Welcome to the Birkin Klein Center's new interview series, The Breakdown. I'm Umu. I'm a staff fellow on the Birkin Klein Center's Assembly Disinformation Program. Today we're interviewing Renee Doresta. She is a technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She studies the spread of false narratives across social networks and helps policymakers in devising responses to the disinformation problem. Thanks Renee. Today we are going to talk about COVID-19 and the way disinformation related to COVID has percolated across the internet and in so many ways created new problems and disinformation that I think policymakers and those of us who are focused on the issue weren't necessarily tracking before and gives us a whole new lens through which to study issues that kind of are not unique to this problem but tell us a lot about disinformation as a whole. So one of the first questions I have for you, Renee, is just whether there's anything new about disinformation, anything new about what we're learning about disinformation from COVID. Yeah, I think there's, it's been really interesting to see the entire world pay attention to one topic, right? This is something somewhat unprecedented. We have had outbreaks in the era of social media misinformation before Zika in 2015, Nebola 2018, right, so there have been a range of moments in which diseases have captivated public attention but usually they tend to stay at least somewhat geographically confined in terms of attention. What's interesting with the coronavirus pandemic is of course the entire world has been affected by the virus and so the other interesting thing about it has been that a very little in the way, you know, even the institutions don't really have a very strong sense of what is happening, unfortunately, there's a lot of these unknowns as the disease manifestation treatment, a lot of the mechanics of the outbreak of the pandemic itself are poorly understood so the information around them is similarly fuzzy and so one of the challenges that we really see here is the challenge of how do we even know what is authoritative information, how do you help the public make sense of something when the authorities are still trying to make sense of it themselves and researchers are still trying to make sense of it themselves but what we see with COVID is a lot of real sustained attention and I think that what that's shown us is there's this demand for information and it's revealed gaps where platform curation, they don't have enough to surface things, they're struggling with what an authority is, what authoritative information looks like, I think that that's been one of the real interesting dynamics that's come out of this. Thanks for that. So one question I have about the bit on authoritative sources is what makes it so difficult for so many of the platforms to prioritize authoritative sources information and de-prioritize false content and other sources do you think that the political attacks or partisan attacks on traditionally authoritative sources of information like the CDC and WHO complicate the task of platforms to prioritize that that what we call good information? So for platforms to surface information when people are searching for a particular keyword or topic they have recognized that surfacing the thing that is most popular is not the right answer either that the popularity can be quite easily gained on these systems but the question becomes what do you give to people? Is an authoritative source only an institutionally authoritative source? I think the answer is quite clearly no but how do we decide what an authoritative source is? So you saw Twitter beginning to try to verify and give blue checks to doctors and virologists and epidemiologists and others who were out there doing the work of real-time science communication who were reputable and so the question became for the platforms how do you find these sources that are accurate and that are authoritative that are not necessarily just the two institutions that have been deemed kind of purveyors of good information in the past and per your point unfortunately attacks on credibility do have the effect of eroding trust and confidence in the long term. The platforms did begin to take steps to deal with health misinformation last year actually and so a lot of the policies that are in place now why health is treated differently than political content is that there has been a sense that there are right answers in health there are things that are quite clearly true or not true and those truths can have quite a material impact on your life so Google's name for that policy was your money or your life it was the idea that Google search results shouldn't show you the most popular results because again popularity can be gamed but it should in fact show you something authoritative for questions related to health or finance because those could have a material impact on your life and that was a framework that Google used for search beginning back I think in 2013 definitely in 2015 but it interestingly wasn't rolled out to things like YouTube and other places that were seen more as entertainment platforms so the other social network companies began to incorporate that in 2019 in large part actually in response to the measles outbreaks. Do you think that there are any new insights that this has offered us into the maybe the definition the nature or just general character of disinformation? One of the things that we've been looking at at Stanford Internet Observatory is actually the reach of broadcast media you know this is something that the idea of network propaganda right of course the book title came out of some Harvard professors right Rob Faris and Yochai Benkler so the idea of broadcast media and the interesting intersection between you know broadcast is no longer distinct from the internet right and they all have Facebook pages so there's for some reason I think people still have this mental model where the media is this thing over here and the internet is this other thing but I don't see it that way so when you look at something like state media properties on Facebook you do see this really interesting dynamic where overt attributable actors meaning this is quite clearly Chinese state media, Iranian state media, Russian state media they're not concealing who they are this is not like a troll factory or a troll farm amplifying something subversively they're quite overtly putting out things that are a nice way to say it conspiratorial at best and so the challenge there is this is no longer just being done surreptitiously this is actually being done on channels with phenomenal reach and so again it's an interesting question of that intersection between quality of sources dissemination on social platforms dissemination if you go directly to the source meaning to their website or their program and and just really thinking about the information environment as a system not as this distinct silo