, I've had about all the rest and relaxation I can stand. Freeze frame, roll credits. At the bottom of the last page we get a preview of the next issue, Silent Interlude, Snake Eyes Battles Cobra Ninjas in Destro's Mountain Retreat. That is what everyone is waiting for, is probably the most famous GI Joe issue in the entire Marvel Comics run. As for this issue, it's a one-off. It has zero impact on the main storyline and on its own merits, it's just okay. That's all I can say for it. The art is just okay. The story is just okay. There are some fine character moments for Clutch, it's really not that bad. I don't think Clutch acts out of character here.  He did find Billy Cline's wife and he did not hit on her so he showed remarkable restraint. Clutch is supposed to be in his hometown here which is Asbury Park, New Jersey and the way it's depicted here in both the artwork and the writing, the town is practically deserted. We only see like five or six people in the whole town. You can give this issue a pass.  You don't really need this one. You do need the next issue, number 21. That's the one I'm looking forward to. I'm very excited about finally getting to issue number 21, the silent issue. So watch for that next month. Thanks everyone for joining me for this comic book review. I am trying to do these once a month. I have vintage GI Joe toy reviews every week so please make sure you join me for those. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss any videos. You can find me on social media on Facebook and Twitter and I have a website, hcc788.com. Thanks as always to my patrons. Their support makes these videos possible. If you like the channel and you'd like to support the channel in that way, please check out my Patreon. I'll be coming back at you with more GI Joe toy and comic book reviews soon and until then always remember only GI Joe is GI Joe.


from our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California. This is a CUBE Conversation. Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in our Palo Alto studios for a CUBE Conversation. It's just a couple of days until RSA kicks off a huge security conference. I think the biggest security conference in the industry. And we've got a security expert here in the house and we're excited to have stopped by as Manish Gupta, the founder and CEO of Ship Left. Manish, great to see you. Yeah, great to see you too, thank you. Welcome. So you must be really busy getting everything buttoned up for next week. Oh yeah, absolutely, ready to go. All right, so for the people that aren't familiar with Ship Left, give us kind of the basic overview. Yeah, of course, so Ship Left, about a two and a half year old company. We started with the problem of, you know, the software is driving innovation all around us, right? I mean, we see it in autonomous cars, IOTs, increasingly SaaS software in the cloud. And all of the software needs to be figured out how are we going to protect it? And so it's a big problem. And we've been working on it for about two and a half years now, raised our cities A. And most recently in the last two weeks, we announced our cities B of 20 million. Congratulations. Amazing team, yeah. So you've been in the security space for a long time. Correct.  I don't know what the numbers will be this year. I'm sure it'll be north of 40,000 people. Moscone north, south and west will be full. Every hotel is full. But it kind of begs a question. Like, haven't we got some of the security thing figured out? It's just a never ending kind of startup opportunities as there's new ways to approach this kind of fundamental problem, which is how do we keep the bad guys out? How do we keep them from doing bad things while the surface area expands exponentially, the attack surface expands. And we hear every day that people are getting breached and breached and breached. So the whole ecosystem and kind of approach has completely changed over the time that you've been involved in this business. Indeed, as you said, I've been in cybersecurity for a long time. I like to say over the last 15 years, first part of my career, I was focused on detecting viruses. Then it became worms. Then most recently at FireEye, we were detecting advanced malware, nation-state attacks like APT-1s and APT-3s. But it was then that sort of dawned on me that, look, about 80% of security, money gets spent on detecting bad stuff, right? And that's reactive. Essentially what that means is we are letting the bad guy shoot first and then we're trying to figure out, okay, what are we going to do now? We're waiting like 150 days, right? Down from 230 days before we even know that he's shooting at us. That's right. Now, couple that with, as you said, the attack surface is ever increasing, right? Because we're using software in every which way, which means all of this stuff needs to be protected. And so that's why we wanted to start with a fresh perspective, which is to say, let's not worry about attacks because that's not in our control. That's in the bad guy's control. What can we control, which is our software? And so that is why what we do at Shift Left is to understand the software very quickly, extract its attack surface in minutes, and then allow you to fix whatever you want to, whatever you can during the timeframe you have available. And here comes the next innovation, which is if you don't fix anything, which