Aloha, welcome to another episode of Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers. I'm your host, Carl Campania. We are continuing on with our new series called Politics in Hawaii, where we are going to be addressing as many issues and concerns as possible. We're going to be bringing in as many guests as possible from all sides of the conversation. This is not a partisan conversation. This is supposed to be a complete conversation, so that we can get as much out there as much learned as possible. That's what we're hoping, that's what I'm hoping for. Along with that, today we're going to be discussing very specifically the neighborhood board system. And what I'd like to find out is what we believe the role and impact of the neighborhood board is or could be, maybe should be. So we'll see. We'll see where we get in that conversation. So thank you for joining us today. Our guest today, I'm very delighted to bring in someone who is a very active neighborhood board member, Mr. Dylan Armstrong, who is the second vice president, vice president, second vice chair of neighborhood board for Minoa, neighborhood board number seven. So Dylan, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Carl. Pleasure to be here. Oh, thank you. So, okay, second vice chair, tell us about, what is the structure? I don't normally begin with this, but because the second vice chair is interesting, what is the structure and how do you happen to become second vice chair? Right. So neighborhood boards elect officers among the elected members. So internally, there are officer elections. They're held generally every two years, but of course, vacancies and circumstances can arise, which cause more frequent elections. The chair is the officer position that is the most circumscribed by the neighborhood plan, which is one of the governing documents that neighborhood boards operate by. Neighborhood boards are a city and county of Honolulu function. And the neighborhood plan stipulates that the chair has to run the meetings, has to keep order to the meeting, has to put together an agenda and presides over the elections. So a first vice chair would be someone who would step into the capacity of chair if the chair was absent, if the chair resigned until an election to replace the chair occurred. A second vice chair is sort of similarly like a lower backup. But to the extent that officer titles matter, secretary is an incredibly important position for neighborhood boards because they review the minutes and the minutes are a matter of public record. They're available online. They're also mailed out to those people who choose to subscribe. Is the secretary a member of the board or is the secretary because each board actually has a separate note taker that is there that makes sure that they transcribe the notes and make sure they get over to the neighborhood commission and to mayor's office ultimately. You raise a really key distinction that would be easy to miss if you were just observing your local neighborhood board meeting, which is that every neighborhood board that is part of the city and county of Honolulu neighborhood commission office system has a legislative assistant or sorry, a neighborhood assistant who is a paid staff member of the neighborhood commission office. They do take notes. They provide subject matter knowledge. So is this motion in keeping with Robert's rules of order? Is this in keeping with the neighborhood plan? Is this in keeping with the sunshine law and OIT? OIT, what's OIT? I believe it's, I forget what it stands for off the top of my head, but some of the transparency regulations for the neighborhood board come not only through the sunshine law, which applies to policymakers, elected officials statewide, but there's also internal city and county public notice, transparency, stipulations that the neighborhood board also has to follow by. In most cases it doesn't cause a difference, but sometimes when it has to do with how many days in advance the public has to receive the meeting agenda, that's where those kind of things. These are the sunshine laws and what you're able to cover, what you're able to talk about, how you need to inform the committee if I've had a conversation or if you've had a conversation from the neighborhood board perspective. I am also a neighborhood board member, neighborhood board number 14, so some of this I'm aware of, I think you've been involved longer than I have, so therefore I welcome you to really correct what we say based on your experience. But yeah, so let's take a little step back a little bit and say, okay, from the neighborhood board you're talking about the structure because I asked you from chair to vice chair to second vice chair, and you talked about how there are elections to that executive board members. Out of the neighborhood board members themselves. There's also an election every two years for the neighborhood board themselves. So everyone on the neighborhood board has to go through an election process. Tell us about that. How often, it is every two years, but tell us about that process and how it works. So I was elected in 2015, I believe in spring. It's a city-wide or rather Oahu-wide series of elections, so I stood for a position in my sub-district, which we can certainly go over the details of sub-districts later, but it involved a certain amount of campaigning. We were all, as candidates, given the opportunity to put forth an Internet biography, so a short sort of about you and why you're interested in the board. Some people doorknock, some people sign wave, some people use social media to campaign. In many cases it's not competitive if there is- I was just going to ask, how competitive is it? When I ran for neighborhood board, we all got into reclamation. There was no one challenging anyone. In recent decades, that's been increasingly common, is my knowledge. However, my sub-district was contested. There were six vacancies and 11 candidates, so it was one of the most intensely competitive in our neighborhood board's recent history. In addition to sub-districts, there's also at large. It depends on the neighborhood board. This is kind of- we're getting into the geography of the neighborhood boards. These are not necessarily the same as state legislative districts or they are their own creature. My neighborhood board goes from the back of Manoa Valley to the freeway, nothing past the freeway, except for a certain part of lower campus where there are some residences. It's its own thing. Our board does not have at large representatives or board members. Macaulay Mo'ili-Ili does, and an at-large board member simply represents or is elected from anywhere within the neighborhood board jurisdiction. As a sub-district for neighborhood board member, I was elected from the lower part of Manoa, closest to UH and a little bit surrounding Malca, but I was elected from that particular area. The reason why those sub-districts can be important for neighborhood boards that have them is in Manoa, which is full of retirees and students, the tendency is for those who have more time available or are more permanently established in the community, particularly retirees, to be active in the board. If there's a geographic socioeconomic difference across the community, having a sub-district allows you to make sure that you are representing people from all different communities, at least geographically. It's not perfect necessarily, but it is a way of increasing the diversity, and as a sub-district board member, are you allowed to cover the same things as an at-large member? You certainly are.  I'm an at-large member. You can cover anything in your neighborhood board jurisdiction, so I don't have to limit myself to a sub-district's particular area if it's anywhere within the neighborhood board fair game. Our current chair is actually from my sub-district, so I was able to get in as an at-large. He was very happy to include me with that, so I appreciated that. We get to talk more about our particular area sometimes, just between he and I, with some of the issues that we get, and then we bring that to the board. The whole neighborhood board structure, I believe, was put in place by, was it Mayor Fosse, going back a couple decades ago now, and it was put in place because, and correct me and add as you would. It was put in place to make sure that there was a means or a mechanism for the mayor's office to be able to reach deeper into the neighborhoods and to the communities to hear and get feedback from them and to have more of a two-way conversation between the mayor's office and agencies and departments and the individual residences that live in these communities. Would you agree with that, or what more would you want to add? The neighborhood board system is a citizen's advisory board. It is a community mouthpiece. It functions in a number of different capacities. It was instituted in the 1970s. Many communities rapidly established their own boards. Some are not officially part of the neighborhood board system and maintain community associations that I'm not as knowledgeable about, but those also exist. Yes. One of the gardens association and one of the valley association are two examples. Absolutely. So, because the neighborhood commission office is the authority for the neighborhood board system. This is part of the city and county, however, there are community issues that reach to the state level, the federal level, the interests of private groups or nonprofits. So while the city and county is where the neighborhood board is at, really anything that affects your community is fair game for discussion in a neighborhood board meeting. You have to follow certain parameters in the neighborhood plan as to being fair, favoring certain groups, not using your office to promote a particular political candidate or a particular political outcome. How strongly are those rules held to? Because I've heard many stories and this goes back perhaps several years to a decade or so where it has been much more problematic to make sure that these rules are being adhered to appropriately. So I don't know, do you have any knowledge or experience on how people have misused these situations or positions? Right. So, the neighborhood plan sets forth sort of a basic series of requirements and they're in the, sort of towards the end of the neighborhood plan because the first part deals with the neighborhood commission office that is the paid staff members of the city. But the neighborhood board members, we are volunteers, so we have to follow certain essential requirements as far as decorum, as far as fairness, certainly public notice going back to what we were saying about the sunshine law. If you breach those, there is a process. Board members can be formally reprimanded or even removed from a neighborhood board. And that is through the neighborhood commission office because that's- Who would bring that up? Who would bring that up? If there was a challenge, if there was a concern, if someone felt that the chair or one of the members of the neighborhood board to this community was abusing their position, who would be the one to bring it up to the neighborhood board commission? You can be any member of the community. And I'm saying community, not a resident. You don't have to necessarily be a resident of the neighborhood board in which this action took place. But if you're a business owner, if you are someone who in some way is established in that community and you're involved in an issue and you feel that there is an unfairness towards you or someone else, you can certainly bring that to the neighborhood commission office. And that's happened. Yeah. And it has happened. And there have been some challenges to that. So we're going to take a quick break. And then we're going to come back and we're going to dive into that a bit more because it's an important challenge, I think, that exists for a lot of community members with regards to the board. So thank you for joining us. Again, this is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, the politics in Hawaii series. Thanks again to our guest, Mr. Dylan Armstrong. And we will see you in one minute. Hi. Aloha. I'm Richard Emory. I'm with co-host Jane Sugimura of Condo Insider, Hawaii's weekly show about association living. The purpose of these videos is to educate board members and condo residents about issues relating to association living. We hope they're helpful and that they assist in resolving problems that affect the relationship between boards and their residents. Each week, Thursday at 3 p.m., we bring you exciting guests, industry experts who for free will share their advice about how to make your association a better place to live and answer a lot of very interesting questions. Aloha. We hope you'll tune in. Thank you.  