in which what is happening on broadcast and what is happening on the internet are two different things yeah sort of related to that one of the things that we've talked about I know even in our conversations amongst our groups at Harvard is how difficult it is to come up with answers to questions of impact how do we know for example that after exposure to a piece of false content someone went out and changed their behavior in any substantial way and that's of course difficult given the fact that we don't know how people were going to behave to begin with so do you think that this has offered us any new insights into how we might study questions of impact do you think maybe for instance pushes of cures and treatments for COVID might it be illustrative of the potential for answers to those questions here yeah I think people are doing a lot of looking at search query results you know the very real you know how to when what we'll call like blue check disinformation or blue check misinformation maybe charitably comes out does that change people's search behavior should they go look for information in response to that prompt one of the things the platforms have some visibility into that unfortunately those of us on the outside still don't is actually the connection pathways uh from joining one group to joining the next group right and that is the thing that you know I would love to have visibility into that that that is like the question for me which is um when you join a group related to uh reopen and a lot of the people in the reopen groups are anti-vaxxers are you then more likely to go join you know how does that influence pathway play out do you then kind of find yourself joining groups related to conspiracies that have been incorporated by other members of the group um I think there's a lot of interesting dynamics there that we just don't have visibility into but per your point one of the things we can see unfortunately is stuff like stories of people taking hydroxychloroquine and other drugs that are you know dangerous for healthy people to take um again one of the challenges understanding that is you don't want the media to report on like the one guy who did it as if that's part of a national trend because then that that is also harmful uh so it's really appropriately contextualizing what people do in response um I think is is a excuse me a big part of of our of our our gaps and understanding yeah definitely for sure okay if you could change one thing about how the platforms are responding to COVID-19 disinformation what would it be and why I really wish that we could expand our ideas of authoritative sources and and have a broader base of trusted institutions like local pediatric hospitals and other entities that still occupy a higher degree of trust versus major behemoth politicized organizations that's my kind of personal wish list um I think the other thing that I really want to see us not screw up is um everybody who works on manufacturing treatments and vaccines for this disease as we move forward it's going to become a target and we there is absolutely no doubt that that is going to happen um it happens every single time somebody like Bill Gates becoming the focus of conspiracy theories and people showing up at his house and all these other things you know he's a public figure with security and resources that is not going to be true for a lot of the people who are uh who are doing some of the frontline development work we're going to become inadvertently famous or inadvertently public figures unfortunately just by virtue of trying to do lifesaving work we see doctors getting targeted already yeah um and I think that the platforms really have to do a better job of understanding that there will be personal smears put out about these people there will be disinformation videos made websites made Facebook pages made designed to erode confidence of the public and the work that they're doing by attacking them personally I think we absolutely have to do a better job of of knowing that is coming and having the appropriate provisions in place to prevent it what do you think are those appropriate provisions if you believe that bad information is the best sorry that good information is the best counter to bad information or that more voices you know Zuckerberg has said repeatedly is the antidote to you know good speeches the antidote to bad speech and authentic communication counters conspiracies and these other things then you have to understand that that harassment is a tool by which those voices are pushed out of the conversation and so that is where the the dynamic comes into play where you want to ensure that um the cost of participating in vaccine research or uh or health communication to the public is not that people stalk your kids right I mean that's that's an unreasonable cost to ask someone to bear and so I think that that that is of course the the real challenge here if you want to have that counter speech then there has to be a recognition of the dynamics of play to ensure that uh that people still feel comfortable taking on that role and and doing that work awesome okay thanks Renee have a good rest of your day thank you you too bye bye


nice and steady only three knots but the wind's just seven knots what's really fantastic is that nobody's steering the boat just a bungee balance the sails stick the bungee on let it go see still on the same heading course over the ground same speed well accelerated a tiny bit once she's balanced and pointing in a friendly direction she looks after herself lovely I can have a kip well actually I can't have a kip because that's very fancy oh by this not 34 feet it's 3,500 feet or more look yeah there's a boat and we're going to crash on the best VMG that I can sail hands off there's someone in the way and unfortunately he is 274 meters which makes him 265 and a half meters longer than me well beautiful evening though the only wildlife that I've seen there's been some wasps and a couple of very unusual looking flies so no spectacular whales or dolphins I'm afraid sorry we had rack man in off earlier you missed it oh something's happening we're turning let me check the Grand Buenos Aires hotel Budapest or something anyway that's one and a half miles there one and a half he's obviously quite big I've got my engine on at the moment charging batteries and we are listening to Stefan Grappelli and the hot club of Paris actually people may know it better for Django Django Reinhardt and Stefan Grappelli yeah let's say it that way


Tesla is trying to stimulate demand for cars. They're slowing down sales, which is bad because of the high rates. So they're coming out with higher term loans to stimulate. And a lot of the problem is interest rates have gone from something like 3% on a loan to as much as 7.5%. So payments are less affordable. Do you think this is gonna help? Is this a good move? These longer term loans to help affordability? Tell me what you think.