is almost always the case, we will protect the application in production. Now the key is we protect the application in production against its vulnerabilities. So we never ever react to threats. We don't care. Do you have like a wrapper around the known vulnerabilities within the code? Yes, you could absolutely have that. That's a good way of thinking about it. Is, you know, let's say a million lines of code, we find 10 vulnerabilities in it. So it's only in 10 specific instances of the application. Now we also know what vulnerabilities exist on line 100, line 200, and so on. And with that knowledge, we can very precisely protect each vulnerability. It's a really interesting approach. You know, one of the things I find fascinating with security is it's kind of like insurance. In theory you could spend 110% of all your revenue budget on security, but you can't, right? So you have to make trade off decisions. You may have to make business value decisions and you have to prioritize. So this is a really different approach that you're offering an option either to fix the known and or just to protect the known. So there's some variability into kind of the degree of investment that the customer wants to spend. You summed it up well, Jeff. I think the fundamental challenge with security has been that. Is that, you know, 15 years ago, we've asked our customers to buy antivirus. Then we asked them to buy intrusion detection. Then we asked them to buy nation state modern malware protection. Now we are asking them to buy machine learning based mechanisms to detect more threats, right? And so the funnel is like this, right? But it never goes down to zero. And so tomorrow some other approach will come up to detect a 0.1% of the malware. And guess what? The CISOs really don't have a choice, right? Because they have to protect their organization. So they have to buy that tool also. Now in this entire process, you never get better, right? Notice that you never get better. All you're doing is just reacting. And because a virus from 15 years ago theoretically could still come and attack you, you can't throw away that tool either, right? And so that is precisely why I'm so passionate about what we're doing at Shift Left is we will protect you from and sort of embed continuous improvement for the first time in security. Find the vulnerabilities, fix them. But if you can't fix them, we will protect you. Now what about another kind of big shift in the way software is delivered as everything is an API to somebody else's software? And oftentimes there's many, many components that are being pulled in from many, many places that contribute to but aren't software that I control personally. So how do you guys deal with those types of challenges? Great question. You know, the popular saying is we are becoming an API economy. Right, right. And what we exchange on our APIs is increasingly a lot of data, right? And you're right. If you think about historical approaches, we will now have to break open the API on a network to find out what it contains. And for various reasons, super hard to do, lots of operational efficiencies, inefficiencies, excuse me. So this is again, where the Shift Left approach is rather unique. See, because we go down to the very foundation. It's hard work, right? But we go down to the very foundation. What is the source code of the API? So we will understand, okay, well, this is what you should be putting in the API, right? But then I see that a variable called personally identifiable information is being put into that API. I can now tell you, before this becomes a problem that'll embarrass you in the newspapers, we will tell you, hey, look, you are writing PII to a third-party API without encryption, right? So you get to fix the problem at the very root where it starts. But can you wrap the known vulnerability in a partner piece of software? Absolutely, we can. As it interfaces with my software? Correct. So there are two aspects to it, right? The first is, what are you putting into that API? That is completely in your control, right? We don't really need to understand the API for that matter. So that is one particular use case we can absolutely protect you there, right? The second is when the API then integrated into your application makes your application vulnerable, right? So I'll give you an example. This happened to one of our customers. This is a 3,500-person technology company based here in Santa Clara. They were using a third-party API, very popular one. That third-party API, in turn, was using a Jackson data bind library, just an open-source library. Now, as a company, when we decide to use that API, we don't really worry about, we don't have visibility into what all is it hurting. Downstream, how many feeds are in that one particular one? That's right. And so this is the supply chain of software, right? Multiple components are now being brought together very quickly to create the functionality that you want to deliver to your users, to your customers. But in this pace of execution, we need tools like Shift-Left to tell us, hey, what are we hurting? And whatever we are hurting, how is that impacting the security of our application? Right, right. Pretty interesting stuff. You got another component of something that's really important today that wasn't necessarily when you started this adventure. And that's the open-source play. Yes. So as I understand it, you guys started really from more of an open-source play and then Shift-Left grew out of kind of commercializing what was that open-source project. I wonder if you can explain a little bit more. Yeah, I would love to.  