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A white suburban mother is abducted during her morning jog. Initially, it seems to appear like a straightforward crime of a violent nature, but the further authorities dig, the more questions they seem to uncover. Lead Investigator: CarterContent Warnings:Current in Crime- mention of hunting, murderSherri Papini- abduction, physical beatings, some torture, racismResources:https://nypost.com/2022/07/04/riaan-naude-trophy-hunter-who-killed-lions-elephants-shot-dead/https://eu.redding.com/story/news/local/2022/03/03/sherri-papini-kidnapping-timeline-arrest/9368973002/https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/watch-dateline-episode-curious-case-sherri-papini-now-n1294768https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherri_Papini_kidnapping_hoaxhttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/sherri-papini-kidnapping-charged-california-b2034558.htmlhttps://abcnews.go.com/US/gma-exclusive-husband-sherri-papini-speaks-familys-ordeal/story?id=43840659https://people.com/crime/sherri-papini-missing-racist-letter-online/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10598701/Ex-boyfriend-hid-Sherri-Papini-abduction-hoax-seen-time.htmlhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10598701/Ex-boyfriend-hid-Sherri-Papini-abduction-hoax-seen-time.htmlhttps://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/sherri-papini-divorce-kidnapping_n_6266aaa8e4b0197ae3f91919https://www.foxnews.com/world/worker-disappears-accidentally-paid-300-times-salaryCLICK for pictures from the episodeTranscript: coming soonFollow us on social media:Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | TikTokWait, For Real?A true crime and paranormal podcast.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show
European bourses are pressured, Euro Stoxx 50 -0.5%, but well off post-open lows amid a gradual pick-up in sentimentStateside, futures are directionally in-fitting but with magnitudes less pronounced with earnings season underway from Tuesday; ES -0.4%USD is bid and in proximity to Friday's 107.79 best (107.75) thus far, with peers pressured and JPY lagging amid BoJ remarksAntipodeans slip on the China COVID situation as Shanghai announces more “high risk” areas, overnight updates on this hit APAC sentiment & commoditiesCore debt has been choppy, as the Bund tests 151.00 at best and leads peersLooking ahead, highlights include US Employment Trends, EZ Finance Ministers Meeting, Speech from Fed's Williams & US SupplyRead the full report covering Equities, Forex, Fixed Income, Commodites and more on Newsquawk
The 150th Open is nearly here, and before daily podcasts with Marcus Buckland begin on Wednesday, we take one final look back at The 149th Open, as Champion Golfer of the Year Collin Morikawa prepares to return the Claret Jug.Initially published last year, the Story of 2021 delves into the action from Royal St George's for The 149th Open, featuring interviews with the likes of Jon Rahm, Louis Oosthuizen, Jordan Spieth, Marcel Siem and the eventual Champion Golfer of the Year, Collin Morikawa.With narration from DJ Spoony, enjoy the wonderful sound of fans and golf again at The Open Championship, with an event that was well and truly worth the wait...This episode has been a co-production from The R&A and IMG. Be sure to subscribe to The Open Podcasts for free on your preferred podcast platform to never miss an episode.
Barbara Thorngren says that she is a steward of the 7-acre property called Avalon, where she has lived for 30 years. Initially drawn by a giant maple tree, there are now chickens, goats, ducks. Since her husband passed in 2016, she has been creating the Barn Studio, a 60x25 space, as a place to make a massive mess, instruments and sound healing. After attending Spirit Seminary, she became an interfaith spiritual minister in 2021, and has invited people into Avalon on spiritual retreats, experiences, a hub. The conversation focused on the importance of connecting with nature, and how healing it can be — and Barbara advised everyone that even a small blade of grass can be the focus. We can be in nature in our imaginations. Check the calendar of Events at www.peacealliance.org - join us at our next Hope Story Circle, and share your emerging stories.
Overview: Today, we discuss Konga, the Nigerian e-commerce company. We'll explore the Konga story across 5 areas: We'll give some context about the Nigerian e-commerce sector Konga's early history Product & Monetization strategy Konga sale Overall outlook This episode was recorded on July 3, 2022 Companies discussed: Konga, Jumia, Naspers, Kinnevik, Jiji, OLX, Amazon, Takealot, Yudala & Zinox Business concepts discussed: Ecommerce, marketplaces, classifieds, fundraising strategy, Blitzscaling risks, market readiness & Africa expansion Conversation highlights: (01:13) - Konga background and why we're talking about it (09:19) - Nigeria background and context (14:00) - Nigeria commerce context c. 2012 (17:00) - Background on Sim Shagaya (29:02) - Konga launch strategy and fundraising (45:55) - Konga monetization (50:51) - Competition with Jumia (1:04:35) - Konga's business lines (1:08:10) - Konga's declining fortunes and sale to Zinox (1:27:00) - Lessons for startups from Konga (1:39:28) - Bankole's overall thoughts and outlook (1:53:57) - Olumide's overall thoughts and outlook (1:57:34) - Recommendations and small wins Olumide's recommendations & small wins: Recommendation: Eboys - Book about the history of Benchmark Recommendation: Different kinds of smart (Morgan housel blog post). Article so good that I subscribed to his entire blog Small win: Listening to 20MinVC episode with Fabrice Grinda (OLX founder) the day after I published Afrobility OLX episode Interested in investing in Africa Tech with Olumide: Read about Adamantium fund & contact me at olumide@afrobility.com Founders looking for funding: If you're a B2B founder working on Education, Health, Finance or food, please contact me for funding at olumide@afrobility.com Bankole's recommendations & small wins: Recommendation: Business Breakdowns Podcast - Amazon Aggregators Small win: in-person meetings with friends at work Other content: Chinese E-Commerce to Surpass 50% of Total Retail Sales | BoF - link Listeners, Operators & Investors: Email info@afrobility.com, we'd love to partner or get your feedback. All episodes on Afrobility.com
In this episode of Smart Energy Voices, host John Failla introduces the opening keynote speaker from Smart Energy Decisions' recent Renewable Energy Forum, Amy Bond. Amy is the Sustainability Sourcing Manager at T-Mobile. In her talk, she presents actionable tips for navigating obstacles to success in implementing sustainability strategies, including her experience in executing Sprint's first virtual power purchase agreement. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in... Sustainability career in 2008 [02:45] Who is T-Mobile? [05:55] Overcoming misunderstandings [07:56] Challenges vs. opportunities [12:41] DiCE platform [15:34] The ability to influence [17:58] Be prepared to lead [22:16] Who is T-Mobile? T-Mobile is America's fastest and largest 5g network and the second-largest telecommunications provider. Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, T-Mobile is supported by about 75,000 full and part-time employees with additional offices in Kansas, Texas, Georgia, and Virginia. The company's mission is to be the best at connecting its customers to their world. T-Mobile is the first and only U.S. wireless company to have set a goal to be 100% sourced for electricity from renewables by 2021, which it achieved. When the goal was established in 2018, less than 10% of its energy would have qualified for RE100. In just four years, T Mobile signed 3.5 million megawatt-hours of renewable energy contracts and spent approximately $3 billion yearly with diverse suppliers. Diversity in Clean Energy Supplier diversity is a business imperative for T-Mobile and a KPI within its procurement organization. After a conversation between Amy and her account manager at Duke Energy, Cheryl D. Comer, they pulled together a two-day business roundtable discussion with Cheryl's other corporate accounts. Those discussions drove the formation of the Diversity in Clean Energy (DiCE) coalition, initially supported by Duke Energy, T-Mobile, Kroger, GM, and Microsoft. The coalition has a visionary outcome to advocate and open doors for diverse-owned businesses that operate within the clean energy value chain. This platform will provide a way for minority business enterprises to elevate and market themselves to clean energy buyers. The platform is interactive and is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2022. Overcoming miscommunication Every energy project has obstacles, and T-Mobile's projects were no exception. One of the most significant obstacles is the miscommunication of a project or initiative. When leading a project within an organization, this issue often occurs due to misunderstanding the information the audience already has. When Amy joined the T-Mobile Energy and Sustainability Team, the company had only one community solar program. Amy thought that approach could be optimized to realize significant savings that could then be used towards purchasing renewable energy certificates. While T-Mobile's portfolio contains many different technologies, geographies, and sizes, there was still a gap between the renewable energy certificates these projects generated and what was needed to meet the company's renewable energy goal. That gap left the company purchasing non-project REC, so why not use community solar savings to offset that cost? Initially, Amy received considerable pushback because the company's previous experience was of lengthy negotiations with relatively small results. So she shifted her focus to finding ways to address these concerns and devised a new strategy that would reduce the execution timeline by more than half. What had taken over a year with one supplier for five projects now took only six months for 32 additional agreements. Reducing the impact of misunderstandings requires listening for pre-existing biases to find workarounds for a project. Resources & People Mentioned Simran Sethi Cheryl D. Comer Duke Energy Beyond the Meter - Episode 17: Collaborating to Drive Diversity in Clean Energy DiCE Connect with Amy Bond On LinkedIn Amy Bond is the former Energy and Sustainability Program Manager for Sprint and is now a Sustainability Sourcing Manager for T-Mobile, where she continues to drive innovation. Amy was named an Industry Leader in Smart Energy Decisions' 2022 WISE (Women in Smart Energy) Awards and was selected as one of the top 100 energy professionals in the country by Environmental Leader. Amy's expertise includes clean energy power and utilities procurement, waste diversion strategies, corporate goal positioning, growing green transportation access, and carbon disclosure leadership. She is also passionate about driving diversity and equity in the renewables value chain. Amy was a founding member of the Diversity in Clean Energy (DiCE) coalition, where she continues to serve on its advisory panel to amplify the voices of diverse suppliers in the clean energy sector. Amy is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a degree in Psychology. She earned her MBA from Baker University and additionally is certified in Supply Chain Procurement, Logistics, and Negotiation. Prior to her sustainability career, Amy was an award-winning weekly newspaper publisher and columnist in Washington State. She has also served as a marketing professional and special events coordinator. Connect With Smart Energy Decisions https://smartenergydecisions.com Follow them on Facebook Follow them on Twitter Follow them on LinkedIn Subscribe to Smart Energy Voices If you're interested in participating in the next Smart Energy Decision Event, visit smartenergydecisions.com or email our Event Operations Director, Lisa Carroll at lisa@smartenergydecisions.com Audio Production and Show notes by PODCAST FAST TRACK https://www.podcastfasttrack.com
Even though a Town Company had organized the small settlement in August 1872, the city was still unincorporated. The town had no elected or appointed officials. A county government had not yet been organized; consequently, there were no courts, jails, or official law enforcement in the region. The closest known law was located in Hays City, over 100 miles away. Initially, there was no law enforcement in the burgeoning settlement, and Dodge City quickly acquired its infamous stamp of lawlessness and gun slinging. As the many buffalo hunters, railroad workers, drifters, and soldiers streamed into the town after long excursions on the prairie; they quickly found the saloons and the inevitable fights that ensued. The men who set up the business decided they would hire protection, and when they did, they found Billy Brooks. Wild West Podcast is proud to present The Return of Billy Brooks: The Lawman who Turned Bad.
