Podcasts about cad

In today's podcast we talk with Eric Wong, geriatrician-researcher from Toronto, and Thiago Silva, geriatrician-researcher from Brazil, about the comprehensive geriatrics assessment.  We spend the first 30 minutes (at least) discussing what, exactly is the comprehensive geriatric assessment, including: What domains of assessment are essential/mandatory components of the comprehensive geriatrics assessment? Who performs it? Is a multidisciplinary team required? Can a geriatrician perform it alone? Can non-geriatricians perform it? Who is the comprehensive geriatrics assessment for? Who is most likely to benefit? Eric Widera suggests not as much benefit for very sick and very healthy older adults, more benefit in the vast middle. Why do the comprehensive geriatrics assessment? What are the interventions that it leads to (we cover this more conceptually, rather than naming all possible interventions) How does the comprehensive geriatrics assessment relate to the 4Ms (or 5 Ms)? How long does it take to conduct a comprehensive geriatrics assessment? What's the evidence (BMJ meta analysis) for the comprehensive geriatrics assessment?  What are the outcomes we hope for from the comprehensive geriatrics assessment?   That final point, about outcomes, bring's us to Eric Wong's study, published in JAGS, which evaluates the cost effectiveness of the comprehensive geriatrics assessment performed by a geriatrician across settings (e.g. acute care, rehab, community clinics). As an aside, as the editor at JAGS who managed this manuscript, I will say that we don't ordinarily publish cost effectiveness studies at JAGS, as the methods are opaque to our clinical audience (e.g. raise your hand if you understand what ‘CGA provided in the combination of acute care and rehab was non-dominated' means). We published this article because its bottom line is of great interest to geriatricians.  In Eric's study, geriatricians performing CGA were more cost effective than usual care in Every. Single. Setting. And of course cost effectiveness is only one small piece of the argument for why we do the comprehensive geriatrics assessment in the first place (no patient in the history of the world has ever asked for a test or treatment because it's cost effective for the health care system). I'll close with a couple of “mic drop” excerpts from Thiago's accompanying editorial: Finally, it is instructive to compare the cost-effectiveness of geriatric services and CGAs with other interventions. A recent analysis of lecanemab for early-stage Alzheimer's disease found that gaining one QALY would cost approximately $287,000 (USD). In contrast, Wong et al. estimated that adding community-based CGA would cost about $1203 (CAD) per quality-adjusted life month (QALM) (equating to roughly $10,105 (USD) per QALY, using $1 USD = $0.7 CAD), making geriatrician-led CGA nearly 30 times more cost-effective. Put simply, for each dollar spent to improve quality of life for a year through CGA, one would need to spend almost $30 to achieve the same benefit with lecanemab.  Ultimately, the question is not whether geriatricians represent a worthwhile investment (they are) but how healthcare systems can ensure that every older adult requiring specialized, comprehensive care can access it. Wong et al.'s modeling study provides a valuable contribution by showing that geriatricians placed in acute and rehabilitation settings offer the most cost-effective deployment given current workforce limitations. Despite some caveats, the overarching message remains clear: geriatric expertise not only enhances care quality but can also align with health-economic objectives, especially in high-acuity environments. However, we cannot allow an inadequate geriatric workforce to become a permanent constraint, forcing painful decisions about which older adults and which settings will miss out on optimal geriatric care. Instead, we should continue to strive to increase the number of geriatricians through robust training programs and payment model reform to ensure that cost-effective care can be provided for this large and growing vulnerable population.  -Alex Smith  

In this episode of The Real Build, I sit down with Jason Lynn, President of Decorators Unlimited, one of the largest full-service interior design firms in the country. With over 150 projects a year and partnerships with builders nationally and internationally, Decorators Unlimited has mastered the art of managing luxury, scale, and quality all at once.We cover:How operations are streamlined at a firm managing hundreds of projects each yearThe advantages of having design, CAD, construction, distribution, warehouse, and showroom all under one roofWhat the full-service experience offers compared to working with smaller design firmsThe culture and systems that keep quality and client satisfaction consistentJason's journey from delivering furniture to leading a design empireWhere Decorators Unlimited is headed next in design and operationsIf you're a builder, designer, or anyone interested in how large-scale design operations succeed without sacrificing quality, this episode is full of insights.Guest Info: Jason LynnWebsite: ⁠⁠https://decoratorsunlimited.com/Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thedecoratorsunlimitedHost Info:Email: Bill@rkreiman.comCONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA:▶︎ YOUTUBE | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxAdSxHN0dIXZPhA-6p1HYA ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠▶︎ INSTAGRAM | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/imbillreiman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠▶︎FACEBOOK| ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/billy.reiman ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠▶︎ LINKEDIN | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-reim...⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠▶︎ TWITTER | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ImBillReiman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠▶︎ WEBSITE | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.rkreiman.com

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 14:00:00 GMT http://relay.fm/cortex/170 http://relay.fm/cortex/170 Myke Hurley Myke talks to Simone Giertz about her workflow for turning ideas into products, from early sketches and CAD prototypes to manufacturing, launching, and running a product studio alongside her YouTube channel. Myke talks to Simone Giertz about her workflow for turning ideas into products, from early sketches and CAD prototypes to manufacturing, launching, and running a product studio alongside her YouTube channel. clean 4408 Myke talks to Simone Giertz about her workflow for turning ideas into products, from early sketches and CAD prototypes to manufacturing, launching, and running a product studio alongside her YouTube channel. This episode of Cortex is sponsored by: Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CORTEX. Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Factor: Healthy, fully-prepared food delivered to your door. Use code cortex50off Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. Get 6 months of the Team plan free with code cortex. Guest Starring: Simone Giertz Links and Show Notes: Get Moretex – More Cortex, with no ads. Submit Feedback Simone Giertz - YouTube Yetch Studio The Coat Hinger – Yetch Studio A chair built for your half-dirty clothes - Simone Giertz - YouTube Why I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger - Simone Giertz - YouTube Fusion 360 Patch Cap – Yetch Studio Screwdriver Ring – Yetch Studio Coat Hingers – Foldable Coat Hangers – Kickstarter The Every Day Calendar – Kickstarter The Every Day Goal Calendar – Yetch Studio Spool Table – Yetch Studio What I've learned from 10 years on YouTube - Simone Giertz - YouTube Yetch Studio – Instagram Edge Piece Puzzle – Yetch Studio Why sales is the worst part of my job - Simone Giertz - YouTube Simone's Home Screen Brick Microsoft To Do Microsoft To Do Paper Apps™ TO•DO Notebook – Gladden Design Pencil Dice™ – Gladden Design

What happens when two car lovers bet on themselves—and win? In this episode, I'm joined by Amy and Dan Snyder of SPE Motorsport, the husband-and-wife team turning heads in the Ford performance world. From building their first parts in a garage to developing carbon fiber manifolds and launching a new classic-meets-modern car sales brand, their journey is one of grit, innovation, and a whole lot of horsepower. Listen in as we talk about the early days of SPE, how Dan taught himself CAD from scratch, and how a risky lease turned into a game-changing move. We also dive into the mindset shifts that helped them scale from $30K to $500K per month, what it took to develop their signature Coyote Carbon Fiber Intake Manifold, and how they're blending iconic cars like the GT40 and Cobra with modern drivability. If you've ever dreamed of turning a passion into a thriving business, this episode is for you. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://bit.ly/4lgmnxG Interested in our Private Community for 7-Figure Store Owners?  Learn more here.   Want to hear about new episodes and eCommerce news round-ups?  Subscribe via email.

I sit down in a jet with Whitney Cummings & Ms. Pat. Follow Whitney: https://www.instagram.com/whitneycummings Follow Ms. Pat: https://www.instagram.com/comediennemspat  The Permission to Party World Tour starts September 18th! Go to https://www.bertbertbert.com/#tour2 for tickets!  --------------------------------------------------- Sponsors: Butcher Box - Right now, ButcherBox is offering our listeners $20 off their first box and free protein for a year. Go to https://ButcherBox.com/bertcast to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. Cornbread Hemp - Just visit https://cornbreadhemp.com/BERTCAST and use promo code BERTCAST at checkout. Ridge Wallet - Get 10% Off your entire order & take advantage of Ridge's Annual Sweepstakes by going to https://www.Ridge.com/BERTCAST #Ridgepod Hims - For simple, online access to personalized and affordable care for Hair Loss, ED, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/BERTCAST. Mando - Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code BERTCAST at https://shopmando.com! #mandopod Helix Sleep - Go to https://helixsleep.com/bert for 20% Off Sitewide. Check out Cigars International and use my code BERT for a great deal: https://www.cigarsinternational.com --------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE so you never miss a video https://bit.ly/3DC1ICg  For all TOUR DATES: http://www.bertbertbert.com  For Fully Loaded: https://fullyloadedfestival.com   For Merch: https://store.bertbertbert.com  YouTube▶ http://www.YouTube.com/user/Akreischer  X▶ http://www.Twitter.com/bertkreischer   Facebook▶ http://www.Facebook.com/BertKreischer   Instagram▶ http://www.Instagram.com/bertkreischer   TikTok▶ http://www.TikTok.com/@bertkreischer  Text Me▶ https://my.community.com/bertkreischer  Ridge Wallet: NO PURCH. NEC. Open to legal residents of 50 US/DC, Canada & the UK, age maj.+. Void where prohibited. Begins 8/1/25 and ends 9/15/25. 2 winners selected. Max Prizes total ARV: $380,000 USD / approximately $516,000 CAD / £306,800. Canadian skill-testing question required. Subject to Rules, including free entry method & odds: ridge.com/rules. Sponsor: The Ridge Wallet, LLC. AUCUN ACHAT NÉC. Ouvert aux résidents autorisés des 50 É.-U./D.C., du Canada et du R.-U., âge de maj.+. Nul là où interdit. Débute le 01/08/25, se termine le 15/09/25. Sélection de 2 gagnants. VDA totale max. des prix : 380 000 $ US / ~516 000 $ CA / 306 800 £. Question d'habileté mathématique (Canada) req. Sujet au règlement, incluant méthode de participation gratuite et chances de gagner : http://ridgewallet.ca/rules. Organisateur : The Ridge Wallet, LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Interview with Pat Ryan, Chairman & CEO of UCore Rare Metals Inc.Recording date: 2nd August 2025Ucore Rare Metals (TSXV:UCU) is positioning itself at the forefront of Western efforts to challenge China's overwhelming dominance in rare earth processing, a sector where the Asian giant controls 95% of global refining capacity. Led by automotive industry veteran Pat Ryan, the Canadian company has developed proprietary technology to process the critical materials that form the backbone of modern technology, from electric vehicle motors to defense systems.The strategic imperative driving Ucore's mission has never been more urgent. China's recent restrictions on rare earth exports and reports of authorities confiscating passports of processing experts underscore the weaponization of supply chain control. "We're bringing the mid-market of the rare earth stream, the supply chain, and making sure that those building blocks of technology connect the mine upstream and the magnet makers downstream," Ryan explains.Ucore's technological breakthrough centers on their RapidSX system, which revolutionizes traditional rare earth processing. Unlike massive Chinese solvent extraction plants that span football fields, RapidSX uses column-based technology requiring only one-third the space and operating as a closed system. This innovation translates to dramatic capital efficiency – their Louisiana facility will cost $65 million compared to $300 million for conventional plants.The company has secured substantial validation through $18.4 million in U.S. Department of Defense grants, complemented by $15.5 million CAD raised from institutional investors in a funding round that closed within 24 hours. This backing supports their Louisiana commercial facility targeting mid-2026 production, focusing on heavy rare earths like dysprosium and terbium that China has restricted and Western defense applications desperately need.With permanent magnet demand projected to grow 200% by decade's end, driven increasingly by robotics and artificial intelligence applications, Ucore's timing appears optimal. Their modular, scalable approach allows incremental capacity additions while serving diverse customer requirements across the Western supply chain that governments are now prioritizing for national security reasons.View Ucore Rare Metals' company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/ucore-rare-metals-incSign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com

Interview with Paul Ténière, CEO of Lafleur Minerals Inc.Recording date: 4th August 2025Lafleur Minerals Incorporated is emerging as a compelling opportunity in Quebec's prolific Abitibi gold belt, where CEO Paul Ténière is executing a strategic plan to become a near-term gold producer through recently acquired mining assets from Monarch Mining's bankruptcy proceedings in 2024.The company's foundation rests on two key acquisitions: the Swanson gold project containing approximately 200,000 ounces of gold, and the Beacon gold mill, a fully refurbished processing facility. The Swanson deposit, located 50-60 kilometers north of Val-d'Or, sits on an existing mining lease originally granted to Agnico Eagle in 2009, significantly reducing typical permitting timelines that can extend for years.Lafleur's near-term production strategy centers on bulk sampling 80,000-100,000 tons at Swanson for processing at the Beacon mill. This approach serves multiple objectives: metallurgical testing, revenue generation, and operational experience while maintaining capital efficiency. The company plans to implement ore sorting technology to enhance grade and reduce transportation costs.The Beacon mill represents a critical strategic advantage, having been completely refurbished by Monarch with a $20 million CAD investment before the bankruptcy. With capacity ranging from 750-1,000 tons per day and potential expansion to 2,000-5,000 tons per day, the mill requires only $5-6 million CAD to restart operations.Beyond immediate production, Lafleur targets regional consolidation across its expanded 180-square-kilometer land package, aiming to exceed one million ounces through systematic exploration of additional deposits including Bartec and Jolin targets. The company also sees opportunity in custom milling services, capitalizing on limited regional processing capacity.Operating in an environment where gold has risen from $1,800 to above $3,300 per ounce since acquisition, Lafleur exemplifies how higher prices are revitalizing previously sub-economic deposits, particularly those with existing infrastructure and streamlined development pathways in established mining districts.Sign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com

Canadian Man Fined $28,872 for Walking in Woods During Wildfire BanFor the first time in recent memory, Nova Scotia has closed hiking trails, backcountry routes, and all forest access across the province and one Canadian Air Force veteran just found out exactly how serious the government is about enforcing it.Jeff Evely, a retired Master Warrant Officer with 20 years of service, shared a now viral video showing himself deliberately stepping into the woods in Coxheath, Nova Scotia, despite a province wide “Stay Out of the Woods” order. Moments later, conservation officers handed him a ticket for $28,872 CAD, the maximum fine under the new rules.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Canadian Man Fined $28,872 for Walking in Woods During Wildfire BanFor the first time in recent memory, Nova Scotia has closed hiking trails, backcountry routes, and all forest access across the province and one Canadian Air Force veteran just found out exactly how serious the government is about enforcing it.Jeff Evely, a retired Master Warrant Officer with 20 years of service, shared a now viral video showing himself deliberately stepping into the woods in Coxheath, Nova Scotia, despite a province wide “Stay Out of the Woods” order. Moments later, conservation officers handed him a ticket for $28,872 CAD, the maximum fine under the new rules.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“Pero te confesé sin reservas mi pecado y mi maldad; decidí confesarte mis pecados, y tú, Señor, los perdonaste” (Sal. 32:5)Cadáveres armados ~ Devocional de Jóvenes ~ 10 de agosto 2025 ~ AD7Devocional----------------------------Code: ZBH8K5WESSDWPNTGBUSCA en Facebook el texto de la matutina:http://www.facebook.com/AD7Devocional/SIGUE en Instagram el post de la matutina y el versículo diario:http://www.instagram.com/AD7Devocional/VISITA nuestra pagina de internet:http://www.ad7devocional.comSUSCRIBE a YouTube, comparte y ve nuestros videos:http://www.youtube.com/AD7DevocionalESCUCHA a traves de Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/4VfzQUU2omzsrqITRsL6AhAutor: Jorge L. Rodriguez (Rodriguez, Jorge L.)Titulo: Hoy es Tendencia - Seguir a Jesús nunca pasa de moda(Lecturas devocionales para jóvenes) (Spanish Edition). IADPA. Matutina Para JóvenesDevoción Matutina Para JóvenesGracias a Ti por escucharnos, un abrazo AD7… Hasta la próxima!