So this is an invention of our chief scientist, Dr. Fabian Yamaguchi, one of the foremost authorities in the world in the area of understanding code, right? And so as part of his PhD thesis, he came up with this technology and decided to open-source a tool called Yorn. J-O-E-R-N. That's right. It's not easy to figure out. Yorn, yes. Exactly. And it's actually his friend's name, so that's how we named him. Oh, is that right? That's right. So he open-sourced it and several organizations around the world have since used it to find very hard to find vulnerabilities, right? So as an example, and this is an IEEE paper where this technology was used by Fabian to find 18 zero-day vulnerabilities in the mainline Linux kernel, right? So arguably one of the most complex pieces of code on the planet, 15 million lines of code, arguably one of the most analyzed pieces of code on the planet. And as recently as 2015, he finds 18 zero-days and no false positives. Every single vulnerability has been acknowledged and fixed by the Linux community. That's the power. And so we use that as a foundation. So you write that as open-source. But since then, we've done a lot of incremental work on enhancing it to make it enterprise ready. And that is a product we offer as called as Ocular where we give you, think about it as my best analogy is this like Google Maps for your source code. Yeah, I think it's a good analogy. And he goes through that in one of his videos, kind of explaining the mapping of different layers of kind of visibility into how you should look at software code. Indeed. Yeah. All right, well, before we let you go, we got some exciting things happening next week beyond just the regular activity at RSA. You guys have been invited to participate in a special activity. I wonder if you can share a little bit and give a plug and maybe we can send some fans up to, I don't know if it's going to be audience participation in the judging, but go ahead and listen to what you're doing. Thank you for giving me that opportunity. Yes, super, super excited about. So we've been selected as one of the top 10 finalists for the RSA Innovation Sandbox. As you mentioned in your opening, RSA is the biggest security trade show in the world. And so now this has become the most seminal way of highlighting innovative work being done in the security industry. So I get three minutes to pitch shift left in front of an audience of about 1500 or 2000 people. Really looking forward to that. Well, I don't know if you could speed this up to only three minutes, but I'm sure you'll be able to nail it. I will try. All right, well, Manish, thanks for taking a few minutes of your day and I'm sure we'll see you in San Francisco next week. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, it's Manish. I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE. We're having a CUBE conversation on our Palo Alto studios. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.


If humanity is to live within the doughnut, we need to create economies that are far more distributive of their value by design because we have inherited economies that tend to be divisive by design, whether through laws and regulations, through infrastructure, through privilege and inheritance, they tend to drive value and opportunity into the hands of a few, giving rise to a 1%. Over the last decade, the number of billionaires worldwide has more than doubled from around 1,000 billionaires to over 2,000 billionaires, and that pattern is reflected within and between many nations. We need to turn that divisive dynamic that leaves millions of people falling short on the essentials of life while others over consume. We need to turn that divisive dynamic into economies that are far more distributive by design, sharing value and opportunity far more equitably with all who co-created, and that turns out to be the whole of society. How can we create economies that ensure everyone has the essentials of life and that are structured with dynamics that share value and opportunity with all who co-create? One way to begin is to ask yourself who owns the sources of wealth creation? In your locality, who owns the land? Who determines how that land is used and the value that's generated by that land? How is it distributed? Who owns the housing? Is it owned as social housing, private housing owned by landlords, owned by community land trusts and housing cooperatives? Who reaps the value and who pays the cost when rents rise? Who owns the businesses? In your local high street, is it full of multinational corporations who extract the value and take it as profit to who knows where? Or is your high street home to locally owned enterprises owned by families, by cooperatives, by employee owned organizations that reinvest and distribute the value locally so that the value that's created here is retained here, creating strong thriving local communities. These are just some of the ways you can think about creating economies that are distributive by design, going to the source of who owns the sources of wealth creation. How can we ensure that everybody has a part of this equitable distributed economy?