In today's episode, we're talking about the neighborhood board system, the role and the impact of the neighborhood board system. So our guest today is one of the neighborhood board members from Manoa, neighborhood board number seven, Mr. Dylan Armstrong. And we were just discussing some of the challenges and if there's an issue or someone is abusing the power a little bit, we're going to stay on that for a brief moment and then we're going to move on to opportunities and other things that we can do within the board system itself. So okay, I've heard over the years there has been a misuse and what people in general, one of the challenges that people have with government is they believe it's corrupt. They believe that there is manipulation in the situation. And it has been suggested and several people who used to be board members have suggested to me somewhat recently for that matter that there was a time, if not currently, there was a time when even the mayor's office would have reached into what was happening in the neighborhood board system. And their particular agenda was pushed through the system more than the community's input. So that being one of the challenges, how do you see that as a way to, I don't know, address the community's interests if it's being utilized or misutilized? Sure. So I guess to get to the first part of what you were asking about, since this is a city and county of Honolulu neighborhood board system, Maui doesn't have this. I'm not sure about all neighbor islands, but certainly this is specific to Oahu. The mayor has the ability to send representatives and in fact does so to every neighborhood board that I follow or have friends run. The mayor sends a representative, the governor sends a representative. The legislators and the council members will either themselves show up or send a representative. That's right. And it's not purely state government or city and county. Sometimes you will get people from various nonprofit groups that are established in the community. As long as the neighborhood board chair is setting a place for them on the agenda, they can come speak. You can ask your neighborhood board chair to speak about whatever, if you have an issue, if you have an organization that's dealing with a community-wide issue, you can have that opportunity, but you have to work with your neighborhood board chair or simply work with a neighborhood board member who will go through the chair. That's knowing that that's available to you. That's one of the things. We'll transition to that. So it's a tough question to answer of uses of the situation, and unfortunately there's been, I think, a history of that. As a neighborhood board member of neighborhood board 14, I am not seeing that in my neighborhood board in any way. So I think that's a positive. It doesn't necessarily happen everywhere, and it isn't necessarily currently happening. So we'll move past that. And let's look at opportunities and what really can be done and how the communities and neighbors can utilize the neighborhood board system. Everything from if there's a concern about your street, about if road work needs to be done, if signs have been knocked down, if telephone poles have been broken or fallen off, anything from that level up to how is the park being utilized? Or is it being misused in some way? Are there crimes that are happening? We get the police department that shows up and gives us their statistics. We get the fire department that comes and shows us their statistics. Board of Water Supply tells us their thoughts. We get a range of information that makes that information available then to the community through the minutes, as well as just open to discussion. Whoever shows up from the community who has questions, from the nonprofit organizations that exist down the line to everyone, everyone is available to say something, to speak about something, to bring up a topic of concern or a question in each of these areas. So that is, I think, an important aspect for everyone to understand. The neighborhood board is there for you to utilize. The neighborhood board is there for you to say, I'm concerned about something in my community, in my neighbor's backyard, perhaps. I'm concerned, how can we address this? And what are some of the rules? And I don't know all the laws. I don't know what the ordinance are. What do we know? How can I address this? That's how, that's really the power that exists there. So how have you seen the community members, the residents themselves, come to your neighborhood board and how has your neighborhood board been able to embrace the community? Yeah, certainly over the years, there have been controversial and news, news attaining stories affecting the neighborhood board system. Paradise Park in Manoa would be one instance, but some of the neighboring neighborhood boards, particularly Moe, Ely McCully, Alamoana, have been involved in mopeds and they actually got involved in actively pursuing legislation to control the noise and the nuisance that people perceived associated with those mopeds. So neighborhood boards can be in and of themselves a vehicle for channeling those community needs and at their best, they're fairly effective at that because this is a volunteer organization. Neighborhood board meetings are what the members themselves put into it. It's not on the neighborhood commission office. It's not on whichever government officials choose to show up. It's on the board to do that. So you get a variety of board members. Are they passionate? Are they interested? Are they curious in the issues? Do they know about the issues in all the different parts of their community? If you go from one end of my neighborhood board jurisdiction to the other, you have very different issues. I mean, sometimes there are similar things with potholes or poorly paved roads or roads in need of repaving, but there are other issues that you would never know about. There was a shooting very close to where I live about a month ago. Only a few blocks away, no one would have heard it and no one did hear it. Those of us who were closer to it thought it was fireworks. So, and that's just the difference of a few blocks. When you have mountain ridges, when you have the freeway, when you have high rises, the neighborhood board provides you an opportunity as a participating member, as a visitor, as a guest, as someone from the community who's observing, you can learn a lot about what's going on. And if you are confused about those laws, then you can ask those elected officials who are there, you can ask those board members. It's a great opportunity when utilized to learn about how your community works at every level. Yeah, I would agree. And I'll make it very clear again, my neighborhood board routinely, every month, we get our legislators to show up. Sometimes it's just the representative, but often it's the legislators. Senator John Oakland has come almost every time. Representative Ono has come almost every time. And they are there to listen and they're there to give a reply. And if they don't have an answer, they will come back the next month with an answer.  And that's an important understanding of the access that you can have just there. So I think that's an important facet. And also council member Fukunaga, in not particularly, she shows up every time and she addresses the concerns. Yeah, and I think an important point to raise would be in the context of the neighborhood board meeting that we have tonight in Manoa. I invited, working with the city and county, I invited the acting director of the city's department of transportation services to come give a presentation on a study that was completed over a year ago. Is this the complete streets? The complete streets, which was a series of studies done island-wide. Which by the way, I'll add into that. That was obviously brought to each neighborhood board. It was brought to our neighborhood board and we went through the process and we got to vote on whether we were going to allow as a community a complete street program on Nuiuwanu, on Ruiha and how that would work. And if we decided we didn't want it, that was going to impact what was done. So there's a relevance there. Yeah, it's important to note that actual governing policy for different agencies and entities uses the neighborhood board system as a means for communicating what is happening to the public. So that's something that I think critics of the neighborhood board system should keep in mind because if you remove a neighborhood board and there are means to do so, you're actually removing a means for even private businesses, non-profits, as well as government to actually disseminate information to the public. As well as hear from the community and make sure that the voices are being heard. Right, so at a very passive level, neighborhood boards kind of function as community forms. You were talking about the monthly salad of reports from various police, fair department, board of water supply, perhaps our board frequently or nearly always has board of water supply, as well as the elected officials. But to be actively engaged as a board member, you can pass resolutions among the board. You can invite departmental heads from state and city agencies to come present what they're doing in your community or what they could be doing in your community and then have the input from the community right there. You've already paid for the space. People already know what time of the month to expect to go to the meeting place. And we get the board online. And we get the agenda mailed to us as well. Right, if you miss the meeting, you can get the minutes mailed to you. You can watch on O'Lello. And that information is on the neighborhood board website. The neighborhood commission staff do a tremendous job of making accurate minutes and making sure that information is available to people. And I'm not sure if all neighborhood boards actually have that arrangement with O'Lello, but many do. And it's a very consistent, I think. Not all do. I think some actually have it live. Some record it. Some don't. We only, and my neighborhood board, we only recently got a microphone system that works. So we used to just be, people would have to talk and we'd have to listen over the fans. So okay, all right. So again, it's the individual board members and it's the community and it's them connecting. And how engaged the board members are and how they bring the issues to the community. For example, our neighborhood board, we actually were able to get next era there to give us their thoughts. And we had point, counterpoint going on with next era in our neighborhood board so that our community can hear directly from them about the concerns and issues in that particular case. So if your neighborhood board is active, if they're engaged, if they're bringing the people to the table that are gonna impact your life, then I say that that's a positive thing that the neighborhood board can be doing. We have to be careful that it's not being misused and we have to be diligent. And that's where we recognize every two years there's an election. So every two years, if we don't like what our neighborhood board has done, you know what? Show up, show up, let us know. Show up, vote someone else in, vote someone out. And that's from the neighborhood board on up to the governor, everybody involved. That's what voting is about. That's what the political system is about. And the neighborhood board is a way to make sure a voice is being heard. So with that, I thank you for joining us. Thank you, Dylan, for joining us. This is a really short show and I know it happens really quickly. So thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, our Politics in Hawaii series. We'll be talking much more about a lot of topics. Next week, we have Chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, Tim Vandevere, coming. We're gonna discuss the impacts of the election of November 8th. So we'll see you on November 9th, to learn about that. So thank you, see you then. Thank you again to the entire crew and staff of Think Tech Hawaii and we'll see you next week. Take care.