A chance at a new life. by  r a wallace. Listen to the ► Podcast at Steamy Stories.  Chapter 3: Regrets? Wendy I woke the next morning lying beside a man who wasn't my husband and felt good about it. I didn't feel a bit of guilt as I looked at him. I'd done two, one-night stands in my life and wasn't excited with what I found next to me in the morning. One of the reasons I had sworn off drinking before meeting my husband. The amazing part was, I didn't feel a bit horny at the moment and wondered if that was going to be a problem–would he want more from me now?As I lay there I wondered if he had saved my life, not merely by accident because of the baseball, but because he saw I was troubled and stayed with me, so I wouldn't try to use the pistol again. That was what I had intended. I simply didn't know if he had or not, but probably. His bringing me home with him had certainly changed my thinking in that regard. I'd been ready to end my life over a man Robb felt wasn't worthy of my consideration. Not that the passion he had shown as he lay into me didn't tell me I was desirable to at least one man. It had a tremendous effect on me for reasons I didn't fully understand, and maybe never would. I felt a movement, then Robb rolled over toward me, his eyes open. When he saw me looking at him he smiled, causing me smile back. “Could you spare a kiss this morning? He asked. "You mean could I spare a kiss and something else?” “A kiss and then you let me hold you for a while. The something else is up to you.” I laughed as I rolled over onto him, “Make way mister, you're going to get an armful of woman.” I snuggled into him and heard him reply. “You mean an armful of beautiful woman.” The words melted me immediately. If he had wanted to control me for his pleasure, he had me–no contest. We lay together not speaking for a while, his hands caressing my leg and arm. I kissed his neck a few times, then snuggled and closed my eyes again–he pulled me closer. I could hear his heart beating, feel his chest rise and fall, and smell him. When was the last time I had been so intimate and comfortable with a man? I couldn't remember for sure. It was sad, but I couldn't, not even with my husband. Shit! My husband. I was going to have to go home and face him today. Would he even notice I hadn't come home? If he did would he even care? Knowing him, his only concern was that I would make him look bad–his wife not home and obedient where she should be. He would push for me to attend Fellowship with him in the afternoon to keep up appearances with the congregation. I pushed the thought away as my stomach tightened. I'd make this time with Robb last another hour, then face the reality of my life. At this juncture I realized I had one to live thanks to someone who cared enough for a woman crying on a park bench to intervene. It was as incredible as it seemed I realized. I was lying in bed with a man in my panties after he had promised to do what I asked of him to end my despair. “Are you hungry?” He asked. “Yes, actually I am.” “Does scrambled eggs, corned-beefed hash, and toast sound good to you?” The words made my mouth start to water. I realized I hadn't eaten but the Danish since the previous morning. My stomach gave an audible growl and I placed my hand over it as if it would hush it. “I'll take that as a ‘yes'”, he laughed lightly. “I have to pee,” I slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom. I finished my business, washed my hands, than looked into the mirror while running my fingers through my hair. I thought I looked hideous. Then I thought again about why I was here in the first place. That's what a tart looks like. At least a satisfied one. I swallowed hard, opened the bathroom door, and walked into the bedroom to see Robb sitting on the edge of the bed in his briefs. When he saw me his jaw dropped. “My god! Wendy, you're gorgeous. Drop dead gorgeous.” I stopped dead in my tracks, looking down to see my breasts standing proud, my flat stomach, pantie clad pelvis, my shapely legs, and my red polished toenails. The sunlight coming in through the window hitting my skin warmed it ever so slightly. I looked up at him as he rose from the bed with a smile. I wasn't sure what he was going to do– grab me and take me without asking? “My turn. Why don't you get dressed, I'll join you in a minute, so we can eat.” The bathroom door closed and I walked to where my blouse and skirt lie on the floor. His words, his expression, his smile of obvious delight with my appearance all came back to me. I put my bra on, finished dressing, and sat on the edge of the bed looking around. The bedroom was tastefully decorated and there was no sign in the form of a photograph, or other articles suggesting he had a girlfriend. Okay, if he was unattached that made it easier, I wasn't the 'other woman'. At least I hoped I wasn't. I knew who my husband was screwing when I saw them from the hallway– she headed the prayer group that met on Friday nights almost every week. I had gone to several of them and stopped going as it was too much for me– touting how a woman should respect her husband and honor his wishes even if she weren't entirely onboard with it. Yes, she espoused Christian women bear the fruit of the Spirit- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Well, so much for faithfulness and self-control parts. Peace might work too if you spelled it 'piece' and added two words. She was thin, with big boobs, and blonde hair that came out of a bottle. I'd met her husband twice and he made my husband look really good by comparison. It was obvious to me some of her prayers hadn't been answered. That, or God's plan for her was as flawed as my own. My husband was so deep into her they never noticed I was in the house. I had simply left in tears, devastated at the sight. Robb I was a little nervous as I opened my eyes–was she going to be ashamed, guilty, for what we'd done last night? Seeing her in the dim light the night before gave me hints she was well-endowed. It hadn't taken much effort to get her to orgasm. In fact, I had hardly gotten started when she gasped, and I felt her muscles contact around me. When she got on top she didn't hold anything back– she went all out. It was when she walked out of the bathroom that I saw her in full light for the first time– she was absolutely beautiful. Her husband had to be a real piece of work to walk away from someone like her. I was pleased I'd taken a low profile approach and brought her into my arms to comfort her when we woke. When she smiled her teeth showed from between nicely formed lips, her blue eyes sparkled. Though I knew it unwise to feel so protective, it made me want to never let her go. I reminded myself again she was separated from her husband, not divorced. She could go back to him, they could work things out. There are always two sides to a story– I could be the one to ruin their marriage. I had to admit it bothered me. Shit, what was I thinking? After what I saw, this woman was hurting and I had done the right thing by her. Don't overthink this dude, she needed someone, and you were there. Wendy I sat with a glass of orange juice as he made breakfast. I felt a little awkward just sitting there doing nothing. My husband would never cook because that was a woman's job. I tried to lighten the mood a little by asking Robb what he had planned for the day– at least it was a safe question. “I volunteer at the Community Food Bank, so I'll be working there most of the afternoon.” “Really, that sounds nice, I bet you meet a lot of interesting people there.” “I do, but sometimes it's hard to see how many people with young children have to rely on it. I never knew how many people live right on the edge until I started there. It makes me appreciate I have a good education and a well-paying job.” “So, what do you do?” “Computer Aided Design, CAD, for an engineering firm. It pays well and has regular hours. How about you?” It struck me that after talking with him for hours I'd never mentioned my job once. But, then in my emotional state that was the last thing on my mind. “I work as a clerical for a law firm, close to a paralegal I guess, but they don't pay me for that.” “Wendy, I have to ask. How are you feeling? Are you going to be ready to go home and feel safe?” “He's not abusive physically, so I'm not worried about that. But, in all honesty I'm dreading having to spend the afternoon with him, and I know he'll demand it.” “Do you want to stay another few hours?” “Thanks, but I know I should go home, take a shower, and get into some fresh clothes. I'm going to have to deal with it and a few hours here won't change anything. Robb, about last night. Thank you, I mean that. I needed what you gave me. You saved me from hurting myself.” “I think you should get some professional help. That is if you can afford it.” “I can't, but I'll deal with this. I've been putting off making the decision, but after yesterday I know I'm damned if I don't.” “What decision is that?” “I want to get a divorce and move on with my life. Thanks to you, I recognize killing myself wasn't the way to punish him. He would have won in a way, and I don't want that. Call it what you will, a form of revenge in a way, if I leave him. I have friends, family, and a job that pays enough to live on if I do.” We sat silent for a minute, eating in silence. Then I looked up at him with a smile. “I promise not to do something stupid.” “I want to believe that,” he replied with a firm expression. I reached for my shoulder bag hanging on the empty chair next to me, and took out the pistol, handing it to him butt first. “Here, keep this.” He took the pistol from my hand and placed it on the counter behind him, then looked at me. “I suppose I should take you home.” “Yes, but not home. Back to the park, I can walk from there, I don't…” “I know. You don't need to say it. I wouldn't want to make things any harder for you.” “Thank you for being so understanding.” “Wendy, give me your phone so I can put my contact information in it. Just in case… well… in case you need a friend again. By the way, you stayed with my wife Cindy and me last night. You know her from… let's see… she's one of your clients from work.” I took my phone out and handed it to him. When he gave it back I checked and saw he had put in 'Robb, Com. Food Bank'. I looked at him with a frown. “Just in case someone looks at your contacts. No reason for a man's first and last name to show up– it might cause problems. If someone asks, you may decide to volunteer, and I'm the contact person.” I was pretty much lost in thought as he drove me to the park. I felt myself tense, my stomach going into knots. I got out before Robb could attempt to open the door for me and looked back into the car– my emotions mixed with good and bad. “Robb, thank you. I know it sounds lame, but you made a difference, a big one. I can't explain why I asked you to do what I asked of you, maybe it was because I wanted to feel like a desirable woman again.” “Wendy, I can't pretend to know you, all I can say is you deserve to be happy. Please, don't throw your life away, do what you need to do to move your life forward. If you ever need a friend to lean on call me. I promise to be there for you.” I watched as he drove away, then turned and took the first step back to a life filled with problems. Regardless of the outcome, I had a life to rebuild and I was determined to make it better. It was time to face my demons. Robb had given me that chance– I wasn't going to waste it. I had always been strong in the face of adversity and the one time I had faltered there was someone who cared enough to pull me through. I would always be grateful to him. Chapter 4: Reflections Robb Well, this had been two of the strangest days in my life. I save a woman from killing herself, comfort her by having sex with her, feed her breakfast, and drop her off to return to a husband who doesn't deserve her. Sure, I was recovering from a failed relationship of long standing, but I had never come close to committing suicide despite the pain. But, depression affects people in different ways and some can climb out of it, others can't without help. I hoped Wendy had the strength to do what she needed to do to make her life better. I drove home wondering if I would ever get a phone call from her in the future. After walking in the door I went to put things away in the kitchen– there was the pistol sitting where I had left it. I hefted it, it had been a long time since I had fired a pistol in the military; it still felt familiar. I walked to the bedroom and to the closet, opened my fire safe, and placed it inside along with the rounds I had taken out of the clip. Wendy I walked the fifteen minutes home thinking of what I would need to do. I walked in the door after seeing his car in the driveway– he was home. He was sitting in front of the TV watching a car race when I walked in. “Where have you been? We have to get ready for church in a few hours you know.” “I stayed with a friend last night. Sorry, I should have called, or left a text.” He looked at me with a wicked grin, “You go to the bedroom and take your clothes off. We haven't done it in a while, and I'm feeling you might be good about now.” I froze, my stomach went tight. If there was something I didn't want from him that was it. “I'm not in the mood right now, maybe later.” “I'm not interested if you're in the mood, get yourself in the mood. I'll be in after the race is over in about ten minutes.” “Honey, I'm sorry, I really don't want to, maybe after church this afternoon.” He looked at me with a scowl. “You're my wife, that means you listen to what I need, and give it when I want it. It's probably those pills you take to avoid getting pregnant. I hear they mess up a woman's mind too. It's time for you to stop taking them.” 'There's nothing wrong with my mind that getting away from you for a while won't solve. You haven't touched me in six months, and now you want me to flop onto my back for you. Well, it's not going to happen this time.“ He turned the volume down on the TV and stared at me with hard eyes, "What are you saying, you're not going to be a wife?” “What! Be a wife only when you want to be a husband! Why don't you be a husband to me instead of spending all your time with Joanne Winston,” my voice going shrill. “Joanne has nothing to do with this,” he thundered. “I'm grateful for that. My Lord, I guess you having her bent over the sofa, your cock inside her didn't mean anything.” I saw is face grow taut, his jaw moving slightly, but he didn't say anything. “Yes, I walked in and saw the both of you. You were so intent on screwing her you didn't even hear, or see me. I'm going to divorce your ass.” “You can't talk to me that way. I had a moment of weakness and I've prayed for forgiveness. I want to make it up to you.” “Oh, so you can go around screwing her for months and you expect me to forgive you. I guess I'm not the hardcore Christian woman you thought I was. I'm going to pack my clothes and things I need and find someplace else to live until the divorce is final.” He stormed towards me, grabbed my blouse and torn it open, his eyes wild, “You're in my house, you are my wife, I'm going to have you as is my right. Now, we can do it the hard way, or the easy way. But, I'm going to get my due out of you.” I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop him, he was much too large for me to resist him. My mind scrambled to find a way to tamp things down. For the first time I was afraid of being raped– by my own husband. Maybe I wasn't thinking straight, but it was the only thing that came to mind. “Well, it's about time you showed some real interest in these,” as I placed my hands under my breasts and pushed them up. I saw a look of confusion on his face. He stopped, his hands went down to his sides as his eyes remained glued on my heaving chest. I swallowed hard, it was taking every bit of strength for me to take a step toward him. I planted a kiss on his cheek, my stomach protesting, then forced a smile. “Finish watching your race, then come in and treat me as your wife. I went off the pill a month ago if you want to know.” I watched as he sat back down on the sofa, his temper had settled. I was sure he didn't even think my comment about Joanne made a difference– as far as he was concerned he'd been forgiven by the Lord. Well, I wasn't the Lord and the memory of them at the sofa was fresh in my mind. He was going to hell as far as I was concerned and I knew he would have company. He looked at me, his face stoic. “This will be over in about seven minutes. Glad you came to your senses.” His words made me want to heave. I rushed down the hall, into our bedroom, pulled out a suitcase and jammed underwear, a bra, some blouses, a few pairs of slacks, and two pairs of shoes into it. I slipped out the door into the garage as he stared at the TV. I didn't have much, but it would be enough for a few days until I could come back for more. The asshole wasn't ever going to touch me again. I rushed to my car and was away as fast as I could go, the tires squealing as I drove off. My last look was of him standing in front of the garage in my rear-view mirror– I had gotten away. I got as far as the park and pulled onto a side street and called my parents. They lived about two hours away where my husband wasn't likely to go. After a minute to settle myself, I called and told them I was coming to spend the night and would leave early for work in the morning. I Explained I would tell them what was going on when I got there. I started driving and felt my hands tremble as I gripped the steering wheel. He had intended on taking me regardless of what I wanted and the fear was now manifesting itself. I settled down after a while and the drive to my parents' home was enough time for me to reflect on my three years with him. Three full years of my life down the drain because I wasn't mature enough to know better– our relationship had gone bad after no more than a year. We had disagreed on one thing after another, at first small things, then major things– like having children, and having money in a savings account. I spilled everything to my parents, well… not everything. The pistol and Robb I omitted not wanting to admit I had been so desperate. They sat silent and let me talk and when I was finished told me they understood and would help me in any way they could. I took my suitcase into the guest bedroom and sat down on the bed. I opened the suitcase to see what I had selected in my haste to get out of the house hoping there was the right combination to wear to work the next day. I slept poorly, tossing and turning, thinking I had screwed my life up big time. I had sought revenge on by husband by sleeping with a total stranger and realized I would never use it against him. I didn't want to look like that kind of woman. He had his righteous Christian woman and the Lord had forgiven him. What did I have now? I felt asleep and jerked up with a start when the alarm went off. Chapter 5: Freudian Slip? Wendy I drove to work and stumbled into the office half awake. I struggled through the day and realized I hadn't made arrangements for a place to stay for the night. It didn't make sense to drive all the way back to my parents' house again. I hadn't closed my savings account, or made it a joint account after we married– now happy I hadn't. I went to the ATM and withdrew enough money for the week to stay in a cheap motel. It would do for the time being and I decided I wasn't going to go back for my clothes either– I'd shop for what I needed. The account was healthy enough to support me for a while, so at least I felt better about that. After work I drove to the cheapest place I knew, committing for one night. I walked into the room, put my suitcase on the chair, and fell exhausted onto the bed. I woke up three hours later feeling hungry and decided to walk down the street to a fast food place for a salad. I had put my phone on silent and when I looked at it found there were multiple calls, and text messages from my husband. I deleted all of them and blocked his number. No sense in talking with him, he could do that through my lawyer, and I'd find one before the end of the week. The week went along and the women at work knew something was up. I finally revealed I'd left my husband and was living in a motel. One of the single women offered me a room in her apartment saying she didn't use it for anything other than storing a few boxes of stuff. I accepted her offer and moved in two days later after buying a used single bed and bedding to make it up from a thrift shop. I needed to stretch my money as far as I could not knowing how long it would be before I could end my marriage. Clara was a godsend, she was always such a happy person, her personality was exactly what I needed, and I found my mood improved as the days went by. We shared expenses for food, so that helped too. The biggest change after a few days was I didn't feel stressed as much as I had before. I didn't realize how much it was taking out of me having to deal with my husband day in and day out. I found a lawyer and gave him the go ahead to do whatever was needed. He told me if my husband didn't contest the filing it could be done in a month at a modest cost. Under state law I was entitled to half of our real assets and funds held in joint accounts at the time of the filing. A week later I had diverted my paycheck to my new checking account. I was feeling better about the decision I had made when my husband showed up in the lobby of the building asking to see me. My lawyer told me it was best not to talk with him unless someone were with me, even if it were not him. I told the receptionist to tell him I was in a meeting for the rest of the day. I found out later he left after a few minutes saying he would try to see me later obviously unhappy. I was eating supper with Clara when my phone rang, it was my mother. I decided to ignore it and call her back after we finished eating. I walked into my bedroom for privacy, went to my contacts, and touched the screen. A male voice answered, thinking it was my dad who had picked up. “Hi Dad, this is Wendy. How are you?” There was a long pause, then. “Wendy, this is Robb. Are you okay?” Surprised, I stammered out a reply, then regained my composure. “How are you?” “Good, work and doing the volunteer stuff, nothing unusual. But, why are you calling me?” I didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him I hadn't meant to call him. I was trying to come up with a plausible explanation when he offered. “You called my number by mistake didn't you?” “Yes, I'm sorry. I never took your number out of my contacts.” “I understand. So, things are going well with you and your husband?” “No. I'm in the process of getting a divorce. I'm living with a friend in her apartment until I get things settled. I hope my lawyer will have good news for me by next week.” That's great, ugh, well… not great news… “Robb, it's okay. I understand it's awkward.” “Good, it's good to know you're moving your life forward and you're safe. Well, I'll let you get back to whomever you meant to call.” “Thanks.” I replied not knowing exactly what else to say. I saw the call end and this time pressed the number for my mother: Roberta, not Robb. I would remove Robb's information after talking with her. My Mother answered and told me my husband had called her asking if she knew where I was living. I felt my heart go into my stomach. He was stilling looking for me. “Honey, I told him I didn't know where. I won't repeat what he said, it would only upset you. Your father and I think you're doing the right thing. Be strong, see this through, and when things settle down you'll find a man that's good for you.” That was my mother, always looking for the silver lining. We talked for another half hour and then I put my phone down. I would call my lawyer tomorrow and see if he had anything to tell me. I opened my contacts to delete Robb's number, my finger almost touching the screen when I pulled it back. I probably should have thanked him again for helping me. I'd call him back, then delete it after we finished talking. I selected his name, waited for the dial tone, and for him to pick up. “Robb here.” “Robb, it's Wendy again.” There was a pause. “You're alright aren't you?” I laughed. “Yes, I'm fine. I thought I should call you back and thank you again for helping me.” “Okay, you know I'm pleased you're alright. You sound good, I can almost see your smile. I remember what you look like when you wear one.” I felt myself smiling like a fool, I remembered when I had smiled at him that way. Memoires flooded my mine and I felt myself go warm remembering being in bed with him the following morning. There was a long pause between us, then I started to say something just has he did, we both stopped, another pause. “Go ahead, what did you have to say,” he offered. “I don't know, what did you want to say?” Another pause, I felt myself tense wondering now if I should have called him. “Wendy, are you free tonight?” “Yes. Well not free, but reasonable,” I replied flippantly. I heard him laugh. “Reasonable works for me. How about I come and pick you up and we can go out for a coffee.” “Robb, I'm still married. I want to, but I'm not sure it's a good idea.” “I understand, it makes sense, sorry. I guess I wasn't thinking straight.” “Robb, I would say yes otherwise. Really, I would.” - to be continued.. By R A Wallace for Literotica