Jane P. says there should be classes for men coming out of relationship to help them do self-work. Jane P. that is true for men and women alike. It would be great if men and women alike took classes on how to be an adult in relationship. This is one of the reasons why I continually recommend the book, How to be an Adult in Relationship. And folks, you know, I know many of you put me up on a pedestal. I just want to say something. Well, I've done a lot of work reading a lot of these books and doing the work. I continually put my foot in my mouth. I have a capacity to be insensitive.  And it's part of my journey too. Sometimes we make mistakes so we can learn from mistakes. And I'm here to say that, well, you know, there should be a class for men. There should be a class for women too.  Okay.   And guess what's not happening? There's no merging of the sexes. And I don't mean there is in the sexual sense, but there's no merging from a relationship perspective because we're pointing the finger instead of doing the work inward. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know. All right. Thank you so much. Sandra says, amen. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Lisa says, dating is hard work. It is effort. It does take a lot of effort. All right. So let's see what other questions we're going to take one or two more questions. Bear with me. Bum, bum, bum. You know, I'm just going to share something personal and I'm rather embarrassed. I recently met a very interesting woman and I sabotaged it. I don't know what's going on inside of me. I think there's still a lot of residual fear that happened.  There's a picture of my mother and father. I have mother issues that creep up.  And I'm a guy. I'm driven by my libido. And I'm here to say, I've done, you know, I've been insensitive. And I've certainly, and by the way, I've owned it and I've apologized to it, but it doesn't, you know, it's not right that I did it. So I have to ask myself, why did I behave this way? Why did I behave this way? Why would I sabotage something? And I'm sharing my own personal experience to maybe give you some insight on why you might have sabotaged things in your life or why a man you've dated might sabotage the relationship. And that sabotage is simply maybe saying something that's insensitive or doing something that's insensitive because there's still a fear in your life. And while I've done a lot of personal development work to heal a lot of my fears and insecurities, and I'm going to be candid with you, I'm no different than any other person. My biggest emotional health issue is I'm not good enough. I'm not lovable. I'm not likable. I have those same fears inside of myself. And as much as I present myself out in the world, and that's why I said earlier, please do not put me up on a pedestal. Many of you do. But I'm riddled with insecurity and flaws. I happen to be a pretty good communicator, and I do take ownership when I make a mistake, and I certainly have in this case, and yet why would I sabotage something? I oftentimes feel like we create pain in our life as an opportunity to learn. We create pain.  For their own experience, I can only say this in my own life. Each time you connect with another human being, it's certainly an opportunity to be in a state of love and be of loving to another human being and hopefully loving to ourselves. And at the same time, each experiences, it's like a movie I was watching on Black Mirror. If you don't have Black Mirror, check out the episode called Hang the DJ. Hang the DJ. I was just watching it last night, and I'm here to say everything does happen for a reason. And sometimes they're short-lived experience, sometimes they're long-term experiences, and they don't go the distance because it's really an opportunity to learn and also love yourself when you make a mistake. I've made a terrible mistake recently, and I'm beating myself up terribly over it, and I deserve it. I did it to myself, and I also have to practice what I teach in my book, what the heck is self-love anyway? I have to teach what I practice in my book. And my hope is that no matter what happens, we can learn to find the inner peace within ourselves.  I mean, every one of us has a little kid, and some of us has a little kid that's really hurting for a variety of different reasons, and we don't mean to hurt others. I really do believe this. I know you watch these thousands of hours of videos about narcissists and all the terrible things that narcissists do, and it makes you feel better that you've learned this, but the reality is, most people, even the narcissist, even the people like myself, don't intentionally, I really don't believe that they intentionally want to hurt someone, and yet we can do stupid things. Human beings are flawed. I'm riddled with flaws. I am no different.  Have compassion for others. Have compassion for yourself. Recognize that this is all part of the experience. It's happening for a reason.   I've nailed it to the stake, my feet, my arms, and that's not healthy to self-crucify, and my hope is by me sharing this experience with you, you don't crucify yourself in the future. Can I get an amen for that? I mean, when I say amen, you will not criticize yourself for the future. Can I get an amen? Thank you so much, and thank you for allowing me to share that personal experience here. So, Jennifer says, I've sabotaged men many times, and I've healed it. I'm still learning myself. Lisa says, I'm working on my spiritual life and putting dating on hold because I'm not meeting anyone. I understand that too. Renee says, Jonathan, I understand that honesty, it was really been helpful. I'm so happy to hear that. Teresa says, amen. Sandra says, amen. Thank you so much. All right.