1. Gold Trade created equilibrium in the trade deficit. Here's how it worked. Gold leaves the country to pay for the commodity. Since gold leaves credit would have to contract. The economy would recede. Price would become cheaper and gold would enter back into the country as exports of cheap products were purchased by foreign countries with gold payments. The inflow and outflow gold would seek equilibrium. A country experiencing a trade imbalance would accumulate more gold, the surplus would be credit, expanding credit would fuel an economic boom, provoke inflating prices, and inflated prices would slow down exports and import rise. 2. Gold reserves prevented budget deficits. With only a limited amount of credit available to the government, borrowing would drive up interest rates making it more difficult for business to borrow money. The government would crowd out the private sector with its borrowing. Government deficits also tend to result in trade deficits and gold outflows. Initially the government spending would stimulate the economy and import increase inline with the growth of the economy; however, as gold left the country recession pressures would return, gold would leave the country, interest rates rise, and price fall. Recognizing the undesirable effect deficit spending would have on the economy the government would attempt to maintain balanced budget as long as the country was at peace. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/david-nishimoto/message
The Chovot HaLevavot in the Shaar HaBitachon , perek 4, writes that the belief that Hashem keeps track of and rewards every good deed that we do is one of the main, fundamental principles of our emunah. Although our focus in doing the will of Hashem is just that because it's the will of Hashem and not for the rewards, it is still incumbent upon us to believe we will be paid for everything we do. The main reward is in the Next World, but Hashem does pay dividends for many of the mitzvot in this world too. The knowledge that Hashem takes note of everything we do should give us a lot of chizuk . Every good thought we have, every good word we say, every internal victory over our yetzer hara , it's all being noticed and treasured by Hashem. Sometimes we are able to see so clearly how Hashem was keeping track of a deed that we may have done years before, and when that happens, it gives us even more chizuk . A woman, who we'll call Esther, works as a real estate agent. She told me that about 10 years ago she was asked by a client to try and sell her home. A month later, she noticed another realtor was listing the same house and she asked the owner about it. The owner said she wanted two agencies to try and sell it and they would split the commission. Esther then called the other realtor who said he would be happy to split the commission. Both agents ended up trying to sell the home to the same customer. When Esther found out, she backed off and then was delighted to hear some time later the deal was finalized. She called the buyer and asked if her name was on the contract and found out that it was not. She called the seller to ask her about the commission and she said she didn't want to get involved. She called the other realtor asking about splitting the commission which they agreed upon and he said he changed his mind, he was going to take it all for himself. When she hung up the phone she was crying about all the potential money she had just lost. It was not right , she thought; we had an agreement . She called a rabbi and, in the end, she received a partial payment but nothing close to what she was expecting. She gave herself chizuk saying it was all m'et Hashem and then she even managed to forgive the other realtor. About six months after that, the other realtor called Esther asking if he could show one of his clients her listing and they would split the commission if the sale went through. Initially, she was going to say no way, but then she said to herself this was Hashem giving her the opportunity to show that she truly forgave him. She said to him it would be her pleasure. About five years after that, one morning she saw a message on her phone saying that that other realtor passed away. Baruch Hashem he lived a full life. She felt that finding out about his funeral right before it was going to take place was Hashem telling her that she should go. She said to herself, this is my last opportunity to completely forgive him so he doesn't have this debt upon him in the Next World . So she went to the funeral and said, “I forgive you. You don't owe me anything. I completely forgive you.” Recently, someone contacted Esther asking her to find a house in a certain area. There were no homes for sale in that area, but she contacted a few homeowners asking if they would sell. Everyone said no except one woman who said if the price was right, she would sell. Her voice and name sounded familiar. After speaking with her, Esther figured out, this was the same woman who sold that house 10 years before that she was supposed to split the commission on. After much negotiation, a deal was finalized and she now got the commission from that same woman 10 years later. It all started with a random phone call from someone asking her to find a house off the market. That was Hashem giving her what was hers. Ten years later it all came around in full swing. She was so proud of herself for forgiving the other party and acting with emunah, realizing that Hashem was behind it the whole time. And she felt that Hashem is proud of her as well.
“Every now and then I would feel someone sitting on the corner of my bed in the middle of the night. Turns out it was just a spring from inside the mattress that would regularly get stuck and bounce back a few hours later.” Submit your stories: popmediaagency@gmail.com Visit betterhelp.com/redditexplains to talk to a professional about stress, grief, and other mental health needs.Our Instagram page: @reddit_explains
This week we return to the story from two weeks ago, the story of the man possessed by a legion of demons in Luke 8. The passage is not done with us yet as there is still gold to be mined. In it, a man is enslaved in mind, body, and spirit, and Jesus is there to set him free. The freedom Jesus offers, however, is not exactly the surprising part of the story. What is surprising is the man's response. Initially, he pushes Jesus away. He tells Jesus, “Do not torment me,” when in reality it is not Jesus who torments, it is our sin, our anxiety, our fears, our doubts. These are the instruments of evil, and Jesus is here to set us free.
Sid Powell is the CEO & Co-Founder of Maple Finance. Maple is transforming capital markets through technology and count traditional finance and crypto-native firms as customers. Joe McCann guest hosts.00:35 - What is Maple? 01:32 - How does Maple determine Credit worthiness?02:55 - Expanding the addressable market 04:35 - Who uses Maple and how they get started08:18 - Defaulting and the recapture of collateral13:21 - Maple's advantages against challenges lenders face in crypto16:45 - Why use Maple: Governance and growth19:27 - From Ethereum to Solana Integration 23:37 - Maple and Composability 27:13- Partnerships and future initiatives29:56 - Bringing non-crypto folks into DeFi / Partnering with Circle32:33 - Views on Contraction 34:59 - How Maple started and where it is going 39:04 - Monetary policies and how they affect Maple DISCLAIMERThe content herein is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose. Those who appear in the content may have a financial interest in any projects referenced, and any content herein is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. This content is intended to be general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional advisor. Joe (00:09):Hey everybody. Welcome back to The Solana Podcast. I'm your guest host, Joe McCann. And today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Maple Finance CEO and founder, Sid Powell. Sid, welcome.Sid (00:22):Hey Joe. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.Joe (00:24):My pleasure. I've been looking forward to this one. For the folks that aren't necessarily familiar with Maple Finance. Can you just maybe give a brief introduction as to who you guys are and what you do?Sid (00:35):So, Maple is a DeFi lending platform. We think of ourselves as a marketplace for institutional lending. So, the right type of mental model to think about that with is, in the same way that Shopify provides out of the box tooling to run an eCommerce business. What Maple is trying to do is provide tooling to run a lending business that just happens to be on chain. So the way that Maple works at a high level is you have managers of pools, we call them delegates, they'll set up a pool, which is like an on chain lending business or on chain credit fund, people and institutions deposit into that. And then, the manager goes and originates loans to corporate borrowers out of it. So, it's recreating a TradFi credit fund or a TradFi lending business, but doing this on-chain.Joe (01:18):That raises a first question for me, that is, if I'm providing a loan to an actual business, how does Maple go about determining the credit worthiness of that particular business?Sid (01:32):It's a good question. And, what we've tried to do with Maple is be asset light, in that, Maple does not want to be the lender or the balance sheet lender itself. Instead, what we're trying to do is give people who have the expertise to underwrite and assess credit. So I think, people who were in credit teams at financial institutions before, or they might have been in investment banking, but they understand credit and underwriting loans. What they're doing is they would follow a fairly conventional process where they would meet the management of the borrower, assess their financials, so balance sheet profitability, and then enter a loan contract with them, and set commercial terms around it. So, it is replicating a fairly conventional and tried and true process of assessing whether a borrower can repay the loan. It's not really reliant on on-chain determinants of credit worthiness in that respect. Really where the blockchain comes in is actually settlement and management of loans and portfolios of loans.Joe (02:28):Got it. That makes total sense. I mean, you're really saying, "Hey look, TradFi folks that understand how to evaluate credit, and credit risk, and credit worthiness, here's a new avenue for you to do this, which is on chain." And so, does that imply that there's more or less a much larger market for this, or is it more just breaking down the barriers of how TradFi credit funds, or credit debts actually tend to work?Sid (02:55):It's both. I often like looking at business history and one of the things I was always really interested in was the way that when Sony released the Walkman, it actually expanded the addressable market of people listening to music, because they made it more portable and therefore easier to access. And so, I think with this, what we're trying to do is we're breaking down the workflows of running a lending business, but we're making it 10X simpler and less costly to run and operate that lending business or credit fund. And so, I think what that does, it actually expands the addressable market of people who can do credit to businesses, institutions and corporate borrowers. I think that market's really underserved, and I think that's actually going to crimp innovation and entrepreneurship in the economy and in the private sector.Sid (03:41):And so, what we're trying to do is expand the supply of people who can operate and run lending businesses, so that the private sector can get access to more and better credit. And the demand for that is not really being well met by the banking sector today. So I think, there are a few suppliers in the private credit or private debt markets. These would include players like Fortress Group. But I think with this technology, if we're successful, we should see a lot more of those types of players, because it will be significantly easier to set up and run that business. Those businesses will be more profitable to run. And, this is beneficial for the economy.Joe (04:19):And so, how does someone get started with Maple then? I mean, it sounds like there may be a couple of different avenues. I just want to make sure we go through the permutations of the opportunities for, say, individuals or actual companies that want to create this Fortress 2.0, if you will.Sid (04:37):Yeah. So, the central company or user of the platform, that role, we call it a delegate. But that's the manager of a pool. And so, they're, in effect, your lending business that's being conducted on chain. So those types of players, how they would get started, they go through due diligence with us. And then, once they're admitted to the platform, we really want to go through and see what sector they would be lending to, how they would attract institutions or individuals to lend into their pools, and then who on the other side are going to