Hey guys, welcome back to another week of What's for Dinner. My name is Andrea with Food and Mentory Adventures in Food. Our channel is all about the food. We do taste test, recipes, grocery halls, and What's for Dinner. And if you've been following our channel for a while, you know that we are doing a freezer and pantry challenge. And so the items that you'll see today are from our freezer. So we are having some mac and cheese from Trader Joe's and here it is. And here is what the box looks like. And Howard and I both really like this mac and cheese. It tastes homemade even though, you know, it's frozen and you make it in the microwave. It's really good. And one box serves two. So there are two one cup servings in here. So we're having the mac and cheese. And then I had some leftover green beans in the fridge. And then we are having this Nashville hot shrimp from Aldi. I picked this up a couple of months ago. And here is what the box looks like. Howard and I both tasted it and definitely it is, you know, it does have a kick to it. It is spicy, but neither one of us were crazy about it. You know how some things are spicy, but they don't have a lot of flavor. That's kind of how I feel about this. Howard is not a big fried shrimp person. So he didn't care for it. And I will say it is crunchy. It is crunchy from the oven, but it's okay. I'm not crazy about the flavor. I probably would not repurchase it again. But anyway, this is what we're having for dinner tonight. And we'll see you guys next time. Hey guys, so let me show you what we are having for dinner tonight. We are having this signature select pizza that we picked up from Tom Thumb a while back ago. They were having a special, I think it was three for $9 or $10 or something like that. But this is chicken bacon ranch and sorry, chicken, bacon and ranch sauce pizza.  And so this is what it looks like on the baking pan. So here it is. So this is what we're having for dinner tonight and we'll see you guys next time. Hey guys, so for dinner tonight, I stopped at Chicken Express, which is a local chicken place around here.  I just didn't feel like it. So I got Howard and I to chicken dinners. And so for both of us, I got thighs, that's our preference. So I got chicken thighs for me. I got a cherry pie for me as a side, two sides and one of them can be a dessert. So I got a fried cherry pie. I got some jalapeno poppers, which is jalapeno with cheddar cheese and it's deep fried. And they have the best yeast rolls. So I got that. This is Howard's little container right here, his chicken thighs. He likes apple pie, his rolls. And then he got these things called corn nuggets that he's been wanting to try. They've been advertising them on their billboard. He said that it's like whole kernel corn in there, but it has a creamed corn texture on the inside. And then they're deep fried. He said they're okay. I did not try one because I'm not a big creamed corn person. And then we really liked their rolls. So I got an extra roll for each of us and that's it. So this is what we're having for dinner tonight and we'll see you guys next time. Hey guys, so for dinner tonight we are having another item from our freezer. This is, I think it's kahiki. We've never had it before and it is beef and broccoli. So it has sliced beef and broccoli florets in a brown garlic soy sauce. And all you do is add the sauce packet to the skillet and then you add the, it's a mixture of the broccoli and the ground beef and you cook it in the skillet for about 12 minutes. So there it is. I tried a little bit of it and it has a pretty good flavor. And then I also just made some jasmine rice. So we're serving it over jasmine rice. So this is what we're having for dinner tonight and we'll see you guys next time. Hey guys, it's another freezer meal tonight. We are having a favorite of ours, which is this margarita jammin' jerk shrimp. You guys know we've, we've been eating this for a while and I really like it a lot. It's the last one I had in my freezer. So we're finishing it up and I'm pretty sad about that. But it has a really good, and you really can't tell it from the picture here, but it comes with a lot of sauce is what, and that's what you see on top of the plate is all the jerk sauce that comes when you make it in the skillet. But anyway, this is what we are having for dinner tonight and we'll see you guys next time.