Welcome to the ITU studio in Shamashake in Egypt, where we're here for the Radio Communication Assembly and the World Radio Communication Conference following that. And I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Cath Westcott, who is the Senior Distribution Manager for the BBC World Service Group. Cath, welcome to the studio. Thank you very much. Now I'd like to start off by talking to you a little bit about this conference and the one just straight afterwards. Why is BBC World Service attending this conference? What makes it important in your calendar? Well, BBC is a long-standing sector member of the radio communications sector of the ITU. We're both a national and an international broadcaster. I work in the international part of the BBC. So for us, it's a really important place. The ITU is a very important organisation. We work internationally. So, as well as being at the right place where important decisions are made that will influence how we can distribute our programme around the world. It's also an important place for us to meet people, to meet people from different countries, different regions. And specifically, the radio communications assembly, it's important, I think, because it frames the way that the radio communications sector works. And it means that it can operate effectively for all the membership. So that's member states, but also crucially sector members like us as BBC. And in terms of the conversations that are going to be had here, the decisions that are going to be made, what are the most important to you? What are the most vital, do you think, that will affect broadcasting? Well, aside from the workings of the ITU, which I think is important for all member states, all sector members. We have, there are two proposed new resolutions, one of which has just been approved, one which is at Plenary. And those are important to us. They came proposed by Study Group 6, which is the study group for the broadcasting service. So they were agreed by all of the broadcasters that attend, and there are two. One is about the role of the ITU in the ongoing development of broadcasting, so that's sound, television and multimedia. And the second is the ongoing development, in fact. It's about future broadcasting. It's about the ITU, the work in Study Group 6 actually meeting the requirements of all broadcasters and recognising the changes that are happening in broadcasting. And the work that's being done in these study groups, what relevance does it have in terms of the reports, the studies and the resolutions? So in the study groups, the work in the study groups, I'd say it's crucial for organisations like the BBC. You have the recommendations and you have the reports, so that's really important information both for us as a broadcaster. Some of the work that happens in the ITU is very important externally. There are very important relationships between us, the standardisation that's worked on in the ITU and other external standards bodies, and that collaboration and liaison is really important. And also I think for us it's the exchange of information. I've spent a lot of time, or BBC's spent a lot of time certainly at WRC's and also in the study groups, talking to other broadcasters who work in very different environments than we do, but we have a lot that we can share and support each other and I think that's good for us as broadcasters, it's good for the citizens, it's good for the administrations. One of the things I wanted to ask you as well is there's a group here encouraging women to get involved in radio communications in technology, and that's certainly a subject very close to the heart of ITU. I just really wanted to find out a little bit about your background, what encouraged you and what infused you into getting involved and following this career path. Well this is a subject close to my heart, not just within the ITU and I've been involved in the initiatives which I think are very important, but also in the BBC, I'm a member of a network within the BBC of women that work in STEM areas. Personally, in fact I didn't start off in engineering, I actually did an English degree at university, but I joined the BBC and was trained to become a radio engineer and through my work as a shortwave radio planner, I became involved in the WRC a long time ago. So my route has been slightly unusual, but I've found the work incredibly interesting, I've done the job for a long time, it's changed, I'm still learning and I've found now that my experience of having done the work that I've done for the time that I've done it as a woman, I have lots of observations and experiences to share with other women and with other men. So that excites me in fact and the ITU initiatives are I think really important and really welcome. Finally, with regards to the outcomes in this conference, what do you hope will be the outcomes at the end of this very long haul that most of us are going to be involved with? So you're talking about WRC as well as the radio assembly? Indeed. The outcomes, well for the BBC our interest actually ironically perhaps is in the agenda for the next conference in 2023. So for us the outcome would be an agenda which we feel we can do effective studies on for the four years, that's clear, that's sensible and worth looking at so that we can actually do useful work in the four years and come to a good resolution that suits everyone in 2023. Otherwise, I mean there are a number of other issues that we're looking at but yeah it is a long haul. I feel I'm fortunate not to be here for the whole time but I know many of my colleagues in many different countries will be here and I wish them good luck and energy. Well thank you very much for joining us in the studio and hopefully we'll catch up with you again at some stage in the near future. Cathy Westcott, thanks very much indeed. Thank you very much. Thank you.