be the borrowers. We want to make sure that it's either a new sector. It's a growing, it's a profitable sector. It's one where there are fairly credit worthy borrowers. We're trying not to get into things that are too speculative. It's not for small businesses and for startups. It's more for established companies that are profitable, that have a great track record, and a big opportunity.Sid (05:31):So, that's one side. And then on the other side, institutions who are going to lend into the platform or individuals. I mean, this could be wealth aggregators, hedge funds, family offices, high net worths. But what they're looking for is a place to park capital and pretty simply earn a yield. That yield is going to be higher than going into things like AVA or Compound, because you're taking credit risk. You are lending to corporate borrowers. And so there is risk involved in that. But, generally these types of players have a fairly long time horizon and they're reasonably sophisticated in their understanding. So, that's lenders.Sid (06:07):And then, the other side is borrowers. Now these are typically corporates who are crypto native at the moment. So, that's the small wedge. If you think about, when you're going to attack a market, you have to start with a wedge. And what we did was started with crypto native companies who are generally market makers, high frequency traders, or arbitrage traders. But, that's one sector within the crypto industry that we can attack first. And then, next we want to look at other sub sectors, which could be infrastructure. So it could be players like Figment, Blockdaemon, Chorus. Could be Bitcoin minors, like Marathon, Core Scientific, any of these publicly listed players, or even large private players. And then beyond that, we want to start to look at SaaS companies. The goal here is not to live solely within crypto. We think crypto is tremendous infrastructure, but it's infrastructure that gives us an edge over traditional finance. And so, that's not really going to be successful until you can actually bridge and replace traditional finance in lending to those sectors.Joe (07:09):Yeah. That's really smart. Spoken like a true founder too. You got to start with your wedge and expand from there. I love that. This raises an interesting point though, today, starting with, say, crypto companies, I think makes a ton of sense. But more importantly, when folks create a pool and then, say, a family office or an institution decides to lend into that pool, what happens if someone defaults, right? So, in traditional finance and I'm definitely butchering this a little bit just to keep it short, but let's assume a business goes to a traditional bank and says, "I'd like to borrow a million dollars for working capital." And they say, "Well, what's your business?" "Well, my business is..." I don't know, "We build warehouses." Or something, right? And they say, "Well, what are you going to pledge as collateral?" Well, maybe they own the land, right, that they're going to build these warehouses on or something.Joe (07:56):In theory, and maybe even in practice, if they were to default on that loan, the lender would then have a legal claim against, say, the land that they pledge as collateral. How does that work? Not only necessarily just in the wedge that you're using with crypto companies today, but as you move towards, call it, infrastructure companies and even potentially SaaS businesses, how does default work in the recapture of that collateral?Sid (08:24):The way that lending began in crypto was largely over collateralized and it was using liquid financial assets, cryptocurrency, to serve as that collateral. And then, the lender would take possession of it, and then liquidate it if it drop below a certain rate, or if the borrower fails to repay. It's now evolved towards under collateralized lending. Certainly most institutions borrow under-collateralized now. And this means really what you're having to do is underwrite and assess the strength of their balance sheet. A lot of people think that this is an aberration, but this is actually most commercial lending.Sid (08:56):So, if you're lending against real estate, that would typically be an asset backed lend. But if you're lending to say Apple or a large technology company, typically they don't have a lot of property plant and equipment. They don't own a lot of land and you're not going to get your money back by being able to sell their land. Instead, what you're looking at is the equity of their balance sheet and the profitability of their business. And so, where this type of lending can evolve would be effectively a secured loan, but the security for that loan would be a charge over that corporate entity. So that's what we're looking at as we expand into other sectors.Sid (09:38):But, I think, to be able to actually serve the broad corporate market and eventually have Fortune 500 companies borrowing through DeFi, you need to get comfortable with that type of risk, which means assessing the balance sheet of a borrower. I will say that, if you take security over a house and a borrower defaults, the foreclosure process is about 18 months. You'll get your money back, but it will take a significant amount of time. So it's not liquid collateral. And anyone who thinks that DeFi lending against those type of assets is going to give them an instant payback if there's a default, is going to be disappointed. But, if you're lending against the assets of a corporate, you want to make sure, ideally, they're not going to default. Your recovery's going to be lower than if you're lending against a house. But, your probability of default is probably also correspondingly lower if you're lending to a large corporate than an individual who just owns a house or a small business, who's pledging a house as collateral.Sid (10:34):You are still lending against effectively the strength of the business and the profitability of the business. But, as crypto goes into other sectors, I can see asset backed loans also playing a role. We would look at real estate backed loans, but currently one of the main issues is that, that requires paper filing in any individual state that you borrow from. So, it's not even 10 years behind, it's 40 years behind in terms of actually having to file security and manage the opposite of that.Joe (11:02):Got it. Very helpful answer. I think, the takeaway really is, "Look, if you're lending money to Apple..." I love that example. "You're not necessarily having them pledge their One Infinite Loop address and ownership of that land as collateral." You're saying, "Look, it's Apple, right? They've got a ton of cash on their balance sheet, or they've got great potential for future cash flows, et cetera, et cetera. We're just taking that to something like Maple's platform and folks can assess." Like you said, it's really up to the lenders to assess the credit worthiness, right?Sid (11:33):One of the innovations that we've tried to build in is that if you're coming to the platform and you want to deposit into a pool, you don't have to be a sophisticated underwriter yourself. What we're trying to build is a way for you to assess that here's a pool that is lending to this risk profile.Sid (11:50):Let's say, mega cap companies based in the U.S., here's the historical performance. It's earned this much in yield. There have been X number of defaults. And then, you have a bio on the management team that is making those lending decisions. And that enables you to decide, "Okay, I'm going to allocate a bit into this pool and maybe a bit into a second pool." Rather than, you having to come to the platform and go, "Well, do I want to lend to company A? Or do I want to lend to company B?" Because, it's not really in most people's expertise or ability to devote that time to doing that. And I think that was why earlier peer-to-peer lending platforms like Lending Club didn't quite take off and achieve widespread adoption, because that model is just super inefficient for both the borrower who's coming to a platform and doesn't know who they can borrow from, as well as the lenders who come to the platform and don't know how to assess whether Apple is going to repay its loan. Apple's probably a poor example, but some other company.Joe (12:48):Well, and speaking of defaults, we would be remiss not to talk a little bit about some of the challenges facing the lending industry in crypto right now, without having to necessarily name names. I think it's pretty well understood at this point that there's been some stress in the credit markets, if you will, when it comes to crypto. Can you talk a little bit about maybe how Maple does or does not "hedge" against that, being more of the facilitator and it's really on the lender's ability to evaluate that risk? Or, are there any sort of advantages that Maple provides that theoretically could have mitigated some of the challenges that some of the lenders in crypto have faced?Sid (13:29):So there's probably three key advantages or differences for doing this in DeFi, which would've been risk mitigants. So, the way that Maple works is you have multiple pools, each pool is a basket of loans that you can deposit into and effectively you're lending to those borrowers on the other side. Number one is that, all of the loans and flow of funds is totally transparent and on chain. So if you go into a Maple pool, you can see who the 25 different borrowers are. So you'd never have a situation where you wake up tomorrow and you find out that a Maple pool was actually lending to a borrower that you had no idea about. And that that borrower was 30% of the pool. So, transparency is risked mitigant number one.Sid (14:05):Number two is that the withdrawals and flow of liquidity is all just governed by smart contracts. So, as cash flows back into the pools, people can withdraw. So, you'd never have a situation where you go and you find that on a discretionary basis withdrawals have been halted. At the moment, liquidity is constrained, but it's purely dependent on just paybacks of the loans, which are coming through over the next 60, 90 days and beyond. And then, element three, as you can see that, there is a reserve for each of the pools. So the reserve is there and it can absorb some of the credit losses. I would say, our reserves in the pools at the moment are probably undersized where they should be on a normalized basis and that's a learning, but conceptually having that reserve on chain, I think, gives people who are lending inter pools and into protocols comfort when they can effectively see the buffer that is available to protect people who are a senior there. Otherwise, contrasting that with more black box CeFi lending, it's just a feature that is not there.Joe (15:08):Weird. So you mean more transparency is actually better for market participants?Sid (15:13):Well, I think, yeah, at this stage with current events, it's a clear argument, yes. I think, where CeFi lending has advantages is obviously in flexibility, having a protocol and being governed by those rules obviously creates inflexibility and slows things down a bit. But, I would say ultimately what we're actually trying to design is a system that is resilient and robust enough to shocks that it doesn't require a bail in, or a lender of last resort concept, because over a long enough period of time, you will see enough volatility that stresses things that rely on a single counterparty. We saw during the GFC, everyone was insured by AIG. Well, when there was an out-sized level of defaults, AIG went bust, then no one was insured.Joe (16:03):That's right. Yeah. It's interesting, I was chatting with a coworker of mine who was at Lehman Brothers during the GFC and he was having a little bit of flashbacks to some of the stuff that's been happening in crypto today with the CeFi-related lending.Sid (16:17):Yeah.Joe (16:17):Let's talk a little bit about Maple itself. So the protocol, this is obviously The Solana Podcast, we're going to get into the Solana integration in a second, but I really wanted to provide the listeners with a fairly solid understanding of the actual product and the business, and also the business of lending. So they could understand maybe what Maple's token is, and what does the protocol do, and how does governance work? So, could you maybe just talk a little bit about if I'm a Maple token holder, and maybe I'm staking Maple, why have this protocol, and what does the governance actually do for the future of Maple's growth?Sid (16:54):It's a good question. And so, the way that the token fits into things is, it can be staked. So, that's the first use. The second is that, when you stake it can be deposited into that pool cover. Pool cover is your subordinate reserve. And so, the purpose that therefore provides is, providing a safeguard and some absorption for credit losses, in addition to being used as the governance token to make decisions on the platform. So, what you would do then, in terms of a workflow, so you might stake it, then you're receiving a portion of the establishment fees.Sid (17:27):So, Protocol Treasury earns about 66 basis points on loan origination volume, and then half of that goes to pay stake tokens. And then, the other element where the stake token participates, is that, if it's put in pool cover, pool cover is paid a portion of the interest. So, generally in most pools, it's about 10% of the interest cash flow. So, if a pool is a billion dollars, paying 10% on average, it's a $100 million in interest, 10% of that, so $10 million would go to pool cover. So it's going to pay effectively for credit protection there. That pool cover is comprised of the token and USDC. In future, we'll just have single-sided depositing of the token.Sid (18:10):But therefore, it receives a portion of revenues for actively participating in the credit protection of the pools and the senior lenders on the platform. So, that's how it figures in the platform both economically and from a risk allocation perspective. And I think, risk allocation is super important, because as I alluded to before, this is one of the ways in which we're trying to fix some of the problems inherent in TradFi lending. So, an alignment of incentives is super important and the pool delegate, so that team of managers who are deciding who are good borrowers, they have to put some of their capital into that subordinate reserve, the credit reserve. And they do that so that if there are defaults, they are among the first to take a hit. And that helps ensure that they are incentivized to maintain pretty good credit standards.Joe (18:57):It's really cool, because there's so many ways that you can participate in Maple. But also, the notion that folks have shared incentives and are aligned is I think one of the most powerful aspects of the protocol, but that raises the question of, "Well, man, it seems like a lot of scope for some engineering talent." Let's dive into a little bit of the tech, not get too deep, but certainly enough to give people an understanding of what it is that you've built, and ultimately why and when you added salon integration? What does that look like for your team? And, what has been the lessons learned from starting on Ethereum, and then adding Solana support.Sid (19:36):Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, looking back at our tech stack that we have on Ethereum. So, we launched the Ethereum version of the protocol in May of 2021. And then, we were steadily growing. So, Ethereum, or the protocol as a whole, has done about 1.5 billion worth of loans to date. It's pretty good for 12 months. But what we looked at as we built out Ethereum... So there's certain things that you really keep in mind when you're developing. So, upgradability was something we debated for a long time, because if you have upgradability, it gives you flexibility. And it means you can move faster, ideally not break things, but it gives you the ability to iterate, but it's less secure, because upgrading a protocol or upgrading a component of the protocol, that's how hacks and exploits can happen. So, we initially traded more on the side of security there and inflexibility.Sid (20:26):Now, as we near launching pools V2, we are thinking about upgradability and how we can have something that evolves. But, it was around late last year, I was actually at Breakpoint Solana in Lisbon, and I was meeting a lot of founders who were coming from TradFi backgrounds and looking at building things on Solana. And, we had been receiving comments from people who were using the platform about the transaction costs on Eth. And so, that prompted us to start looking at, "Could we build on layer twos? Should we evaluate alternative layer ones?" And, being at the conference, yeah, I was very much struck by, one, the level of development in the ecosystem, particularly on the DeFi side. Two, the level of talent that was moving across there. And, a lot of our clients and borrowers, like Alameda, obviously have a lot to do with the Solana ecosystem.Sid (21:13):And so, we started researching who was doing Maple on Solana. We met a team that was called Avari, and then we ended up acquiring them. And that meant that we were able to get live on Solana probably six months ahead of where we would've been. And it gave us access to really good talent in terms of Rust engineering, which was super short on supply. So, for us, it meant, one, speed to market. Two, talent acquisition. And, Jeff and Quinn, the two guys who came on board the team, really aligned with us in terms of values.Sid (21:43):And, it's given us now I would say the advantage of being on two chains is that you can start to build out a differentiated product that ideally isn't cannibalizing what you've already done on Ethereum. It should be meaningfully differentiated. And that's why I've been pretty excited to see things like the launch of the Solana phone, because the more differentiation and uniqueness that we have on the ecosystem that product is built on, the more we can serve a differentiated market, whether if you have something like, SolPay, that starts to introduce tech or SaaS companies into using crypto and blockchain to support their financing, then that's a market we could go and lend to.Sid (22:24):So anyway, that's a long-winded answer. But, that was why we started looking at Solana. And as we're evolving that product, so there's now about 113 million in loans on Solana, Genesis and X-Margin are each running pools there. We're trying to see, how can we build that product to serve either a unique customer base, whether it's like SaaS companies or a unique and differentiated lender?Joe (22:46):Got it. Yeah. The Breakpoint conference last year, I think, was really eye-opening for a lot of folks that were just getting familiar with Solana. And, the response I've heard from most people is that, just the developer activity and the developer acumen, the technical acumen of the developers that were migrating towards Solana was a super strong signal to why they wanted to participate, or in your case support Solana. One of the key features of Solana is this concept of composability. So, the notion that protocols can almost operate as Legos and you can build various things, developers can build various things. Is there a notion of composability with what Maple's doing? Meaning, could developers actually try to build something with Maple powering it, or as a piece of some bigger product, or protocol idea that they may have? Or is Maple more meant to be, "We're a vertically integrated thing that supports Solana's chain"?Sid (23:46):Yeah, it's an interesting concept. It's, do you go the Apple route and you be vertically integrated and control your destiny? Initially, the concept from Maple was for tranche fixed income, but then it evolved to be full stack lending. And that was because DeFi was so early that we didn't really want to be dependent on other protocols to get to market and to grow. And so, we took more of the Apple approach early on. Now as I look at DeFi, one, I think there's actually going to be a contraction in the scope of different products on DeFi for a while. And so, being vertically integrated is strategically pretty good for us, but the counter to the apple approach would be where Microsoft has found itself now, where I think, arguably before they might not have had a stronger set of products outside of Windows and Office.Sid (24:30):But, now when you look at what they've got, they've got GitHub, Teams, Xbox, gaming, Activision. They're actually adding this full suite of things, where when you go into their ecosystem, you have access to all of this. And it's a very interesting product to serve to institutions or enterprises from Microsoft's side. And so, I'm looking at what is within the lending product suite, whether it's yield. So this could include swaps, could include things like credit scores, could include flavor of insurance or credit default swaps, or it could include different types of credit indices. What are the adjacent or complimentary products that would, one, make our product offering stronger, and two, enhance the strength of a product that's trying to partner with us.Sid (25:16):So, credit scores are really a natural one. But, I'd say, at this stage, it is very early on in that space just because people aren't conducting most of their economic activity on chain. But other things like fix for floating swaps, or hedges, I think, are a pretty good complimentary one. It's still very early, but those are the natural ones that I speculate about, because that was what I used to do when I was in banking. We'd also have to go on frequently talk to a swaps desk, or a ratings agency. So I think those would be naturally the first ones.Joe (25:44):Got it. Yeah. There's a conversation that I have with a number of the founders that I advise on their companies about staying very tightly scoped to what you're building, versus opening up almost an API, or a set of SDKs, or a platform if you will. And there's just trade offs to both of those, right?Sid (26:01):Yeah.Joe (26:02):One is that if you are vertically integrated, well, you really control not only your destiny, but you also control the end-user experience, and what that end-user... How they're going to interact with your product/protocol. And that's super important, but it could potentially restrict the potential speed of the growth of what you could be doing in these adjacent areas like you're describing. Whereas, if you, say, theoretically, open up a platform with APIs and SDKs for developers to build on, you're not necessarily controlling that end-user experience, and that could be potentially detrimental to the brand of Maple, assuming someone has a poor experience. But, it's a great trade off to make, right?Joe (26:40):And I think, staying the course of what you guys have done thus far, the fact that you're even thinking about CDSs or credit scores. I mean, one of the questions that came to mind earlier was, if you're bridging a lot of what happened in TradFi, are we going to start to see a ratings agency? Are we going to start to see the CDOs and CDO squares, and for the listeners that may not know what that is, it's a collateralized debt obligation that could then also have various tranches associated with it, which unfortunately led to a big portion of the global financial crisis. And we don't necessarily want to recreate that. But I guess, from my perspective, how do you think about that roadmap that you're doing. And, where are you going to be doubling down, or are there other areas where you want to partner with folks? And, how do you think about that going forward?Sid (27:24):Yeah, I actually think about a lot. I mean, we get a lot of inbound interest in partnerships, because I feel like we've been around a little while and we've demonstrated a certain amount of traction. So that's good. But then, a big question becomes how do you decide and prioritize amongst those opportunities? And what I try and think about now is... I think, a big focus for us is which opportunities get us fastest out the gate in terms of serving non-crypto native customers right now. So there's a certain question of, how much do you want to be doubling down serving crypto native borrowers, versus say, leaping out and serving SaaS companies? And to serve SaaS companies, the types of product integrations that you might need, or just any customer outside of crypto, would be things like on and off-ramps.Sid (28:07):Now, that's a really intensive product development on the legal and compliance side. It's actually pretty simple build, but it starts to become a strategic question of, "How much effort do we want to devote to something like that, versus say, evaluating an alternative L1 or going to an L2?" I think, the scale's probably tipped in favor of looking at how quickly you can get out and serve just a wider set of customers. And I would say, part of our role at this stage is trying to educate people who are not actually in crypto already, and try and bring them into crypto and into DeFi, rather than bringing DeFi to them. Instead of evangelizing about it to the people who are already in crypto. I think what we're trying to do is just demonstrate a very workable product to people who are not already in there and wow them with what we think the huge benefits over doing this through the traditional financial system.Joe (28:57):I mean, look, I love the notion and the approach of trying to get a lot more non-crypto people into DeFi. I think, one of the things that I look for when I talk to founders or folks that are in the ecosystem... And I know that Anatoly and Raj did the same thing, and the Solana lab team more broadly is like, "How can we get more and more users that aren't already in the space?" And, there's a couple ways that you can do that. One is, you can build an amazing product that's very easy to use. Easier said than done.Sid (29:29):Yeah.Joe (29:29):But the second is some partnerships. And, what brought this to mind for me was I think when we met in-person, it was at a dinner that Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle put on. Could you maybe talk a little bit about how maybe the Circle is an example of how you're thinking about levering someone in this space that is absolutely doing God's work out there, working with institutions and folks trying to get them into crypto and DeFi? Jeremy's done an amazing job of doing this with USDC and what he's been doing at Circle. So I'd love to get your take on if Circle is an example of how... Or someone that you would partner with to help accelerate some of those non-crypto native people into DeFi.Sid (30:08):Definitely. So, Circle, as you said, is a great partner. So, the pools lend on Maple in USDC, which is the vast majority of the lending that's happening on the platform, and also wrapped Eth. But if we look at USDC, this is absolutely essential infrastructure, I think, for DeFi, because having this secure stable currency in a digital form, which we can then distribute loans to corporate borrowers, as well as companies who are coming into DeFi and looking to earn a yield, are wanting that yield in stable coins. But, where Circle has been tremendous, and I think where there is a huge opportunity to grow is, one, there is the Circle yield product, which could potentially be integrated with Maple and a partnership there would offer people access to yields coming through the platform. What they've actually done really well, which is underrated is, the front-end of the Circle treasury and USDC product has, I think, the best off-ramp in the market.Sid (31:05):So, we use it for our own corporate treasury management and when we have to pay things in fiat. And, having that product, that's a really good Trojan horse, that if a regular non-crypto company starts using that, they have a seamless on and off-ramp through which they could access a product like Maple. So, I could lend to a company and let's say that company is doing SaaS, or it's a FinTech business, or even a business in real estate or construction. So, if we could lend USDC to that company, then they could take that through the Circle front-end, convert it into fiat, and then use it to pay vendors, suppliers, salaries. And so, I think, the growth and proliferation of stable coin usage is super essential and it's going to precede wider adoption of DeFi, because it's a necessary part, it's key, picks, and shovels for the space. But I'd say that's how the Circle partnership is super important for us.Joe (32:03):Yeah. The folks at Circle are great. I have nothing but positive things to say about them as well. And, there are other partners in this space that I think have been super helpful as well to DeFi adoption. As you think about these partnerships... What struck me earlier about when you said you think there's going to be a contraction in DeFi, how does evaluating how Maple is going to play in this space relative to the potential contraction that you're seeing? So, maybe to unpack this a little bit, can you talk about maybe your view on the contraction and how that may or may not influence how you want to go out and partner with folks to bring on those call it a 100 million new users into DeFi.Sid (32:46):The contraction is happening broadly across all risk on assets. So, people are going risk off for crypto for equities. And, what's happening is that because crypto is a much smaller market, the outflow is felt more acutely. But we've seen out general outflows from crypto and DeFi lending as a whole. And, what it's forced us to do is probably consolidate around a core working product. So, in this case, it's probably caused us to, say, push out potential partnerships that are maybe less clear in their scalability, because it's a bird in the hand, two in the bush. So, if you have a customer set that is working and partnerships that are working, you have to be more circumspect and conservative in the new ones, because you probably have less bullets. And so, what the pullback is forcing us to think about is, if we wanted to go and target a new set of borrowers, who is a new set of borrowers that we could potentially sell to lenders who would need to deposit into the pools that are lending to those borrowers?Sid (33:46):So, it forces us to think about matching and extending the markets that are offered on the platform, i.e., the pools that are offered on Maple. And, in terms of integrations, it forces us to concentrate more acutely on what partnerships, for example, Circle as well as off-ramps will help us extend our reach to serve customers who are outside of crypto. So things like credit scores, you have to be a little bit more conservative about, because probably the next six months, there's not going to be as much on chain activity. And so, the amount of value you could get out of, say, an on chain credit score is probably diminished for the next six months. It's not that it wouldn't work eventually. It's just that, probably that goes down your priority list in the near term.Joe (34:33):Got you. Yeah, that makes total sense. Can we talk maybe a bit about your company? We've been talking so much about DeFi, and of the product, and this and that. I probably should have asked this at the beginning of the podcast, but can you maybe just talk a little bit about the company? How old the company is? And, where you're located? Potentially remote, like most modern companies. And, what does the the roadmap look like for folks you want to bring on or folks that you're looking to add to the team? The reason I bring this up is that a lot of folks that tend to listen to the podcast are very passionate about participating in the Solana ecosystem and are interested to hear about how companies started and where they're going.Sid (35:13):We have an interesting structure. So, two segments, we've got the DAO, which raised capital. And the DAO is effectively governing the protocol and it has a multisignature that will implement any major changes, deploy new contracts. And then, we've got the operating company, which is employing developers, conducting business development and marketing. And so, that's domiciled out of Australia. And that company receives grants from the DOW, which cover operating costs and cash burn on a quarterly basis. And I suppose with those two segments, it's worth noting, so most of the team is remote. They tend to be based out of the US, Canada, UK, and Western Europe. We try to aggregate everyone around not too many time zones, so that it was easy to coordinate calls when I was living in Australia. I used to have to do 4:00 AM calls most days.Joe (36:02):Brutal.Sid (36:02):Yeah. But, we've got about 36 people at the moment. And so, we were hiring more aggressively. I think in current market conditions, we paired that back a little bit, but we are still hiring. So, if there are good people out there who want to join a team, we are looking for a couple of engineering roles at the moment. We're looking for a capital markets associate for anyone who is in TradFi or investment banking, and looking for a change into crypto. Never a better time to do it. And so, I actually want us to run a pretty lean model. So I think, me and my co-founder have always been of the opinion that you add people on the basis of jobs that need to be done, rather than just headcount for headcounts sake.Sid (36:42):And so, I've definitely been inspired by the FTX model there in terms of how much they've been able to ship for how lean they are. I would say, we've actually developed a sales team, operations marketing, as well as product engineering and design. So, we are a fairly complete core. And so I think, there are potential roles on the team for someone in sales, design, or engineering, if there are good people out there. Yeah, that's where we got to at the moment.Sid (37:13):But in terms of roadmap, the roadmap for us is we're launching pools V2. So there's a really complex engineering ask there. And, the team is doing a lot of research. And particularly with the market events of recent market volatility and some of the points and implosions we noted in the CeFi side, we're trying to take learnings and incorporate them into pools V2.Sid (37:37):So this would include things like, how to have a better withdrawal mechanism? How to have better cover support, i.e., credit protection, because people are really more acutely concerned about that. And that's something that probably wasn't a big market focus six months ago. And then, better asset liability matching, which is that point I made about sustainability of a lending business. You can't fund term loans without call deposits. And so, we just want to get better about matching those up.Sid (38:05):But then, on Solana, what we're focused on at the moment is things like open term loans, active collateral management. These are the types of things that we think is going to be super interesting tooling to bring more CeFi businesses onto DeFi rails. So I think, we recognize that is a core customer set of ours. And it's like, "How do we build the tooling that means that you would want to run a multi-billion dollar lending business on top of DeFi rails?"Joe (38:30):Wow, fascinating. And man, could we use that? If there's anything that we learned, I think, this year thus far is, self custody is definitely going to be a key thing going forward.Sid (38:40):Self custody is king.Joe (38:41):Yeah. Well, look, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. I have one last question for you. And, we will absolutely hold you to it long-term. You've been talking a lot about lending and there's an interest rate associated with those loans in the United States. And, I think some of the other central banks are following suit. We've been raising interest rates. So, how do you think a little bit about competing with some of the broader interest rate markets and something that Maple can actually provide? Does that actually factor in? How do you think about, I guess, monetary policy from central banks relative to the business that Maple's building?Sid (39:20):For a really long time rates on crypto were outside rates in, let's call it, the real or traditional economy. And that was because there was a lack of liquidity there. Then, what we saw, rates and traditional economies started to go up, but because there was actually more supply coming through, particularly earlier this year, we actually saw rates drop. And so, the delta between TradFi and DeFi/CeFi rates really compressed. Now, we've seen with the implosion of liquidity... Liquidity has totally dried up. We've seen rates go way wider again.Sid (39:54):So rates now blowing out to mid-teen levels, you can probably clear in crypto and DeFi. I'm a big student of financial history. And I look back at the last time that inflation was this bad, which was probably the Volcker era. And, cash rates got up to double digits to break the back of inflation. And I'm interested, because I still think that lending rates in the traditional economy are sub-inflation. And therefore, everybody who's lending in the real economy is still earning a negative real rate of return. Whereas, in crypto, at least you're earning a rate that clears inflation. But I'm interested to see, and I wouldn't be surprised if rates continue to go up in the cash rates and the TradFi economy up to high single digits. And then, in DeFi and crypto that probably pushes them close to high teens. And yeah, I wouldn't consider that out of the ordinary. I think, people assume that because we haven't seen that in 20 years that that's not possible, but I would say, in the 60s, rates were pretty normal low single digits. And in the 80s, inflation was double digits, so.Joe (41:00):So basically, to wrap it all up, you're saying, crypto rates will be clearing inflation, whereas the real economy, likely not so.Sid (41:10):Crypto you can't have that distortive effect of the central bank, where you have people who are lending out at negative real rates, because they're below inflation. I think, in crypto, there is a demanded risk premium. And, it's a more pure form of capitalism, I would say, where people are going to price rates so that they can clear a real positive rate. So I'd say, with supply inflows being limited, I'd say that effect is more exacerbated. So I probably expect to see the spread between crypto and TradFi actually widen over the next 12 months.Joe (41:44):Very cool. Well, we will absolutely hold you to that. And in 12 months, we will verify that you were correct. Sid, this was a great conversation. Thanks so much for sharing your story with Maple. And, if folks want to find you and Maple online, where should they look?Sid (42:01):So you can go to our website, maple.finance. That's where you can find the web app, any news and updates. If you're active on crypto Twitter, you can find Mapl @maplefinance. And you can find me @syrupsid, both one word. If anyone wants to reach out, happy to make contact with them.Joe (42:17):Great stuff. Thanks, Sid. Well, it was an awesome conversation. It was such a great time hosting The Solana Podcast again. My name's Joe McCann. I'll see you guys next time.Sid (42:26):Thanks, Joe.