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief:    First—Iran executes one of its own nuclear scientists over allegations of espionage on behalf of Israel, as the Islamic regime intensifies its internal purge of suspected infiltrators following the recent 12-Day War. Later in the show—the Associated Press is facing widespread backlash after running a highly sympathetic story about Hezbollah terrorists injured in last year's Israeli pager attack, saying they "struggle to recover." Plus—a Ukrainian NGO sounds the alarm on Russia's mass abduction of Ukrainian children, alleging the Putin regime is engaged in systematic child trafficking. In our 'Back of the Brief—a recent report is shedding light on how Hamas terrorists are using a secret stockpile of cash, along with looted humanitarian aid meant for starving Palestinians, to keep their fighters and local loyalists paid. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.   YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Birch Gold: Text PDB to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold Ridge Wallet: Get 10% Off your entire order & take advantage of Ridge's Annual Sweepstakes by going to https://ridge.com/PDB #Ridgepod NO PURCH. NEC. Open to legal residents of 50 US/DC, Canada & the UK, age maj.+. Void where prohibited. Begins 8/1/25 and ends 9/15/25. 2 winners selected. Max Prizes total ARV: $380,000 USD / approximately $516,000 CAD / £306,800. Canadian skill-testing question required. Subject to Rules, including free entry method & odds: ridge.com/rules. Sponsor: The Ridge Wallet, LLC. American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. 866-885-1881 or visit https://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB - NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dhruv Agrawal is CEO and president of Aether Biomedical. Discover Dhruv's unique journey from studying medicine in New Delhi to creating life-changing bionic limbs. Under his leadership, Aether Biomedical has achieved significant milestones, including CE certification and FDA registration for its Zeus V1 bionic limb. Dhruv shares his personal story of transitioning from medical school to MedTech innovation, the obstacles faced and lessons learned as a young entrepreneur, and the hope and inspiration of seeing Aether's prosthetics transform lives, especially in war-torn regions.   Guest links: https://www.aetherbiomedical.com | https://www.linkedin.com/company/aether-biomedical | https://www.instagram.com/aether_biomedical/  Charity supported: ASPCA Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com.  PRODUCTION CREDITS Host & Editor: Lindsey Dinneen Producer: Velentium Medical   EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode 061 - Dhruv Agrawal Dhruv Agrawal [00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. [00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. [00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. [00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. [00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. [00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I'm excited to introduce you to my guest, Dhruv Agrawal. Dhruv is the CEO and president of the management board of Aither Biomedical. He studied medicine in New Delhi before dropping out to pursue a bachelor's in business management. He also has a postgraduate diploma in Medical Device Development Regulatory Affairs from University of California Irvine, and a Master's in Data Science from the University of London. Under his leadership, Aither Biomedical has achieved CE certification and FDA registration for the Zeus V1 bionic limb, and established distribution across nine European countries, the US, and India. Additionally, Aither has raised over 12.5 million US dollars in private capital from leading VCs and has been a part of multiple European grants and research programs for an additional 6.5 million US dollars in non-dilutive capital. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show. I'm so excited to speak with you today. [00:01:49] Dhruv Agrawal: it's a pleasure to be here, Lindsey. Thank you so much for inviting me. [00:01:52] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course, of course. Well, I would love, if you wouldn't mind just starting by sharing a little bit about yourself and your background and what led you to Med Tech. [00:02:02] Dhruv Agrawal: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Dhruv Agrawal. I'm the CEO of Aither Biomedical. We are a company based out of Poznan in Poland, so on the western part of Poland. It's a little bit chilly here. As a company, we are a team of about 55 people right now, currently present in the US, Europe, Middle East, as well as India. And we focus on making bionic hands for upper limb amputees. [00:02:25] Lindsey Dinneen: Amazing. Yes. So I wanna get into everything amazing that your company does, but going back for just a little bit, in your own personal history, can you share a little bit about maybe growing up and what experiences led you to think, "Hey, in the future, maybe I wanna do X, Y, and Z." [00:02:43] Dhruv Agrawal: Mm-hmm. So first of all, entrepreneurship was never a plan for me. I didn't even knew that there was a thing called an entrepreneur until I was easily into high school. Both my parents are doctors. My dad's a pediatrician, mom's a gynecologist, and as it happens in India, if your parents are doctors, you kind of know that you have to become a doctor as well. So I went to the coaching classes to pre, to prepare for medical entrance examinations. I actually met my co-founder there about 10 years ago. We both got into medical school. I was generally comfortable with medicine, you know, growing up in a hospital with doctor parents around. So I was generally comfortable in a clinical setting, but I realized that I was much more interested in the technological aspect of medicine rather than the clinical aspect of it. And that was when I was getting into the second year of my university. And luckily my dad, for my 18th birthday, bought me a 3D printer, like a very simple 3D printer from China as my 18th birthday gift. 'cause I was really wanting to get into that world. And that's where the story begins. So even till today, my dad jokingly says that that's the worst gift he has ever bought for me, because that made me drop out of medical school. [00:03:57] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh no. Okay, so you were given this gift and you started, I imagine, tinkering with it, learning how to use it. So tell me about that. [00:04:06] Dhruv Agrawal: Yeah, the thing with my co-founder as well, even though we went to the same medical university, we were not really friends in the first year. We were just colleagues. But when I got this 3D printer, it was like one of those things that you assemble, you get a kit and you assemble. And I was asking around people in my university and they were like, "Come on, what are you doing? Like, I don't wanna come to your apartment to assemble a 3D printer." And my co-founder was the first one who said yes to coming down and assembling that printer with me. So that's how our friendship essentially started in the university, even though we had known each other for three years by that point. And then we started, of course, by very basic things like printing mobile phone covers and key chains and we were just in awe with the fact that I have something in my room, in a studio apartment, where I can just build physical things, right? And this was back in 2018, so 3D printer was not such a consumer product where, you know, if it was of course used in industry, but it was not something that you would imagine having at your home, at least not in India. And then we actually found out that there's a society called Enable, which is an NGO that makes very simple basic prosthetic designs for kids. So we started by printing those and started going to some amputee clinics around and trialing that out with patients, just purely out of technical curiosity. We didn't really had a draw towards amputation, so to speak. We were more driven by the technical curiosity of, you know, it sounds interesting to make a prostatic hand. So that was the beginning. And then slowly, slowly things happened very organically that we went from wanting to 3D print basic things to starting a biomedical innovation club in our university, to incorporating a company in India, then to coming all the way over to Poland and now having 55 people. [00:05:49] Lindsey Dinneen: Holy cow. That's an amazing story. Thank you for sharing about that. So, okay, so, so you started off with this curiosity, like, "Hey, let's see what we could do with this printer and, and how we can make it work for people." And I love that your initial pull with it was to actually provide something that does help people. So that's obviously a core value, something that you hold very dear. So can you speak a little bit more, did you have sort of any personal experience or within your family or what led you to say, "You know what, hey, I've got this really cool tool at my disposal. Let me start using it by actually doing something that helps others." [00:06:27] Dhruv Agrawal: I mean, the honest answer, I would love to say I had some personal experience, but the honest answer is no, not, not really. I don't have one of those stories where I can tell you that, like I met an amputee 15 years ago, 20 years ago, and have had that motivation for that time. It was just pure technical curiosity to begin with. But of course, as we started building basic devices and giving it out to people and seeing the response of what a very simple, you know, $50 thing can do for a person who's missing a limb in an impoverished family in a village in India, that's a very powerful thing. So at that point, we realized that we started getting more and more close to upper limb amputation as a field, as a clinical specialty within itself. Of course, both me and my co-founder coming from medical school growing up in family of medicals, we've always had it in our heart to work in the clinical side of things. We've always liked working around, helping people get healthier and better. But amputation specifically was an area that we were very lucky that we found as an area of interest that developed within the both of us. [00:07:31] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. Okay, so, so you started printing these limbs, and then you realized, "Oh my goodness, there's such a need for this. There's so much opportunity here to really help people." So, so tell me a little bit about the evolution over time of how you have made it better and better, more technologically advanced, more ergonomic, all the things that go into that. Can you speak a little bit to that learning curve and process? [00:07:56] Dhruv Agrawal: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was a very long learning curve because not only did, me and my co-founder had zero background in business. We were 18-year-old, 19-year-old kids, right? We were just teenagers and we really had no idea what we wanted to do. And not only that, we also were not engineers, so we didn't have any engineering experience or expertise either. So everything that we did in the very beginning, at least, was self-taught. I just knew I had an inclination towards electronics and programming. My co-founder was much more towards mechanical CAD design and things like that. So we started learning these courses for free on edX and Coursera and all these, you know, MOOC platforms. And that's how we built up the very first prototype of the product by getting some small grants here and there in India. Of course, the situation is very different right now. We have R&D team of 30 people, very experienced, a few PhDs here and there. So I don't really design anymore in my day-to-day life, but that's how we started. And same was the side of the journey of coming from India to Poland. Again, that was not something that was planned at all. We had no experience in business. We had no experience in raising funding or raising money and things like that. We just learned on the go, applied to over a hundred different programs 'cause most of the investors said no to us back then in 2018 to funding 'cause why would they say yes? And we looked at like, "Okay, can we get some grants and things like that?" Applied to over a hundred programs. Luckily got selected in this program in Poland, which was like a $50,000 program back in 2018 and decided, "Yeah, let's try that place out." And came to Poland. I literally came with a backpack with stuff for two months 'cause there was a plan, come for the grant, stay for two months, go back to my family in India, and it's been seven years since then. [00:09:44] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, there you go. Oh my goodness. That's great. So Poland, and you get along it sounds like just fine. Excellent. Excellent. Okay, so, I really appreciate you sharing about, especially, you were both so young and but so eager. It sounds like just, "Yes, let's learn, let's develop the skills that we need to along the way." I would imagine though, coming into it, perhaps that young and not having as much business experience, or, or any really in, in the past, I-- something that I really admired when I was kind of looking through your LinkedIn profile was when you post, a lot of times you share stories about areas that, that may be considered I, I guess mistakes or stumbling blocks or things that, that you've overcome on your path. And I would love if you would share maybe just a couple of things that come to mind, as an early founder, because your story is amazing and unique, but there are lots of other founders too who find themselves in similar situations where they're like, "Whoof, I've got this great idea. I know what I want, but here's maybe what I should look out for to avoid." could you share a little bit about that? [00:10:49] Dhruv Agrawal: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the first thing is mistakes are unavoidable, right? it doesn't matter whether you're coming from a background of a medical school dropout, or if you have 10, 15, 20 years of corporate experience and things like that. 'Cause I do find myself thinking a lot about, you know, wouldn't it have been better if I would've graduated and then did a MBA and then started a company? Yes, it might have been better, but the things that I deal with in my day-to-day life in the startup, I don't think this is taught anywhere. So the first and foremost thing, which is of importance, is that mistakes are unavoidable. It's okay to make mistakes. The biggest learning that I have is mistakes are unavoidable, but it's up to you to be decisive enough to pivot as quickly as possible. So don't look back at the mistakes that we have made, because one of the worst things that we have done in this company, or where we have failed the most, or where we have seen that like, "Ah, this is where we could have done things better," are not about making a wrong decision. They were just about being indecisive and being in a dilemma for a long, long time. It would've been far better if we would've made certain decisions quickly, gotten feedback and quickly pivoted, instead of just being in a dilemma and trying to balance two sides for a long time period. An example of that would be when we launched the first version of our product into the market, we realized that we had made some errors from the point of view of what should be the feature set in this product. And so, for example, the product was available only in a medium size hand in terms of the dimensions, but majority of the market is for a small size hand. So at that point we couldn't really just miniaturize things because there's a physical limitation. So at that point we had to make a decision of do we scrap this thing completely and build a new hand from scratch that starts with a small hand and then has a medium sized option as a grow up? Or do we continue to work on the medium sized hand, and then launch a small sized hand separately? Finally, we decided to do the second option. But looking back again, I, I don't think it would've been better or worse either way. I think both of these options are fair. It's just the fact that we spent over nine months going back and forth between, "Okay, let's continue putting our efforts in energy into the medium sized that we have right now" versus, "Okay, this month we are now suddenly feeling, ah, that's not gonna work out. Let's start building the second version." So that dilemma of indecision is probably the worst thing that you can do. Just make a decision, own up to it, move on. If it works out, great, if it not, if it doesn't work out, you're gonna have learnings and you'll be stronger at the end of the day. So that's, I would be an I would say would be an example of one of the key errors that we made. [00:13:23] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Well, thank you for being willing to share that, and that's such valuable advice and feedback. And so, as you recognize this and go, "Okay, so that didn't work as planned, or in the way that I would prefer," what did you end up deciding? How do you go now, moving forward, when you are in a position of "I have a major decision to make. I feel like both options have value and merit." How do you end up deciding, "Okay, I I'm not gonna leave this just in this hazy middle ground, I'm gonna make a decision." How do you go about that now differently? [00:13:54] Dhruv Agrawal: I think the first and foremost thing that entrepreneurs, or anybody who wants to build a new product, or anybody who just wants to build something new, is be very, very, very honest with yourself about, "Am I solving a real problem?" As founders, as creators, as developers, it is so easy to go into that mindset of you find a problem that you can relate to or you somehow think that this is a real problem. It doesn't matter what feedback you're going to get. You're going to convert that feedback, or create a narrative or story from that feedback, that is going to align with the impression that you have built in your own head about what the real problem is. So one thing that we really do right now is just focus on problem market fit at the very early stages of launching a new software, building a new product, building the next version of the hand, or whatever else we do is really try to question, "Are we solving a real problem?" And in a completely unbiased manner, "Do people agree with me that I am solving a real problem?" So that's what I would say would be a primary thing that we do differently right now. Of course at this point, we start getting users involved much earlier into our development process. That is something that we did not do in the past, and hence the surprise that we got at that point. So we start involving users, different stakeholders, and things like that much earlier, but at the same time, I would say that it's not to say that I would penalize myself for the historical decisions that I took. We did the best that we could potentially with the resources that were available at that point. Now we have much more resources so we can do all these things. So don't feel pressured to do everything on day one. You know, start with something, move forward and build that maturity as you grow. [00:15:38] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh, I love that. That's excellent advice. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, so you know that's a great segue and I love the fact that you were talking about the end user and the importance. And it's so funny because of course, ultimately your goal is to help these end users and improve their quality of life and whatnot. But to your point, it does get easy to get so bogged down in the details of what you're creating and innovating that perhaps you forget sort of the bigger picture at times. So, speaking of these end users, can you share any stories that might stand out to you as really reinforcing to you that, "Hey, gosh, I am in the right industry, doing the right thing at the right time." [00:16:17] Dhruv Agrawal: Yeah, no, absolutely. So we have had many phenomenal end users that have reiterated our belief in the product that we are building, the problems that we are solving, the company, and the organization that we are building as a whole. I mean, generally speaking, patients change their devices every three to five years, and that's really our entry point of getting a device into the hands of the patients. But even with those, a patient is using another prosthetic device, they start using ours, they will see a step change in the functionality, and that's always empowering. But the most interesting stories are where we have really seen patients who, for example, congenital amputees tried a prosthetic device 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and then made a decision to live their life without any prosthetic device. So got used to a life for 15, 20, 25 years of living a life without a prosthetic device, just with an amputated limb or a limb difference. And then, we come in with our product, they see it, they use it, and they are ready to adopt that again. And that's a much powerful validation for us because somebody who has used a device, looked at all the advancements over the last two decades, decided actively decided to not use any of those advancements, and looks at our product and says, "Ah, this really solves the problems that I was waiting for someone to solve for the last two decades." Like we had this situation with a very famous Polish guy, Marek Kamiński, who is the youngest Polish person to go to both poles, North Pole and the South Pole, and he's a bilateral amputee on legs and he has a unilateral amputation to one arm. He has not used a prosthetic device in, I think 15 or 20 years, something like that. So for a very long timeframe. He met with an ambassador of ours and was finally convinced after 15 long years to give another try. And we fitted him over three months ago and he's been performing phenomenally with the device and he's so happy with that. So those are the moments that really give us more confidence or give us a boost of confidence in the product that we are building and the company that we are building. [00:18:19] Lindsey Dinneen: That's incredible. Wow. What a story. Yeah, and I love hearing those kinds of stories and that just to reinforce, " Hey, you really are making a difference." And I'm sure that helps on the days that are a little bit harder, a little trickier, you know, it helps to have that to hold onto, so you know your impact goes so far beyond even the places that you've mentioned before. I was reading about how you've worked with the Open Dialogue Foundation and there's been some work in Ukraine, and I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about perhaps that collaboration, and or some of the other exciting collaborations you have going on with these amazing organizations all over the world. [00:18:54] Dhruv Agrawal: Absolutely. I mean, the work that we do in Ukraine is something which is very close to our heart and what you just mentioned a moment ago, it's exactly that type of work that keeps us going on the hardest of days. I have so many amazing stories from the patients who have been fitted with our device 'cause at this point in the last year or so, we have already fitted over a hundred patients with our bionic hands in Ukraine. We primarily work with Superhumans, which is NGO based out of Kyiv, a great place, really the mecca for prosthetics at this point, I would say. They're doing a phenomenal job of getting these patients in, rehabilitating them, fitting them with our device and then training them on how to use the device. In fact, even supporting them in the post rehabilitation, acquainting them to back to the real world as well. And we send teams of doctors from the US, from Poland, to Ukraine to actually fit these devices to patients. And we have had a lot of success stories come out of it. We have people who have amputations, even at the level of shoulder who are amputated all the way up to the shoulder or four quarter amputation, and they are successfully able to live a independent life with our device. I think the best story that I've had, or the part that really made me tear up, was when one of the soldiers got fitted with our device and his really, really big wish was to be able to do the first, to dance with his wife, with both hands. And I got to see that and it was, it was the most amazing feeling ever. [00:20:20] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh my goodness. Yes. I don't know how you couldn't just have the waterfall start with that kind of story. That's incredible. Thank you for sharing about that. So, as you look toward the company's future and your own, what are you excited about moving forward? [00:20:34] Dhruv Agrawal: I mean, we are currently in the process of getting a new version of our hand in the market, which has all the learnings of the last four years or so. So we are definitely really excited about that. You have to keep in mind when we launched the first product, we didn't even have enough money to-- because prosthetics are expensive-- so we didn't really have had enough money to buy our competitor devices, or the devices from the past to look around to see, touch, feel, how they are built. Everything that we built was purely out of our imagination and based on what we could find on the internet. And, you know, go visit a doctor who fits these devices, have that 10, 15 minutes to look around that device, and so on and so on. I mean, four years later, now we have the experience of fitting close to seven, 800 patients with our device. All that feedback that has gone into the next version product that we are gonna be building. So very excited about that. We continue to develop the software platform, so we are not just a company that is focused on providing a device to the patient, but we provide an entire software platform that's like a digital twin for the patient. So it supports the patients throughout their end-to-end journey. Because it's not just about giving a device to the patient, but it's all about can we improve their quality of life? Can the patient pick up a glass of water? Can he tie his shoelaces? Can he water a plant? Can he do the activities that he really wants to do? And from that perspective, the software platform that we continue to build focuses on things like adherence, occupational therapy, physical therapy, monitoring of the usage of the device. Because the thing in prosthetics industry is, the day you give the device to the patient is not the day you have won the battle. That's the day the battle actually begins, 'cause now it's all about making sure that you deliver on the promise of helping him get better quality of life. [00:22:20] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that's an exciting challenge, but it's a continually evolving challenge too. And there's probably variations, I would imagine, on people embracing the technology a little bit differently and how you handle all that. Yeah. Excellent. Well that is a very exciting future and it's so much fun to hear about, and you know, you've had a great career so far. I'm sure it's wildly different than what you may have imagined as a kid. But what a cool gift that you're bringing to the world. You've been recognized quite a bit. You're 30 under 30 for Europe, and you've been involved in lots of different cool organizations. You've been a TEDx speaker. What are some of those moments like, have they been surreal? Is it just like, "Oh, thank you." Just confirmation that, hey, you are on the right tracker. What are those kinds of moments like for you? [00:23:08] Dhruv Agrawal: I mean, definitely the first round of funding that we raised in Poland was was a huge check mark for us, because it's that moment at which you realize, "Ah, somebody wants to give me money and somebody wants to give me a quarter of a million dollars." I've never seen that much money together on a single bank account or in any way, shape or form, right? I come from a normal middle class family. We don't have that. So, that was definitely the first micro checkpoint, let's say. I mean, both the things that you mentioned, the TEDx thing, the Forbes 30 Under 30 thing, coming from a background in India where these things are really important, although they're not so important for me as a person, but they're much more important for some reason to my parents and to society. It is a different place. We put a lot of emphasis on these types of things. So from six, seven years ago, looking at these lists coming out or looking at, "Oh, this cool guy spoke on a TEDx talk, sending him an email about, 'Do you want to be an advisor in my company? I'll give you 5% shares,'" and so on and so on, to actually doing those things by yourself, that's definitely pretty well as well. But again, at the end of the day, there is nothing better than seeing a new patient get fitted with the hand, seeing the reaction of their family members. They have a daughter, they have a son who they hold their hand for the first time. They hug their wife. I mean, just, just being around amputees and patients who use your device, something that you built and that helps them get better at their daily life, that's, I would say, the most rewarding thing ever. [00:24:39] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, of course. That's, that's wonderful. Yeah. So, oh my goodness, this is so great and very inspirational, but pivoting the conversation a little bit just for fun. Imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars-- speaking of those wonderful sums of money-- to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It can be something within your industry, but doesn't have to be, what would you choose to teach? [00:25:03] Dhruv Agrawal: I have two topics in mind. One is I would probably teach a masterclass on pitching, especially for first time founders. I think that is something which I'm good at, and we have obviously raised a pretty decent amount of capital up 'till now. So that would be the one thing that I would say. So kind of a combination of pitching and starting a startup for the first time, especially in the field of hardware, medical devices, things like that. And the second thing that I would really like to talk about is just probably trying to put my thoughts together and making a masterclass on how to never give up, because I think that that's a very underrated quality. But that's a very important quality. There have been complex times in the history of our company where we have felt that like, "Ah, this might be it." But it's all about what you do in those moments and how you go beyond those. I think it's all about that. [00:25:47] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. And how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world? [00:25:53] Dhruv Agrawal: Just as a positive change maker. I really would like all these patients that we are helping and giving these devices to. I, I just want to be a small part of their lives. Just as I was part of the life of the veteran who got married, I, I just wanna ha have those small moments club together amongst these different individuals that we are privileged to work with. [00:26:13] Lindsey Dinneen: Hmm. Yes, of course. Wonderful. And then final question, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? [00:26:22] Dhruv Agrawal: Oh, that's very simple. Patients getting fitted with our device. Today we see a patient getting fitted with our device, and that smile on their face and things like that. And, you know, that's even much bigger, much more interesting in Ukraine because many times when you go to these hospitals, and when I go to these hospitals in Ukraine, you have to understand that these people have gone through a lot. These soldiers who are putting their body on the line for their country. There, of course, there's a certain sort of low morale that they have when they're amputated and when they're in these hospitals and things like that where they don't really think that there is ever a possibility for them to regain something back. And you go in there and you show them a bionic hand, and they're not sure if this thing works, and you put the electrodes on them and they open the hand or close it for the first time, and then you suddenly see those expressions change from like, "Ah, what has happened to me?" to, "Oh, what can I achieve?" That is also an amazing feeling. [00:27:16] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Oh, I love that. What an amazing gift to be able to help somebody bridge that gap and witness it. How cool is that? Oh, well, I think this is incredible. I am so grateful for you and your co-founder for starting this company and just being able to give so many people hope and new life, really, just a new way of experiencing life. So thank you for all of the incredible work you're doing. I'm so excited to continue to follow your work, support your work, as I'm sure all of our listeners are as well. So, gosh, I just really appreciate you sharing all of your advice and stories and wisdom with us. So thanks again so much for being here. [00:27:55] Dhruv Agrawal: Of course, Lindsey, thank so much for having me. [00:27:56] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course, of course. And we are honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is dedicated to preventing animal cruelty in the United States. We really appreciate you choosing that organization to support and thank you just again, so very much for your time here today. I just wish you continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. And thank you also so much to our listeners, and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you share this episode with a colleague or two and we'll catch you next time. [00:28:43] Ben Trombold: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a full-service CDMO with 100% in-house capability to design, develop, and manufacture medical devices from class two wearables to class three active implantable medical devices. Velentium specializes in active implantables, leads, programmers, and accessories across a wide range of indications, such as neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, cardiac management, and diabetes management. Velentium's core competencies include electrical, firmware, and mechanical design, mobile apps, embedded cybersecurity, human factors and usability, automated test systems, systems engineering, and contract manufacturing. Velentium works with clients worldwide, from startups seeking funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.

SPONSORS: - Get 10% Off your entire order & take advantage of Ridge's Annual Sweepstakes by going to https://www.Ridge.com/NOTTODAY #RidgepodNO PURCH. NEC. Open to legal residents of 50 US/DC, Canada & the UK, age maj.+. Void where prohibited. Begins 8/1/25 and ends 9/15/25. 2 winners selected. Max Prizes total ARV: $380,000 USD / approximately $516,000 CAD / £306,800. Canadian skill-testing question required. Subject to Rules, including free entry method & odds: ridge.com/rules. Sponsor: The Ridge Wallet, LLC.AUCUN ACHAT NÉC. Ouvert aux résidents autorisés des 50 É.-U./D.C., du Canada et du R.-U., âge de maj.+. Nul là où interdit. Débute le 01/08/25, se termine le 15/09/25. Sélection de 2 gagnants. VDA totale max. des prix : 380 000 $ US / ~516 000 $ CA / 306 800 £. Question d'habileté mathématique (Canada) req. Sujet au règlement, incluant méthode de participation gratuite et chances de gagner : http://ridgewallet.ca/rules. Organisateur : The Ridge Wallet, LLC. - Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/nottoday, all lowercase Fresh off game night, Jamie and Rob dive into Cutter's late-night Dairy Queen addictions, Rob's heroic pantry resistance, and the sacred rules of Monopoly Deal. Jamie also teases her new memoir and the 50 pages she'll have to cut — but promises to spill them all on the pod. The two pay tribute to stuntmen, argue whether AI should do their jobs, and take a culinary detour into the legendary Giovanni's Italian deli. Also: LeBron's psychotic TV habits, Beavis & Butt-Head's long-lost soundboard, curse words that have gone extinct, and one Sopranos theory so insane… it just might be genius. Have a question for Rob and Jamie? Reach out at nottodaypalpodcast@gmail.com Not Today, Pal Ep. 106 https://www.instagram.com/jamielynnsigler https://www.instagram.com/nottodaypalshow https://store.ymhstudios.com Chapters 00:00:00 - Intro 00:00:25 - Locking Into A Diet 00:06:45 - The Most New York Sandwich Maker 00:13:52 - Clip: Unc Lebron Sopranos 00:15:07 - Lost Curse Words + Beavis & Butthead 00:20:23 - Rob's TV PTSD Moment 00:22:41 - Memory Lane + Some Mob Land Love 00:27:13 - Reviewing A Theory About AJ Soprano 00:32:24 - Jamie's Book Update 00:36:30 - Clip: Stunt Man Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Drop us a text message to say hi and let us know what you think of the show. (Include your email if you'd like us to reply)In which John and David reflect on the contrast between Jonah and the other prophets of scripture. We explore the literary and theological weight of Jonah 1:2–3, where the familiar prophetic pattern is disrupted by Jonah's defiance. From “rising and going” to “rising and fleeing,” we trace the movement down into disobedience—and away from the face of God. We highlight Jonah's descent (linguistic and literal), the mirroring structures in the text, and how the book of Jonah's poetic construction invites readers into deep reflection on the nature of obedience, resistance, and God's presence.Episode 207 of the Two Texts Podcast | Jonah Beyond the Whale 4If you want to get in touch about something in the podcast you can reach out on podcast@twotexts.com or by liking and following the Two Texts podcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love it if you left a review or comment where you're listening from – and if you really enjoyed it, why not share it with a friend?Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021________Help us keep Two Texts free for everyone by becoming a supporter of the show John and David want to ensure that Two Texts always remains free content for everyone. We don't want to create a paywall or have premium content that would exclude others. However, Two Texts costs us around £60 per month (US$75; CAD$100) to make. If you'd like to support the show with even just a small monthly donation it would help ensure we can continue to produce the content that you love. Thank you so much.Support the show

Pravin Waghmare is the CEO of Prescient from Pune. Magnus from Sandvik gave us the tip to talk to him about AI and CAD.