Good morning everybody. This is Brett with Summit Automotive. We are doing a special Thursday edition of the Lot Walk. I got a couple trades in in the past couple days, and it is the last day of the month. It is November 30th 2023 and we are fully stocked for next month and trying to finish out our month here. We got a good new car month going. We're a couple away from our goal and very close to being number one in the state again. So hopefully we can knock it out of the park this morning and this afternoon and finish strong. And as far as used cars go, we're fully stocked, getting them through service and everything. And we're probably not going to hit our goal on used cars just a little bit slower month. Let me know what you think in the area I guess if car sales slow by you, whatever whoever watches these videos. Anyways, let's get right to it. Hope everybody's month was good. And we're ready to get it next month. Get your coffee because here we go. All right, I got a 2017 Ram 3500 Crew Cab Longbox Dually Tradesman. It's got like new Firestone tires on it. This one has the 6.7 liter high output Cummins diesel with the Icing Transmission. Really a nice truck. The only thing that I saw on it that we're going to have to do careful. It is slippery in the shade. Got a little bit of box repair to do right there. But other than that, this thing's meant very nice. Has a goose neck, spray and bed liner, you know, just a base tradesman, but really nice truck. It's only got 21,000 miles on it and that will be a very nice piece for us. We took in a ton of Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokees in the past couple days here. This is a 2016 Jeep Cherokee Latitude Altitude Edition. This is a four wheel drive and I believe this one has the V6 in it. If I'm not mistaken, it also has the tow package and this one has 109,000 miles on it and it's in really nice shape. Might have to do tires to it, brilliant black, but that is a clean title history, clean vehicle right there. That's going to be a great budget vehicle. This is a 2000 and I want to say 19. Everything's so frosted up here. Yep, 2019, F250, Crew Cab XLT FX4 Power Stroke Diesel. This one's got like 75,000 miles on it. It's really nice and clean on the inside. Has a nice step bars, chrome package and everything. And that truck is from Texas, so very little to no corrosion on it. This is a fresh trade. We just got yesterday, 2017 Ram 2500 Big Horn Night Edition. This one has the Hemi, the Ram Boxes, Granite Crystal, really a nice truck. It's got really good tires on it and this one has like 64,000 miles on it. So that's a really cool and nice trade there. Got a little bit of dense we got to fix. Also known as PDR or Paintless Dent Removal if you've never heard of that. Here is another 2016 Jeep Cherokee Latitude. This one has 114,000 miles on it and I'll probably link all these in the description below. So definitely check us out on our website. They'll all get pictures by the end of the day. It has painted alloy wheels, a cold weather package on this one. So it has the heated seats, heated steering wheel. It does have a tow package. This one just has the 2.4 liter 4-cylinder engine, but it is a 4-wheel drive. So that will be a really nice budget vehicle. Speaking of budget vehicles, I got a 2019 Jeep Gran Cherokee with 97,000 miles on it. This is a limited. It's got really nice tires on it, really nice wheels, maybe not really nice tires, about half tread. But the Handcooked Dyna Pro ATMs or AT2s, those are really nice tires. Heated seats, remote start, kind of a base limited, but overall really nice condition. I think I saw one little ding on the entire vehicle. It does have the tow package on it, so it has the auto leveling rear suspension. Bright whites the color on that one. This is a 2019 Ram 1500 limited crew cab short box. This one has 90,000 miles on it. Other than that, I really don't know too much about it as it just came in, trade last night. Looks like it's in really nice condition. Whoever had it took really good care of it. Local trade said colossal on the back, so probably Appleton or the Fox Valley. This is a Toyota Tundra Crew Max Limited. We've had this truck before. We just bought it back from the person who bought it from us. I think it has, I want to say 46,000 miles on it. I don't even know the year yet. Probably a 2018 2019. There's probably a video on the website for that truck from when we sold it the first time. Anyways, Silver Sky Metallics, the color on that. This thing is a Hyundai Elantra N package. I just did a video on this car last night. You can check that out. I'll put that in the description as well. This one's got 276 horsepower, which is 75 horsepower over the normal Hyundai Elantra N line. It comes with a 2 liter turbo, the 19 inch wheels, bigger brakes, variable exhausts, the active dampers, and special suspension on this one. That's a really cool car. It's absolutely perfect. If you need that, come get it. This is our very first 2021 Ram 1500 built to serve edition that we've gotten. This is Billet Silver. This is the police officer edition. 2022, they had the firefighters. 2023, they had the EMS and 2024 is the police officer edition. You can only get this in Billet Silver from my understanding of the built to serve editions at the moment. Firefighters were black and red, red line pearl. EMS was hydro blue and bright white. The police officer one is Billet Silver, but really a good looking truck. I just did a video on that. That'll be up later today. Everything else is, that's a Ram Power Wagon. We might be selling that today. We've got customers coming on that today. Just got out of service. That is a Ram Rebel that we just got out of service as well. This is a brand new Jeep Renegade. Slate blue on that one. Latitude really nicely equipped. This is a Ram 2500 that just came through the shop as well. One for 300Z. This is a Ram. I just did a video on the other day and with the cold weather, we got to jump that guy. He's a little dead for whatever reason. When it gets a little cold, these rams just will not start. The diesels anyways. They just, with the push button start, if it even senses a hint of low voltage in the batteries that they just click, they won't even try. Anyways, here's a new Ram as well and that's really it for the lot to be a little bit quicker than our normal videos just because it's midway through the week. But I want everybody to finish strong. Get your coffee. Stay warm. It's probably like 35 degrees, 36 degrees right now. It's supposed to get up to 41, 42. So that's good at least. But go to the website right there, summitauto.com. Got pictures and videos of every single vehicle on our lot, except the ones we just looked at. So that's why I do the videos so you can see them before we even picture them and hope everybody finishes off November great and we'll get December and we'll start off the new year with a bang. So have a great day and good luck.