Trade it and upgrade it now at Appalachian Wireless and receive up to $700 off when you trade your old eligible device in and upgrade to a new iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro or 14 Pro Max on an unlimited Appalachian Advantage plan because we are you. We are Appalachian Wireless. Hue life in conjunction with Mountain Comprehensive Care and Mountain Regional Prevention Center will be holding outreach events in Floyd, Pike, and MacGuffin County with the goal of discussing ways to improve our communities. We go in, we have a conversation, right? Because that's how you're going to get your information. It just, they want to be heard. So we create that environment. And really what we're asking them is what are the ways the community has addressed the health of all this? The youth ages 10 and 18. And what do we mean by community? It's anybody that works, lives, plays in MacGuffin, Pike, Floyd, Johnson, in Martin County, right? It's those five counties. Communities cannot grow without input from the residents who live there. Those seeking change in their communities are encouraged to come out, listen and make suggestions. That's the beautiful part about these focus groups, right?  It's a place that really get your thoughts and concerns out for everybody to hear and understand. And how can you address those issues? How can you address those problems or fix them if people don't know about them? So that's why we're trying to get everybody out here. For more information, dates and times on outreach events, you can visit the Mountain Regional Prevention Center Facebook page. For Mountain Top News, I'm Kelsey Dean.


This paper proposes a local flexibility market framework which enables multiple participants to buy and sell flexibility services such as presumer of community self-balancing, congestion management and time of use optimization. The local market operator supervises these transactions within the local energy community with the distribution system operator, balance responsible party and end-users participating voluntarily. The local market can be used to sell or buy flexibility through loads, generators, storage units and electric vehicles. The paper also discusses the interactions between the various stakeholders, the inputs and outputs of the local market algorithm, and a case study to illustrate how the local flexibility market can help reduce energy costs and increase hosting capacity of distribution grids. This article was authored by Paul Olivelle Roselle, Paul Loer Diego, Ingrid Moncolado and others.


Ranger Bill, warrior of the woodland, struggling against extreme odds, traveling dangerous trails, fighting the many enemies of nature. This is the job of the guardian of the forest, Ranger Bill, pouring rain, freezing cold, blistering heat, snow, floods, bears, rattlesnakes, mountain lions. Yes, all this in exchange for the satisfaction and pride of a job well done. When spring comes it means lots of work for the rangers. Yes, it's all day from sun up to sun down and then sometimes far into the night as the rangers work to guard the public lands. Each spring I'm especially concerned because the river rises high with water from melding snow coming down from the mountains and come spring each year the river is a threat to the town of river's bend, but one year there was a new threat, a new danger. It was the time the rangers and I fought the river months, sir. How high is the shady river now, Bill? It's climbed our gaze just three inches. Oh, that plenty of water. Tell you nothing yet, sonny. When all shady really gets her dander up, then you'll see more water than you ever seen before. When all that snow begins to pour out of the mountains, you'll think somebody opened up the gates of Hoover Dam and let her oil come rolling down on us. Yeah, I remember last spring while the folks at River's Bend thought the levees were going to break open for sure. Oh, well, I remember, pal. I never filled so many sandbags in all my life, but they held the river back. Maybe they not have same trouble this year. They build dikes stronger and bigger than before. Well, personally, I'm not worried about the town at all this spring because of those improvements, but we'll have to keep watching the old gal anyhow.  Well, at least we won't have to fill sandbags. All the river can do now is flood the rangeland, and well, that'll go down after a few weeks. Yep. Guess we can scratch all shady river off our worry list. Did you come from? Bill, the big trouble. Trouble? Shady river. The shady river? What's it doing now? No, it's not the river she behave. It's Zuck Stevens. He got big log raft on river, too big to handle with more and more water coming into river from mountains. How big is this log raft, Frenchy? Frenchy not know for sure.  This old fireplace sure feels good after being out cutting logs all day. You said it, Zach. Yes, I'm getting old. Look forward to coming inside the cabin every evening and soaking up the heat. Me too, Clarence. Zach, what we gonna do about that oversized log raft we've got in the river? What do you mean, what are we gonna do about it? Well, some of the boys saw Frenchy do Si looking at it early today. I don't mean anything. Besides, Frenchy's quit being a troublemaker since he's got religion. Yeah, but Frenchy's a good friend of Bill Jefferson. So? What am I supposed to do?  You mean he doesn't pick fats anymore. But that oversized raft we've got is a menace with the water rising in the big shady river. Frenchy might get the ranges about it. Who you working for? Me or that Frenchman? Okay, forget it, Zach. I just got a feeling we might get a visit from the Rangers, that's all. So all the Rangers visit us. So the raft is extra big. So the raft is a menace. So I'm as good a raftman as I am a lumberjack. You let me worry about the raft, Clarence. Your job is to see that the boys cut down the trees and make logs. That should give you busy enough. Okay, okay. But if you're getting into trouble, don't say I didn't warn you. Warn me all you want too. I'm not breaking the law. Now move that raft when I'm good and ready and not before. What are you gonna do about that big raft, Bill? I don't know yet, Bill. And I'd be plenty dangerous if I get loose on river with floodwater coming fast. She'd be very dangerous. She'd take everything with it that gets in way. How much do you think that there are monster ways, Frenchie? The raft have maybe 200 logs. They weigh 1000 each.  Look at the size of that thing. Would you look like an overgrown whale come up to see what's going on? Ah, too big. I'll say it's too big, Gray Wolf. Personally, I think Stephen ought to be ashamed of himself to put a thing like that together. That's only held together with heavy chains and cables. Oh, heavy chain and cable only fasten logs together. But cable not hold to river bank if water get higher room faster. Then break loose. If you ask me, they're more in cables don't look like they could hold back 100 tons. Once the river got mad. That's what's worrying me, old timer. The river is higher every day. Yep. Pretty soon, old shady will be happen. Then bingo. When do they figure the peak will be reached, Gray Wolf? Ah, maybe a few more days. Uh-oh. Here comes Zach and his foreman. Don't worry. If they'll get tough, Frenchie fix him. You're forgetting, Frenchie. No rough stuff. Where do you range it? What are you doing on private property? Get out. Perhaps you haven't read the rule book lately, Zach. The law says that 10 feet beyond the edge of the river is public property. Public property is our field of operation. Ah, you keep soft tongue in head. You get long better. Oui, Zach Stevens. Maybe you like to try and throw Frenchie out. Hold it for us, Zach. We didn't come here to start a quarrel or a fight. We're on business. You're not afraid we might say something that we shouldn't see, are you? Me? Don't be silly. I haven't got a thing to hide. You're right there, Zach. You couldn't hide that thing we're looking at, even if you wanted to. Hey, you mean the long raft? You hit the nail right on the head. You know a raft that size could do a lot of damage if it ever got loose. Yeah, who says it's gonna get loose? You don't think them shoestrings, you got it tied to the shore, where they're gonna hold it, do you, young fella? That's my business, Ranger. And I'll thank you to mind your own. Listen, Zach, and listen hard. This is our business. That oversized long raft is a menace to all property, public and private. And it's also a threat to the town of Rivers Bend. If that thing ever got loose and went careening around the bend of the river, what do you think would happen to the levee of the town spent thousands of dollars to build up? How you listen to me, Jefferson. You're not telling me what to do or how to do anything. I'm the best raft man on this river, and when I'm ready to move that raft, I'll move it. Move it safely. But that's when I'm ready to move it and not before. Zach, I'll be back in one week. You'd better have that raft loading carefully down the river to the mill, or else reduced to a half its size. Is that a threat, Ranger? No, it's an order. And I can assure you of one thing, I never was more serious in my life. Please come to order. Get on with this meeting. Quiet down. The leader will please come to order. Come on, fellas.  We got important business to do. We don't want to waste all night. Thank you. Well, gentlemen, there's no use in me going over the problem that caused this meeting. The question is what we're going to do about that monstrous raft that threatens the safety of our town. That's right. The chair will listen for any motion from the floor. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Sykes? As mayor of Rivers Bend, I move that the chair appoint a committee of two men to pay a visit to Zach Stevens, and warrant him to either get that raft moved, or make two rafts out of it. I second a motion, Mr. Chairman. You've heard the motion. Is there any discussion, or are you ready for the question? Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion's carried. As chairman, I appoint Mr. Sykes, or mayor, and Mr. Klose, our treasurer, to pay Zach Stevens a visit. You two men will ask Mr. Stevens to break the raft apart before it gets loose, and smash his little levy that keeps the Sadie River from flooding our town. And if he won't comply, then what do we do? Well, I'd suggest that you take the whole matter to the rangers, Mr. Klose. Bill Jefferson will know what to do. Sure is beautiful up here at the headwaters, Bill. Yes, Bill. We're several thousand feet above sea level here. And there's Naughty Pine way over to our left. Yeah. Looks like he's just a couple of miles. He had his 25 miles away. Well, did you find out what you came up here for? I think so. I wanted to see how much snow was melting running down the mountains into these tributaries of the Sadie River. Yeah, believe me. This old sun's getting mighty powerful. You see those five creeks all running down the mountains? Every one of them swollen with water. I'll say. How many creeks feed into the river, Bill? No, I think the estimate is 106 tributaries into the Sadie. The five we see here give us a good idea what the sum total of volume is. I'd say all we need are some warm southerly winds, and that river will rise 10 feet overnight. How long do you think it'll be until the river's at its peak? A lot of week at 10 days. Why? 106 creeks can empty a lot of water in a few days' time. Sure could. You see, some of these high mountain passes have 15 feet of snow in them, and where the temperature's above freezing, that means millions of gallons of water flowing off. And meanwhile, Zach Stevens lets his river monster sleep at its moorings. What? It's criminal. That's what it is. Well, he's only got four days left to let it sleep. I gave him a week to move it to destroy it. Four more days, he's gonna get into real trouble if that raft isn't moving or split up. Zach, in the name of common sense and decency, why won't you listen to reason? You're threatening the whole town of river spend with that raft? Well, that's too bad. What am I supposed to do?  Well, I'm surprised, Zach. I always thought you were a gentleman with a sense of honor, and I'd sure hate to think I was mistaken. Now you listen to me. I'll give you two fellas just five minutes to get off my place, and if you don't, I'll call the boys and have you thrown off. You forget one thing. That raft is my private property, and it's nobody's business what I do with it. I'm the best raft man in this whole country, and I know what I'm doing. I doubt that very much. If you had an ounce of brains, you wouldn't take the chance of having a tragedy occur at your expense. You'd better listen, Zach Stevens. There are 400 people in river spend, and if you... So what'll happen if I don't listen, huh? Come on, close. No use talking to this guy. Let's take the matter up with the rangers. Bill Jefferson will show this smarty where to head in. Yeah? Well, you go ahead and get the rangers. See if it'll do you any good. I'm not gonna move that raft, and there's not a thing you can do about it. Well, that's the answer he gave us, Bill. Just a lot of mean, smart aleck answers. Well, the whole trouble is, Mr. Sykes. I'm afraid he's right. You mean you can't stop him with the law? You mean that Zach Stevens can't be forced by a court order to break up that oversized log pile he's got floating on the river? Mr. Close, there are times when the law seems inadequate to fulfill its purpose, as in this case. We've got to remember that in America, we respect the private property of others. Sometimes even to that property is dangerous or undesirable. But what are we gonna do? You know, as well as I do, nobody can get that raft safely down the river. I mean, no matter how experienced it is. I agree. The river's too high now to handle that raft safely. It's gotta be broken up. But how to do it? Mr. Sykes, give me until this evening to figure out a solution. I'll come to River's Bend with some kind of an answer, and that's a promise. Do you think it'll do any good to talk to Zach again, Bill? Well, frankly speaking, Phil, no. I don't think it'll a bit of good. I want to try just once more, anyhow. And nobody can say I haven't given Zach fair warning. We'll be there soon. This road's just around the next bend. He's only got two more days until his week is up, hasn't he? That's right. Just two more days. There's the road into Zach's main camp now. Hey, there's a barricade across the road. So there is. Just pull to the side of the road, Henry. We'll find out what this is all about. Right. There's a sign on the barricade, Bill. Now, let's see what it says. No trespassing. Private property. Looks like Zach's getting a little erratic, huh? Bill, wait. I just saw a reflection of something shying between those rocks over there. You see it? Yes, pal. You know what it is? It's a rifle barrel. What? Has Zach gone out of his mind? What do we do now? Do you think they'd shoot if we walked past the barrier? I don't know, but I'm going to find out. No, Bill, no. What if they shoot? Well, there comes a time when you don't back out. This is one of those times. Zach thinks he can call my bluff by using guns, and the times come for me to change his mind. And you get back to the car and stay there. That's an order. But, Bill, what is this? Get back to the car. Now, Bill Jefferson, let's see what kind of an eye you've got. If you'll only stick that rifle barrel out again. You're there behind those rocks. I want to talk to your boss.  I'm coming past the barricade right now. You'd better make that first shot count. Yeah, there's the rifle barrel out again. Now, a slug against that rifle should do the trick. And, uh, boy, now I can see it. The sunlight reflects off of it just like a mirror. Now, the rifle right out of his hand. Come on out from behind those rocks with your hands up, or I'll come and get you. I'm coming. I'm coming. Don't shoot. Henry, knock that barricade down and bring the car. We're going in and talk with this man's boss. Zach Stevens, I gave you credit for more brains than this. Bill, if my man wouldn't have actually shot you, his orders were only to scare anybody who tried to come past the barricade, not to shoot. And that's the honest truth. You think people will believe that? You listen to me, I was going to go to Judge Gordon to get a court order against you because you're possessing a hazard of public and private property and human life. But now I don't have to. I could arrest you right now for assault with a deadly weapon. But we didn't do any shooting. Is that so? You're this man's boss, and you probably threatened to beat his ears off if you didn't do what you told him to do. That's right, Ranger. He did. Well, Zach, what'll it be? Jail or destroy the river monster? Yeah, Bill, I'm sorry about the gun incident. I really mean that. As far as the raft goes, can't we work out some sort of a compromise on that? Well, now you're talking. Zach, I believe you about the gun incident. I don't think you've got it in you to shoot anybody. As long as nobody got hurt, I'll forget about the whole thing. We'll charge it off to, well, misjudgment. Thanks, Bill. I really appreciate it. Now, what kind of compromise are you thinking about on the raft? You will. Bill, I've got a confession to make. The main reason I haven't moved that raft is because I've just been plain scared to death. Well, Zach, why didn't you ask for help? My rangers be glad to help you. You mean that, Bill? Sure, absolutely. I'm relieved. You see, I've got an awful lot of money tied up in the raft. I was figuring I could cut my shipping cost by having only one crew handle a big raft and instead of making smaller rafts. But I built a log monster that scares me to death. Okay, Zach, we'll help you. I've got to leave now for a council meeting in Rivers Bend, so let's move it down river first thing in the morning. Henry, you stay here for the rest of the day. I'll be late to the meeting as it is, so I've got to leave now. Okay, Bill. Believe me, I'll sure be glad to get rid of that monster. Who's getting so I couldn't sleep at night. Thank you. Mr. Sykes, your report of Zach Stevens' answer is most disturbing. In fact, my reaction is to go over there and punch Stevens right in the nose. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I agree with your remark, but Mr. Close and I were promised by Bill Jefferson that he'd have an answer for us at this meeting tonight. Oh, where is the ranger? What are we supposed to do? Wait all night for him? I'm sure he'll be here soon. He's probably afraid to show his face. He couldn't do anything with Zach Stevens' eatin'. That's not true. Bill's helped us before, and he'll help us now. Yeah, well, he'd be here by now.  This meeting will come to order and we'll adjourn. Come to order now. Either we'll keep order, the meeting will be over and we'll have accomplished nothing. I ain't doin' anything anyhow, Mr. Chairman. I make a motion we adjourn and go blow up the raft ourselves.  He's scared to, because he ain't got an answer ready. I wouldn't say that if I were you. No, that's for sure. You men will not take the law into your own hands. Constable, guard the doors. Don't let any of these men out. Yeah, the answer you promised, Bill. Yes, Mr. Sacks. I have an answer and it's a good one. Zach Stevens is going to move the raft in the morning. Well, thank you for what you've done, Bill. And my thanks, too, Bill. You've done our community a great service again. Oh, forget it. I gotta get help. Well, I better get back to Naughty Pine, get some rest. My ranger's not gonna help Zach at the raft. What's wrong over there? Well, what's the commotion? Well, it's Zach Stevens trying to get through the crowd. Something's wrong. Look at his face. Hey, he looks half-scared today. He's comin' his way. Bill, Bill, I gotta see ya. So the raft is broken loose and Henry's on it. Listen to me.  