David Mayernik is an architect, artist, writer, educator and most of all, he is a life-long student. David grew up in Allentown Pennsylvania. As he tells us during this episode, even at a young age of two he already loved to draw. He says he always had a pencil and paper with him and he used them constantly. His mother kept many of his drawings and he still has many of them to this day.   After graduating from University of Notre Dame David held several positions with various architectural firms. He always believed that he learned more by teaching himself, however, and eventually he decided to leave the professional world of architecture and took teaching positions at Notre Dame. He recently retired and is now Professor Emeritus at Notre Dame.   Our conversation is far ranging including discussions of life, the importance of learning and growing by listening to your inner self. David offers us many wonderful and insightful lessons and thoughts we all can use. We even talk some about about how technology such as Computer Aided Design systems, (CAD), are affecting the world of Architecture. I know you will enjoy what David has to say. Please let me know your thoughts through email at michaelhi@accessibe.com.     About the Guest:   David Mayernik is an architect, artist, writer, and educator. He was born in 1960 in Allentown, Pennsylvania; his parents were children of immigrants from Slovakia and Italy. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and the British Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, and has won numerous grants, awards and competitions, including the Gabriel Prize for research in France, the Steedman Competition, and the Minnesota State Capitol Grounds competition (with then partner Thomas N. Rajkovich). In 1995 he was named to the decennial list of the top forty architects in the United States under forty. In the fall of 2022, he was a resident at the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria and the Cini foundation in Venice.   His design work for the TASIS campus in Switzerland over twenty-eight years has been recognized with a Palladio Award from Traditional Building magazine, an honorable mention in the INTBAU Excellence Awards, and a jury prize from the Prix Européen d'Architecture Philippe Rotthier. TASIS Switzerland was named one of the nine most beautiful boarding schools in the world by AD Magazine in March 2024. For ten years he also designed a series of new buildings for TASIS England in Surrey.   David Mayernik studied fresco painting with the renowned restorer Leonetto Tintori, and he has painted frescoes for the American Academy in Rome, churches in the Mugello and Ticino, and various buildings on the TASIS campus in Switzerland. He designed stage sets for the Haymarket Opera company of Chicago for four seasons between 2012 and 2014. He won the competition to paint the Palio for his adopted home of Lucca in 2013. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited in New York, Chicago, London, Innsbruck, Rome, and Padova and featured in various magazines, including American Artist and Fine Art Connoisseur.   David Mayernik is Professor Emeritus with the University of Notre Dame, where for twenty years he taught in the School of Architecture. He is the author of two books, The Challenge of Emulation in Art and Architecture (Routledge, UK) and Timeless Cities: An Architect's Reflections on Renaissance Italy, (Basic Books), and numerous essays and book chapters, including “The Baroque City” for the Oxford Handbook of the Baroque. In 2016 he created the online course The Meaning of Rome for Notre Dame, hosted on the edX platform, which had an audience of six thousand followers. Ways to connect with David:   Website: www.davidmayernik.com Instagram: davidmayernik LinkedIn: davidmayernik EdX: The Meaning of Rome https://www.edx.org/learn/humanities/university-of-notre-dame-the-meaning-of-rome-the-renaissance-and-baroque-city     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:17 Well, hi and welcome once again. Wherever you happen to be, to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to chat with David Mayernik, unless you're in Europe, and then it's David Mayernik, but either way, we're glad to have him. He is an architect. He is an award winning architect. He's an author. He's done a number of things in his life, and we're going to talk about all of those, and it's kind of more fun to let him be the one to talk more about it, and then I can just pick up and ask questions as we go, and that's what we'll do. But we're really glad that he's here. So David, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   David Mayernik ** 01:57 Oh, thanks so much. Michael, thanks for the invitation. I'm looking forward to it.   Michael Hingson ** 02:02 Well, I know we've been working on getting this set up, and David actually happens to be in Italy today, as opposed to being in the US. He was a professor at Notre Dame for 20 years, but he has spent a lot of time in Europe and elsewhere, and I'm sure he's going to talk about that. But why don't we start, as I mentioned earlier, as I love to do, tell us kind of about the early David growing up.   David Mayernik ** 02:25 Well, so my both of my parents passed away several years ago, and when I was at my mom's funeral, one of our next door neighbors was telling my wife what I was like when I was a kid, and she said he was very quiet and very intense. And I suppose that's how I was perceived. I'm not sure I perceived myself that way I did. The thing about me is I've always drawn my mom. I mean, lots of kids draw, but I drew like credibly, well, when I was, you know, two and three years old. And of course, my mother saved everything. But the best thing about it was that I always had paper and pencil available. You know, we were terribly well off. We weren't poor, but we weren't, you know, well to do, but I never lacked for paper and pencils, and that just allowed me to just draw as much as I possibly could.   Michael Hingson ** 03:16 And so I guess the other question is, of course, do you still have all those old drawings since your mom kept   David Mayernik ** 03:23 them? Well, you know? Yeah, actually, after she passed, I did get her, Well, her collection of them. I don't know that all of them. My father had a penchant for throwing things away, unfortunately. So some of the archive is no longer with us, but no but enough of it. Just odds and bits from different areas of my life. And the thing is, you know, I was encouraged enough. I mean, all kids get encouraged. I think when they're young, everything they do is fabulous, but I had enough encouragement from people who seem to take it seriously that I thought maybe I had something and and it was the kind of thing that allowed me to have enough confidence in myself that I actually enjoyed doing it and and mostly, my parents were just impressed. You know, it just was impressive to them. And so I just happily went along my own way. The thing about it was that I really wanted to find my own path as somebody who drew and had a chance in high school for a scholarship to a local art school. I won a competition for a local art school scholarship, and I went for a couple of lessons, and I thought, you know, they're just teaching me to draw like them. I want to draw like me. So for better or worse, I'm one of those autodidacts who tries to find my own way, and, you know, it has its ups and downs. I mean, the downside of it is it's a slower learning process. Is a lot more trial and error. But the upside of it is, is that it's your own. I mean, essentially, I had enough of an ego that, you know, I really wanted to do. Things my way.   Michael Hingson ** 05:02 Well, you illustrate something that I've believed and articulate now I didn't used to, but I do now a lot more, which is I'm my own best teacher. And the reality is that you you learn by doing, and people can can give you information. And, yeah, you're right. Probably they wanted you to mostly just draw like them. But the bottom line is, you already knew from years of drawing as a child, you wanted to perhaps go a slightly different way, and you worked at it, and it may have taken longer, but look at what you learned.   David Mayernik ** 05:37 Yeah, I think it's, I mean, for me, it's, it's important that whatever you do, you do because you feel like you're being true to yourself somehow. I mean, I think that at least that's always been important to me, is that I don't, I don't like doing things for the sake of doing them. I like doing them because I think they matter. And I like, you know, I think essentially pursuing my own way of doing it meant that it always was, I mean, beyond just personal, it was something I was really committed to. And you know, the thing about it, eventually, for my parents was they thought it was fabulous, you know, loved great that you draw, but surely you don't intend to be an artist, because, you know, you want to have a job and make a living. And so I eventually realized that in high school, that while they, well, they probably would have supported anything I did that, you know, I was being nudged towards something a little bit more practical, which I think happens to a lot of kids who choose architecture like I did. It's a way, it's a practical way of being an artist and and that's we could talk about that. But I think that's not always true.   Michael Hingson ** 06:41 Bill, go ahead, talk about that. Well, I think that the   David Mayernik ** 06:44 thing about architecture is that it's become, well, one it became a profession in America, really, in the 20th century. I mean, it's in the sense that there was a licensing exam and all the requirements of what we think of as, you know, a professional service that, you know, like being a lawyer or a doctor, that architecture was sort of professionalized in the 20th century, at least in the United States. And, and it's a business, you know, ostensibly, I mean, you're, you know, you're doing what you do for a fee. And, and so architecture tries to balance the art part of it, or the creative side, the professional side of it, and the business side. And usually it's some rather imperfect version of all of those things. And the hard part, I think the hardest part to keep alive is the art part, because the business stuff and the professional stuff can really kind of take over. And that's been my trial. Challenge is to try to have it all three ways, essentially.   Michael Hingson ** 07:39 Do you think that Frank Lloyd Wright had a lot to do with bringing architecture more to the forefront of mindsets, mindsets, and also, of course, from an art standpoint, clearly, he had his own way of doing things.   David Mayernik ** 07:54 Yeah, absolutely he comes from, I mean, I wouldn't call it a rebellious tradition, but there was a streak of chafing at East Coast European classicism that happened in Chicago. Louis Sullivan, you know, is mostly responsible for that. And I but, but Right, had this, you know, kind of heroic sense of himself and and I think that his ability to draw, which was phenomenal. His sense that he wanted to do something different, and his sense that he wanted to do something American, made him a kind of a hero. Eventually, I think it coincided with America's growing sense of itself. And so for me, like lot of kids in America, my from my day, if you told somebody in high school you wanted to be an architect, they would give you a book on Frank Lloyd Wright. I mean, that's just, you know, part of the package.   Michael Hingson ** 08:47 Yeah, of course, there are others as well, but still, he brought a lot into it. And of course there, there are now more architects that we hear about and designers and so on the people what, I m Pei, who designed the world, original World Trade Center and other things like that. Clearly, there are a number of people who have made major impacts on the way we design and think of Building and Construction today,   David Mayernik ** 09:17 you know, I mean America's, you know, be kind of, it really was a leader in the development of architecture in the 20th century. I mean, in the 19th century was very much, you know, following what was happening in Europe. But essentially, by the 20th century, the America had a sense of itself that didn't always mean that it rejected the European tradition. Sometimes it tried to do it, just bigger and better, but, but it also felt like it had its, you know, almost a responsibility to find its own way, like me and, you know, come up with an American kind of architecture and and so it's always been in a kind of dialog with architecture from around the world. I mean, especially in Europe, at Frank Lloyd Wright was heavily influenced by Japanese architecture and. And so we've always seen ourselves, I think, in relationship to the world. And it's just the question of whether we were master or pupil to a certain extent,   Michael Hingson ** 10:07 and in reality, probably a little bit of both.   David Mayernik ** 10:12 Yeah, and we are, and I think, you know, acknowledging who we are, the fact that we didn't just, you know, spring from the earth in the United States, where we're all, I mean, essentially all immigrants, mostly, and essentially we, you know, essentially bring, we have baggage, essentially, as a culture, from lots of other places. And that's actually an advantage. I mean, I think it's actually what makes us a rich culture, is the diversity. I mean, even me, my father's family was Slovak, my mother's family Italian. And, you know from when I tell you know Europeans that they think that's just quintessentially American. That's what makes you an American, is that you're not a purebred of some kind.   Michael Hingson ** 10:49 Yeah, yeah. Pure purebred American is, is really sort of nebulous and and not necessarily overly accurate, because you are probably immigrants or part other kinds of races or nationalities as well. And that's, that's okay.   David Mayernik ** 11:08 It's, it's rich, you know, I think it's, it's a richer. It's the extent to which you want to engage with it. And the interesting thing about my parents was that they were both children of first generation immigrants. My mom's parents had been older Italian, and they were already married, and when they came to the States, my father's parents were younger and Slovak, and they met in the United States. And my father really wasn't that interested in his Slovak heritage. I mean, just, you know, he could speak some of the language, you know, really feel like it was something he wanted to hold on to or pass along, was my mom was, I mean, she loved her parents. She, you know, spoke with him in Italian, or actually not even Italian, the dialect from where her parents came from, which is north of Venice. And so she, I think she kind of, whether consciously or unconsciously, passed that on to me, that sense that I wanted to be. I was interested in where I came from, where the origins of my where my roots were, and it's something that had an appeal for me that wasn't just it wasn't front brain, it was really kind of built into who I was, which is why, you know, one of the reasons I chose to go to Notre Dame to study where I also wound up teaching like, welcome back Carter, is that I we had a Rome program, and so I've been teaching in the Rome program for our school, but we, I was there 44 years ago as a student.   Michael Hingson ** 12:28 Yeah. So quite a while, needless to say. And you know, I think, well, my grandmother on my mother's side was Polish, but I I never did get much in the way of information about the culture and so on from her and and my mom never really dealt with it much, because she was totally from The Bronx in New York, and was always just American, so I never really got a lot of that. But very frankly, in talking to so many people on this podcast over almost the last four years, talking to a number of people whose parents and grandparents all came to this country and how that affected them. It makes me really appreciate the kind of people who we all are, and we all are, are a conglomerate of so many different cultures, and that's okay, yeah? I mean,   David Mayernik ** 13:31 I think it's more than okay, and I think we need to just be honest about it, yeah. And, you know, kind of celebrate it, because the Italians brought with them, you know, tremendous skills. For example, a lot of my grandfather was a stone mason. You know, during the Depression, he worked, you know, the for the WPA essentially sponsored a whole series of public works projects in the parks in the town I grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And Allentown has a fabulous park system. And my grandfather built a lot of stone walls in the parks in the 1930s and, you know, all these cultures that came to the states often brought, you know, specialized skills. You know, from where they they came from, and, and they enriched the American, you know, skill set, essentially, and, and that's, you know, again, that's we are, who we are because of that, you know, I celebrated I, you know, I'm especially connected to my Italian heritage. I feel like, in part because my grandfather, the stone mason, was a bit of jack of all trades. He could paint and draw. And my mom, you know, wrote poetry and painted. And even though she mostly, you know, in my life, was a was a housewife, but before she met my father, and they got married relatively late for their day, she had a professional life in World War Two, my mom actually went to Penn State for a couple of years in the start of at the start of the war, and then parents wanted her to come home, and so she did two years of engineering. Penn State. When she came back to Allentown, she actually got a job at the local airplane manufacturing plant that was making fighter planes for the United States called company called volte, and she did drafting for them. And then after World War Two, she got a job for the local power company drafting modern electrical kitchens and and so I've inherited all my mom's drafting equipment. And, you know, she's, she's very much a kind of a child of the culture that she came from, and in the sense that it was a, you know, artistic culture, a creative culture. And, you know, I definitely happy and proud of   Michael Hingson ** 15:37 that. You know, one of the things that impresses me, and I think about a lot in talking to so many people whose parents and grandparents immigrated to this country and so on, is not just the skill sets that they brought, but the work ethic that they had, that they imparted to people. And I think people who have had a number of generations here have not always kept that, and I think they've lost something very valuable, because that work ethic is what made those people who they were   David Mayernik ** 16:08 absolutely I mean, my Yeah, I mean my father. I mean absolutely true is, I mean tireless worker, capable of tremendous self sacrifice and and, you know, and that whole generation, I mean, he fought in World War Two. He actually joined, joined the Navy underage. He lied about his age to get in the Navy and that. But they were capable of self, tremendous self sacrifice and tremendous effort. And, you know, I think, you know, we're always, you know, these days, we always talk about work life balance. And I have to say, being an architect, most architects don't have a great work life balance. Mostly it's, it's a lot of work and a little bit of life. And that's, I don't, you know. I think not everybody survives that. Not every architects marriage survives that mine has. But I think it's, you know, that the idea that you're, you're sort of defined by what you do. I think there's a lot of talk these days about that's not a good thing. I I'm sort of okay with that. I'm sort of okay with being defined by what I do.   Michael Hingson ** 17:13 Yeah, and, and that that's, that's okay, especially if you're okay with it. That's good. Well, you So you went to Notre Dame, and obviously dealt with architecture. There some,   David Mayernik ** 17:28 yeah. I mean, the thing, the great thing about Notre Dame is to have the Rome program, and that was the idea of actually a Sicilian immigrant to the States in the early 20th century who became a professor at Notre Dame. And he had, he won the Paris prize. A guy named Frank Montana who won the Paris prize in the 1930s went to Harvard and was a professor at Notre Dame. And he had the good idea that, you know, maybe sending kids to five years of architecture education in Indiana, maybe wasn't the best, well rounded education possible, and maybe they should get out of South Bend for a year, and he, on his own initiative, without even support from the university, started a Rome program, and then said to the university, hey, we have a Rome program now. And so that was, that was his instinct to do that. And while I got, I think, a great education there, especially after Rome, the professor, one professor I had after Rome, was exceptional for me. But you know, Rome was just the opportunity to see great architecture. I mean, I had seen some. I mean, I, you know, my parents would go to Philadelphia, New York and, you know, we I saw some things. But, you know, I wasn't really bowled over by architecture until I went to Rome. And just the experience of that really changed my life, and it gave me a direction,   Michael Hingson ** 18:41 essentially. So the Rome program would send you to Rome for a year.   David Mayernik ** 18:46 Yeah, which is unusual too, because a lot of overseas programs do a semester. We were unusual in that the third year out of a five year undergraduate degree in architecture, the whole year is spent in Rome. And you know, when you're 20 ish, you know, 20 I turned 21 when I was over there. It's a real transition time in your life. I mean, it's, it was really transformative. And for all of us, small of my classmates, I mean, we're all kind of grew up. We all became a bit, you know, European. We stopped going to football games when we went back on campus, because it wasn't cool anymore, but, but we, we definitely were transformed by it personally, but, it really opened our eyes to what architecture was capable of, and that once you've, once you've kind of seen that, you know, once you've been to the top of the mountain, kind of thing, it can really get under your skin. And, you know, kind of sponsor whatever you do for the rest of your life. At least for me, it   Michael Hingson ** 19:35 did, yeah, yeah. So what did you do after you graduated?   David Mayernik ** 19:40 Well, I graduated, and I think also a lot of our students lately have had a pretty reasonably good economy over the last couple of decades, that where it's been pretty easy for our students to get a job. I graduated in a recession. I pounded the pavements a lot. I went, you know, staying with my parents and. Allentown, went back and forth to New York, knocking on doors. There was actually a woman who worked at the unemployment agency in New York who specialized in architects, and she would arrange interviews with firms. And, you know, I just got something for the summer, essentially, and then finally, got a job in the in the fall for somebody I wanted to work with in Philadelphia and and that guy left that firm after about three months because he won a competition. He didn't take me with him, and I was in a firm that really didn't want to be with. I wanted to be with him, not with the firm. And so I then I picked up stakes and moved to Chicago and worked for an architect who'd been a visiting professor at Notre Dame eventually became dean at Yale Tom Beebe, and it was a great learning experience, but it was also a lot of hours at low pay. You know, I don't think, I don't think my students, I can't even tell my students what I used to make an hour as a young architect. I don't think they would understand, yeah, I mean, I really don't, but it was, it was a it was the sense that you were, that your early years was a kind of, I mean an apprenticeship. I mean almost an unpaid apprenticeship at some level. I mean, I needed to make enough money to pay the rent and eat, but that was about it. And and so I did that, but I bounced around a lot, you know, and a lot of kids, I think a lot of our students, when they graduate, they think that getting a job is like a marriage, like they're going to be in it forever. And, you know, I, for better or worse, I moved around a lot. I mean, I moved every time I hit what I felt was like a point of diminishing returns. When I felt like I was putting more in and getting less out, I thought it was time to go and try something else. And I don't know that's always good advice. I mean, it can make you look flighty or unstable, but I kind of always followed my my instinct on that.   Michael Hingson ** 21:57 I don't remember how old I was. You're talking about wages. But I remember it was a Sunday, and my parents were reading the newspaper, and they got into a discussion just about the fact that the minimum wage had just been changed to be $1.50 an hour. I had no concept of all of that. But of course, now looking back on it, $1.50 an hour, and looking at it now, it's pretty amazing. And in a sense, $1.50 an hour, and now we're talking about $15 and $16 an hour, and I had to be, I'm sure, under 10. So it was sometime between 1958 and 1960 or so, or maybe 61 I don't remember exactly when, but in a sense, looking at it now, I'm not sure that the minimum wage has gone up all that much. Yes, 10 times what it was. But so many other things are a whole lot more than 10 times what they were back then,   David Mayernik ** 23:01 absolutely, yeah. I mean, I mean, in some ways also, my father was a, my father was a factory worker. I mean, he tried to have lots of other businesses of his own. He, you're, you're obviously a great salesman. And the one skill my father didn't have is he could, he could, like, for example, he had a home building business. He could build a great house. He just couldn't sell it. And so, you know, I think he was a factory worker, but he was able to send my sister and I to private college simultaneously on a factory worker salary, you know, with, with, I mean, I had some student loan debt, but not a lot. And that's, that's not possible today.   Michael Hingson ** 23:42 No, he saved and put money aside so that you could do that, yeah, and,   David Mayernik ** 23:47 and he made enough. I mean, essentially, the cost of college was not that much. And he was, you know, right, yeah. And he had a union job. It was, you know, reasonably well paid. I mean, we lived in a, you know, a nice middle class neighborhood, and, you know, we, we had a nice life growing up, and he was able to again, send us to college. And I that's just not possible for without tremendous amount of debt. It's not possible today. So the whole scale of our economy shifted tremendously. What I was making when I was a young architect. I mean, it was not a lot then, but I survived. Fact, actually saved money in Chicago for a two month summer in Europe after that. So, you know, essentially, the cost of living was, it didn't take a lot to cover your your expenses, right? The advantage of that for me was that it allowed me time when I had free time when I after that experience, and I traveled to Europe, I came back and I worked in Philadelphia for the same guy who had left the old firm in Philadelphia and went off on his own, started his own business. I worked for him for about nine months, but I had time in the evenings, because I didn't have to work 80 hours a week to do other things. I taught myself how to paint. And do things that I was interested in, and I could experiment and try things and and, you know, because surviving wasn't all that hard. I mean, it was easy to pay your bills and, and I think that's one of the things that's, I think, become more onerous, is that, I think for a lot of young people just kind of dealing with both college debt and then, you know, essentially the cost of living. They don't have a lot of time or energy to do anything else. And you know, for me, that was, I had the luxury of having time and energy to invest in my own growth, let's say as a more career, as a creative person. And you know, I also, I also tell students that, you know, there are a lot of hours in the day, you know, and whatever you're doing in an office. There are a lot of hours after that, you could be doing something else, and that I used every one of those hours as best I could.   Michael Hingson ** 25:50 Yeah. Well, you know, we're all born with challenges in life. What kind of challenges, real challenges did you have growing up as you look back on it?   David Mayernik ** 26:01 Yeah, my, I mean, my, I mean, there was some, there was some, a few rocky times when my father was trying to have his own business. And, you know, I'm not saying we grew up. We didn't struggle, but it wasn't, you know, always smooth sailing. But I think one of the things I learned about being an architect, which I didn't realize, and only kind of has been brought home to me later. Right now, I have somebody who's told me not that long ago, you know? You know, the problem is, architecture is a gentleman's profession. You know that IT architecture, historically was practiced by people from a social class, who knew, essentially, they grew up with the people who would become their clients, right? And so the way a lot of architects built their practice was essentially on, you know, family connections and personal connections, college connections. And I didn't have that advantage. So, you know, I've, I've essentially had to define myself or establish myself based on what I'm capable of doing. And you know, it's not always a level playing field. The great breakthrough for me, in a lot of ways, was that one of the one of my classmates and I entered a big international competition when we were essentially 25 years old. I think we entered. I turned 26 and it was an open competition. So, you know, no professional requirements. You know, virtually no entry fee to redesign the state capitol grounds of Minnesota, and it was international, and we, and we actually were selected as one of the top five teams that were allowed to proceed onto the second phase, and at which point we we weren't licensed architects. We didn't have a lot of professional sense or business sense, so we had to associate with a local firm in Minnesota and and we competed for the final phase. We did most of the work. The firm supported us, but they gave us basically professional credibility and and we won. We were the architects of the state capitol grounds in Minnesota, 26 years old, and that's because the that system of competition was basically a level playing field. It was, you know, ostensibly anonymous, at least the first phase, and it was just basically who had the best design. And you know, a lot of the way architecture gets architects get chosen. The way architecture gets distributed is connections, reputation, things like that, but, but you know, when you find those avenues where it's kind of a level playing field and you get to show your stuff. It doesn't matter where you grew up or who you are, it just matters how good you are, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 28:47 well, and do you think it's still that way today?   David Mayernik ** 28:51 There are a lot fewer open professional competitions. They're just a lot fewer of them. It was the and, you know, maybe they learned a lesson. I mean, maybe people like me shouldn't have been winning competitions. I mean, at some level, we were out of our league. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say, from a design point of view. I mean, we were very capable of doing what the project involved, but we were not ready for the hardball of collaborating with a big firm and and the and the politics of what we were doing and the business side of it, we got kind of crushed, and, and, and eventually they never had the money to build the project, so the project just kind of evaporated. And the guy I used to work with in Philadelphia told me, after I won the competition, he said, you know, because he won a competition. He said, You know, the second project is the hardest one to get, you know, because you might get lucky one time and you win a competition, the question is, how do you build practice out of that?   Michael Hingson ** 29:52 Yeah, and it's a good point, yeah, yeah.   David Mayernik ** 29:55 I mean, developing some kind of continuity is hard. I mean, I. Have a longer, more discontinuous practice after that, but it's that's the hard part.   Michael Hingson ** 30:07 Well, you know, I mentioned challenges before, and we all, we all face challenges and so on. How do we overcome the challenges, our inherited challenges, or the perceived challenges that we have? How do we overcome those and work to move forward, to be our best? Because that's clearly kind of what you're talking about here.   David Mayernik ** 30:26 Yeah, well, the true I mean, so the challenges that we're born with, and I think there are also some challenges that, you know, we impose on ourselves, right? I mean, in this, in the best sense, I mean the ways that we challenge ourselves. And for me, I'm a bit of an idealist, and you know, the world doesn't look kindly on idealist. If you know, from a business, professional point of view, idealism is often, I'm not saying it's frowned upon, but it's hardly encouraged and rewarded and but I think that for me, I've learned over time that it's you really just beating your head against the wall is not the best. A little bit of navigating your way around problems rather than trying to run through them or knock them over is a smarter strategy. And so you have to be a little nimble. You have to be a little creative about how you find work and essentially, how you keep yourself afloat and and if you're if you're open to possibilities, and if you take some risks, you can, you can actually navigate yourself through a series of obstacles and actually have a rich, interesting life, but it may not follow the path that you thought you were starting out on at the beginning. And that's the, I think that's the skill that not everybody has.   Michael Hingson ** 31:43 The other part about that, though, is that all too often, we don't really give thought to what we're going to do, or we we maybe even get nudges about what we ought to do, but we discount them because we think, Oh, that's just not the way to do it. Rather than stepping back and really analyzing what we're seeing, what we're hearing. And I, for 1am, a firm believer in the fact that our inner self, our inner voice, will guide us if we give it the opportunity to do that.   David Mayernik ** 32:15 You know, I absolutely agree. I think a lot of people, you know, I was, I for, I have, for better or worse, I've always had a good sense of what I wanted to do with my life, even if architecture was a you know, conscious way to do something that was not exactly maybe what I dreamed of doing, it was a, you know, as a more rational choice. But, but I've, but I've basically followed my heart, more or less, and I've done the things that I always believed in it was true too. And when I meet people, especially when I have students who don't really know what they love, or, you know, really can't tell you what they really are passionate about, but my sense of it is, this is just my I might be completely wrong, but my sense of it is, they either can't admit it to themselves, or they can't admit it to somebody else that they that, either, in the first case, they're not prepared to listen to themselves and actually really deep, dig deep and think about what really matters to them, or if they do know what that is, they're embarrassed to admit it, or they're embarrassed to tell somebody else. I think most of us have some drive, or some internal, you know, impetus towards something and, and you're right. I mean, learning to listen to that is, is a, I mean, it's rewarding. I mean, essentially, you become yourself. You become more, or the best possible self you can be, I guess.   Michael Hingson ** 33:42 Yeah, I agree. And I guess that that kind of answers the question I was was thinking of, and that is, basically, as you're doing things in life, should you follow your dreams?   David Mayernik ** 33:53 You know, there's a lot, a lot of people are writing these days, if you read, if you're just, you know, on the, on the internet, reading the, you know, advice that you get on, you know, the new services, from the BBC to, you know, any other form of information that's out there, there's a lot of back and forth by between the follow your dreams camp and the don't follow your dreams camp. And the argument of the don't follow your dreams camp seems to be that it's going to be hard and you'll be frustrated, and you know, and that's true, but it doesn't mean you're going to fail, and I don't think anybody should expect life to be easy. So I think if you understand going in, and maybe that's part of my Eastern European heritage that you basically expect life to be hard, not, not that it has to be unpleasant, but you know it's going to be a struggle, but, but if you are true to yourself or follow your dreams, you're probably not going to wake up in the middle of your life with a crisis. You know, because I think a lot of times when you suppress your dreams, they. Stay suppressed forever, and the frustrations come out later, and it's better to just take them on board and try to again, navigate your way through life with those aspirations that you have, that you know are really they're built in like you were saying. They're kind of hardwired to be that person, and it's best to listen to that person.   Michael Hingson ** 35:20 There's nothing wrong with having real convictions, and I think it's important to to step back and make sure that you're really hearing what your convictions are and feeling what your convictions are. But that is what people should do, because otherwise, you're just not going to be happy.   David Mayernik ** 35:36 You're not and you're you're at one level, allowing yourself to manipulate yourself. I mean, essentially, you're, you know, kind of essentially deterring yourself from being who you are. You're probably also susceptible to other people doing that to you, that if you don't have enough sense of yourself, a lot of other people can manipulate you, push you around. And, you know, the thing about having a good sense of yourself is you also know how to stand up for yourself, or at least you know that you're a self that's worth standing up for. And that's you know. That's that, that thing that you know the kids learn in the school yard when you confront the bully, you know you have to, you know, the parents always tell you, you know, stand up to the bully. And at some level, life is going to bully you unless you really are prepared to stand up for something.   Michael Hingson ** 36:25 Yeah, and there's so many examples of that I know as a as a blind person, I've been involved in taking on some pretty major tasks in life. For example, it used to be that anyone with a so called Disability couldn't buy life insurance, and eventually, we took on the insurance industry and won to get the laws passed in every state that now mandate that you can't discriminate against people with disabilities in providing life insurance unless you really have evidence To prove that it's appropriate to do that, and since the laws were passed, there hasn't been any evidence. And the reason is, of course, there never has been evidence, and insurance companies kept claiming they had it, but then when they were challenged to produce it, they couldn't. But the reality is that you can take on major tasks and major challenges and win as long as you really understand that that is what your life is steering you to do,   David Mayernik ** 37:27 yeah, like you said, and also too, having a sense of your your self worth beyond whatever that disability is, that you know what you're capable of, apart from that, you know that's all about what you can't do, but all the things that you can do are the things that should allow you to do anything. And, yeah, I think we're, I think it's a lot of times people will try to define you by what you can't do, you   Michael Hingson ** 37:51 know? And the reality is that those are traditionally misconceptions and inaccurate anyway, as I point out to people, disability does not mean a lack of ability. Although a lot of people say, Well, of course it, it is because it starts with dis. And my response is, what do you then? How do you deal with the words disciple, discern and discrete? For example, you know the fact of the matter is, we all have a disability. Most of you are light dependent. You don't do well with out light in your life, and that's okay. We love you anyway, even though you you have to have light but. But the reality is, in a sense, that's as much a disability is not being light dependent or being light independent. The difference is that light on demand has caused so much focus that it's real easy to get, but it doesn't change the fact that your disability is covered up, but it's still there.   David Mayernik ** 38:47 No, it's true. I mean, I think actually, yeah, knowing. I mean, you're, we're talking about knowing who you are, and, you know, listening to your inner voice and even listening to your aspirations. But also, I mean being pretty honest about where your liabilities are, like what the things are that you struggle with and just recognizing them, and not not to dwell on them, but to just recognize how they may be getting in the way and how you can work around them. You know, one of the things I tell students is that it's really important to be self critical, but, but it's, it's not good to be self deprecating, you know. And I think being self critical if you're going to be a self taught person like I am, in a lot of ways, you you have to be aware of where you're not getting it right. Because I think the problem is sometimes you can satisfy yourself too easily. You're too happy with your own progress. You know, the advantage of having somebody outside teaching you is they're going to tell you when you're doing it wrong, and most people are kind of loath do that for themselves, but, but the other end of that is the people who are so self deprecating, constantly putting themselves down, that they never are able to move beyond it, because they're only aware of what they can't do. And you know, I think balancing self criticism with a sense of your self worth is, you know, one of the great balancing acts of life. You.   Michael Hingson ** 40:00 Well, that's why I've adopted the concept of I'm my own best teacher, because rather than being critical and approaching anything in a negative way, if I realize that I'm going to be my own best teacher, and people will tell me things, I can look at them, and I should look at them, analyze them, step back, internalize them or not, but use that information to grow, then that's what I really should do, and I would much prefer the positive approach of I'm my own best teacher over anything else.   David Mayernik ** 40:31 Yeah, well, I mean, the last kind of teachers, and I, you know, a lot of my students have thought of me as a critical teacher. One of the things I think my students have misunderstood about that is, it's not that I have a low opinion of them. It's actually that I have such a high opinion that I always think they're capable of doing better. Yeah, I think one of the problems in our educational system now is that it's so it's so ratifying and validating. There's so we're so low to criticize and so and the students are so fragile with criticism that they they don't take the criticism well, yeah, we don't give it and, and you without some degree of what you're not quite getting right, you really don't know what you're capable of, right? And, and I think you know. But being but again, being critical is not that's not where you start. I think you start from the aspiration and the hope and the, you know, the actually, the joy of doing something. And then, you know, you take a step back and maybe take a little you know, artists historically had various techniques for judging their own work. Titian used to take one of his paintings and turn it away, turn it facing the wall so that he couldn't see it, and he would come back to it a month later. And, you know, because when he first painted, he thought it was the greatest thing ever painted, he would come back to it a month later and think, you know, I could have done some of those parts better, and you would work on it and fix it. And so, you know, the self criticism comes from this capacity to distance yourself from yourself, look at yourself almost as as hard as it is from the outside, yeah, try to see yourself as other people see you. Because I think in your own mind, you can kind of become completely self referential. And you know, that's that. These are all life skills. You know, I had to say this to somebody recently, but, you know, I think the thing you should get out of your education is learning how to learn and like you're talking about, essentially, how do you approach something new or challenging or different? Is has to do with essentially, how do you how do you know? Do you know how to grow and learn on your own?   Michael Hingson ** 42:44 Yeah, exactly, well, being an architect and so on. How did you end up going off and becoming a professor and and teaching? Yeah, a   David Mayernik ** 42:52 lot of architects do it. I have to say. I mean, there's always a lot of the people who are the kind of heroes when I was a student, were practicing architects who also taught and and they had a kind of, let's say, intellectual approach to what they did. They were conceptual. It wasn't just the mundane aspects of getting a building built, but they had some sense of where they fit, with respect to the culture, with respect to history and issues outside of architecture, the extent to which they were tied into other aspects of culture. And so I always had the idea that, you know, to be a full, you know, a fully, you know, engaged architect. You should have an academic, intellectual side to your life. And teaching would be an opportunity to do that. The only thing is, I didn't feel like I knew enough until I was older, in my 40s, to feel like I actually knew enough about what I was doing to be able to teach somebody else. A lot of architects get into teaching early, I think, before they're actually fully formed to have their own identities. And I think it's been good for me that I waited a while until I had a sense of myself before I felt like I could teach somebody else. And so there was, there was that, I mean, the other side of it, and it's not to say that it was just a day job, but one of the things I decided from the point of your practice is a lot of architects have to do a lot of work that they're not proud of to keep the lights on and keep the business operating. And I have decided for myself, I only really want to do work that I'm proud of, and in order to do that, because clients that you can work for and be you know feel proud of, are rather rare, and so I balanced teaching and practice, because teaching allowed me to ostensibly, theoretically be involved with the life of the mind and only work for people and projects that interested me and that I thought could offer me the chance to do something good and interesting and important. And so one I had the sense that I had something to convey I learned. Enough that I felt like I could teach somebody else. But it was also, for me, an opportunity to have a kind of a balanced life in which practice was compensated. You know that a lot of practice, even interesting practice, has a banal, you know, mundane side. And I like being intellectually stimulated, so I wanted that. Not everybody wants   Michael Hingson ** 45:24 that. Yeah, so you think that the teaching brings you that, or it put you in a position where you needed to deal with that?   David Mayernik ** 45:32 You know, having just retired, I wish there had been more of that. I really had this romantic idea that academics, being involved in academics, would be an opportunity to live in a world of ideas. You know? I mean, because when I was a student, I have to say we, after we came back from Rome, I got at least half of my education for my classmates, because we were deeply engaged. We debated stuff. We, you know, we we challenged each other. We were competitive in a healthy way and and I remember academics my the best part of my academic formation is being immensely intellectually rich. In fact, I really missed it. For about the first five years I was out of college, I really missed the intellectual side of architecture, and I thought going back as a teacher, I would reconnect with that, and I realized not necessarily, there's a lot about academics that's just as mundane and bureaucratic as practice can be so if you really want to have a satisfying intellectual life, unfortunately, you can't look to any institution or other people for it. You got to find it on your own.   46:51 Paperwork, paperwork,   David Mayernik ** 46:55 committee meetings, just stuff. Yeah, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 47:00 yeah. Yeah, which never, which never. Well, I won't say they never help, but there's probably, there's probably some valuable stuff that you can get, even from writing and doing, doing paperwork, because it helps you learn to write. I suppose you can look at it that way.   David Mayernik ** 47:16 No, it's true. I mean, you're, you're definitely a glass half full guy. Michael, I appreciate that's good. No. I mean, I, obviously, I always try to make get the most out of whatever experience I have. But, I mean, in the sense that there wasn't as much intellectual discourse, yeah, you know, as my I would have liked, yeah, and I, you know, in the practice or in the more academic side of architecture. Several years ago, somebody said we were in a post critical phase like that. Ideas weren't really what was driving architecture. It was going to be driven by issues of sustainability, issues of social structure, you know, essentially how people live together, issues that have to do with things that weren't really about, let's call it design in the esthetic sense, and all that stuff is super important. And I'm super interested in, you know, the social impact of my architecture, the sustainable impact of it, but the the kind of intellectual society side of the design part of it, we're in a weird phase where it that's just not in my world, we just it's not talked about a lot. You know,   Michael Hingson ** 48:33 it's not what it what it used to be. Something tells me you may be retired, but you're not going to stop searching for intellectual and various kinds of stimulation to help keep your mind active.   David Mayernik ** 48:47 Oh, gosh, no, no. I mean, effectively. I mean, I just stopped one particular job. I describe it now as quitting with benefits. That's my idea of what I retired from. I retired from a particular position in a particular place, but, but I haven't stopped. I mean, I'm certainly going to keep working. I have a very interesting design project in Switzerland. I've been working on for almost 29 years, and it's got a number of years left in it. I paint, I write, I give lectures, I you know, and you obviously have a rich life. You know, not being at a job. Doesn't mean that the that your engagement with the world and with ideas goes away. I mean, unless you wanted to, my wife's my wife had three great uncles who were great jazz musicians. I mean, some quite well known jazz musicians. And one of them was asked, you know, was he ever going to retire? And he said, retire to what? Because, you know, he was a musician. I mean, you can't stop being a musician, you know, you know, if, some level, if you're really engaged with what you do, you You never stop, really,   Michael Hingson ** 49:51 if you enjoy it, why would you? No, I   David Mayernik ** 49:54 mean, the best thing is that your work is your fun. I mean, you know, talking about, we talked about it. I. You that You know you're kind of defined by your work, but if your work is really what you enjoy, I mean, actually it's fulfilling, rich, enriching, interesting, you don't want to stop doing that. I mean, essentially, you want to do it as long as you possibly can. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 50:13 and it's and it's really important to do that. And I think, in reality, when you retire from a job, you're not really retiring from a job. You're retiring, as you said, from one particular thing. But the job isn't a negative thing at all. It is what you like to do.   David Mayernik ** 50:31 Yeah. I mean, there's, yeah, there's the things that you do that. I mean, I guess the job is the, if you like, the thing that is the, you know, the institution or the entity that you know, pays your bills and that kind of stuff, but the career or the thing that you're invested in that had the way you define yourself is you never stop being that person, that person. And in some ways, you know, what I'm looking forward to is a richer opportunity to pursue my own avenue of inquiry, and, you know, do things on my own terms, without some of the obligations I had   Michael Hingson ** 51:03 as a teacher, and where's your wife and all that.   David Mayernik ** 51:06 So she's with me here in LUCA, and she's she's had a super interesting life, because she she she studied. We, when we were together in New York, she was getting a degree in art history, Medieval and Renaissance studies in art history at NYU, and then she decided she really wanted to be a chef, and she went to cooking school in New York and then worked in a variety of food businesses in New York, and then got into food writing and well, food styling for magazines, making food for photographs, and then eventually writing. And through a strange series of connections and experiences. She got an opportunity to cook at an Art Foundation in the south of France, and I was in New York, and I was freelancing. I was I'd quit a job I'd been at for five years, and I was freelancing around, doing some of my own stuff and working with other architects, and I had work I could take with me. And you know, it was there was there was, we didn't really have the internet so much, but we had FedEx. And I thought I could do drawings in the south of France. I could do them in Brooklyn. So, so I went to the south of France, and it just happens to be that my current client from Switzerland was there at that place at that time, scouting it out for some other purpose. And she said, I hear you're architect. I said, Yeah. And I said, Well, you know, she said, I like, you know, classical architecture, and I like, you know, traditional villages, and we have a campus, and we need a master plan architect. And I was doing a master plan back in Delaware at that time, and my wife's you know, career trajectory actually enabled me to meet a client who's basically given me an opportunity to build, you know, really interesting stuff, both in Switzerland and in England for the last, you know, again, almost 29 years. And so my wife's been a partner in this, and she's been, you know, because she's pursued her own parallel interest. But, but our interests overlap enough and we share enough that we our interests are kind of mutually reinforcing. It's, it's been like an ongoing conversation between us, which has been alive and rich and wonderful.   Michael Hingson ** 53:08 You know, with everything going on in architecture and in the world in general, we see more and more technology in various arenas and so on. How do you think that the whole concept of CAD has made a difference, or in any way affected architecture. And where do you think CAD systems really fit into all of that?   David Mayernik ** 53:33 Well, so I mean this, you know, CAD came along. I mean, it already was, even when I was early in my apprenticeship, yeah, I was in Chicago, and there was a big for som in Chicago, had one of the first, you know, big computers that was doing some drawing work for them. And one of my, a friend of mine, you know, went to spend some time and figure out what they were capable of. And, but, you know, never really came into my world until kind of the late night, mid, mid to late 90s and, and, and I kind of resisted it, because I, the reason I got into architecture is because I like to draw by hand, and CAD just seemed to be, you know, the last thing I'd want to do. But at the same time, you, some of you, can't avoid it. I mean, it has sort of taken over the profession that, essentially, you either have people doing it for you, or you have to do it yourself, and and so the interesting thing is, I guess that I, at some point with Switzerland, I had to, basically, I had people helping me and doing drawing for me, but I eventually taught myself. And I actually, I jumped over CAD and I went to a 3d software called ArchiCAD, which is a parametric design thing where you're essentially building a 3d model. Because I thought, Look, if I'm going to do drawing on the computer, I want the computer to do something more than just make lines, because I can make lines on my own. But so the computer now was able to help me build a 3d model understand buildings in space and construction. And so I've taught myself to be reasonably, you know, dangerous with ArchiCAD and but the. Same time, the creative side of it, I still, I still think, and a lot of people think, is still tied to the intuitive hand drawing aspect and and so a lot of schools that gave up on hand drawing have brought it back, at least in the early years of formation of architects only for the the conceptual side of architecture, the the part where you are doodling out your first ideas, because CAD drawing is essentially mechanical and methodical and sort of not really intuitive, whereas the intuitive marking of paper With a pencil is much more directly connected to the mind's capacity to kind of speculate and imagine and daydream a little bit, or wander a little bit your mind wanders, and it actually is time when some things can kind of emerge on the page that you didn't even intend. And so, you know, the other thing about the computer is now on my iPad, I can actually do hand drawing on my iPad, and that's allowed me to travel with it, show it to clients. And so I still obviously do a lot of drawing on paper. I paint by hand, obviously with real paints and real materials. But I also have found also I can do free hand drawing on my iPad. I think the real challenge now is artificial intelligence, which is not really about drawing, it's about somebody else or the machine doing the creative side of it. And that's the big existential crisis that I think the profession is facing right now.   Michael Hingson ** 56:36 Yeah, I think I agree with that. I've always understood that you could do free hand drawing with with CAD systems. And I know that when I couldn't find a job in the mid 1980s I formed a company, and we sold PC based CAD systems to architects and engineers. And you know, a number of them said, well, but when we do designs, we charge by the time that we put into drawing, and we can't do that with a CAD system, because it'll do it in a fraction of the time. And my response always was, you're looking at it all wrong. You don't change how much you charge a customer, but now you're not charging for your time, you're charging for your expertise, and you do the same thing. The architects who got that were pretty successful using CAD systems, and felt that it wasn't really stifling their creativity to use a CAD system to enhance and speed up what they did, because it also allowed them to find more jobs more quickly.   David Mayernik ** 57:35 Yeah, one of the things it did was actually allow smaller firms to compete with bigger firms, because you just didn't need as many bodies to produce a set of drawings to get a project built or to make a presentation. So I mean, it has at one level, and I think it still is a kind of a leveler of, in a way, the scale side of architecture, that a lot of small creative firms can actually compete for big projects and do them successfully. There's also, it's also facilitated collaboration, because of the ability to exchange files and have people in different offices, even around the world, working on the same drawing. So, you know, I'm working in Switzerland. You know, one of the reasons to be on CAD is that I'm, you know, sharing drawings with local architects there engineers, and that you know that that collaborative sharing process is definitely facilitated by the computer.   Michael Hingson ** 58:27 Yeah, information exchange is always valuable, especially if you have a number of people who are committed to the same thing. It really helps. Collaboration is always a good thing,   David Mayernik ** 58:39 yeah? I mean, I think a lot of, I mean, there's always the challenge between the ego side of architecture, you know, creative genius, genius, the Howard Roark Fountainhead, you know, romantic idea. And the reality is that it takes a lot of people to get a building built, and one person really can't do it by themselves. And So collaboration is kind of built into it at the same time, you know, for any kind of coherence, or some any kind of, let's say, anything, that brings a kind of an artistic integrity to a work of architecture, mostly, that's got to come from one person, or at least people with enough shared vision that that there's a kind of coherence to it, you know. And so there still is space for the individual creative person. It's just that it's inevitably a collaborative process to get, you know, it's the it's the 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. Side architecture is very much that there's a lot of heavy lifting that goes into getting a set of drawings done to get