All right. Hello, everyone. Yeah, as mentioned, my name is Kelly Olson and I'm here representing the VDF Alliance and The whole goal of the VDF Alliance is to bring verifiable delay functions into production So just to talk very briefly about the VDF Alliance. It's a collaboration between some blockchain foundations such as the Ethereum Foundation some corporate sponsors like AWS and Xilinx and then also some academic institutions like Sabanchi So also maybe briefly for those that don't know last year There was a talk given by Dan Bonnet on a paper by Benedict Boons and Ben Fish who are here about Verifiable delay functions verifiable delay functions is basically a function that requires this number of sequential steps And once that's completed you can provide a very short proof that you've completed those steps But in order to make these things actually useful for production You need to ensure that the verifiable delay function is both efficient and fast and also secure And so we've made a lot of progress in the past year since this was was first introduced And we're asking the crypto community here to help us make it even faster and even more secure And these verifiable delay functions have a ton of use in blockchain and distributed settings for things like randomness beacons proof of space time proof of replication and we really think there's a great opportunity to really bring these into production after after a recent introduction So what we're asking is is on the first thing is to go to vdfalliance.org and sign up to participate in a hundred or hopefully a Thousand person MPC ceremony the goal of this MPC ceremony is to generate an un-factorizable modulus and fortunately Mootoo our chair of the conference this year and also Kermit have been developing an MPC ceremony to accomplish Just this so sometime in the beginning of next year We're hoping to have sort of a wide-scale distributed MPC ceremony Maybe the largest ever to actually generate this public good that anyone can use So that's the first thing that that we'd like to ask your help for Vdfalliance.org is where you can sign up And then the second thing is that we're trying to make these things even faster So already we have an FPGA implementation of one of these VDF constructions and We actually use this to Solve a 20 year old puzzle by Ron revest at MIT So if you look up the LCS 35 time lock puzzle We were able to solve this puzzle that was supposed to take 35 years in just two months using our FPGA implementation And so if you have any experience with hardware multiplication Montgomery multiplication Karatsuba Chinese remainder theorem any experience both on the algorithmic side or on the hardware implementation side right now We're running a competition in collaboration with AWS There's a hundred thousand dollars in prizes The first round of that competition will end at the end of September And then the next round will end at the end of the year So would really appreciate it if the community joins in and would would love to take you know a crypto 18 Paper into production in the next year. Thank you


Thank you very much. We've just appeared to forecourt on the mat of Anrofa Senmi when people came to apologize to me at my house. That aside, I just want to say that I'm a politics non-beloy awam and looking after the poor people has become very interesting under the new dawn government. As much as I appreciate the increase of the purchase of maize, floor price for maize by their fara'e from 180 kwaç up to 250 kj back to 280 kwaç. Very good because the price of fertilizer is very high. The price of seed is very high. The cost of inputs and general production is very high. Very good idea so that our farmers can now get value for their money. But for me it is a very wrong way of doing things. What we should have done was to reduce the cost of fertilizer, reduce the cost of seed, reduce the cost of production. So that the farmers can maximize on the price at 180 kwaç. Caught me correctly there. I'm not saying they should have not increased the price. Under the circumstances that the fertilizer is at over 1000 kwaç, seed is expensive and if you were for farmers to choose the land electricity is expensive, that is an ideal situation. Now the danger is that the price of mille mill is going to be unaffordable for the poor people. If today the cost of maize is 180 kwaç per 50 kj back, mille mill is costing at 250. When you increase the cost of maize from 180 to 280, the price of mille mill is likely to move to 350 kwaç per 25 kj back of mille mill. Which person can afford, even the salaries that teachers get, policemen, miners, they will not be able to afford the cost of mille mill. If you are not there, you will have to have politics. Because when you are making these decisions, you have to be thorough. You have to interrogate them. The most important thing in governance is to look at poor people. How are the poor people going to survive? So in my view, the most ideal situation could have been to fight that the production of fertilizer is cheaper. The cost of seed is cheaper. We reduce on the cost of fuel for production, we reduce on electricity. So that for argument sake, if the price of fertilizer dropped from 1000 kwaç to about 400 kwaç, and you still maintain the price of maize at 180, the farmers will still have value for their money. But this, we are waiting to see what the economist president is going to do. Because politics of appeasement should come to an end. We should look at the total ballistic cost of production against the selling price. But what has happened is very, very interesting. And we shall see how they are. And I was, you know, the chairman of the FRR was saying that to the fire must increase the price of mille mill. Because we are still giving you maize at 180. But the millers are going to start buying the maize at about 280. How do you expect them to continue giving you at the odd price? That is why I have said and I want to say it again.  If you are a businessman, go and do business and make profits. To take a child or to make profits is to balance. The farmers must make money, the poor people must survive. That is governance. So we are yet to see what is going to happen going forward on this new price of maize. But for the farmers, congratulations. At least you get a return from the 280. But I beat the poor people who are not going to afford. And it's not only milling me. Don't take it only to milling me. Even the chickens are going to be expensive. Mind you, chicken feet, animal feet for the cows is also manufactured from maize. Meaning inama yala ni no mutengo. Inko kos yala ni no mutengo. But I am not going to survive. By economists. I hope it will be a press conference. I want to thank you. I want to thank you. I want to thank you. Thank you very much.