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I'm a senior software engineer at a fast growing software startup. In the past year and a half that I've been with the company I've gone through 5 reorgs and have had 5 different managers in 4 different teams. Each time I sit down to do a 1 on 1 with a new manager they ask about my career goals and aspirations. Initially, when I joined the company I was a weak and feeble non-senior software engineer. When I was asked this question then, my answer was “to learn and grow, and have more authority and autonomy over the systems that I build, and be considered a senior software engineer”. Over the past year and half I have proven my worth and paid my dues and got the title of senior software engineer, along with the pay raise that came with it. My career development horizon has not been very broad. I didn't even know there were levels beyond senior software engineer for a long time. I feel like I'm missing out on growth opportunities by not having a clear answer to this question. Please help! Love your show, keep it up. I career switched via a coding bootcamp 3 years ago and have been at my current company ever since. The bugs created by my garbage code from the early days made me a big believer in clean code practices — I now feel strongly about using descriptive variable names, avoiding duplicate code, etc. However, my boss/CTO is on the opposite end of the spectrum. As long as the code works, he doesn't care what it look like. I want to stay at this company because I strongly believe in the product and I love the flexibility of a small start-up, but my boss and I keep bumping heads. For example, we recently switched over to PRs, and each PR my boss has made included blatant violations of the coding standards document we created together (!). When I request changes on the PR, he says he'll do it but it isn't a good use of our time to rewrite it when the code works. My question is two-fold: (1) As the most senior engineer on the software team, how can I go about promoting a quality-driven approach when the CTO doesn't see the value in it? (2) If all else fails, I'm open to quitting, but I don't want to end up the same boat. During interviews, what questions can I ask to find out if the company truly values code quality?
Today's guest is Emma Hindmarsh from Murad Skincare Australia Since arriving on Sydney's Northern Beaches 14 years ago, Emma has worked with all major Australian retailers; department stores, pharmacies, e-tailers, grocery businesses and pure-play cosmetics enterprises. She's nurtured businesses, propelled innovation and launched brands across the globe and across sales channels. Her latest role as Country Director for Murad Skincare Australia has seen Emma wearing all of the hats! Initially running every channel and customer touchpoint for Murad Australia, she has since appointed a team of skilled professionals to take over implementation, leaving her free to build strategy, identify partnerships and accelerate a profitable business, achieving the elusive break-even 3 years in advance of plan. Emma is passionate about sharing her insights with salon partners, to identify actionable steps to building a memorable brand and financially viable business model through branding, wording and the consistency of your message. If you're looking to make branding changes in your business, to embrace the endless (but overwhelming) possibilities of Social Media and to embark on some basic google activity then stay tuned for this discussion with a marketing mastermind, from Murad Skincare Australia, today we welcome Emma Hindmarsh. This episode of the Beaute by ABIC podcast is brought to you by Murad Skincare Australia. Beaute by ABIC Podcast is an independent podcast that operates with the support of our listeners (that's you!) So if you would like to support the show, we would very much appreciate that. Hit ‘subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or ‘follow' on Spotify, and leave a review if you're feeling especially generous and please follow us @aestheticbeautycouncil --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/beaute-industrie/message
Today we are joined with Jim Horacek. Jim is a former CIA counterterrorism manager and analyst. Initially joining the CIA as a Soviet-focused political analyst, after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, Jim volunteered to join the new Office of Terrorism Analysis in the Counterterrorism Center where he spent the bulk of his career. Jim is a personal friend of Mike Croissant (#203), and primarily spent his time in the CIA focused on the Iraq War, writing sections of Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the UN. We discussed the state of Iraq's weaponry and disposition before the war kicked off, as well as Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's association in both Iraq and with Al-Qaeda. Jim has a tremendous amount of first-hand experiences during a very emotional, fast-paced time in American foreign policy.
I am often asked how to “stop” fear or stop thoughts. People that recognize that they are in the bad habit of automatically treating thoughts, fear, and symptoms as emergencies become desperate for “tips” on how to stop doing that. It all feels so automatic and uncontrollable and they can’t see how to prevent all of that.Here’s news. It is totally automatic. You have hard wired circuits in you that are designed to declare an emergency swiftly and loudly when a threat it detected. This is what humans do as a matter of course. That’s not a problem.In the event that I experience panic - which can happen maybe a few times a year for me - that first flash of total panic and absolute fear IS AN EMERGENCY. I can’t make it not be. I have no control over those circuits. They are there for a reason and I kinda like that they are. So for the first minute or so, everything absolutely feels like an emergency and I feel compelled to take evasive action.This is not wrong. This is not a problem. This is to be expected. You can’t just decide to stop reacting in this automatic way. Initially, you WILL feel the fear, you WILL knee-jerk in response, and you WILL feel very strongly that you need to engage with this emergency to mitigate it. You might even begin to do that. Maybe you run to your car or pick up the phone to start to call for help. All expected.The magic happens once you come to the realization that you are doing all that. It’s not my first moment of panic that defines my recovery. It’s all the moments after that. That’s where the change is. That’s what defines your recovery, wherever you may be along that path.Go ahead and startle. Go ahead have the initial “OMG!” thoughts. Start running for the exit. You can’t help that. But at some point you know what you’re doing, and at that point you have choice, and therefore power (thank you. Dr. B!). Not immediate power and the choices are not easy to make, but there is choice and power nonetheless, and that is where we find change and progress.So if you are desperate to find ways to change your initial reaction to anxiety, thoughts, symptoms, or fear, give yourself a break. You don’t need to squash or extinguish that first minute reaction. You can’t win that battle. But it’s not the first minute that matters. It’s the minutes after that. Focus your efforts there, because you can be successful there, and that is where you can start to see a difference over time.Practice recovering in the second minute, and the third. That’s where things really happen.“I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.” - PlutarchEvery Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Jim Scheller's vessel designs are informed by simplicity and abstraction. His work is inspired by Neoplasticism and the artists of that period, beginning with the De Stijl movement of the early 20th century. Always a scientist, he is fascinated with exploring the processes that use heat and gravity to bring his designs to life in glass. Initially introduced to glass kilnforming in a 2012 Bullseye workshop, Scheller shifted his professional focus following a long and enjoyable career as an engineer and technologist working with creatives worldwide in the athletic footwear and apparel industries. Experimenting and learning about art and glass as a medium quickly became his passion – a transformation he describes as being “taken hostage by kilnforming glass.” Scheller further developed his technical and artistic abilities in 2014 and 2015 at the Professional Kilnforming Residency at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. Gracious mentoring from many of the best artists and friends – such as Steve Klein and Richard Parrish – further encouraged and refined Scheller's goals as a glass maker. Early vessel forms were exhibited in For the Love of Glass, at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, Atlanta, in 2017. After two decades on the Chehalem Mountain outside Portland, Oregon, in 2018 Scheller moved his home studio to the Illinois prairie near his son Phillip, where they make decorative kiln formed glass art. Macoupin Prairie Glassworks is located in Staunton, Illinois, near the artist's childhood home of Mt. Olive, a small town on old Route 66 halfway between Springfield and St. Louis. There, Scheller takes great pleasure in pushing kilnforming limits and developing new techniques. His works are composed with glass sheets, crushed glass (frit), and glass slabs (billets), then fired to over 1400 degrees F. Fired works are extensively cold worked to achieve the final finish. Number 11 of his series studying the art of the line in composition on the deep vessel shape was recognized in the Bullseye Challenge: Reactions, May 2021. https://bullseyeglass.submittable.com/gallery/99555feb-2f47-445f-8877-26ce12b4f6d2/19356258?fbclid=IwAR0O1XOqpXfRGNoBWRvj70p0HMCeSU7-Greq61nwNTPsHN_t0sKjVhhchow Click on Scheller's name for image of his honorable mention piece, https://bullseyeglass.submittable.com/gallery/99555feb-2f47-445f-8877-26ce12b4f6d2/20031801/ Scheller's current Ancient Ring series has attracted great interest both at his galleries and on his social networks. From April 28 through July 4, 2022, Quad City Arts' Art at the Airport presents glass art vessels by Scheller, acrylic sculptural paintings by Sally Havlis of Chicago, Illinois, and sumi-e paintings by Karen Kurka Jensen of North Liberty, Iowa. Vessels in this exhibition are inspired by the work of early 20th-century painters Mondrian, Gorin, Kandinsky, Klee, Tauber-Arp, and van Doesbur. For more information: https://www.quadcityarts.com/art-at-the-airport.html Scheller's Ancient Rings 13 has been accepted into the St. Louis Artists' Guild “Constructed Visions IV” biennial, held July 1 to August 6, reception on July 1 from 5 – 7 p.m. https://www.stlouisartistsguild.org And Philabaum Glass Gallery in Tucson, Arizona, will exhibit Scheller's work beginning February 4, 2023. https://www.philabaumglass.com Says Scheller: “The engineer, immersed in the process of making, joins glass, heat and gravity to create works inviting one to view the once molten glass in a dance of light and color.”