Drop us a text message to say hi and let us know what you think of the show. (Include your email if you'd like us to reply)In which John and David reflect on Jonah's political backstory, the uncomfortable tensions between prosperity and justice, and the God who refuses to give up. We explore Jonah's earlier prophetic role in 2 Kings, the contradictions between Jonah and Amos, and the troubling question of why Jonah speaks blessing to one evil nation and withholds mercy from another. Along the way, we encounter a God whose covenant faithfulness spans centuries—and whose mercy unsettles even his own prophets.Episode 206 of the Two Texts Podcast | Jonah Beyond the Whale 3If you want to get in touch about something in the podcast you can reach out on podcast@twotexts.com or by liking and following the Two Texts podcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love it if you left a review or comment where you're listening from – and if you really enjoyed it, why not share it with a friend?Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021________Help us keep Two Texts free for everyone by becoming a supporter of the show John and David want to ensure that Two Texts always remains free content for everyone. We don't want to create a paywall or have premium content that would exclude others. However, Two Texts costs us around £60 per month (US$75; CAD$100) to make. If you'd like to support the show with even just a small monthly donation it would help ensure we can continue to produce the content that you love. Thank you so much.Support the show

Dogs, digital gardens, and dopamine loops—oh my! In this jam-packed episode of New Dad Gaming, Trevor and Jeff dive into:

No Café PT, o diretor de Operações e Abastecimento da Conab e ex-secretário de Segurança Alimentar, Arnoldo Campos, falou sobre a nova saída do Brasil do Mapa da Fome da ONU e as políticas públicas que levaram a essa conquista, como o Bolsa Família, o CadÚnico e o fortalecimento da agricultura familiar.

The automotive aftermarket often flies under the radar—but it plays a major role in advancing engineering, manufacturing, and performance. In this episode, Mike Spagnola, President & CEO of SEMA and PRI, joins me to explore how the specialty automotive sector is driving innovation across ICE, hybrid, EV, hydrogen, and beyond.We dive into how SEMA supports manufacturers with hands-on product development, CAD data, vehicle scanning, emissions testing, and ADAS calibration. Mike also shares his perspective on regulatory trends, technology-neutral advocacy, and what makes the SEMA Show such a powerful platform for connection and growth.If you care about how products actually get developed—and how small and mid-size companies are building the future of transportation—this conversation is for you.About MikeMike Spagnola is the President & CEO of SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) and PRI (Performance Racing Industry). Before stepping into this leadership role, Mike built and sold multiple companies in the automotive aftermarket, led product development efforts, and served on SEMA's board. He's a hands-on car guy who understands the needs of manufacturers, retailers, regulators, and racers alike.About SEMASEMA is a nonprofit trade association that supports over 7,000 member companies across the automotive aftermarket. From CAD access and regulatory guidance to emissions labs and the world-renowned SEMA Show, their mission is to help small and mid-sized companies grow and compete globally.Key Topics:What the automotive aftermarket actually is—and why it mattersSEMA Garages and how they help manufacturers develop, test, and certify productsNavigating CARB, EPA, and emissions compliance for performance partsWhy access to CAD data and pre-release vehicles is a game changerWhat happens to ADAS systems when you modify ride height, tires, or wrap a carHow SEMA advocates for a technology-neutral approach (ICE, hybrid, EV, hydrogen)Behind the scenes of the SEMA Show—and what success really looks likeThe real impact of aftermarket innovation on the transportation ecosystemChapters:Mike's Background and Passion for the IndustryWhat SEMA Is and Who They SupportHow the SEMA Garages Enable Product DevelopmentNavigating Emissions Compliance and CARB RegulationsADAS Technology, Vehicle Modification, and Future StandardsProtecting the Industry Through Advocacy and EducationThe SEMA Show and What Makes It WorkClosing Reflections on Innovation, Community, and Impact

Labhraíonn Seán Ó Dubhchon le Cuán faoi 'Breaking The Band', cláir ceoil réaltachta nua ar Netflix. Cad a dhéanann banna maith? Gheobhaimid amach anseo.

Ciarraí Abú! Bhí an 'Poc ar Buile' sa Ríocht agus an Sam Maguire imithe ó dheas. Cad a tharla do Dhún na nGall? Tugann Daragh Ó Conchúir agus Cuán súil siar ar Chluiche Ceannais na hÉireann.

In this episode of Let's Combinate, host Subhi Saadeh is joined by Mark Burchnall, Director of Engineering at PSN Labs, to break down the evolving role of mechanical modeling and simulation in medical device and combination product development.Mark, an expert in mechanical modeling & finite element analysis (FEA) and a licensed professional engineershares how modeling can dramatically reduce prototyping cycles, support regulatory submissions, and lower test burden when applied appropriately.Mark disucsses:Why modeling is often misunderstoodWhen it can replace (or complement) traditional testingWhat makes a model “credible” under ASME V&V 40How to build internal processes for regulatory-grade modelsAnd what every skeptic (or startup) needs to know before adopting modeling⏱️ Timestamps:00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome00:17 Mark's Expertise in Mechanical Modeling01:28 Subhi's Foundational Experience04:09 The Importance of Modeling in Engineering05:44 Challenges and Misconceptions in Modeling10:52 Life Cycle and Inputs of a Model16:21 Types of Models and Their Applications17:49 Numerical Solvers and Sensitivity Analysis21:28 CAD, Fluid Properties, and Starting a Model22:00 Defining the “Question of Interest”23:21 Modeling Cycle and Initial Steps24:35 Verification and Validation in Modeling25:40 Assessing Model Risk and Credibility31:43 Regulatory Guidelines and Industry Practices39:15 Implementing Modeling in Product Development42:17 Conclusion and Contact InformationMark is a product development consultant with over 15 years of experience in the Medical and Combination device sectors. As the Director of Engineering at PSN Labs, Mark leads the engineering department, offering invaluable support to clients in new product development, computational modeling and simulation, test method development, functional prototyping, contract manufacturing, and on-market remediation. His team specializes in designing devices that incorporate various design principles, including manufacturing, assembly, sustainability, biocompatibility, reprocessing, and reliability. Mark's background encompasses the development of innovative healthcare solutions in areas such as drug delivery, surgical robotics, pharmaceutical packaging, and catheters. His expertise ensures patient safety and regulatory compliance throughout the design process. Mark holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.Subhi Saadeh is a Quality Professional and host of Let's Combinate. With a background in Quality, Manufacturing Operations and R&D he's worked in Large Medical Device/Pharma organizations to support the development and launch of Hardware Devices, Disposable Devices, and Combination Products for Vaccines, Generics, and Biologics. Subhi serves currently as the International Committee Chair for the Combination Products Coalition(CPC) and as a member of ASTM Committee E55 and also served as a committee member on AAMI's Combination Products Committee.For questions, inquiries or suggestions please reach out at letscombinate.com or on the show's LinkedIn Page.