Appalachian Wireless proudly brings you unlimited data. Unlimited data is only $80 a month for a single line. Four lines as low as $200. Better service? Bigger savings? That's today's Appalachian Wireless. An East Kentucky network company. The at a speed slow to 25 gigabytes per line to 512 kilobits for phones and tablets. And 15 gigabytes for motors. See store for more details. For four years now, folks in and around Weizberg have been coming together here at First Baptist Church to discuss the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast and Memorial Service was held at First Baptist Church in Weizberg. Now in its fourth year, the Breakfast and Service brings together local folks to discuss and reflect on Dr. King's legacy of tolerance, community and unity. Those who come, I think, come for very deep, sincere reasons and I think they appreciate the fact that we are having it and that we are carrying it on. It means a lot to us because we all can come together in unity and that was Martin Luther King Jr.'s purpose. I just wish that all of us would look at each other that you're my brother, you're my sister and stop looking in my color. Just accept me for who I am. The event is a joint effort of First Baptist Church and the Cowan Community Center. At this year's breakfast, attendees were asked to write down their respective dreams for their community and post that dream on the wall for all to see. One little five-year-old when asked what her dream was and what she wanted, she said, I want to see more flowers in the county. I love pretty flowers and I want to see them everywhere. Another one spoke up very quickly and said I would like to see better public schools. It is absolutely amazing to think that children are part of a conversation like that. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 89 this year. In Whitesburg, Chris Anderson, EKB News.


Hello. The hearing system cannot react to all features present in a sound wave. Thus, it is essential to determine what we perceive and how we perceive it. This enormously complex field is referred to as speech reception. The following questions have dominated research. Question number one. Does the speech signal contain specific perceptual or acoustic cues? And then are there any perceptual units, any fundamental units of speech perception? And last but not least, how can we model the process of speech perception that is, are there any theories of speech perception? A further important issue in speech perception, which is also the province of experimental psychology, is whether speech perception is a continuous or as often assumed a categorical process. These and some minor questions will be discussed in the following. The speech signal presents us with far more information than we need in order to recognize what is being said. Still, our auditory system is able to focus our attention on just the relevant auditory features of the speech signal. Features that have come to be known as perceptual or acoustic cues. Now the importance of these small auditory events has led to the assumption that speech perception is by and large not a continuous process, but rather a phenomenon that can be described as discontinuous or categorical. So the entire process can be characterized as categorical perception. In other words, these cues are not perceived along a continuum but as fixed categories. Let us exemplify such categories. The first one is called voice onset time. Now voice onset time or in short VOT is the point when vocal fold vibration starts relative to the release of closure. It is crucial for us to discriminate between clusters such as Ba and Pa. And it is a well established fact that a gradual delay of voice onset time does not lead to a differentiation between the voiceless and voiced consonants. Let us illustrate this. Now if voice onset time is long, let's say 250 milliseconds, what do we perceive? Clearly the voiced variant Ba. Now if by contrast we make it extremely short, let's say 10 milliseconds, we perceive Pa again. Okay, so 10 milliseconds and the result is Pa. What about 50 milliseconds? It is still the voiced variant and 20 milliseconds? It's the voiceless one. Now quite interestingly, if we generate a voice onset time value of 30 milliseconds, then we have trouble to identify what we hear. Ba. In other words, if VOT is longer than 30 milliseconds, we hear Ba. If it is shorter, the perceptual result is Pa. The voiced onset time value of 30 milliseconds serves as a key factor as some sort of acoustic queue. Here is another acoustic queue, Formant 2 or in short F2 transition. Now the formant pattern of vowels in isolation differs enormously from that of vowels embedded in a consonantal context. If a consonant precedes a vowel, then the second formant F2 seems to emerge from a particular point. The point is very high for Ka, it is intermediate for Te and it is very low for Pa. Now this frequency region from where F2 emerges is referred to as F2 locus. And it may be assumed that a gradual change from high to low may result in a gradual change from Ka to Pa, if we generate the consonant in a vocalic context. Let's listen. Now here's a high locus. Ka. Clearly the result is Ka. Now if we contrast this with a very low one, Pa. The result is Pa. And in the middle Pa. We clearly hear Ta. But what about these intermediate values? Ta. So if it is higher than the locus for Te but lower than the locus for Ka, we cannot identify the respective consonant. Thus it seems that speech perception is sensitive to the locus of F2 and that the transition of F2 from the locus to the vowel is an important cue in the perception of speech. Now another cue that we rely on in the perception of speech are frequency patterns. Now the frequency of certain parts of the sound wave helps to identify a large number of speech sounds. Fricatives for example. Involve a partial closer which produces a turbulence in the airflow and results in a noisy, a very noisy sound with spreading over a broad frequency range. Now this friction noise, and again, this friction noise is relatively unaffected by the context in which the fricative occurs and may thus serve as a nearly invariant cue for its identification. Having discussed the three central acoustic or perceptual cues, voice onset time, F2 transition, the locus of F2 and frequency patterns, let us now see whether there is a central unit on the basis of which we segment the incoming signal. Studies into language acquisition, especially into infant speech processing, suggest that the fundamental unit of speech perception corresponds roughly to the syllable. The central argument is the unavailability of obvious cues