Part 2 of PPIHC is another double-header! First: Rhys Millen and Joey Seely explain their secrets to being fast, the 1300HP 911 they're campaigning, and a bit of Rhys' history at the mountain. Plus, Rhys' weird tire secret. Then, we hop in an MDX with Acura's lead factory driver, James Robinson, who gives us a turn-by-turn tour of the mountain. He points out specific challenges, turns, driving lines, and talks about the event in general, how he started, and his NSX. Rhys Millen is one of the best drivers on Earth. He holds trophies from Formula D, and Global Rally Cross. He set his first Pikes Peak record in 1997 in a Toyota Supra. He was King of the Mountain (overall winner) in 2012 and 2015, set the EV record in 2016, and set the SUV record in 2018. He's also won at Baja, knows how to setup a car, and as we find out, has a weird secret with tires. Joey Seely was a co-founder of BBI Autosport. 6 years ago he struck out on his own to open Emotion Engineering. Initially, he focused on chassis/suspension setup. He was the lead engineer for Jeff Zwart's PPIHC efforts several times, including with the ultra-rare 935. But as former racing engineer, Joey knew he could go bigger. Over time he's developed his own parts, brake pads, and engine builds, all culminating in this incredible Pikes Peak effort with Rhys Millen. Head to https://www.Policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. Berryman Products. All-American Made since 1918. Berryman is Available at your favorite automotive retailer or automotive parts store. https://www.berrymanproducts.com. To thank you for being such a loyal listener, we're partnering with Freedom to give you an exclusive 20% off when you go to https://www.freedomgrooming.com/tire Download the FREE Upside App and use promo code smoking to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more. Want your question answered? To listen to the episode the day it's recorded? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Tweet at us! https://www.Twitter.com/thesmokingtire https://www.Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman Click here for the most honest car reviews out there: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire Want shorter podcasts? Subscribe to our new CLIPS channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD4WGV-W5zD1MK4yHbNGwmw
Have you been wondering what your henna career could look like one year out if you started today? In this episode of Hennapreneur, host Chelsea Stevenson is joined by two professional henna artists, Shawna Junior and Kate Blaubach to talk about their experiences early on in their careers and where their businesses are now. Before going into the henna business, Shawna worked as a flight attendant, but she wanted a more flexible career. Initially, she started to work toward becoming a doula, but while doing that, she wanted to add additional services that would make pregnant women feel beautiful. This is how she found henna. Kate's full time career in healthcare also kept her busy. She realized she could be putting the same effort into her own business. Both Shawna and Kate share that the keys to success were having a solid customer service foundation, finding the hennapreneur community, utilizing Chelsea's accelerator class, being consistent, and believing in themselves. Tune into this week's episode of Hennapreneur for a conversation with host Chelsea Stevenson and special guests Shawna Junior and Kate Blaubach. Listen in as they share their individual journeys to becoming henna professionals and what they've been able to accomplish in a relatively short period of time. Quotes • “My whole plan was that Henna is just something for me to do until I go back to work. And then, when I was practicing, I felt like I was getting really good at it and I was liking it. And then the thought of me replacing my income with it started teasing me.” (11:37-11:51 | Shawna) • “When I put in that hard work, and I put in that good work, I instantly see results. And so I just need to buckle down on being consistent. And I know, then my results will be consistent.” (42:04-42:18 | Kate) Links The Accelerator: https://www.hennapreneur.com/accelerator/ Southern Henna: Website: https://www.southernhenna.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southernhenna/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southernhenna/ Henna North: Website: https://www.hennanorth.com/, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hennanorth Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hennanorth Hennapreneur Community (Facebook Group): https://www.hennapreneur.com/community Hennapreneur Website: https://www.hennapreneur.com Hennapreneur Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hennapreneur Hennapreneur Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hennapreneur.official Hennapreneur YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/hennapreneur Watch the 5 Biggest Mistakes New Henna Artists Make (And How You Can Avoid Them!) Training: https://www.hennapreneur.com/biggestmistakes Download Chelsea's Fool-Proof Natural Henna Recipe: https://www.hennapreneur.com/hennarecipe
“No matter what I believe to be true, there always seems to be another side to the question. If you were to put me to the torture, I'd probably confess that this is my analytic ideal: to consider the question from as many relevant perspectives as the mind can hold.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, Nat, Neil, and Adil talk about their key takeaways from The Revolt of the Public by Martin Gurri. With technology giving us access to more information than ever, the overall trust level between the public and the governing elite is at an all time low. We cover a wide range of topics including: The relationship between sources of information and their level of authority Nihilism resulting from a lack of trust in authority and the current system How cancel culture may keep people from taking action on their passions Power relations between the elites and the public The move from criticizing people to criticizing the systems themselves And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode. Links from the Episode: Mentioned in the show: NASA Begins America's Mars Exploration Approach (30:08) Palmer Luckey - All In Summit (30:41) Anduril (30:55) Manhattan Project (33:38) IRB (34:53) Ben Shapiro's on cancel culture (40:56) National Enquirer (42:02) Nat's thread on taking action (43:25) Roe v Wade (48:31) Occupy movement (55:33) V for Vendetta (1:00:24) Pocket Casts (1:24:34) Stitcher (1:24:34) Books Mentioned: Revolt of the Public Seeing Like a State (0:53) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Fourth Turning (9:03) (Book Episode) The Dictator's Handbook (1:11:33) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) The Iliad (1:17:39) Chaos Monkeys (1:25:50) People Mentioned: Alex Jones (15:01) Dan Carlin (15:06) Joe Biden (19:14) Donald Trump (19:30) Joe Rogan (21:21) Elon Musk (23:44) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (25:53) Nassim Taleb (29:56) Jason Calacanis (30:50) Neil Ferguson (38:44) Ben Shapiro (40:37) Jeff Bezos (42:00) Greg Abbott (45:30) Beto O'Rourke (52:00) Andrew Yang (52:13) (Episode #47, #48) Antonio García Martínez (1:25:50) Show Topics: 0:43 In today's episode, Nat, Neil, and Adil are discussing Revolt of the Public by Martin Gurri. This will wrap up our crypto series, and if you're interested in more like this, be sure to check out some of our previous episodes! 4:02 Adil goes over some of the core ideas of the book, with one of them being the relationship between sources of information and their authority. When there's fewer sources of information, each source has greater authority. So if there's only one source, they are the sole authority. There's been an increase on news sources, and with so many sources, it opens up more opportunity for contradiction between them. 7:10 Negation; Many elections have been won by negation rather than inspiration. As we gain access to more and more information, it can become harder to trust authority. There's a need for a new system of trust and authority to emerge that can exist within this hyper-access to information we have. 12:09 In the Choices section of the book, there were two parts: 1. What individuals can do 2. What government can do. Gurri frames our current paradigms around authority as being emergent from the Industrial Age. When the public needs answers, they turn to institutions rather than individuals. "That passive mass audience on which so many political and economic institutions depended had itself unbundled, disaggregated, fragmented into what I call vital communities: groups of wildly disparate size gathered organically around a shared interest or theme." 16:33 How can you influence people in a subtle way? Adil makes a pyramid analogy, where the elites are at the top and the public is at the bottom. The elites are interested in increasing the distance between the top and the bottom, however the author argues that in order to succeed in the age of the Revolt of the Public, you actually need to reduce that space. "The quality that sets the true elites apart – that bestows authority on their actions and expressions – isn't power, or wealth, or education, or even peruasiveness. It's integrity in life and work. A healthy society is one in which such exemplary types draw the public toward them purely by the force of their example. Without compulsion, ordinary persons aspire to resemble the extraordinary, not superficially but fundamentally, because they wish to partake of superior models of being or doing." In the Industrial Age, it was common to believe that politicians and CEOs were super-people, but as we got more access to information, we became more aware that people aren't super-people, and that everyone is human. 20:46 It's not a matter of whether elites are good or bad, there's tradeoffs to having a society that leans more towards the elite side vs. public side. 26:37 The last chapter of the book is an updated edition, speaking on Trump and how he is in a way, the ultimate nihilistic politician. Reducing your distance from the public as a political figure helps you sell your story more. It's also about the way that you tell your story. Failing governments vs. failing companies- What's the difference? 32:34 Lack of big national projects in our lifetime. One big project was the Covid vaccine, but it wasn't the government that implemented this project. 33:59 The threshold for what's acceptable in research has changed since the 1970s, so there's a lot of work that we wouldn't be able to do now that may have been allowed decades ago. A lot of what politicians and other public figures do is almost immediately knowable due to technology and the speed at which news travels. A possible consequence of this could be fear of taking action. When we get to a point of wanting to take action, we may worry about things that we've done in the past that would be resurfaced. 