So let's see what's in there. It's a murderer. Just bring him up. That's what he deserves. Why did I tell ya? Your men are wasting your time talking when you should be doing something to stop the raft from coming down the river. Bill's right, fellas. Come on, let's quiet down. You got a plan? Yes. You men see that your families are evacuated. If the raft does ram the levees, there's nothing you can do. The thing weighs 100 tons. Meanwhile, Zach and I and the rangers will be responsible for stopping it. Now get going. Come on, guys. Now, Zach, what about Henry? How'd he get on that raft? I've got no time to tell you now. But another thing is there's a load of dynamite on the raft that I'd plan to use to blow it up. Dynamite? Great Scott. Come on. My car's outside. You drive it. I'll work the radio. Let's go and step on the gas. But where are we going, Bill? To the helicopter base on the sandflats. We'll take Henry off of the copter first, then blow the monster apart with dynamite. Ranger Bill Jefferson, the sandflats. Jefferson calling sandflats copter base. Come in over. Sandflats copter base to Ranger Bill Jefferson. Come in, Ranger. Over. I need a copter right away. Emergency, matter of life and death. And I'm coming to the flats as fast as I can. We've got a copter on runway now, warming up for routine flight. You can use it. The pilot will wait for you. It's copter 26. Drive on strip form. Hedge of a guard, over. Thanks, sandflats. We'll be there in four minutes, over and out. All right, step on it, Zach. And don't spare the horsepower. Coming, Zach? Right behind you. All right, good hearing. I'll blow the first one up. Let's go, I gotta do it. Let's do it. Okay, pilot. Head for the shady river. There's the raft. Still got about three miles to go before it hits the town. How's the dynamite set on the raft, Zach? I've got it stuffed between the logs. Big boxes of it. That's how Henry got on the raft. I went back for more dynamite. He was stuffing it between the logs when the raft broke loose. Huh? I figured I'd blow the thing up and it would get out of hand. Well, we got two jobs then, get Henry off, then stop the raft before it gets to the town. You know how that raft could blow up at any time? All it needs is to hit a snag, big enough to make the logs crush the dynamite. Yeah, there's the wrapping. And there's Henry. Good. A pilot. Bring the copter down over the raft as close as you can. Now lower the cable. Yes, Henry! That's right. Now listen to me, Henry. See what we're lowering on the end of the cable? Yes, some matches to light the fuse. I'll be very, very careful. Our lives depend on it. Put the stick of dynamite under the box of it and light that fuse. It's long enough to give us time to lift you on the cable and get away before the dynamite explodes.  Remember, pal, be careful. Hey, it's yours! Boy, I just got to the swim for it. You came along. Yeah, I wouldn't have been too good in that current. Oh, hello there, Zach. Oh, Henry, am I glad you're safe. Well, I'd have never forgiven myself of anything that happened. Rraft up. You said it. At last, the river monster is dead. Well, see you next week for more adventure with... This is Stumpy Jenkins. The Ranger builds old sidekick, as I guess you all know. Just adding a little extra word of thanks for getting yourself in on the program today. Always glad to have you along. And I hope you invite your friends, too, for we sure got lots of adventures to tell you about. And we don't want you to miss any of them. So you make sure to be there by your radio every week. Don't lose out on our next story.


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasegraves.com coming at you with a case of 2021 tops tier one baseball 12 box pick your team number five from jaspyscasegraves.com. No fillers or anything. We just knocked this out straight up which I always appreciate so thanks for spending a bit of your Thursday night with us and thanks for getting into the action Big thanks to Jeremy for grabbing the last couple teams there. That's why he's the last spot mojo star next to his name Some people say as legend has it last spot mojo 60% of the time hits It's a hundred percent of the time according to legend Jaspy legend packed with too many hits. All right, so one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve. There you go There we go here.  All right, so let's get a blank card right here And I think the relics are on the bottom of the autographs on top Let's get the bottom one first. There's Hyunjin Roo 92 out of two and ninety nine piece of his jersey going to Jason and the bluebirds Nice on the board already Jason and did he make a start today? Think he did. Looks like he has a he had a pretty decent start. I think he got the win former Dodger Hyunjin Roo He went five innings Scattered six hits for earned run six strikeouts in a while. It's not bad. Not a bad day. He can do better, but not a bad day All right, next relic is Andrew McCutcheon piece of his lumber 79 out of two ninety nine That's for the fight and fills that'll be for Derek Hamilton for the Phillies and the autograph is Kasey My is nice 68 out of 300 Get a good start last time out. I'm just gonna go into a 55 Let's have to go into a 130. Oh boy Top-loader shortage ladies and gentlemen still happening We've just been every week. We're just scrambling to get top loaders here and there So we're going to put these really thin cards that should be in like a 75 point top-loader We're having to put them in a 130 top-loader We're using an extra wide penny sleeve though So maybe that'll help it from rattling around our shipping team will also put blue painter's table here to keep it from rattling Around during shipping, but in case it's not there or in case you're you're removing the tape and putting into a different top-loader Just be careful Just be careful and make sure it doesn't slide out on you Jeremy with the Tigers. I've got Kasey my's on my fantasy team starting to slowly starting to put some Some decent starts together Be good for the hobby former number one overall pig All right down here. We've got Carlos Correa to 299 Astros that'll be for Martin. We've got the Nets in Dallas We'll basketball on the background my Lakers coming up next We got Ryan Jeffers 155 out of 300 for the twins That'll be for Raymond and another autograph Joey Votto nice Now it's kind of hard to see here, but if you look carefully There's the there's the Reds logo Kind of printed in the background Sort of hard to see But the those shadows right there are actually the Reds logo. It's actually a cool look I'm sure this looks awesome in person for it for you for me. It already looks awesome four out of ten Reds Jeremy Razer with that Maverick's up by five 6.7 seconds left Andres Jimenez 16 out of 399 piece of his lumber for the tribe That'll be for Roger he was involved in the Francisco indoor trade We've got Starling Martaid at 300 Miami Marlins That'll be for Donald and the fish We've got Ryan Mountcastle 22 out of 25 gold ink autograph For the O's Jeremy Razer last spot mojo strikes again. How does an indoor do today? Lendor has been struggling big time Francisco and door went one for three few walks to you know a lot of a lot of that bats There you go. All right Looks like there's a redemption in the middle any guesses on the redemption 242 out of 299 Jim Toman got Raphael Devers 169 out of 200 Red Sox Jonathan Kent the redemption is gonna be It's gonna be Hassan Kim for the Padres Middle-end fielder for the friars.  It's a pretty good game. There's Mike Trout 002 out of 199 Benjamin with the halos There are two autographs here poor Elohim and as I think he tore that tendon and his pectoral muscle that attaches to the shoulder. I think the one like right at your armpit Then his teammate Luis Robert with a hip flexor tear There you go. That'll go to the White Sox John. They should be fine But kind of a bummer. I feel like they were gonna Be it was gonna be fun to see that next sort of level of those youngsters see where they go There's Jake Cronenworth. He's pretty good too to 300 Martin with the Padres and Luis Aureas at 399 Raymond with the twins There's Ian Anderson for the Braavos 23 out of 25 Howard with the atl And then we got Jorge Soler 50 out of 300 Poor KC. Jeremy with the Royals That's Casey Mice again to 299 Casey Mice Spencer Torkelson Riley Greene. There's some a lot of I mean, unfortunately the Tigers have not been very good. So they've been able to get some good talent That could all start to come together We've got William Contreras For the Braves. I think he had a home run the other night. 114 out of 300. That's Wilson Contreras's brother Both catchers. Let's see if that's going to be a hashtag good for the hobby. Keep an eye on him this season Starling Marte another one for the Marlins second one for Donald Next box This is a three auto box. All the cards are thin It might be there's Kyle Hendricks 110 out of 300 for the Cubbies That'll be for Jonathan Arnaldi We've got Luis Garcia. 