God's grace to carry wherever you are called to go. Well, that's what we hope for you today. We're so glad you're joining us on hope today on this wonderful Wednesday Passover's upon us. It's Holy Week. We are so glad you're joining us. I'm here with Tom Hollis and Amy Schaefer and Amy, tell us what we are diving into. We're talking about grace. Grace, listen, you might need this particular topic today because there is something during Holy Week and this weekend called Easter. And I know as a mom, there's a lot of preparations taking place. There's a lot of shopping. There's a lot of food. I've got to think about there's church stuff and it could get stressful. That is why we need our guest today, Crystal Ward, to talk about releasing anxiety and diving into God's grace and God's purpose. Now, Sidney, just wait and maybe Tennis, you know, in the next decade, you are gonna, this Easter weekend will take on a whole new picture for you. That's why my husband, I have like talked about like what we're gonna do for like, you know, with Resurrection Sunday, those kind of things not diving into that now, but Tom, what are your thoughts on that? Yes, there's always so much to think about when the family's coming over, but it is also the beginning of Passover today. And, you know, extending through to, I think, is it Thursday, Wednesday or Thursday next week? Anyway, just, I don't know if you have had a tradition, my family for several years in a row, we don't do it anymore. We kind of lost track of it. We would do a Seder and it's just great to share and to hear the symbolism in it and what it means for Christians. Yeah, and I think it's so important. You know, Jesus is our Passover lamb. And I just think of the story, you know, we read in Exodus about what was happening and how God was calling the Israelites out.  I mean, we heard about the indictment that happened with former President Trump. We hear about things that are going on in the economy. We see all these shakings and these movings happening. But I think in this day and age and this hour and time that God is calling us as the body of Christ is that we're not part of the world system, that he is calling us out into a new system, into his kingdom system that operates different. And then it's like, when all these things are happening, Amy, I know like the anxiety and the stress, it's just a beautiful thing to know that we can just walk along with our Messiah and he will carry us every step of the way. We're in the world, but we're not of this world. We do operate in a different kingdom. That's what Jesus began to preach right away is the kingdom of God. And he came here to establish his kingdom on earth. And I know we all pray the prayer, you know, our Father who art in heaven, help be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. So this holy week, this Passover week, let's believe this, that Jesus will reveal himself to people, even our Jewish friends, that as they're partaking in the Seder, that the blood, the bitter herbs that all they will see is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That's right, and that is a great, great thing to remember. Also, I just wanted to, you know, for this time of year, it is a time of hope, but maybe you're not in a situation where you feel a lot of hope. We always have our prayer partners available, the numbers on the screen, you can call, you can get ahold of somebody, somebody who's set aside this time for the sole purpose of praying with you. So take a value yourself of that, be getting that prayer and getting that encouragement because we all need that, Amy. As Christians, we all desire to have a close intimate relationship with God. That's what he desires for us as well, but sometimes distractions, busyness, anxiety, or self-doubt can hinder us from experiencing our connection with God. And that was the experience for our next guest, Crystal Ward, who is a Bible teacher, a podcast host, the non-profit organization Grace to Grow. And Grace to Grow is also the title of her new devotional, which is designed to help us, here we go, release anxiety and encounter God's extravagant grace. Crystal, welcome to Hope Today. Good morning, good morning, Amy, Sydney, Tom. I'm so glad to be here with you today. And I guess before we get started, I would like to say this, thank you to you guys for what you're doing to share the gospel and to encourage the church around the world. So I always like to start off with that. So we honor you and we're just so thankful for your willingness to share Jesus. Oh, wow, thank you. That's awesome.  You can immediately think of situations and things you're dealing with. How did this topic come up to you so strongly that you're going to write a devotional about it?  And I have been a stay at home mom. I've been a working mom and now a work from home mom, because I know so many of us are doing these days. And it just seems that I was on the go for so long. But at the same time, I also have been a minister. I've been a pastor on staff at our church and a ministry leader for a long time. So I had to learn, Lord, teach me how to be close to you even amidst the busyness. And then there are things that have happened in my life that have really maybe caused but also uncovered anxiety in my life. I'm sure we'll get to that in a minute. And I had to learn how to work through those things and be close to the Lord while on the go. And I think that so many of us moms and dads and people that don't even have kids are living in that same place in our world today. And so I wanted to put together a book that really helps us to move