No matter the stage of a build, most projects reach a point where giving up feels tempting. They demand grit and perseverance—and Karel Silha from Karel S Motorsport's wild DTM-inspired M4 Time Attack build is no exception.We first spoke to Karel in 2022, and now he's back to share what it really takes to shake down and test a home-built car of this caliber. Believe it or not, it all started with a toy car that Karel scanned and scaled up using CAD

International jewelry designer Noam Carver joins host Jaron Solomon and Editor-in-Chief Nick Constantino for a deep dive into craftsmanship, legacy, and innovation in bridal jewelry. From hand-carved wax to CAD and the rise of the Luna Collection, this conversation bridges artistry, business, and vision. A must-listen for anyone in the luxury space.

Cad Bane is bound to a life of blood and money. (And blood money.) Will it be his only legacy?Deeply out of chronological order, we're venturing five or six decades before the Battle of Yavin to watch Cad Bane grow up in “Tale of the Underworld.” We examine how, and why, Star Wars chose to tell a police drama, a spaghetti Western, and a Mafia crime ascendancy in the same story. We parse the fantasy of the “good cop,” wonder about Cad and Niro's legacy, and discuss the critical reception of this very lovely piece of animation. (Thanks for your patience while we re-recorded this entire episode!)New to Growing Up Skywalker? Come join us for non-toxic Star Wars recaps from a veteran and a new fan. New episodes every Tuesday.Want more Growing Up Skywalker? This is a great time to sign up for our Patreon for bonus audio content!Timestamps:00:00:00 Who Are We?00:03:23 Plot Summary00:11:42 Telling a Police Story in Star Wars00:31:08 Cad and Niro's Legacy00:47:15 Critical Reception00:58:07 Bae Watch01:03:45 Closing Thoughts

In this episode we connect with Sanu Warrier, product director for software at nVent, to get insights on Industry 4.0's ROI for panel builders, how design to manufacturing (DTM) software differs from traditional CAD, how DTM software helps ease the friction between engineering and manufacturing, and the cost-saving specifics that DTM software provides to panel builders.

In this episode of the Transform Sales Podcast: Sales Software Review Series, Dave Menjura ☁, Marketplace Specialist at CloudTask, is joined by Schuyler Van Sickle, Founder & CEO at 3MERA, a company revolutionizing sales with immersive product demos. 3MERA transforms CAD into photorealistic showrooms, AR demos, eCommerce integration, and real-time analytics, helping sales teams present complex products in a more engaging and effective way. Schuyler shares how 3MERA simplifies product demonstrations by converting 3D models into accessible, user-friendly AR and VR experiences. This technology enables Account Executives to provide virtual product demos without the need for costly on-site visits or time-consuming content creation. Schuyler also discusses how 3MERA's platform supports manufacturers by offering a streamlined solution for showcasing industrial equipment, power tools, and other complex products. Listeners will learn how 3MERA helps sales teams accelerate the sales process, reduce content creation costs, and improve customer engagement through immersive digital experiences. Schuyler emphasizes the platform's flexibility, enabling teams to create AR and VR demos without needing developers or technical expertise. Try 3MERA here: https://software.cloudtask.com/3mera-2662ae #TransformSales #SalesSoftware #3MERA #CloudTask #SalesAutomation #AR #VR

Chegou a hora de encerrar a temporada Cadê meus talentos?, do podcast Caos Corporativo!

 Interview with Trent Mell, CEO of Electra Battery Materials Corp.Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/electra-battery-materials-tsxvelbm-ready-to-complete-build-4676Recording date: 22nd July 2025Electra Battery Metals is positioning itself at the forefront of North America's critical mineral security strategy by developing the continent's first cobalt refinery specifically targeting the battery market. The Canadian company's hydrometallurgical facility, located north of Toronto, represents a strategic solution to Western dependence on Chinese mineral processing capabilities.The company's business model centers on a stable tolling arrangement rather than commodity speculation. Through a five-year contract with LG Energy Solution, Electra will process cobalt hydroxide sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo via partnerships with major mining companies Glencore and ERG. This material, which would otherwise flow to Chinese refineries, will be redirected and processed into battery-grade cobalt sulfate in North America."We've locked in a five-year supply contract with LG on a tolling basis, which provides us the margin that ensures we never go out of business," explained CEO Trent Mell. The arrangement targets approximately $30 million USD in annual EBITDA once the facility reaches full capacity of 6,500 tons, equivalent to supplying roughly one million electric vehicles annually.The project has attracted significant cross-border government support, with $20 million from the U.S. Department of Defense through the Defense Production Act and $20 million CAD from the Canadian government. This backing reflects the strategic importance of onshoring critical mineral supply chains amid growing national security concerns.Beyond the core refinery business, Electra is developing battery recycling capabilities through a joint venture with indigenous partner Aki, targeting black mass processing from battery manufacturers. The company's approach prioritizes predictable cash flows over market volatility, positioning it as a utility-like investment rather than a traditional volatile mining stock.With zero cobalt production currently existing in North America for batteries, Electra's first-mover advantage addresses a critical supply chain gap while supporting both civilian EV adoption and defense applications.View Electra Battery Metals' company proflle: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/electra-battery-metalsSign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com 