008 out of 300 Nationals Gregory with the Nats And Reese Hoskins nice triple auto box 144 out of 200 Reese Hoskins still has one of the nicest autographs in the hobby I think great penmanship there for Reese and that'll be for Derek Hamilton and the Phillies Final four boxes. Good luck. We got Corey Seeger to 299 Stephen and the Dodgers Dodgers struggling mightily Last week or so, but we'll be back on track We got John Cruck for the Phillies. Crucky Going to Derek and the Phillies 146 out of 300 on this one. It's a cool shot of him right there the bat And we got Alex Kirloff 007 out of 250 For the twins Raymond with that That's true mix-up. You're right Reese Hoskins autograph is good, but not even the best on his team. Aaron Nola's autograph Aaron Nola's autograph is definitely for sure One of these days if we have a free moment mix-up, we'll have to We'll have to have a We have to have the all autograph team We'll pick a pitcher a catcher first second third short and the and and three outfielders doesn't have to be left-right or center, but three outfielders And a and a closer Obviously the closer would be mariano Rivera He has the best closer autograph in the hobby. I want to say Another three out of five But could Aaron Nola be the starting pitcher with the best autograph? Maybe All right, we got ronaldo cunha jr 14 out of 70 the all autograph team Braves Howard with the bravos And at eddy alvarez to 300 I feel like maybe we should do a current one. We should do an all-time one and then current player one There's eddy alvarez For the fish marlins donald And then austin meadows 297 out of 300 Yeah, accuracy did have good autograph. Andrey dos the hawk definitely has a great autograph He'd he'd take an outfield spot for sure. I think we'd have to do two separate ones though We would have to do an all-time one And an active player one I guess an active player could be on the all-time one But we have to do an all-time one too Right, right, right.  You're right because all the old school guys have better penmanship in general Retired player one and then an active player one. All right. We got tony gwin legends relic r.i.p Tony gwin taken from us too soon To 199 that'll be for the friars. That's going to be for martin jonathan's going to pick all cubs He's a cubs guy. There's kenta. Maeda twins. That'll be for reyman And evan white to 300 That'll be for seattle Kenneth with the twins right the old guys didn't have to sign as much But I also think they probably texted less Had to sign more things more often checks other documents But mostly checks I guess You know, maybe the writing letters a little more often postcards The kids these days just don't write in general All right last box. Good luck We got Roberto Clemente 23 at 25 dual relic Two pieces of his lumber for the buckos. That's going to be for tj with a little piece of history here Next to our tanner hawk 92 out of 300 for boston jonathan kenth and last but not least is A trevor bauer autograph for the reds 34 out of 300 Jeremy razor with the cinciné red legs And there you have it everybody another case of tier one in the books. Thanks for watching. Thanks for breaking with us I'm joe. I'll see you next time for the next one. Bye. Bye


Hi, it's not every day that we get somebody to speak at DevConf, trying to get us to use something that's not there yet. So, well, I think Holger is a real candidate for that. He's always been disruptive among us. Please welcome Holger Lebsen, who's showing cubes always. What's this on here? So yeah, I will talk about cubes and my experiences with it in the last half year. I have considered it the first time, one and a half years ago, it took me some time to switch, and then it was actually quite easy. So, about me, I'm using Debian since 22 years this year. So, 1996, I don't remember whether I started then with Bust and Rex, because I was not using Linux fully, since 1997 when I'm exclusively using Linux. On my first laptop, I had Bo, then I switched to Hums, Link, and a potato I started contributing. Woody was my first DevConf in charge, I applied as AM, and in Edge, I was finally Edd. And everything, other release, up to Jesse, they were all running on my main computer. And I love Debian. And today, I still run mostly Stretch, but this machine, my main machine is now running cubes. Cubes is based on Fedora 23, so it's outdated and not supported since some time, but it's supported by cubes. And in this talk, I'll try to explain why. So, about you, who has heard about cubes or has a faint idea what it is? Okay, that's good. Who uses CubesOS? Yay, who tried CubesOS and didn't switch. Yay, why? We need to talk. And I know about one person who switched to cubes during Devcamp, which I found very nice. And he's happy with it. So, what is cubes? Wikipedia is useful. CubesOS is a security-focused desktop operating system that aims to provide security through isolation, and virtualization is performed by Sen. And within Sen, you can run any other operating systems. It's also a single user system, so it's not in the design that other people lock into the computer. It's just in your computer. And it's free software. It's mostly GPL. There's some libGPL stuff by, no, library GPL. And so the code lives on GitHub. So under GitHub user tools OS, very useful is this Cubestock, which has all the documentation as a Git repository. I really recommend to check it out. The reading is better done on the web page. And it really covers all the use cases and special cases and UB key and what not. So this is really the recommended source of information. And cubesOS is really old. So Joana Woodkova designed that in 2011 or earlier. So the following picture is six years old. And this is the way she describes doing stuff. So the red VMs are less trusted, the black ones are really trusted, and there are several internets on there, because you can use several ways to connect to the internet, and each VM connects up to each VM can connect independently to the network. And there's really nice, this blog post from 2011 is a really nice read, how she does whatever things, and then you can try to base your work on this or something else. So more about me, I don't really know Zen. I don't really know Fedora neither. And I don't have to, because I'm really just using this to use Debian to develop on Debian. And I'm only using cubes in six months. So what I will show is cubes 3.2, while last week the 4C release first release candidate was released. And it's a fairly unmodified cube, so I upgraded the kernel to better support the hardware. I installed i3, and I created a Debian 9 template. And that was it, and I upgraded some packages. And on my production system I've not done much more, I installed two more packages, and I configured i3, which I actually also done on this machine now, because I really prefer i3 over XFC. And all the graphical stuff I show you can also be done via command line tool, so you don't have to use the mouse. It's option cubes manager. I don't use this, there it is. So this is the cubes manager. And you see there, the VMs with the state with the red-green circle they are running. So the personal VM is running, and this net, this USB, and this firewall. And what the other things, the state is they arrow down, there are upgrades available, which I could install, and there's the memory usage and the net VM. And this is one thing. So DOM-0 doesn't have network. DOM-0 is insane, the hypervisor, here it also runs the graphical stuff, but DOM-0 doesn't have network. If I want to upgrade it, there's a special tool to upgrade it, which I will not explain here. The others, there's a network VM which has access to the network hardware, which is untrusted because the hardware is often easily exploitable, and then everything goes, this firewall is connected to this network, so the firewall VM is considered trusted, and all the other uses this firewall to go to the network, except that there's the su-nix, which I will explain in a second, so you can have several different net VMs. Oh yeah, starting Firefox, I've done it, but I'll show this other thing here. So this is the application menu of XFCE in this case, and I can start Firefox here, I could start Firefox here, I could start Firefox there. This is, I already explained a bit, but we have to connect this, we have to make this smaller probably, so we have the network, the firewall VM, which goes to the network, and which the application VMs are connected, and there's this su-nix VM, su-nix is a Debian-based distribution for Tor usage, so this su-nix is essentially a Tor gateway, so if I make this su-nix, the firewall VM of my application VM, all the traffic goes through Tor. And I can have also several su-nix, several firewalls, just disk storage is the limit. And then I switch the firewall now to Debian-9, because I've left it at Fedora, and that's really not nice. So one thing I need to shut down this VM, I don't want to shut this down, I want to remove the network for this personal VM, no more network, because I cannot shut down the firewall if something is connected to it, and now I can change the firewall, and now I can shut it down, the su-nix is still connected, okay, the firewall to be Debian-9 instead. Now I start it, and that was changing the operating system for my firewall. Pretty easy. I could also switch the firewall to completely, it doesn't have to be Linux as long as it runs Zen, so one thing, Mirage is a OCaml-based firewall, which I don't remember, one megabyte RAM requirements and a few more megabyte storage, so you can save resources there if you have other firewalls or if you just want to have more secure firewalls. And it's the same thing, I switch my personal VM to Debian-9, for this I will need to stop Firefox though, or everything, so this is, I shut down this fire personal VM, yes, switch this to Debian-9, I could use also Fedora, switch to Fedora on Firefox and Fedora, and I can also switch the network VM for this untrusted as a su-nix gateway, and now everything I do on this VM goes via Tor. And if I have a second UNIX VM, then it goes through a different Tor circuit, of course. So I could also make that for every app VM I can use a dedicated network VM if I want to. The next thing I want to show you involves actually switching to i3 because I don't really like XFCE, I use it also very long, if you have questions in between, just feel free to ask them. I actually need to switch to i3 to use it. You cannot see that. There's an upper right, the desktop environment switcher. So this is no cubes. Okay, and now I want to start, this is another way to start a VM, what was actually running. Now I start back Firefox. Modification I've done here is that I modified the