from that chaotic place into an intimate, thriving relationship with the Lord. And that's what I hope Grace DeGro is for everyone that reads it. You start your book with a really intense, powerful story about your son. Can you share that story and why it was so important that you started with it? Yeah, well, and I think it's really important for the reader to understand that I've been where we are discussing. So maybe a little bit about me, I am married. I've been married for almost 19 years. I had to think about that for a second. We have three kids, one is 14 and 11 and seven. We are in the middle of getting ready for school at the moment. So if one of them barges through the door, y'all just pretend like nothing happened, it's fine. Look at how cute they are, you know? And so our youngest son, his name is Evan, when he was only four months old, he had a reaction to some medication that caused him to have over 70 seizures conservatively in 30 days. And honestly, I didn't really share about this story for a long time because it was so difficult for me that I felt like what I could only describe, we use this phrase loosely, but what only felt like losing my mind to have my tiny baby going through this. I wasn't sure if he was going to, I believed in faith, but I didn't have any physical, tangible proof that he was going to be okay, that he was going to have quality of life, any of these things. And what that really I think did for me is more than cause anxiety, I'm sure it caused it for sure, but maybe more so uncovered this lifelong battle that I had had with fear and anxiety and had to really go to the Lord and ask him to show me how to move past those things and to shake off all the fear that was in my life. And so it really started a process of that, a journey, really, and a lot of that is covered in the book. You say that you turned worship over to worry, praise over powerlessness and promises over lies. Tell us about the one moment where you're holding your son and you're by yourself and you just started worshiping. What did that do in that moment? Yeah, when you read about that, it really probably sounds more victorious than it actually was in the moment. I had been, like I said, just losing my mind with all of these seizures and all of these things that were happening. I mean, he was having at some days more than four a day and they were happening when he would come up out of sleep. And so there was this one day, it was a Sunday and my husband had taken the girls to church and I had stayed home with Evan and I was holding him in my lap because he would have them when he was waking up and he had fallen asleep. And I noticed as he was coming up out of his sleep, the signs of another seizure. And I had been playing worship music that morning, just trying to keep my focus right, trying to keep my mind where it was full of faith and hope. And in this moment, I'm looking at my baby and I see a sign of another seizure about to take place. And I just decided, you know what? If I keep doing what I have been doing, which is freaking out, then I'm gonna keep getting what we've continued to get. And I just decided in that moment that I would just worship and declare who God was. And it was so miraculous. The song that was playing at that moment was about Emmanuel, God with me. And I just began to declare that you are God with me. You are my healer. And it really was more out of desperation than it was victory. But I believe that it brought me to a place of victory. And I believe that from that point forward, things really started to change. They for sure started to change in me, but we also saw a change in our son. I will say this, that by the time we finally made it into a doctor's office, it took a while to get there because of scheduling. The seizures had stopped. And now to this day, he is seven. I like to say Evan is seven.  And he is so healthy and he loves Jesus and he actually loves to share Jesus to those around him. And so it is a beautiful story. But that moment, and maybe if I can minister to anyone that may be watching right now, you may be going through things that seem hopeless and seems so difficult.  But you'll also walk through it in a better place if you begin to declare who he is.  He is Emmanuel, God with us. And so praise takes us from a place of powerlessness to a place of victory even in the midst of a trial when everything doesn't look the way we want it to look. Crystal, as I'm hearing about your son, it just reminds me of my daughter had seizures when she was younger. And in fact, the scariest moment of my life is when she had her first one. And we were in the car and to drive her to the hospital and be praying the whole way and not knowing what was going on because she was basically unconscious at that point. And just going through that, but trying to trust God through it. I think all of our situations, that one so seared into my memory, but anytime we have those kind of difficult situations, maybe not as severe as that, but we were coming through a season where we can't see God. What's your anchor? What do you have as an anchor for your soul in those times? One of the things that I've had to learn in my life through this issue, through other issues, we all go through things. Jesus doesn't promise to make our life perfect. In fact, he says that in this world, you will have trouble, but he says, but I have overcome the world and storms come, we live in a fallen broken world and we're not promised a perfect life, but we are promised that he will be with us at all times. And one of the things that I've had to grab a hold of