In January, 2022 today's guest, Mike Paciello, made his first appearance on Unstoppable Mindset in Episode 19. It is not often that most of us have the opportunity and honor to meet a real trendsetter and pioneer much less for a second time. However, today, we get to spend more time with Mike, and we get to talk about not only the concepts around web accessibility, but we also discuss the whole concept of inclusion and how much progress we have made much less how much more work needs to be done.   Mike Paciello has been a fixture in the assistive technology world for some thirty years. I have known of him for most of that time, but our paths never crossed until September of 2021 when we worked together to help create some meetings and sessions around the topic of website accessibility in Washington D.C.   As you will hear, Mike began his career as a technical writer for Digital Equipment Corporation, an early leader in the computer manufacturing industry. I won't tell you Mike's story here. What I will say is that although Mike is fully sighted and thus does not use much of the technology blind and low vision persons use, he really gets it. He fully understands what Inclusion is all about and he has worked and continues to work to promote inclusion and access for all throughout the world. As Mike and I discuss, making technology more inclusive will not only help persons with disabilities be more involved in society, but people will discover that much of the technology we use can make everyone's life better. We talk about a lot of the technologies being used today to make websites more inclusive including the use of AI and how AI can and does enhance inclusion efforts.   It is no accident that this episode is being released now. This episode is being released on July 25 to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act which was signed on July 26, 1990. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADA!   After you experience our podcast with Mike, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to email me at michaelhi@accessibe.com to tell me of your observations. Thanks.     About the Guest:   Mike Paciello is the Chief Accessibility Officer at AudioEye, Inc., a digital accessibility company. Prior to joining AudioEye, Mike founded WebABLE/WebABLE.TV, which delivers news about the disability and accessibility technology market. Mike authored the first book on web accessibility and usability, “Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities” and, in 1997, Mr. Paciello received recognition from President Bill Clinton for his work in the creation of World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). He has served as an advisor to the US Access Board and other federal agencies since 1992.   Mike has served as an international leader, technologist, and authority in emerging technology, accessibility, usability, and electronic publishing. Mike is the former Founder of The Paciello Group (TPG), a world-renowned software accessibility consultancy acquired in 2017 by Vispero. Ways to connect with Mike:   mpaciello@webable.com Michael.paciello@audioeye.com Mikepaciello@gmail.com     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity and the unexpected meet. Normally, our guests deal with the unexpected, which is anything that doesn't have to do with inclusion or diversity. Today, however, we get to sort of deal with both. We have a guest who actually was a guest on our podcast before he was in show 19 that goes all the way back to January of 2022, his name is Mike Paciello. He's been very involved in the whole internet and accessibility movement and so on for more than 30 years, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun chatting about what's going on in the world of accessibility and the Internet and and, you know, and but we won't probably get into whether God is a man or a woman, but that's okay, God is actually both, so we don't have to worry about that. But anyway, Mike, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Mike Paciello ** 02:21 Yeah, Hey, Mike, thanks a lot. I can't believe has it really been already since today, six years since the last time I came on this? No, three, 320, 22 Oh, 2022, I for whatever I 2019 Okay, three years sounds a little bit more realistic, but still, it's been a long time. Thank you for having me. It's, it's, it's great to be here. And obviously, as you know, a lot of things have changed in my life since then. But, yeah, very   Michael Hingson ** 02:46 cool. Well, you were in show number 19. And I'm not sure what number this is going to be, but it's going to be above 360 so it's been a while. Amazing, amazing, unstoppable, unstoppable. That's it. We got to keep it going. And Mike and I have been involved in a few things together, in, in later, in, I guess it was in 20 when we do the M enabling Summit, that was 2021 wasn't it? Yeah, I think it was, I think it was the year before we did the podcast, yeah, podcast, 2021 right? So we were in DC, and we both worked because there was a group that wanted to completely condemn the kinds of technologies that accessibe and other companies use. Some people call it overlays. I'm not sure that that's totally accurate today, but we we worked to get them to not do what they originally intended to do, but rather to explore it in a little bit more detail, which I think was a lot more reasonable to do. So we've, we've had some fun over the years, and we see each other every so often, and here we are again today. So yeah, I'm glad you're here. Well, tell us a little about well, and I guess what we'll do is do some stuff that we did in 2022 tell us about kind of the early Mike, growing up and all that and what eventually got you into dealing with all this business of web accessibility and such. Yeah, thank you.   Mike Paciello ** 04:08 You know, I've tried to short this, shorten this story 100 times. Oh, don't worry. See if I get let's see if I can keep it succinct and and for the folks out there who understand verbosity and it's in its finest way for screen reader users, I'll try not to be verbose. I already am being   Michael Hingson ** 04:28 intermediate levels fine.   Mike Paciello ** 04:30 I came into this entire field as a technical writer trying to solve a problem that I kind of stumbled into doing some volunteer work for the debt the company that I then then worked for, a Digital Equipment Corporation, a software company, DEC software hardware company, back then, right back in the early 80s. And as a technical writer, I started learning at that time what was called Gen code. Eventually that morphed in. To what Goldfarb, Charles Goldfarb at IBM, called SGML, or standard, Generalized Markup Language, and that really became the predecessor, really gave birth to what we see on the web today, to HTML and the web markup languages. That's what they were, except back then, they were markup languages for print publications. So we're myself and a lot of colleagues and friends, people probably here, I'm sure, at bare minimum, recognized named George Kercher. George and I really paired together, worked together, ended up creating an international steer with a group of other colleagues and friends called the icad 22 which is 22 stands for the amount of elements in that markup language. And it became the adopted standard accessibility standard for the American Association of Publishers, and they published that became official. Eventually it morphed into what we today call, you know, accessible web development. It was the first instance by that was integrated into the HTML specification, I think officially, was HTML 3.1 3.2 somewhere in there when it was formally adopted and then announced in 1997 and at the World Wide Web Conference. That's really where my activity in the web began. So I was working at DEC, but I was doing a lot of volunteer work at MIT, which is where the W 3c was located at that particular time. And Tim Bursley, who a lot of people i Sir, I'm sure, know, the inventor of the web, led the effort at that time, and a few other folks that I work with, and.da Jim Miller, a few other folks. And we were, well, I wasn't specifically approached. Tim was approached by Vice President Gore and eventually President Clinton at that time to see if we could come up with some sort of technical standard for accessibility. And Tim asked if I'd like to work on it myself. Danielle, Jim, a few others, we did, and we came up that first initial specification and launched it as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative, which we created in 1997 from there, my career just took off. I went off did a couple of small companies that I launched, you know, my namesake company, the Paciello Group, or TPG, now called TPG IGI, yeah, yeah, which was acquired by vector capital, or this bureau back in 2017 so it's hard to believe that's already almost 10 years ago. No, yeah. And I've been walking in, working in the software, web accessibility field, usability field, writing fields, you know, for some pretty close to 45 years. It's 2025 40 years, I mean, and I started around 1984 I think it was 8384 when all this first   Michael Hingson ** 07:59 started. Wow, so clearly, you've been doing it for a while and understand a lot of the history of it. So how overall has the whole concept of web accessibility changed over the years, not only from a from a coding standpoint, but how do you think it's really changed when it comes to being addressed by the public and companies and so on.   Mike Paciello ** 08:26 That's a great question. I'd certainly like to be more proactive and more positive about it, but, but let me be fair, if you compare today and where web accessibility resides, you know, in the in the business value proposition, so to speak, and list the priorities of companies and corporations. You know, fortune 1000 fortune 5000 call whatever you whatever you want. Accessibility. Is there people? You could say section five way you could say the Web Accessibility Initiative, WCAG, compliance, and by and large, particularly technology driven, digital economy driven businesses, they know what it is. They don't know how to do it. Very rarely do they know how to do it. And even the ones that know how to do it don't really do it very well. So it kind of comes down to the 8020, rule, right? You're a business. Whatever kind of business you are, you're probably in more online presence than ever before, and so a lot of your digital properties will come under you know the laws that mandate usability and accessibility for people with disabilities today that having been said and more and more people know about it than ever before, certainly from the time that I started back in the you know, again, in the early, mid 80s, to where we are today. It's night and day. But in terms of prioritization, I don't know. I think what happens quite often is business value proposition. Decisions get in the way. Priorities get in the way of what a business in, what its core business are, what they're trying to accomplish, who they're trying to sell, sell to. They still view the disability market, never mind the blind and low vision, you know, market alone as a niche market. So they don't make the kind of investors that I, I believe that they could, you know, there's certainly, there are great companies like like Microsoft and and Google, Amazon, Apple, you know, a lot of these companies, you know, have done some Yeoman work at that level, but it's nowhere near where it should be. It just absolutely isn't. And so from that standpoint, in where I envision things, when I started this career was when I was in my 20 somethings, and now I'm over now I'm over 60. Well over 60. Yeah, I expected a lot more in, you know, in an internet age, much, much more.   Michael Hingson ** 11:00 Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's really strange that so much has happened and yet so much hasn't happened. And I agree with you, there's been a lot of visibility for the concept of accessibility and inclusion and making the the internet a better place, but it is so unfortunate that most people don't know how to how to do anything with it. Schools aren't really teaching it. And more important than even teaching the coding, from from my perspective, looking at it more philosophically, what we don't tend to see are people really recognizing the value of disabilities, and the value that the market that people with disabilities bring to the to the world is significant. I mean, the Center for Disease Control talks about the fact that they're like up to 25% of all Americans have some sort of disability. Now I take a different approach. Actually. I don't know whether you've read my article on it, but I believe everyone on the in the in the world has a disability, and the reality is, most people are light dependent, but that's as much a disability as blindness. Except that since 1878 when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. We have focused nothing short of trying to do everything we can to improve light on demand for the last 147 years. And so the disability is mostly covered up, but it's still there.   Mike Paciello ** 12:37 You know, yeah, and I did read that article, and I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I personally think, and I actually have my own blog coming out, and probably later this month might be early, early July, where I talk about the fact that accessibility okay and technology really has been all along. And I love the fact that you call, you know, you identified the, you know, the late 1800s there, when Edison did the the light bulb, Alexander Graham Bell came up with, you know, the telephone. All of those adventures were coming about. But accessibility to people with disabilities, regardless of what their disability is, has always been a catalyst for innovation. That was actually supposed to be the last one I was going to make tonight. Now it's my first point because, because I think it is exactly as you said, Mike, I think that people are not aware. And when I say people, I mean the entire human population, I don't think that we are aware of the history of how, how, because of, I'm not sure if this is the best word, but accommodating users, accommodating people with disabilities, in whatever way, the science that goes behind that design architectural to the point of development and release, oftentimes, things that were done behalf of people with disabilities, or for People with disabilities, resulted in a fundamental, how's this for? For an interesting term, a fundamental alteration right to any other you know, common, and I apologize for the tech, tech, tech language, user interface, right, right? Anything that we interact with has been enhanced because of accessibility, because of people saying, hey, if we made this grip a little bit larger or stickier, we'll call it so I can hold on to it or softer for a person that's got fine motor dexterity disabilities, right? Or if we made a, you know, a web browser, which, of course, we have such that a blind individual, a low vision individual, can adjust the size of this, of the images and the fonts and things like that on a web page, they could do that unknown. Well, these things now. As we well know, help individuals without disabilities. Well, I'm not much, right, and I, again, I'm not speaking as a person beyond your characterization that, hey, look, we are all imperfect. We all have disabilities. And that is, that is absolutely true. But beyond that, I wear glasses. That's it. I do have a little hearing loss too. But you know, I'm finding myself more and more, for example, increasing the size of text. In fact, my note, yes, I increase them to, I don't know they're like, 18 point, just so that it's easier to see. But that is a common thing for every human being, just like you said.   Michael Hingson ** 15:36 Well, the reality is that so many tools that we use today come about. And came about because of people with disabilities. Peggy Chung Curtis Chung's wife, known as the blind history lady, and one of the stories that she told on her first visit to unstoppable mindset, which, by the way, is episode number five. I remember that Peggy tells the story of the invention of the typewriter, which was invented for a blind countist, because she wanted to be able to communicate with her lover without her husband knowing about it, and she didn't want to dictate things and so on. She wanted to be able to create a document and seal it, and that way it could be delivered to the lever directly. And the typewriter was the result of   Mike Paciello ** 16:20 that? I didn't know that. I will definitely go back. I just wrote it down. I wrote down a note that was episode number five, yeah, before with Curtis a couple of times, but obviously a good friend of ours, yeah, but I yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome.   Michael Hingson ** 16:37 Well, and look at, I'll tell you one of the things that really surprises me. So Apple was going to get sued because they weren't making any of their products accessible. And before the lawsuit was filed, they came along and they said, we'll fix it. And they did make and it all started to a degree with iTunes U but also was the iPhone and the iPod and so on. But they they, they did the work. Mostly. They embedded a screen reader called Voiceover in all of their operating systems. They did make iTunes you available. What really surprises me, though is that I don't tend to see perhaps some things that they could do to make voiceover more attractive to drivers so they don't have to look at the screen when a phone call comes in or whatever. And that they could be doing some things with VoiceOver to make it more usable for sighted people in a lot of instances. And I just don't, I don't see any emphasis on that, which is really surprising to me.   Mike Paciello ** 17:38 Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, there are a lot of use cases there that you go for. I think Mark Rico would certainly agree with you in terms of autonomous driving for the blind, right? Sure that too. But yeah, I definitely agree and, and I know the guy that the architect voiceover and develop voiceover for Apple and, boy, why can I think of his last name? I know his first name. First name is Mike. Is with Be My Eyes now and in doing things at that level. But I will just say one thing, not to correct you, but Apple had been in the accessibility business long before voice over Alan Brightman and Gary mulcher were instrumental towards convincing, you know, jobs of the importance of accessibility to people with disabilities,   Michael Hingson ** 18:31 right? But they weren't doing anything to make products accessible for blind people who needed screen readers until that lawsuit came along. Was   Mike Paciello ** 18:40 before screen readers? Yeah, that was before,   Michael Hingson ** 18:43 but they did it. Yeah. The only thing I wish Apple would do in that regard, that they haven't done yet, is Apple has mandates and requirements if you're going to put an app in the App Store. And I don't know whether it's quite still true, but it used to be that if your app had a desktop or it looked like a Windows desktop, they wouldn't accept it in the app store. And one of the things that surprises me is that they don't require that app developers make sure that their products are usable with with VoiceOver. And the reality is that's a it doesn't need to be a really significantly moving target. For example, let's say you have an app that is dealing with displaying star charts or maps. I can't see the map. I understand that, but at least voiceover ought to give me the ability to control what goes on the screen, so that I can have somebody describe it, and I don't have to spend 15 or 20 minutes describing my thought process, but rather, I can just move things around on the screen to get to where we need to go. And I wish Apple would do a little bit more in that regard.   Mike Paciello ** 19:52 Yeah, I think that's a great a great thought and a great challenge, if, between me and you. Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said before, even though we both see how accessibility or accommodating users with disabilities has led to some of the most incredible innovations. I mean, the Department of Defense, for years, would integrate people with disabilities in their user testing, they could better help, you know, military soldiers, things like that, assimilate situations where there was no hearing, there was they were immobile, they couldn't see all, you know, all of these things that were natural. You know, user environments or personas for people with disabilities. So they led to these kind of, you know, incredible innovations, I would tell you, Mike, I think you know this, it's because the business value proposition dictates otherwise.   Michael Hingson ** 20:55 Yeah, and, well, I guess I would change that slightly and say that people think that the business proposition does but it may very well be that they would find that there's a lot more value in doing it if they would really open up their minds to looking at it differently. It's   Mike Paciello ** 21:10 kind of, it's kind of like, it's tough. It's kind of like, if I could use this illustration, so to speak, for those who may not be religiously inclined, but you know, it's, it's like prophecy. Most people, you don't know whether or not prophecy is valid until years beyond, you know, years after. And then you could look back at time and say, See, it was all along. These things, you know, resulted in a, me, a major paradigm shift in the way that we do or don't do things. And I think that's exactly what you're saying. You know, if, if people would really look at the potential of what technologies like, you know, a voice over or, as you know, a good friend of mine said, Look, we it should be screen readers. It should be voice IO interfaces, right? That every human can use and interact with regardless. That's what we're really talking about. There's   Michael Hingson ** 22:10 a big discussion going on some of the lists now about the meta, Ray Ban, glasses, and some of the things that it doesn't do or that they don't do well, that they should like. It's really difficult to get the meta glasses to read completely a full page. I think there are ways that people have now found to get it to do that, but there are things like that that it that that don't happen. And again, I think it gets back to what you're saying is the attitude is, well, most people aren't going to need that. Well, the reality is, how do you know and how do you know what they'll need until you offer options. So one of my favorite stories is when I worked for Kurzweil a long time ago, some people called one day and they wanted to come and see a new talking computer terminal that that Ray and I and others developed, and they came up, and it turns out, they were with one of those initial organizations out of Langley, Virginia, the CIA. And what they wanted to do was to use the map the the terminal connected to their computers to allow them to move pointers on a map and not have to watch the map or the all of the map while they were doing it, but rather, the computer would verbalize where the pointer was, and then they could they could move it around and pin a spot without having to actually look at the screen, because the way their machine was designed, it was difficult to do that. You know, the reality is that most of the technologies that we need and that we use and can use could be used by so much, so many more people, if people would just really look at it and think about it, but, but you're right, they don't.   Mike Paciello ** 24:04 You know, it's, of course, raise a raise another good friend of mine. We both having in common. I work with him. I been down his office a few, more than few times, although his Boston office, anyway, I think he's, I'm not sure he's in Newton. He's in Newton. Yeah. Is he still in Newton? Okay. But anyway, it reminded me of something that happened in a similar vein, and that was several years ago. I was at a fast forward forward conference, future forward conference, and a company, EMC, who absorbed by Dell, I think, right, yes, where they all are. So there I was surprised that when that happened. But hey, yeah, yeah, I was surprised that compact bought depth, so that's okay, yeah, right. That HP bought count, right? That whole thing happened. But um, their chief science, chief scientist, I think he was a their CSO chief scientist, Doc. Came up and made this presentation. And basically the presentation was using voice recognition. They had been hired by the NSA. So it was a NSA right to use voice recognition in a way where they would recognize voices and then record those voices into it, out the output the transcript of that right text, text files, and feed them back to, you know, the NSA agents, right? So here's the funny part of that story goes up i i waited he gave his presentation. This is amazing technology, and what could it was like, 99% accurate in terms of not just recognizing American, English speaking people, but a number of different other languages, in dialects. And the guy who gave the presentation, I actually knew, because he had been a dec for many years. So in the Q and A Part I raised by hand. I got up there. He didn't recognize it a few years had gone by. And I said, you know, this is amazing technology. We could really use this in the field that I work in. And he said, Well, how's that? And I said, you know, voice recognition and outputting text would allow us to do now this is probably 2008 2009 somewhere in that area, would allow us to do real time, automated transcription for the Deaf, Captioning. And he looks at me and he he says, Do I know you? This is through a live audience. I said. I said, Yeah, Mark is it was. Mark said, So Mike gas yellow. He said, you're the only guy in town that I know that could turn a advanced, emerging technology into something for people with disabilities. I can't believe it. So that was, that was, but there was kind of the opposite. It was a technology they were focused on making this, you know, this technology available for, you know, government, obviously covert reasons that if they were using it and applying it in a good way for people with disabilities, man, we'd have been much faster, much further along or even today, right? I mean, it's being done, still not as good, not as good as that, as I saw. But that just goes to show you what, what commercial and government funding can do when it's applied properly?   Michael Hingson ** 27:41 Well, Dragon, naturally speaking, has certainly come a long way since the original Dragon Dictate. But there's still errors, there's still things, but it does get better, but I hear exactly what you're saying, and the reality is that we don't tend to think in broad enough strokes for a lot of the things that we do, which is so unfortunate,   Mike Paciello ** 28:03 yeah? I mean, I've had an old saying that I've walked around for a long time. I should have, I should make a baseball cap, whether something or T shirt. And it simply was, think accessibility, yeah, period. If, if, if we, organizations, people, designers, developers, architects, usability, people, QA, people. If everybody in the, you know, in the development life cycle was thinking about accessibility, or accessibility was integrated, when we say accessibility, we're talking about again, for users with disabilities, if that became part of, if not the functional catalyst, for technology. Man, we'd have been a lot further along in the quote, unquote value chains than we are today.   Michael Hingson ** 28:46 One of the big things at least, that Apple did do was they built voiceover into their operating system, so anybody who buys any Apple device today automatically has redundancy here, but access to accessibility, right? Which, which is really the way it ought to be. No offense to vispero and jaws, because they're they're able to fill the gap. But still, if Microsoft had truly devoted the time that they should have to narrate her at the beginning. We might see a different kind of an architecture today.   Mike Paciello ** 29:26 You know, I so I want to, by the way, the person that invented that wrote that code is Mike shabanik. That's his name I was thinking about. So Mike, if you're listening to this guy, just hi from two others. And if he's not, he should be, yeah, yeah, exactly right from two other mics. But so let me ask you this question, because I legitimately can't remember this, and have had a number of discussions with Mike about this. So VoiceOver is native to the US, right?   Michael Hingson ** 29:56 But no, well, no to to the to the to the. Products, but not just the US. No,   Mike Paciello ** 30:02 no, I said, OS, yes, it's native to OS, yeah, right. It's native that way, right? But doesn't it still use an off screen model for producing or, you know, translate the transformation of, you know, on screen to voice.   Michael Hingson ** 30:27 I'm not sure that's totally true. Go a little bit deeper into that for me.   Mike Paciello ** 30:34 Well, I mean, so NVDA and jaws use this off screen model, right, which is functionally, they grab, will they grab some content, or whatever it is, push it to this, you know, little black box, do all those translations, you know, do all the transformation, and then push it back so it's renderable to a screen reader. Okay, so that's this off screen model that is transparent to the users, although now you know you can get into it and and tweak it and work with it right, right? I recall when Mike was working on the original design of of nary, excuse me, a voiceover, and he had called me, and I said, Are you going to continue with the notion of an off screen model? And he said, Yeah, we are. And I said, Well, when you can build something that's more like what TV Raman has built into Emacs, and it works integral to the actual OS, purely native. Call me because then I'm interested in, but now that was, you know, 1520, years ago, right? I mean, how long has voiceover been around,   Michael Hingson ** 31:51 since 2007   Mike Paciello ** 31:54 right? So, yeah, 20 years ago, right? Just shy of 20 years, 18 years. So I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'm   Michael Hingson ** 32:02 not totally sure, but I believe that it is, but I can, you know, we'll have to, we'll have to look into that.   Mike Paciello ** 32:08 If anyone in the audience is out there looking at you, get to us before we find out. Let us we'll find out at the NFB   Michael Hingson ** 32:12 convention, because they're going to be a number of Apple people there. We can certainly ask, there   Mike Paciello ** 32:17 you go. That's right, for sure. James Craig is bound to be there. I can ask him and talk to him about that for sure. Yep, so anyway,   Michael Hingson ** 32:23 but I think, I think it's a very it's a valid point. And you know, the the issue is that, again, if done right and app developers are doing things right there, there needs to, there ought to be a way that every app has some level of accessibility that makes it more available. And the reality is, people, other than blind people use some of these technologies as well. So we're talking about voice input. You know, quadriplegics, for example, who can't operate a keyboard will use or a mouse can use, like a puff and zip stick to and and Dragon to interact with a computer and are successful at doing it. The reality is, there's a whole lot more opportunities out there than people think. Don't   Mike Paciello ** 33:11 I agree with that. I'm shaking my head up and down Mike and I'm telling you, there is, I mean, voice recognition alone. I can remember having a conversation with Tony vitality, one of the CO inventors of the deck talk. And that goes all the way back into the, you know, into the early 90s, about voice recognition and linguistics and what you know, and I know Kurzweil did a lot of working with Terry right on voice utterances and things like that. Yeah, yeah. There's, there's a wide open window of opportunity there for study and research that could easily be improved. And as you said, and this is the point, it doesn't just improve the lives of the blind or low vision. It improves the lives of a number of different types of Persona, disability persona types, but it would certainly create a pathway, a very wide path, for individuals, users without disabilities, in a number of different life scenarios.   Michael Hingson ** 34:10 Yeah, and it's amazing how little sometimes that's done. I had the pleasure a few years ago of driving a Tesla down Interstate 15 out here in California. Glad I wasn't there. You bigot, you know, the co pilot system worked. Yeah, you know, I just kept my hands on the wheel so I didn't very much, right? Not have any accidents. Back off now it worked out really well, but, but here's what's really interesting in that same vehicle, and it's something that that I find all too often is is the case if I were a passenger sitting in the front seat, there's so much that I as a passenger don't have access to that other passenger. Do radios now are mostly touchscreen right, which means and they don't build in the features that would make the touchscreen system, which they could do, accessible. The Tesla vehicle is incredibly inaccessible. And there's for a guy who's so innovative, there's no reason for that to be that way. And again, I submit that if they truly make the product so a blind person could use it. Think of how much more a sighted person who doesn't have to take their eyes off the road could use the same technologies.   Mike Paciello ** 35:35 You know, Mike, again, you and I are on the same page. I mean, imagine these guys are supposed to be creative and imaginative and forward thinking, right? Could you? Can you imagine a better tagline than something along the lines of Tesla, so user friendly that a blind person can drive it? Yeah? I mean this is, have you heard or seen, you know, metaphorically speaking, or that's okay, a an advertisement or PR done by any, any company, because they're all, all the way across the board, that hasn't featured what it can do to enhance lives of people with disabilities. Where it wasn't a hit. I mean, literally, it was, yeah, you see these commercials played over and over to Apple, Microsoft, Emma, I see McDonald's, Walmart. I mean, I could just name, name the one after another. Really, really outstanding. Salesforce has done it. Just incredible. They would do it, yeah. I mean, there is there any more human centric message than saying, Look what we've built and designed we're releasing to the masses and everyone, anyone, regardless of ability, can use it. Yeah, that, to me, is that's, I agree that's a good route, right for marketing and PR, good,   Michael Hingson ** 37:03 yeah. And yet they don't, you know, I see commercials like about one of the one of the eye injections, or whatever Bobby is, Mo or whatever it is. And at the beginning, the woman says, I think I'm losing sight of the world around me. You know that's all about, right? It's eyesight and nothing else. And I appreciate, I'm all for people keeping their eyesight and doing what's necessary. But unfortunately, all too often, we do that at the detriment of of other people, which is so unfortunate.   Mike Paciello ** 37:39 Yeah, you know again, not to, not to get off the subject, but one of my favorite books is rethinking competitive advantage, by Ram Sharon. I don't know if you know know him, but the guy is one of my heroes in terms of just vision and Business and Technology. And in this, this book, he wrote this a couple of years ago. He said this one this is his first rule of competition in the digital age. The number one rule was simply this, a personalized consumer experience, key to exponential growth. That's exactly you and I are talking about personally. I want to see interfaces adapt to users, rather than what we have today, which is users having to adapt to the interface.   Michael Hingson ** 38:32 Yeah, and it would make so much sense to do so. I hope somebody out there is listening and will maybe take some of this to heart, because if they do it right, they can have a huge market in no time at all, just because they show they care. You know, Nielsen Company did a survey back in 2016 where they looked at a variety of companies and consumers and so on. And if I recall the numbers right, they decided that people with disabilities are 35% more likely to continue to work with and shop, for example, at companies that really do what they can to make their websites and access to their products accessible, as opposed to not. And that's that's telling. It's so very telling. But we don't see people talking about that nearly like we should   Mike Paciello ** 39:20 you talk about a business value proposition. There is bullet proof that where you are leaving money on the table, yep, and a lot of it, yeah, exactly. We're not talking about 1000s or hundreds of 1000s. We're talking about billions and trillions, in some instances, not an exaggeration by any stretch of the imagination, very, very simple math. I had this conversation a couple years ago with the CEO of Pearson. At that time, he's retired, but, you know, I told him, if you spent $1 for every person that it was in the world with. Disability, you're, you're, you're talking about 1/4 of the population, right? It's simple math, simple math,   Michael Hingson ** 40:08 but people still won't do it. I mean, we taught you to mention section 508, before with the whole issue of web access, how much of the government has really made their websites accessible, even though it's the law?   Mike Paciello ** 40:19 Yeah, three years, three or four years ago, they did a study, and they found out that the good that every federal agency, most of the federal agencies, were not even keeping up thinking with reporting of the status, of where they were, and yet that was written right into the five way law. They were mandated to do it, and they still did do   Michael Hingson ** 40:37 it. We haven't, you know, the whole Americans with Disabilities Act. Finally, the Department of Justice said that the internet is a place of business, but still, it's not written in the law. And of course, we only see about 3% of all websites that tend to have any level of access. And there's no reason for that. It's not that magical. And again, I go back to what do we do to get schools and those who teach people how to code to understand the value of putting in accessibility right from the outset?   Mike Paciello ** 41:10 Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think this is what Kate sanka is trying to do with with Teach access. In fact, you know, again, my company, TPG was one of the founding companies have teach access back again, 10 years ago, when it first started. But that's where it starts. I mean, they're, they're pretty much focused on post secondary, university education, but I could tell you on a personal level, I was speaking at my kids grade school, elementary school, because they were already using laptops and computers back then it starts. Then you've got to build a mindset. You've got to build it we you've heard about the accessibility, maturity models coming out of the W, 3c, and in I, double AP. What that speaks to fundamentally, is building a culture within your corporate organization that is think accessibility as a think accessibility mindset, that it is woven into the fiber of every business line, in every technology, software development life cycle, all of the contributors at that level, from A to Z. But if you don't build it into the culture, it's not going to happen. So I would love to see a lot more being done at that level. But yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a hero. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 42:34 we're, we're left out of the conversation so much. Yeah, yeah, totally. So you, you sold TPG, and you then formed, or you had web able and then able Docs.   Mike Paciello ** 42:48 So what web able came out was a carve out, one of two carve outs that I had from when I sold TPG. The other was open access technologies, which which eventually was sold to another accessibility company primarily focused on making documentation accessible to meet the WCAG and other standards requirements and web able I carved out. It's been a kind of a hobby of mine now, for since I sold TPG, I'm still working on the back end, ironically, from the get go, so we're talking, you know, again, eight years ago, I had built machine learning and AI into it. From then back then, I did so that what it does is it very simply, goes out and collects 1000s and 1000s of articles as it relates to technology, people with disabilities, and then cleans them up and post them to web able.com I've got a lot more playing for it, but that's in a nutshell. That's what it does. And I don't we do some we do some QA review to make sure that the cleanup in terms of accessibility and the articles are are properly formatted and are accessible. We use the web aim API, but yeah, works like magic. Works like clockwork, and that's got aI uses IBM Watson AI built into it. Yeah, enable docs was abledocs was, how should I say this in a nice way, abledocs was a slight excursion off of my main route. It can work out. I wish it had. It had a lot of potential, much like open access technologies, but they both suffered from owners who really, really not including myself, who just didn't have good vision and in lack humility,   Michael Hingson ** 44:43 yeah. How's that? There you go. Well, so not to go political or anything, but AI in general is interesting, and I know that there have been a lot of debates over the last few years about artificial. Intelligence and helping to make websites accessible. There are several companies like AudioEye, user way, accessibe and so on that to one degree or another, use AI. What? What? So in general, what do you think about AI and how it's going to help deal with or not, the whole issue of disabilities and web access,   Mike Paciello ** 45:22 yeah, and we're going to set aside Neil Jacobs thoughts on how he sees it in the future, right? Although I have to tell you, he gave me some things to think about, so we'll just set that to to the side. So I think what AI offers today is something that I thought right away when it started to see the, you know, the accessibes, the user ways, the audio, eyes, and all the other companies kind of delving into it, I always saw potential to how's this remediate a fundamental problem or challenge, let's not call it a problem, a challenge that we were otherwise seeing in the professional services side of that equation around web accessibility, right? So you get experts who use validation tools and other tools, who know about code. Could go in and they know and they use usability, they use user testing, and they go in and they can tell you what you need to do to make your digital properties right, usable and accessible. People with disabilities, all well and good. That's great. And believe me, I had some of the best people, if not the best people in the world, work for me at one time. However, there are a couple of things it could not do in it's never going to do. Number one, first and foremost, from my perspective, it can't scale. It cannot scale. You can do some things at, you know, in a large way. For example, if, if a company is using some sort of, you know, CMS content management system in which their entire sites, you know, all their sites, all their digital properties, you know, are woven into templates, and those templates are remediated. So that cuts down a little bit on the work. But if you go into companies now, it's not like they're limited to two or three templates. Now they've got, you know, department upon department upon department, everybody's got a different template. So even those are becoming very vos, very verbose and very plentiful. So accessibility as a manual effort doesn't really scale well. And if it does, even if it could, it's not fast enough, right? So that's what AI does, AI, coupled with automation, speeds up that process and delivers a much wider enterprise level solution. Now again, AI automation is not, is not a whole, is not a holistic science. You know, it's not a silver bullet. David Marathi likes to use the term, what is he? He likes the gold standard. Well, from his perspective, and by the way, David Marathi is CEO of audio. Eye is a combination of automation AI in expert analysis, along with the use of the integration of user testing and by user testing, it's not just personas, but it's also compatibility with the assistive technologies that people with disabilities use. Now, when you do that, you've got something that you could pattern after a standard software development life cycle, environment in which you integrate all of these things. So if you got a tool, you integrate it there. If you've got, you know, a digital accessibility platform which does all this automation, AI, right, which, again, this is the this is a forester foresters take on the the the daps, as they calls it. And not really crazy about that, but that's what they are. Digital Accessibility platforms. It allows us to scale and scale at costs that are much lower, at speeds that are much faster, and it's just a matter of like any QA, you've got to check your work, and you've got it, you can't count on that automation being absolute. We know for a fact that right now, at best, we're going to be able to get 35 to 40% accuracy, some claim, larger different areas. I'm still not convinced of that, but the fact of the matter is, it's like anything else. Technology gets better as it goes, and we'll see improvements over time periods.   Michael Hingson ** 49:49 So here's here's my thought, yeah, let's say you use AI in one of the products that's out there. And I. You go to a website and you include it, and it reasonably well makes the website 50% more usable and accessible than it was before. I'm just, I just threw out that number. I know it's random. Go ahead, Yep, yeah, but let's say it does that. The reality is that means that it's 50% that the web developers, the web coders, don't have to do because something else is dealing with it. But unfortunately, their mentality is not to want to deal with that because they also fear it. But, you know, I remember back in the mid 1980s I started a company because I went off and tried to find a job and couldn't find one. So I started a company with a couple of other people, where we sold early PC based CAD systems to architects, right? And we had AutoCAD versus CAD. Another one called point line, which was a three dimensional system using a y cap solid modeling board that took up two slots in your PC. So it didn't work with all PCs because we didn't have enough slots. But anyway, right, right, right. But anyway, when I brought architects in and we talked about what it did and we showed them, many of them said, I'll never use that. And I said, why? Well, it does work, and that's not the question. But the issue is, we charge by the time, and so we take months to sometimes create designs and projects, right? And so we can't lose that revenue. I said, you're looking at it all wrong. Think about it this way, somebody gives you a job, you come back and you put it in the CAD system. You go through all the iterations it takes, let's just say, two weeks. Then you call your customer in. You use point line, and you can do a three dimensional walk through and fly through. You can even let them look out the window and see what there is and all that they want to make changes. They tell you the changes. You go off and you make the changes. And two weeks later, now it's a month, you give them their finished product, all the designs, all the plots and all that, all done, and you charge them exactly the same price you were going to charge them before. Now you're not charging for your time, you're charging for your expertise, right? And I think that same model still holds true that the technology, I think most people will agree that it is not perfect, but there are a lot of things that it can do. Because the reality is, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, are all things that can be defined with computer code, whether it necessarily does it all well with AI or not, is another story. But if it does it to a decent fraction, it makes all the difference in terms of what you're able to do and how quickly you can do   Mike Paciello ** 52:52 it. Yeah, I can argue with that at all. I think any time that we can make our jobs a little bit easier so that we can focus where we should be focused. In this case, as you said, the expertise side of it, right to fix those complicated scenarios or situations that require a hands on surgical like Right? Expertise, you can do that now. You've got more hours more time because it's been saved. The only thing I would say, Mike, about what, what you just said, is that there with that, with that mindset, okay, comes responsibility. Oh, yeah, in this is where I think in everybody that knows anything about this environment, you and I have an intimate understanding of this. The whole overlay discussion is the biggest problem with what happened was less about the technology and more about what claims are being made. Yeah, the technology could do which you could not do in, in some cases, could never do, or would never, would never do, well, right? So if you create, and I would submit this is true in as a fundamental principle, if you create a technology of any kind, you must, in truth, inform your clients of of what it can and cannot do so they understand the absolute value to them, because the last thing you want, because, again, we live in a, unfortunately, a very litigious world. Right soon as there's   Michael Hingson ** 54:49 a mistake couldn't happen,   Mike Paciello ** 54:51 they'll go right after you. So now you know, and again, I don't I'm not necessarily just blaming the ambulance chasers of the world. World. I was talking to an NFP lawyer today. He referred to them in a different name, and I can't remember well, I never heard the expression before, but that's what he meant, right? Yeah, it's the salesman and the product managers and the marketing people themselves, who are were not themselves, to your point, properly trained, properly educated, right? It can't be done, what clearly could not be said, what should or should not be said, right? And then you got lawyers writing things all over the place. So, yeah, yeah. So, so I look people knew when I made the decision to come to audio eye that it was a make or break scenario for me, or at least that's what they thought in my mindset. It always, has always been, that I see incredible possibilities as you do or technology, it just has to be handled responsibly.   Michael Hingson ** 55:56 Do you think that the companies are getting better and smarter about what they portray about their products than they than they were three and four and five years ago.   Mike Paciello ** 56:08 Okay, look, I sat in and chaired a meeting with the NFB on this whole thing. And without a doubt, they're getting smarter. But it took not just a stick, you know, but, but these large lawsuits to get them to change their thinking, to see, you know, where they where they were wrong, and, yeah, things are much better. There's still some issues out there. I both know it that's going to happen, that happens in every industry,   Michael Hingson ** 56:42 but there are improvements. It is getting better, and people are getting smarter, and that's where an organization like the NFB really does need to become more involved than in a sense, they are. They took some pretty drastic steps with some of the companies, and I think that they cut off their nose, despite their face as well, and that didn't help. So I think there are things that need to be done all the way around, but I do see that progress is being made too. I totally   Mike Paciello ** 57:11 agree, and in fact, I'm working with them right now. We're going to start working on the California Accessibility Act again. I'm really looking forward to working with the NFB, the DRC and Imperato over there and his team in the disability rights consortium, consortium with disability rights. What DRC coalition, coalition in in California. I can't wait to do that. We tried last year. We got stopped short. It got tabled, but I feel very good about where we're going this year. So that's, that's my that's, that is my focus right now. And I'm glad I'm going to be able to work with the NFB to be able to do that. Yeah, well, I, I really do hope that it passes. We've seen other states. We've seen some states pass some good legislation, and hopefully we will continue to see some of that go on. Yeah, Colorado has done a great job. Colorado sent a great job. I think they've done it. I really like what's being done with the EAA, even though it's in Europe, and some of the things that are going there, Susanna, Lauren and I had some great discussions. I think she is has been a leader of a Yeoman effort at that level. So we'll see. Let's, let's, I mean, there's still time out here. I guess I really would like to retire,   Michael Hingson ** 58:28 but I know the feeling well, but I can't afford to yet, so I'll just keep speaking and all that well, Mike, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you taking an hour and coming on, and at least neither of us is putting up with any kind of snow right now, but later in the year we'll see more of that.   Mike Paciello ** 58:45 Yeah, well, maybe you will. We don't get snow down. I have. We've gotten maybe 25 flakes in North Carolina since I've been here.   Michael Hingson ** 58:53 Yeah, you don't get a lot of snow. We don't hear we don't really get it here, around us, up in the mountains, the ski resorts get it, but I'm out in a valley, so we don't, yeah,   Mike Paciello ** 59:02 yeah, no. I love it. I love this is golfing weather.   Michael Hingson ** 59:05 There you go. If people want to reach out to you, how do they do that?   Mike Paciello ** 59:11 There's a couple of ways. Certainly get in touch with me at AudioEye. It's michael.paciello@audioeye.com   Michael Hingson ** 59:17 B, A, C, I, E, L, L, O,   Mike Paciello ** 59:18 that's correct. Thank you for that. You could send me personal email at Mike paciello@gmail.com and or you can send me email at web able. It's m passielo at web able.com, any one of those ways. And please feel free you get on all the social networks. So feel free to link, connect to me. Anyway, I try to respond. I don't think there's anyone I I've not responded to one form or another.   Michael Hingson ** 59:46 Yeah, I'm I'm the same way. If I get an email, I want to respond to it. Yeah, well, thanks again for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. We really appreciate it. Love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Please feel free to email. Me, you can get me the email address I generally use is Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, or you can go to our podcast page, which is Michael hingson.com/podcast, and there's a contact form there. But love to hear from you. Love to hear your thoughts, and most of all, please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening. We value your ratings and your reviews a whole lot, so we really appreciate you doing that. And if any of you, and Mike, including you, can think of other people that you think ought to be guests on the podcast, we are always looking for more people, so fill us up, help us find more folks. And we would appreciate that a great deal. So again, Mike, thanks very much. This has been a lot of fun, and we'll have to do it again.   Mike Paciello ** 1:00:44 Thanks for the invitation. Mike, I really appreciate it. Don't forget to add 10 Nakata to your list,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:49 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