status bar a bit with the boring Spanish clock and the battery usage, and these are the number of cubes. So currently there's two application cubes running, three system cubes, and DOM zero. And I have a total six application for system and five templates. And I'm using currently a gigabyte of memory. And the system. Oh yes, and the last thing I made, a simple clock, tada, to show the time. And this is really the only modification to standard cubes I really have. So with meta and enter, I open a shell in DOM zero, and with meta shift and enter, I can select on the bottom where I want to open the shell, the terminal, and if it's not running, then it will start a new VM. And the same is done with XFCE as well, but I like keyboard shortcuts. And the same with meta shift F, I can open Firefox somewhere. So we'll start the next one and start Firefox there. But it's there. The other modification I made for myself that I can turn on this place and turn them off. I really, really like I3. Anyway. And then there's one problem. You cannot, or one feature rather, you cannot copy stuff, copy and paste from one VM to the next one. So you need to put it into your copypair buffer with control C, or whatever there is. Then you need to use meta control C to copy it in the cubes buffer. Then you need to use meta control V to copy it in the cubes output buffer for the next VM and then put it in the final one. This works nicely. And it should not protect you, but should it enable you from accident in practice, I found that I actually more often now do copy and paste accidents than before. I'm not sure whether that's really the best thing. So if I should... If I should put it here. I will not show it. Yeah, the templating stuff. So, before I show this, let's go back to... So if I want to clone a VM, I can clone the whatever work VM. No, it's not wrong. So I go to VM here. Create new VM. So label is Montreal Airport. Airport is also nice. Then I can choose what I want. I want Debian 9. I want this fireball. And then I press OK and it will create a new VM. And it's reasonable fast because a new VM is created. And now I can open a shell in Montreal Airport VM. This is done because there's these templates VMs. These black ones on the left are all templates. And each application VM, that's this column, are based on a template. So if an application VM is started, they will use the templates file system with a copy and write an extra edition file system layer so that modifications of the update VM are lost after reboot. So if your system gets compromised, it's gone or you can install packages for testing and they will later be gone. The template VMs are configured. They don't have full internet access. They only have access to the up or young reports. So they cannot access normal sites on the web. And that's this part. And so you can also clone the Sysunix to make a Sysunix 2 or 3 or 4 if you want more tour gateways. I will not show this actually. And you can easily increase the disk size, but default they all have 5GB disk space in home. So if I want the personal VM to have 20GB, I can do this here while running. It's 2GB by default, so I just change this and now it's 20GB. Increasing is easy. Decreasing is not supported. I've already said this. One good thing is really I don't save on template anymore because I basically I'm aiming for every up VM as its own template. Sometimes I want some which are the same, but usually I have to get more and more templates. In the beginning I got more and more up VMs and now I'm collecting templates. There are about 5GB per template and I have a terabyte disk. And one mistake I made initially that I tried to use my user account in the VMs and that's not a good idea because Qubes is configured to use the user user for certain things I'm going to show and my recommendation is stick with the user user. Don't change it. And then I can also use Nautilus to copy files though I really never do this. Let's see how this is done. So I want the work VM files. Now I can use right mouse click and say copy to other up VM or move to other up VM and this way I can copy files.  And now I'm stopping with the demo part. There's also USB isolation. So there was this USB as well which has the USB controller attached. So dom zero is not exposed to them and so if you're attaching an USB stick it will be attached to the USB VM then you need to tell Qubes to reattach it to the VM you want to use the USB stick and before unplugging Qubes as well. Then you can have nice USB isolation for that. The same with PCI device isolation. You can the net VM is the only one which is access to the network devices. You can do this for any PCI device. I keep the network VM running with Fedora so that the modules in the VM and the firmware in the VM is the same as with the kernel. So maybe it will work test if it works with Debian and UVM. Sound is also working. It works via Pulse audio and just working out of the box so each VM has sound. Though this is also a bit of a security issue and in general the plan is to split this dom zero into dom zero and display VM and then also add a sound VM but this is not being done yet. That's hopefully in the next release after 4.0 and as you can see full screen applications including video are possible as well. So I use everything on the computer with Qubes now. There's more features. There are also disposable VMs which are created with a mouse click or with whatever and they're based on one template in 3.2 and the new version you can use other templates for it. So you can have disposable Debian 8 and 9 and Fedora. I've not used them this much yet because sometimes I really like to keep it. I rather create temporary VMs which I throw away every week or something. But you can open links and fires in disposable VMs and another thing is there's also an option to convert PDF into trustable VMs that's done. The PDF is opened in a disposable VM and there's a screenshot taken of each PDF page and then saved again as a PDF of screenshots and copied back to the original VM and then the disposable VM is destroyed and you do it with a mouse click so it's not any work. The same is there for images because also images can have exploit code in them and as I said there's many command line tools which are available in the VMs so it's converting image copied to VM MRO, entry I don't know DVM is the disposable VM and so this also means there's a cubes up repository which the cubes Debian VMs use and that would also be something which might be interesting to get in Debian proper one day and Domzero has a lot more commands these are for VMs and these are more for cubes manager and cubes database and stuff. Those are mostly if not all written in Python and then backup is included include cubes manager and it's good and bad I would say I use it but at first we suddenly have way more systems to back up it's not one system anymore but we have 20 or 40 or whatever and maybe three quarters of them are worse back up more or less I don't know and one issue it's image based backups only so it's the whole disk image which is back up which I don't like that much but as you have 30 systems to back up what's really nice one event recently I backed up my whole system then deleted some VMs locally set up another system with cubes restored Domzero and some VMs there and I had my system suddenly split into two computers and that was really really nice and then after the event I moved the VMs back to a single computer that's really cool and there are several custom improvements or custom script backup solutions if you don't like that one and again this backup restore is either you can use it with a mouse from the cubes manager or from the command line and then you can script it as you want and generally that's a problem repair recovery might be harder Domzero has no network and it's Fedora so if you don't know Fedora and GrubBrow or you switch from a Grub system to UEV system or whatever Fedora on Fedora you don't because it just works and memory so this system has well I'll start with this one 4GB is definitely good for testing I'm not sure whether you can test it with 2GB but I wouldn't recommend 4 is really good for testing 8GB is good for some type of works in my experience if you don't use a USB VM and don't have and the top is open to many VMs 8GB is fine Tauwa who started using it here has 6GB and he's happy he can work with it he said 12GB is definitely better than 8GB because of this wish VM but my system has now 16GB and I sometimes max it out and then you cannot start new VMs which is annoying so 32 is better you run Firefox you need RAM as much RAM as you need and if you want RAM you really want RAM 2TB RAM would be nice as well but seriously if you have 4, give it a try and 8 should be fine CPUs and SSD disk space one or two CPUs are fine more is better they need to be some support modern virtualization features which all systems from 2012 or 13 or something should support or not all i3, i5 is definitely fine there's a hardware compatibility list on the cubes web page which has models listed and what problems there are or not I found this laptop that's an X260 and it was crashing with cubes 3.2 like mad and it's kernel 4.9 which isn't upcoming for serial cubes release or there's also packages for 3.2 so this is stable now 60 to 100 GB SSD space is definitely fine for testing I've also done it with 50 GB for working depends what you need each template VM is 5 GB and an application VM is a few megabytes and what you put in there so it really depends on how you use the computer missing features I found you cannot hide I made with send encrypt on suspend doesn't work yet but there's work in progress for it so that forgets the disk encryption passphrase on suspend changes in a run file system to have the screen saver dialog and once you enter the disk phrase correctly it will then remount the file system again I really hope for this feature to be