is that God's grace is on me every single season of my life. It's that grace that empowers me and it's that grace that draws me to him even when life looks crazy or it looks troubling. In fact, if you go back to Exodus, we read about the children of Israel wandering in the desert. And scripture says that they were led by day by a pillar of cloud and then they were led by night by a pillar of fire. Now, a lot of the times in our Sunday school lessons, y'all remember the younger viewers watching us today may not remember, but we might remember the felt boards when we were in Sunday school and they would put all the little pictures on the felt boards, right? And they would stick up there. A lot of the times we picture this cylindrical cloud or fire, but actually in Hebrew, there is evidence that shows it can also mean a platform structure. And if you go to Isaiah, it actually talks about a platform or canopy-like covering of cloud and fire.  I've been down there near that region. It is extremely hot, but at night it's cold, right? And so if you have a cloud over you by day and a fire over you by night to shelter you from the sun and from the heat, that's a picture of grace. And if we will lean into that, recognize that it is not of works. It is a free gift of grace when we know Jesus hovering over us at every single moment of our life and we can latch onto that and rely on the grace of God to walk us through. What a beautiful picture of God's grace.  For instance, tell us about the one about Mount Everest, the oxygen, and why is God's grace like oxygen to our souls? Hey, man, I'm so glad you talked about it. I don't get to talk about this story very much. It was a mountain climber named George Mallory who possibly with his partner that was with him was the first person to scale Everest. But we have no proof of that because they didn't have the proper oxygen tanks. And it was about 30 years later or so without looking at my book and my notes that another man actually scaled Everest because they had proper oxygen tanks. And George Mallory probably was the first but there's no proof because he passed away because of the lack of oxygen. And here's the thing, in our lives, we often suffer from a lack of oxygen from the grace of God, but also from the presence of God. You remember in Hebrews chapter four, it tells us to boldly approach the throne of grace where we will receive mercy and grace when we need it the most. And being with the Lord, being in his presence is a lifeline, a oxygen tank, so to speak. And when life is so chaotic and we are full of anxiety and worries and doubts and depression and shame and all of these things that plague us all the time, we often don't come to the Lord and spend time at his feet where his breath of life comes into us. You remember when Adam was created in the garden, the Lord came close and breathed the breath of life into Adam. And that's when he became a living being. And so I often like to teach in the book and then also through my ministry, prioritize time at the feet of Jesus because that's where he's gonna breathe that breath of life into you and you are going to be able to sustain what you need to walk with him and to go just through your day successfully and full of the presence of the Lord. You know, Crystal, this is Holy Week. We're right in the middle of it. Would you take a moment? Will you just pray for all of us out there that we wanna experience God's presence this week? We need to experience his hand on our life, his grace in our lives and maybe they are distracted and busy and stressed out and anxious over many things. Could you just take a minute and pray? I will gladly do that. And I just want to remind everyone that's watching today that grace is not something you can earn. All of the cool Easter activities, all of the preparations you may be doing as a pastor or any of these things, grace is free and it is not of works. And so there's nothing that we can do to earn God's presence in our life. It's actually made on the exchange of Jesus's perfect life. So I pray Lord over every single viewer today that we would be bold to approach you this week, to take full advantage of your grace in our life, to take full advantage of the presence of the Lord that you so freely gave us on the cross. Lord, I pray in the name of Jesus that our eyes would not be over all of the to-dos, the busyness, the cares, the worries that our eyes would be fully locked on you, that we would rest in you and that we would receive every single thing that you have for us this week Lord. Thank you for every single viewer Lord. I bless every one of us in Jesus' name as we celebrate you, the King, Lord of kings, the victor over death, hell and the grave.  We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, so good Crystal. Crystal, before we go, are all of your kids gonna match for this Easter weekend? No, oh my goodness. We were literally on Amazon last night trying to figure out what everyone is wearing. I have no clue what I'm wearing. No, we never, we are not that family. I am not the Instagram Pinterest mom. We're doing good to get there. Okay, Crystal, don't stress. Make sure you just enter into God's grace and rest this weekend. Thank you so much for imparting into the such wisdom and beautiful pictures of God's grace in our life. When we come back in 60 seconds, we'll take a look at a scripture that shares about how precious the gift of God's grace is and what it means for our lives. We'll be right back. Cornerstone Television has believed in the power of prayer sits in inception 44 years ago. We invest heavily in our