that facilitate the segmentation process. Despite the absence of such cues, children are capable of acquiring their lexicon, even though they have little or no information about the phonological properties of the words. Hence they must process some sort of information, perhaps innate about the properties that distinguish one word from another. This information seems to be based on the syllable. Well, the syllable, as you know, consists of an onset, a peak, and a coda. This is the standard notation. Here is an abbreviated notation. And here are some examples, a very simple syllable. Man. Man consists of the onset, a bilabial nasal, a vowel in the peak, and the coda is another nasal consonant. If we take strength, we have three consonants in the onset. One vowel in the peak and two consonants in the coda. So this is the syllable. Now, how can all these findings be modeled? Well, there are several theoretical approaches. They are subsumed under the heading of speech perception theories. All these theories have in common that, first of all, they agree that the ear amplifies the incoming signal and transmits it to the auditory nerve where a primary auditory analysis takes place. That is, filtering out of non-speech aspects and so on. Then an auditory pattern is being generated, form and patterns, etc., using some sort of mental recognition device. And it is this device here, this device where the theories make different claims. By the way, the output of all these theories is, in any case, in all cases, some sort of phonological form. So here, either in terms of phonemes, we might argue, or in terms of features, that contains the relevant information. We forgot an arrow here. Let us now compare the different types of theories. There are essentially two types of theories, active and passive theories. Let's start with active theories. Active theories assume that the process of speech perception involves some sort of internal speech production. That is, the listener applies his articulatory knowledge when he analyses the incoming signal. In other words, the listener acts not only when he produces speech, but also when he receives it. Two influential active theories have emerged. Here on the left, you see the motor theory of speech perception. According to the motor theory, reference to your own articulatory knowledge, down here, is manifested via a direct comparison with articulatory pattern. According to the motor theory, reference to one's own articulatory knowledge is manifested via a direct comparison with one's own articulatory pattern. An alternative is the analysis by synthesis theory. Now, this theory postulates that the reference to our own articulation is established via newly generated auditory patterns. Now, active theories can be contrasted with passive theories. The passive group of theories of speech perception emphasize the sensory side of the perceptual process and relegate the process of speech production to a minor role. They postulate the use of stored neural patterns which may even be innate. Here are two influential passive theories. Here to the left, you find the theory of template matching. Templates are innate recognition devices that are rudimentary at birth and are tuned as language is acquired. Now, the alternative is the feature detector theory where feature detectors are specialized neural receptors necessary for the generation of auditory patterns. Let us summarize our observations. There is evidence that the analysis of the spoken input signal is by and large sensory and that a system of sub-segmental feature detectors is central to any theory of perception. These feature detectors cope with specific acoustic cues in the signal. So, that's it. Thank you very much. Thanks for your attention and see you again.


Today, we'll be talking about one of the articles from our magazine, The Benefits of Pet Ownership, by Jamie Moffat. We hope it's helpful. Many people all over the world have pets and love them just as much, if not more, than their human companions. Pets are known to provide a type of unconditional love that other humans cannot always give. Thus, humans tend to love their pets way more than their friends. A key example of this is how dogs are constantly referred to as man's best friend. It can be extremely expensive to care for a pet, if you're doing it in the correct manner anyway. There are many things to account for when you have a pet, such as trips to the vet, food, toys, and all the necessary things for your pet's survival and comfort. Having a pet is definitely not a thing to take lightly. Through research, it can be proven that pet owners are more emotionally stable and physically active. The act of walking your dog alone can cause these changes in a person. Pet owners create a very special bond with their pet, both through walking and just living with them. People with pets tend to be psychologically healthier because of the bond they have with their pet. Animals can often help people get over or avoid the feeling of loneliness since they are a built-in best friend for their owners. Our pets become our best confidant, our cuddle buddy when we're sad or when we need a good cuddle, and sometimes they are the one thing in our life we know we can count on at the end of the day. You can gather very similar benefits to being a pet owner no matter what type of pet you own. Animals provide an amount of emotional and social support that can be vital to a healthy mind and body. This doesn't mean you should run out and buy a pet right away. If you're thinking about pet ownership, then these are simply some extra pluses for pet adoption. Or if you're having emotional struggles or constantly dealing with loneliness, you may want to look into getting a pet as they are helpful for those kind of things. But if you're going to adopt a pet, make sure you have plenty of research and make sure you are ready for all the responsibilities that go along with having a pet. Pets of all shapes and sizes provide a great amount of unconditional love and so much emotional and social support. They will love you in a way unlike a person you will ever meet. This can be a great thing and can really help you if you're feeling down or like you're alone in the world. Of course, they are not a solution to all problems as the intensity of mental and emotional issues can vary. However, having a pet is one of the many ways in which people can have happier and healthier lives. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe to our channel and share with your friends. You can buy our magazine from our store at iHeartPsychology.myshopify.com and you can support our Patreon at patreon.com.com.com.