soon and I think it should also be in Debian somebody should do something and there's no IPv6 supporting cubes so if you need IPv6 that's a bummer because all you need to do the networking yourself I've not really looked into it I'm sure there's a ticket for it and how to but out of the box it just does IPv4 so my conclusions or preliminary conclusions totally work for me I'm using it since six months every day I installed it three days before FOSTA and I had hardware problems for five months just the months ago I switched to the X230 and before that resume was completely unreliable but it worked nicely without resuming and so I just didn't do that often so check your hardware I still don't like Fedora but I don't have to interact with it so I'm fine and partitioning one's digital life is really hard like this picture I've shown you from Yoana with all the VMs I've now I think I've got 35 application VMs and I still need more and it's tough question how to separate that the nice thing is I can still do this later and not lose anything and yeah and moving VMs from one cube system to another is really really nice super useful and it's super easy so if you need to travel and don't want to take data with you so my cubes to do use the password vault that's a special VM which doesn't have network where you keep your private key into the other keys into the other VMs I've decided I wanted this nice partition digital life but then I've just moved all my old computer into one application VM started using cubes and moved stuff out of this VM so I'm now using the computer more secure than I used with the VM but not as secure as I could with cubes and this is this password vault thing and I still not only use my Yubi key but also the password half having half the password in the Yubi key and half memory that works nicely because it's just attached to the USB VM but keeping GPG sub keys in the Yubi key then I will need to attach the Yubi key assign it to the app VM use it there so I will use this switch together with using the vault VM and then automate this so it is the configuration management system used by cubes internally to create all these different VMs and configure them so I want to build on that but I still haven't gotten any documentation how cubes use it and how I had some questions with different answers so I put this later on the to-do because I don't really configure the system much anyway but if you know Salt and can give me a short of that in general I'm very happy with cubes without having changed much more conclusions I really really like it, the separation is awesome I also like to be able to create new VMs so easily and this Hoonix and Hoonix itself operates great so there's this Hoonix is the store gateway and there's also Hoonix workstation which is in desktop with tour browser installed there's some other tour applications as well but that's really nice suspend, resume issues are annoying but with this with the newer kernel and the X230 they are gone sometimes there are some routing issues when the network is recreated which is also because of the network hardware so with different hardware it might not be the issue and so choose your hardware wisely and probably I'm using only one third or less of cubes potential but that really pays off already your mileage might vary try it for yourself and changing one's own habit is really hard but doing so is good so that's the talk thanks to the cubes people provide this nice operating system with offering help with it and thank you Debian people to provide a good operating system to run on cubes I have a couple of questions the first question is it looks like it's an administrator for virtual machines and not an OS so what would it take to run cubes on Debian instead of Fedora cubes has some 20 or so own packages but it also builds on top of Zen it has some tiny modifications I think to Linux as well but the most problem to create Debian based cubes OS would be the Zen part but on the other hand I don't I used to want to do that but I don't think it's sensible anymore because I think rather DOM0 should be a way smaller OS so I'll pine Linux or a leader based Linux system but not a system like Debian or Fedora which has too many libraries linked so that's the cubes people were also interested in Debian because Debian is closer to reproducible builds than Fedora so they were interested but now they switched to this aim of a smaller distro for DOM0 because what they have at the moment is the graphical interface is at the moment still running in DOM0 and that should be moved to a different VM as well and then you really need nothing in DOM0. Okay and then the other question when you moved the firewall from Fedora to Debian what was happening? Like you mentioned salt so maybe you didn't explain what was happening can you explain? I think I don't the firewall rules I don't really know how they are done there it's probably a package there but the operating system has switched and that will be solved in that case Right now my question is how did the firewall know how to set up the firewall in Fedora and in Debian I expect they are pretty different I think it's IP table in both cases I don't know My question is there's different ways the separation can be made more or less gradual say cubes is much more secure than having everything in the same context be more secure to have a laboratory of machines and both each one of your faces but I mean it's not implemented but I don't know if you looked into something that maybe would be more conservative, intelligent, resource wise that instead of virtual machines would use containers I know that would increase the likelihood of being able to escape a containment but it would be much more friendly towards smaller machines have you heard about the other approach for cubes is not to be friendly to resources but rather to provide the most secure isolation so that's why they choose send because they are the hyperbiover you can actually review and understand but the cubes architecture is made in a way that you can change this virtualization solution right I don't think it will happen really soon because there's not much interest in it but it should be possible and I think this general approach of separating your computing reams on a computer more and not do everything under one single user in one operating system just using two user accounts is better than using one it makes a lot of sense only that it would be nice to be able to do it more friendly something to add and a question I don't know if I missed it but one of the features of cubes and I don't know how well this comes out with i3 is when you're running the different VMs there the border is colored according to the specific VM where it is so like the one on the right is a blue so that looks like the work VM and if you're in one of these template or the DOM zero VMs it will be black so you have this nice visual cue that's very subtle but helpful for you to know okay I'm in this untrusted or I'm in this work or vault VM or whatever it's really nice I see the i3 so that's his personal VM there and just this small UI thing really helps you when you have a cluttered screen so you know that these two in the middle are personal on the right where the blue one is that's the work one I can't see very well from here so the question I had was if you have investigated any of the how secureboot works with cubes in any way do you know how that is integrated secureboot helps me as again like it yeah I mean does cubes or fedora have some way of doing secureboot so that you can they have a certificate for assigning the the way I do that would rather be to use heads coreboot based linux system which runs from the ROM uses the TPM to assert the nonchangeness of your hardware and software so it does a different implementation of secureboot essentially needs coreboot but that would be my approach and I've not yet anything about cubes using secureboot yeah secureboot they also recommend coreboot they don't recommend heads yet but my question is just sample who is the people behind this distribution and why we supposed to trust that people because one of the most important points to choose dvn is related with trust in my case so every time someone come with another technology I'm hoping to try but I always have this question about cubes is made by group of people now originally funded by Invisible Labs which is a company from Iwana Rotkowa in Warsaw in Poland I know Iwana from giving talks at the CCC congress since 10 years or something she made several security related talks there they seem to be reasonable paranoid people but yeah it's free software you can rebuild cubes and so far the image is not reproducible but hopefully it will be soon but yeah we'll trust how flexible is the firewall configuration have you got any ways banks I mean NET or masquerading things like that I'm doing NET and you cannot one VM cannot talk to the other I've not really looked into the firewall at all I just use the one which is there by default I'm happy with the nothing stuff so I cannot access the VM from the outside I can access the outside world and that was enough for me but I don't know but some people made this mirage based firewall I think it's quite very flexible I'm curious if if there's any movement by the cubes people to suspend in a VM so that you could sort of suspend it move it to a different cubes running and resume it there or if it's already possible I think this is supported by Xen so it's not impossible per se but I don't think it's working with cubes that way yet you know if there if it's a goal up there I don't know cubes are mostly made for running on personal computers so it's not so much the use case that you move it away from one machine or server to another there's also people some people want to use it as a server there's many things to do say thank you Holger and please take him together with me