prayer line to provide you with 24 seven personal prayer knowing it brings breakthrough, healing and wisdom. Last year alone, we received over 65,000 prayer calls. If you had partnered with us, thank you so very much. And when you give this month, I am so excited to share with you my new book, Praying On Another Level. It's a 30 day journal to take your prayer life to a new dimension in God. You see prayer is how we separate good ideas from God ideas. It's how we unlock the door to revelation and it's where we get our strength to build up our spirit man to hear from God throughout our day. All that and so much more. So call us now at<PHONE_NUMBER> or give at ctvn.org forward slash donate to request your copy. It is time to take your prayer life to another level. A great conversation about grace with crystal award that we just had. And we have a great verse about grace as well. Ephesians two, eight through 10. And this is from the new living translation. It's a little bit different but really illuminates the verse. And here it is. God saved you by his grace when you believed and you can't take credit for this. It is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done. So none of us can boast about it. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us a new in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things. He has planned for us long ago. Guys, I love this. I love that it's not about our goodness, our wisdom, our greatness. It's about the greatness of God, Sydney. It's that he creates us a new, not ourselves.  The one thing that has just been sitting in my spirit is just we talk about God's grace and God's goodness and his love and his mercy is that there's a part of our lives. I just feel like, you know, there's a part like Jesus he saved us, but is he Lord of our lives because of the gift of grace that he's given to us? Do we surrender all? Are we obedient to him and just saying, like, you know what, Jesus? Because you've paid it all. Because you've done the ultimate thing, like you've covered me so much and what you've walked me through and brought me through. Are you Lord of my life? Do I literally take the time out to sit at your feet and be quiet and to be still and to hear what you were saying? You know, when Crystal was just sharing about her experience and her journey about those really hard times in our lives when we don't know what to do. And a lot of us have faced those crossroads in our lives. We have an opportunity and we have a decision to make to worship him and to say, you are good. You are still my father. No matter what you're walking through, no matter what you're going through, just have a question for you today. Is Jesus Lord of your life? Is he the one that you are willing to avail yourself over to and say, Jesus, I give it all to you. No matter what it looks like, no matter the fires or the storms or the winds or the waves or what the world is going through, I'm gonna trust you because it is your grace that carries me through every season.  And as it is Holy Week and as it is Passover, the greatest thing and the greatest opportunity we have day by day is to accept Jesus into our lives. So today, we just wanna ask you, do you know him as your Lord?  He paid the ultimate price for you and today is the day you can make that decision and it will change your life forever. Life may not get easier at the start but the most beautiful thing it is is that he will walk with you every step of the way. You know, there's nothing you can do to make God love you more and there's nothing you can do to make him love you less. He just loves you. You're his favorite daughter. You're his favorite son.  You just know right now that you belong. You're a part of the family and make sure if you did pray that prayer with Sidney and you did ask Jesus to come into your heart and he is the Lord and savior of your life, give us a call. We love to hear from you at<PHONE_NUMBER>. This is Holy Week. This is like the Super Bowl of the ages for us Christians. This is when Jesus died and buried and rose again for our sins. Tom, we deserved it. We deserved the separation from God but Jesus took all of the punishment upon him on our behalf so that we could receive the righteousness of God in Christ. The only difference with this Super Bowl, we all get to win. We all get to be on the winning side. All we have to do is lay down our lives before him. Tomorrow, we're gonna have a very special, as it's Holy Week, we're gonna have a special time of communion and worship music with one of our favorites, Gene Watson. You don't wanna miss that, that's tomorrow. And then actually on Good Friday, we're gonna have a very special Good Friday prayer program with a lot of our Hope Today family. So join us for both of those programs because they're gonna be great, Sid. I'm just so glad that you are with us. And as like Tom just saying, I just really felt like God was saying is just to pray over you, to close out the show. You know, it is Passover. And we just declare and decree that in this season that his spirit will pass over you in your home, in your living room, if you're watching in a jail, if you're watching at a homeless shelter, wherever you are watching from, that the Holy Spirit would pass over you, that you are covered by the blood of the Lamb.  And so Father God, we just pray for everyone that is watching that in this season that they would come to know you in such a beautiful and tangible way that their lives will never be the same because that is the greatest hope that we have in Jesus is only him and him alone. We love you. Have a great day.