以计算机辅助设计（CAD）为代表的工业软件，是现代制造业广泛应用的重要工具。在过去很长一段时间里，中国工业设计软件严重依赖诸如Autodesk这样的海外巨头；尽管国产化的机遇曾在世纪之交时出现过，但早前很多公司的思路是「自己研发不如买」；而在二十年后的今天，当核心技术的自主可控已成为共识，国产工业软件又重新迎来了创新的黄金时期。再看软件端，传统的CAD安装繁琐、数据孤立、管理混乱…… 在成本和协作上暴露出诸多痛点，极大限制了工业设计团队的协同创新效率。而在上一轮浪潮中诞生的国产工业软件，也并没有从根本上摆脱海外的底层框架，难以实现真正的产品所有权。由此，一批曾供职于海外工业软件巨头的有志之士们，萌生了自主创业、投身国产替代的想法。本期节目，我们邀请到国内首家自主研发云CAD的公司卡伦特的副总经理李荣陆，讲述他们突破巨头垄断、自主研发工业软件的创业故事。什么是云原生CAD？它的诞生解决了传统工业软件的哪些痛点？从零开始自研工业软件，需要打破哪些核心技术壁垒？国产替代带来的价值增量是什么？AI为未来的工业软件带来了哪些全新想象空间？【01:32】读博时期押注人工智能的未来【03:29】传统桌面工业设计软件存在的痛点【04:47】云原生、实时协同、智能化，翻开工业设计新篇章【07:05】用户不再是“独立的数据孤岛”【09:06】CAD实现实时协同，要攻克哪些技术挑战？【11:39】自研四大核心引擎，解决「卡脖子」问题【13:03】云原生CAD在机械、建筑、电气等行业的应用潜力【14:30】工业软件+AI：从设计辅助到智能仿真【16:39】过去20年，国内工业软件发展的关键节点【18:23】当Autodesk中国研究院首位首席工程师决定「出走」【20:42】技术与人才，国产替代的最大难点【22:17】“趋势对了，走得再慢，还是能到终点”【24:13】工业软件是用出来的，客户是最好的试金石【26:30】给予市场和用户耐心，也坚守自己的初心【30:46】卡伦特的人才招聘需求《创业内幕》粉丝群已经开通，在这里，你可以跟节目制作人/主持人直接沟通，也可以第一时间了解到纪源资本线下活动动态，见到纪源资本的投资人，结交其他互联网圈子里的小伙伴。 入群方式：1）添加微信号“JiyuanFans”为好友，并在好友请求中标注“创业” 2）把你的全名和职称发给创业小助手；如果您想约访谈，请添加小助手微信，并附上访谈嘉宾简介，小助手将帮您对接。

Drop us a text message to say hi and let us know what you think of the show. (Include your email if you'd like us to reply)In which John and David explore Jesus' own references to Jonah in Matthew 12 and Luke 11. We reflect on Jonah's ironic preaching, his begrudging obedience, and the surprising repentance of Nineveh. Jesus knew Jonah's story intimately—and expected us to know it too. So we ask: What if Jonah isn't just about the Ninevites, but about us?Episode 205 of the Two Texts Podcast | Jonah Beyond the Whale 2If you want to get in touch about something in the podcast you can reach out on podcast@twotexts.com or by liking and following the Two Texts podcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love it if you left a review or comment where you're listening from – and if you really enjoyed it, why not share it with a friend?Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021________Help us keep Two Texts free for everyone by becoming a supporter of the show John and David want to ensure that Two Texts always remains free content for everyone. We don't want to create a paywall or have premium content that would exclude others. However, Two Texts costs us around £60 per month (US$75; CAD$100) to make. If you'd like to support the show with even just a small monthly donation it would help ensure we can continue to produce the content that you love. Thank you so much.Support the show

Plans (and CAD’s) are well and truly underway for the Tallest Hat record attempt, but a concerning health risk has been flagged…Andy issues an apology song to Jack for reading out his humiliating golf scores, but how sorry is he really? More solid power moves have been sent in, and Hamish is humbled by a member of his ‘family’! 1. Tallest hat - a small health risk 2. Andy’s apology song to Jack 3. Power moves 4. In the Hertz family

M365 Copilot Chat will use new file types like MP4s, CAD, and ZIP, to ground its responses. We wonder how it will find discussions in videos without first creating a transcript for every video.  Teams meetings will show a new join experience that helps you manage when you have accepted or responded tentatively to multiple meetings.  And Copilot will make a little more available to unlicensed M365 Copilot users, so they can get a taste of the value — depending on capacity consumed by licensed customers.  What else will Daniel and Darrell discuss?  - Microsoft 365 Copilot | Chat now supports new file types in search grounding  - Microsoft Teams: Meeting Join Bar  - Updates to custom scripting in sites and Classic Publishing site creation  - Microsoft OneDrive for Business | Updated order of Shortcut and Sync commands  - Standard and Priority access to Copilot capabilities  - Microsoft Copilot in Teams: Visual Insight for intelligent recap        Join Daniel Glenn and Darrell as a Service Webster as they cover the latest messages in the Microsoft 365 Message Center.   Check out Darrell & Daniel's own YouTube channels at:  Darrell - https://youtube.com/modernworkmentor  Daniel - https://youtube.com/DanielGlenn   

StoneAlgo's new Jeweler OS product is revolutionizing how jewelers convert website traffic into sales by generating real, manufacturable CAD files for custom engagement rings. The AI-powered tool creates a seamless path from online browsing to in-store purchasing while allowing jewelers to set their own markups.Learn more about JewelerOS: https://getjeweleros.com/Learn more about our sponsor, Jewel-Craft: jewel-craft.comSend us a text Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com Inquire about sponsoring In the Loupe and showcase your business on our next episode: podcast@punchmark.com

Drop us a text message to say hi and let us know what you think of the show. (Include your email if you'd like us to reply)In which John and David begin season 5 about Jonah by looking past the great fish and into the depths of this brief but bold prophetic book. We explore how Jonah invites readers to ask better questions, pay attention to the text, and discover how to better read scripture—with Jonah as a surprising but essential guide.Episode 204 of the Two Texts Podcast | Jonah Beyond the Whale 1If you want to get in touch about something in the podcast you can reach out on podcast@twotexts.com or by liking and following the Two Texts podcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love it if you left a review or comment where you're listening from – and if you really enjoyed it, why not share it with a friend?Music by Woodford Music (c) 2021________Help us keep Two Texts free for everyone by becoming a supporter of the show John and David want to ensure that Two Texts always remains free content for everyone. We don't want to create a paywall or have premium content that would exclude others. However, Two Texts costs us around £60 per month (US$75; CAD$100) to make. If you'd like to support the show with even just a small monthly donation it would help ensure we can continue to produce the content that you love. Thank you so much.Support the show

Send us a textIn Engineer-to-Order (ETO) environments, early-stage collaboration with customers is critical, particularly during design and engineering. While general-purpose tools like Smartsheet or Monday.com may aid in project tracking, they typically fall short in supporting the depth and complexity of data exchange inherent in ETO workflows. Similarly, CAD and PLM platforms offer some collaborative capabilities, but their reach is often confined to engineering-specific tasks. The real challenge—and opportunity—emerges once the Bill of Materials (BOM) is finalized: ERP systems must seamlessly take over to drive production and execution. ERP platforms with built-in CAD and PLM integration simplify this transition, reducing technical friction, while those without native support often require costly middleware or custom development, increasing implementation risk.In this episode, our host, Sam Gupta, discusses the top 10 engineer-to-order manufacturing ERP systems in 2025. He also discusses several variables that influence the rankings of these engineer-to-order manufacturing ERP systems. Finally, he shares the pros and cons of each engineer-to-order manufacturing ERP system.Background Soundtrack: Away From You – Mauro SommFor more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs. rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. 

What if the secret to remarkable sales growth isn't a new hire, but an AI that works like one? If you're leading a business and wondering how AI will actually impact your bottom line—not in theory, but in real, everyday decisions—this episode is for you. With AI evolving faster than most leaders can keep up, it's no longer about if you'll use it, but how well and how soon you adapt. In this episode, you'll discover: Why the most valuable AI applications today aren't about replacing jobs, but augmenting your team's performance—especially in sales, marketing, and customer success How to think about AI not just as a tool, but as a new kind of “employee” that brings autonomy, initiative, and bottom-line results What roles are on the endangered species list, and which skillsets will matter most in the AI-powered workplace Listen now to learn how you can make smarter decisions about AI before it reshapes your team, your tech stack, and your competitive edge. Check out: [06:50] – The Real Business Case for AI Thiago explains how companies are utilizing AI today to achieve practical ROI, such as generating more effective sales follow-ups than top-performing reps. If you've been wondering how AI helps close deals, start here. [24:15] – The Endangered Roles (and the Ones That'll Thrive) A candid look at which job functions are likely to shrink—project managers, content marketers, even product managers—and which new roles AI is creating instead. A wake-up call for leaders planning their org charts. [39:30] – What Will Win the AI Race? Thiago breaks down why the future belongs to AI tools with autonomy, not just clever text generation. This is where the conversation shifts from hype to true competitive advantage. About Our Guest Thiago da Costa is a technology entrepreneur specializing in physics simulation, cloud computing, and AI. He founded Lagoa, which developed a cloud-based mechanical CAD product later acquired by Autodesk and integrated into Fusion 360. While at Autodesk, he led major cloud, data, and AI initiatives across construction, manufacturing, and media entertainment divisions. Thiago holds two patents in collaborative high-frequency data systems and actively invests in startups and late-stage private companies, including SpaceX, Vention, and others. His visionary approach to AI-driven innovation, data management, and the transformative potential of technology in traditional industries continues to shape the future of tech. With a career marked by groundbreaking achievements and a passion for pushing technological boundaries, Thiago da Costa remains at the forefront of digital transformation, inspiring the next generation of tech innovators and entrepreneurs.

Designing an elaborate engine block or cylinder head in CAD is one thing, but actually manufacturing that design is another challenge altogether. In this video, we talk with Gerry from Crest CNC about what it takes to turn complex billet and cast designs into realityUse the code ‘PODCAST500' to get $500 OFF HPA's VIP Package: https://hpcdmy.co/podvipGerry handles CAD design at Crest CNC, creating engine blocks, cylinder heads, and the tooling and fixtures required to manufacture them efficiently. He explains how his early career as a toolmaker led him into CNC machining, CAM programming, and then full-time CAD design. During his time in the UK, he worked at JCB's engine division, gaining critical experience in engine block and cylinder head design fundamentals.For their cylinder head development, Crest CNC work closely with third-party experts such as Cylinder Head Specialists to optimise port and combustion chamber geometry. They use traditional flow bench testing and 3D scanning to bring these designs into CAD before finalising them for manufacturing.Gerry also discusses design for manufacture considerations, often called DFM. Whether working with billet parts or cast parts, understanding machining limitations, tooling aspect ratios, taper angles, and draft requirements is essential. Design for manufacture ensures that parts are not only functional but also practical and cost-effective to produce.If you want to learn more about how advanced billet and cast engine components go from idea to finished product, or how companies like Crest CNC and Cylinder Head Specialists push high-performance design, this interview is packed with insights you can apply in your own engineering or fabrication projects.

Toronto! The biggest city in Canada beckoned with its record shops, high energy and criminally underrated cycling on the islands off shore. With a basketball arena parking spot and my kind of weather, TO was ready to welcome me with open arms… Lake Ontario 2025 - Part 5 🚗 Parking + Arrival in Toronto •Parking garage setup with EV charging — 24 hours for 24 CAD, prime downtown location. •Thoughts on Cybertrucks (spoiler: not a fan). •Quick record shop detour before rolling out. 🚲 Urban E-bike Sprint to the Ferry •Navigating Toronto traffic to make the ferry in time. •First glimpses of the Harborfront Trail and ferry terminal success. ðŸ›³ï¸ Ferry to the Islands •On board the William Lingus (insert SNL reference). •Observations on Toronto Island's regulars and off-season calm. ðŸï¸ Exploring Toronto Island by E-bike •Discovering the island's unique layout — car-lite, license-limited. •Big marina views and rear-view cityscapes. •Moody, Oregon Coast-like weather setting the tone. ☕ Cafés, Birds & Black Squirrels •Coffee shop scouting and parking time calculations. •Noticing Toronto Island's charm: cardinals, fire stations, and disc golf. 📸 CN Tower Skyline Shot of the Day •Photo stop at a postcard-perfect harbor: ducks, loons, and urban backdrop. •Tangent on the CN Tower's claim to fame and photographic techniques. ðŸŒ§ï¸ Light Rain, Green Spaces, and Island Vibes •Embracing the drizzle in classic bike touring style. •Pedal-assist set low to savor the scenery and solitude. •Disc golf, beaches, and lots of benches — the quiet off-season character. 🎡 Amusement Park Detour •Riding through a closed kiddie amusement park and petting zoo. •Peacock spotting and the return of Muppet-inspired names (Kermit Fog, anyone?). •Funnel cake cravings and childhood park nostalgia. 🕠Center Island + Beer Dreams •Discovery of the Toronto Island BBQ and Beer Co. •Harbor views and light snack planning before continuing the ride. âœˆï¸ Quest for the Airport •Meandering west toward Hanlan's Point and the Billy Bishop City Airport. •Geeking out over planes, windsocks, and off-limits fencing. •A side of Toronto most tourists never see. ðŸ³ï¸‍🌈 Historic Discovery: Canada's Oldest Queer Space •Hanlan's Point signage reveals a legacy of LGBTQ+ community since 1971. •Reflections on inclusivity, history, and the spirit of the island. ðŸ—ºï¸ Full Island Traverse & Wrap-up •Realization that the “Toronto Islands” are really one big, bikeable park. •Rain resumes just in time for the ride back. •Cozy Airbnb vibes: lilac trees, woodland cottages, and coffee-fueled reflection. 🚨 Day 4 Reflections •Just 10 miles ridden, but packed with discovery and beauty. •Looking ahead to Niagara Falls and planning the next cycling routes. Statistics Miles biked 10 Closed amusement parks featuring obvious IP theft 1 High temperature in Celsius 12 Records purchased 1 Poutineries visited 1 (a solid 8 stars) Flats 0

This week @adafruit we're prototyping new projects, first up from Pedro is a new 3D printed multicolor sign using LED noodles powered by the Adafruit Current Boost Breakout. From Noe, a new MIDI controller dubbed the MIDI Keyset. Our shop talk segment highlights some CAD apps on the iPad, Shap3r and Nomad. Time lapse this week is in preparation for Halloween, a skull themed doorknocker. Pi Thermal Camera Video https://youtu.be/rG0JHzKA_fA TSP61169 Current Boost https://www.adafruit.com/product/6354 Skull Door Knocker By Spennolio https://makerworld.com/en/models/1535611-pirate-skull-halloween-door-knocker https://youtu.be/24l1jxWi4rI BlitzCityDIY YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbAUKL7V6OOGumQEeDMYQvQ Timelapse Tuesday Fidget Gear Ring By DrJones https://www.printables.com/model/1312158-fidget-gear-ring-v3 https://youtu.be/g_Qu6Nfg8oo Community Makes https://www.printables.com/model/1352000-adafruit-heat-insert-press-without-need-for-heat-i https://www.printables.com/model/1353225-foot-switch-raspberry-pi-picocherry-mx https://www.printables.com/model/1352843-severance-inspired-home-assistant-voice-assistant

In this episode of Manufacturing Hub, we welcome back Pawel Krupa, founder of the Future Robotics YouTube channel, to dive deep into the rapidly evolving world of industrial robotics. With over a decade of hands-on experience integrating and programming systems from Fanuc, KUKA, and others, Pawel shares exclusive insights on some of the biggest changes reshaping robotics in 2025. These changes are not just cosmetic updates; they are being driven by new ISO standards and increasing cybersecurity requirements across industrial automation.We explore the hardware and software changes coming to Fanuc's R-50iA cabinet, including multiple Ethernet ports, enhanced vision systems with built-in lighting, and a groundbreaking integration of Python for native robot programming. KUKA is also undergoing a major transformation with its KC5 slim cabinet and KUKA iiQ OS, a Linux-based control system with new UI, simulation environments, and plug-and-play capabilities. These updates signify a paradigm shift where robots become not only smarter and safer, but far easier to configure, maintain, and upgrade.The conversation expands into one of the most talked-about frontiers in robotics: humanoid robots. Are they just hype or do they have a real role to play in industrial environments? We assess the business case for humanoids, especially in facilities where traditional automation has been financially unjustifiable. From handling tasks like herb sorting in food production to stepping into high-risk environments, humanoids may soon bridge the automation gap in low-throughput, labor-intensive workflows.We also explore how AI is influencing robot deployment, from edge vision systems to cycle time optimization. Pawel outlines how drag-and-drop AI-powered tools are slashing development time for vision systems from hours to minutes, while also lowering the barrier to entry for those without years of machine vision experience. Vision systems that used to require complex calibration and scripting are now being trained on real-time images or CAD models, making robotic integration faster and more accessible than ever.Finally, we close with actionable startup ideas and a bold look into the future of collaborative robots, AI, and hybrid ecosystems of humanoids and industrial arms working side-by-side. If you're in automation, manufacturing, or considering a robotics venture, this episode is packed with strategic insight, technical knowledge, and forward-thinking ideas you won't want to miss.

What if Google had the solution to save 1 billion people... and just threw it away? Let's find out! Google spent 4 YEARS secretly developing a device that pulls safe drinking water from thin air using only sunlight. They proved it worked. They proved it could help over 1 BILLION people without clean water. Then they just... quit and open-sourced everything in 2021.

Build a thermal camera using Raspberry Pi, an MLX90640 and the Pi camera V2. This fuses the Pi's camera feed with a thermal graphic overlay. A Python script features a graphical interface that allows you to control the overlay's opacity and temperature range, and even take screenshots. Code, CAD and assembly instructions: https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-thermal-camera Raspberry Pi 4 - 4GB: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4296 MLX90640 IR Thermal Camera: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4469 Raspberry Pi Camera V3 https://www.adafruit.com/product/5657 EYESPI Pi Beret: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5783 Visit the Adafruit shop online - http://www.adafruit.com ----------------------------------------- LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord Subscribe to Adafruit on YouTube: http://adafru.it/subscribe New tutorials on the Adafruit Learning System: http://learn.adafruit.com/ -----------------------------------------

Build a thermal camera using Raspberry Pi, an MLX90640 and the Pi camera V2. This fuses the Pi's camera feed with a thermal graphic overlay. A Python script features a graphical interface that allows you to control the overlay's opacity and temperature range, and even take screenshots. Code, CAD and assembly instructions: https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-thermal-camera Raspberry Pi 4 - 4GB: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4296 MLX90640 IR Thermal Camera: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4469 Raspberry Pi Camera V3 https://www.adafruit.com/product/5657 EYESPI Pi Beret: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5783 Visit the Adafruit shop online - http://www.adafruit.com ----------------------------------------- LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord Subscribe to Adafruit on YouTube: http://adafru.it/subscribe New tutorials on the Adafruit Learning System: http://learn.adafruit.com/ -----------------------------------------

In this week's episode of the Jewellers Academy Podcast, Jess talks with Mahroz Hekmati, a talented jeweller, enamelling specialist, and core member of the teaching team at the new Jewellers Academy Brighton studios. Mahroz shares her journey from Iran to Canada and eventually to the UK, tracing her transformation from a graphic design student to an award-winning jeweller whose work has been worn by royalty. She shares about the cultural and personal challenges she faced entering a traditionally male-dominated field in Iran, and how key moments like a last-minute enamelling commission reshaped her career path. Whether you're just starting out or are years into your jewellery career, Mahroz's story is filled with practical insights, encouragement, and motivation to keep learning, growing, and showing up authentically in your craft. About Mahroz Mahroz Hekmati is a jewellery designer and maker with over 15 years of experience in the industry. Her work is a fusion of ancient craft and modern technique, combining traditional skills such as enamelling, filigree, and granulation with contemporary CAD design. Inspired by her Persian heritage, Mahroz creates fine jewellery that is both culturally rich and meticulously crafted. She holds a BA (Hons) in Jewellery and Silversmithing Design for Industry and has worked across various roles in the sector, including CAD designer, maker, sales professional, and workshop teacher. Website: https://mahroz.com/ Instagram: @mahrozhekmati   Want to learn in person with Mahroz and our team in Brighton, England? We have everything from taster workshops to one year Diploma courses available. Have a look at what you could learn next! https://www.jewellersacademybrighton.com/

Industrial Talk is onsite at Hexagon LIVE and talking to Greg Holdsworth, with at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence about "Game changing metrology solution". Scott MacKenzie discusses the Industrial Talk podcast and the importance of education, collaboration, innovation, and effective communication in industrial success. He highlights a free ebook and workbook on these elements. At Hexagon Live in Las Vegas, Scott interviews Greg Holdsworth about Hexagon's autonomous metrology suite, which automates measurement processes to improve accuracy, speed, and standardization. Greg explains how the software imports CAD models and generates measurement programs, reducing human error. The technology, used in low-volume, highly engineered products, enhances quality control by validating parts against digital twins. Greg can be contacted via LinkedIn. Action Items [ ] Connect with Greg Holdsworth on LinkedIn [ ] Explore Hexagon's autonomous metrology suite for potential use in high-precision, low-volume manufacturing applications Outline Introduction to Industrial Talk Podcast and Event Highlights Scott MacKenzie introduces the Industrial Talk podcast, emphasizing the importance of education, collaboration, innovation, and effective communication in industrial success. Scott highlights the free ebook and workbook available on Industrial Talk, focusing on the five elements of successful companies. The podcast episode features a conversation with Greg Holdsworth from Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence at Hexagon Live in Las Vegas. Scott encourages listeners to check out the video of the event on YouTube and mentions the upcoming Boston Med Device event in September. Greg Holdsworth's Background and Role at Hexagon Greg Holdsworth shares his 19-year tenure with Hexagon, starting as a contractor in 2006 and joining full-time in 2011. Greg explains his role as the portfolio manager for the autonomous metrology suite, which includes various applications in autonomous metrology. He describes metrology as the science of measurement, essential for ensuring accuracy and precision in manufacturing. Greg provides a brief overview of his career progression from the shop floor to product management, focusing on cloud solutions. Challenges and Solutions in Metrology Greg discusses the challenges of skill reduction in engineering and manufacturing, particularly in niche areas like metrology. He emphasizes the importance of standardization to avoid human error in measurement, especially for parts with critical dimensions. The autonomous metrology suite aims to address these challenges by automating the measurement process, ensuring consistency and speed. Greg explains how the software imports the model and drawing intent, eliminating the need for manual measurements and ensuring accuracy. Technical Demonstration of Autonomous Metrology Suite Greg demonstrates the autonomous metrology suite's capabilities, including the import of CAD models and the generation of measurement programs. He explains how the software decides the most appropriate measurement methods based on the part's geometry and available hardware. The simulation shows the machine's movements and measurements, highlighting the speed and standardization benefits of the autonomous metrology suite. Greg discusses the integration of the solution with CNC machines and coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) for validation and quality control. Applications and Benefits of Autonomous...