40:03 Cancel culture. If you want to become a positive leader, negative things coming out can hurt you. By acknowledging your faults or even getting ahead of it, you can deflate some of the claims made. 43:04 Many people don't take action on something that they're passionate about. By posting about it, it takes away the felt need to act on it. It feels as if you've already acted on it, and the job is done. A protest may not convince people to change their mind that much, but a lot of the power comes from reminding politicians that they work for us, and also serves as a release of anger. Democracies have led to this tendency for politicians to promise more than they can deliver, and the public will vote for the politicians that promise to deliver the most, regardless of the amount of faith they have that they can execute those promises. 48:05 There's room for either political party to step up and bridge the gap on big issues, especially with with the recent Roe v Wade decision. 53:04 Covid's role in the Revolt of the Public. It changed our relationship with government authority. During this period of time, for many people it was the first time they really felt the presence of government in their life. 55:27 The book has a section about mass protest movements in the US and Europe. The citizens taking place in the protests are generally in the middle or upper-middle class, college-educated, and not actually the ones struggling in society. 59:10 Nihilism as a threat to democratic institutions. As institutions leak credibility and legitimacy, the blame shifts from individuals in the system (such as bad politicians and leaders) to the system. This results in lack of trust of authority, and in turn, people want to destroy everything to feel like there is progress being made in some type of way. 1:04:10 If you could implement one policy what would it be? Adil shares an idea of subsidizing exit costs from one state to another, where if someone wanted to move out of their state, they'd be provided with services and support. This would allow states to see the numbers of people staying and leaving, and there's consequences for passing unfavorable legislature. Nat's idea would be to have government agencies to cut their budgets by 90% for one year. A lot of the problems that exist in our country stem from financial irresponsibility. Neil shared that he would make Congress 10x larger while making it a part time, work from home job. The number of influential people in Congress is so small that it's easy to bribe them with their district. Initially, being a Congressman wasn't initially a full time job, as most had other roles and they just happened to serve in Congress too. They were more in touch with how people lived. 1:15:38 Nat shares a new technique he's using to track books he reads. He jots the date that he started reading the book with some notes about what's going on in life at the time. When finished, he will write in the book what book he's reading next. Over the years, the books will be networked together in physical form. 1:17:12 This concludes the crypto/libertarian series on Made You Think! The next book we're reading is The Iliad. We're using Tommy Collison's Great Books List to guide future episodes, and we're expanding it to encompass a wider range of books. Got any suggestions of books to add? Let us know! If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS, @adilmajid, @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode. You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads. Thanks for listening. See you next time!
Zach Callaghan refreshes us on how he joined the team as a staff writer. Initially hired to help with documentary guideline work, he also shares how he become an impromptu production crew member in France.
Tread Perilously's month of reactionary PSA television concludes with the two-part episode of What's Happening!! called "Doobie or Not Doobie." When Rerun fails to obtain tickets to a Doobie Brothers concert at the high school, he runs into a man offering him three front-row tickets in exchange for recording the show. Initially excited, he gets cold feet when Raj interviews the band and learns of the evils in bootleg recordings. Unfortunately, his concerns are of no concern to the bootlegers, who threaten violence if he doesn't follow through and tape the performance. Will the power of Michael McDonald save Rerun, Raj, and Dwayne? Justin comes up with an interesting take on Rerun. Erik discusses the prevalence of "fat humor" in the series. The use of the term "soda shop" leads to a discussion of teen hangouts across the 20th Century. Erik recalls the strange truth of high school gyms as rock venues. The Michael McDonald voice makes a special appearance. His fashion choices get critiqued, as do those of the rest of the band. Micheal Douglas's infamous humblebrag gets dissected. Raj's sister Dee proves to be a sorceress with her dry delivery and What's Happening!!'s "next time on" segment proves surprisingly long. But will Justin's heart be open to the message of the Doobie Brothers?
Early on the morning of February 25th, 1942 several aerial objects were spotted over Los Angeles. It triggered the firing of thousands of anti-aircraft rounds. This was ten weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Manilla. Initially, it was thought to be a Japanese attack, but shortly after Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said it was a false alarm. The hysteria was blamed on a weather balloon. During World War II soldiers reported seeing metallic spheres in the sky. The allies dubbed them “Foo Fighters.” In 1946, numerous UFO sightings were reported in Sweden. Known as “Ghost Rockets,” they put the Swedish Defense Staff on high alert. No confirmation of what they were was ever achieved. All of these paled in comparison to what happened in Washington State in June of 1947. On June 24th a transport with thirty-two marines on board crashed near Mount Rainier, Washington. A private pilot, Kenneth Arnold, was flying from Chehalis (SHA HAY LISS) to Yakima on a business trip. Arnold had six years of experience flying in and around the rugged Mount Rainier terrain. He went off course to look for wreckage. On April 6th, 1950 he spoke with Edward R. Murrow about his experience. As the objects passed Mount Rainier, Arnold turned his plane parallel to their course. He timed their rate of passage. They moved from Mount Rainier to Mount Adams —a distance of about fifty miles—in one minute forty-two seconds. That put their speed at over seventeen-hundred miles per hour. That was three times faster than any manned aircraft in 1947. The next day Arnold told his story to a newspaper in Pendleton, Oregon. The military questioned Arnold on three occasions, doubting his experience. But, other pilots soon told of sightings. On July 4th, The Oregon Journal received a letter from an L. G. Bernier of Richland, Washington who saw three objects flying toward Mount Rainier about one half-hour before Arnold. Bernier suggested they might have been extraterrestrial in origin. Arnold soon agreed. The problem with simply dismissing what Arnold saw lies in the fact that he was a credible witness. Sure, he could have been seeing things, but here was a man both highly trained and highly observational. Two weeks later, the most speculated UFO crash of the twentieth century was reported in Roswell, New Mexico.
“Turning around worst ever billing through the pandemic, to record-setting results currently.” In this episode, my special guest Wes Ashworth shares his story of the proactive steps he took to overcome a perfect storm of business during the height of the pandemic. He also explains how he went from 100% contingency to 100% retained! Wes is the Vice President of Executive Search at Lee Group Search, and specializes in partnering with packaging companies nationwide to find the talent they need to grow and scale their business operations. He joined the company in 2014 as an Executive Search Consultant and was promoted to his current position in April 2020. I'm especially proud of this episode because Wes credits The Resilient Recruiter as being a “lifeline” during the toughest period of his career, and helping him access the motivation, strategies, role models and resources he needed to turn things around. Episode Outline and Highlights [2:27] How Wes finds the Resilient Recruiter podcast value-adding. [4:30] Wes shares his story on how he came into recruiting. [6:45] Why 2020-21 were the worst years for Wes and how he turned it around. [19:02] Key changes implemented to shift from the worst times to the best. [25:18] “The world belongs to askers,” - how moving to the engaged model drastically changed Wes' recruitment results. [33:15] Great ways to pitch the engaged model to your existing contingent clients. [39:30] Turning around the worst ever billing through the pandemic, to currently record-setting results. [42:05] How having a peer group to pace yourself against can give better results. [46:00] How to develop your messaging approach to stand out in a world of noise. From Worst to Best Times - Key Success Factors Wes' recruitment journey is indeed colourful in terms of successes and learnings. He joined the industry around 2014, and three years later he was stable and was billing $550k with his own book of clients. He had high hopes for 2020 and he even got promoted to VP. Then suddenly in March 2020, Wes' high hopes came crashing down. Due to the pandemic, businesses and clients started to go away. His personal production plummeted and he was feeling the pressure. Being newly promoted, he had to carry his team's performance which added more stress. Like with many others, the negativity brought about by the pandemic placed a great toll on Wes both personally and professionally. Wes was never a quitter. With the support of his wife and the proactive actions that he took, he was actually able to turn from the worst times to the best times of his career. This is a story I am sure you will want to hear. What are the key factors that enabled him to overcome this colossal challenge? Here are some takeaways from our conversation: Revisiting his business development and quantifying his efforts. Wes discussed how doing so made him realize that he lost around $600k+ in billings. Transitioning from 100% contingent, to 100% engaged/retained. This was not easy, but as Wes discussed it, he had to “put his stake in the ground and don't look back”. Listening to the Resilient Recruiter podcast and reaching out to those whose stories resonated with him. Having a peer group - applying for and getting accepted to the Pinnacle Society. Wes discussed each of the above in this episode and even shared other best practices. The World Belongs to Askers One game-changer that contributed to Wes' success is how he transitioned from 100% contingent to 100% retained. This was not easy at the onset as he had to be willing to walk away from businesses. Initially, Wes focused on implementing this approach to his new clients. How did Wes transition from pure contingent to engaged? He is a firm believer in the advice that “the world belongs to askers.” Asking the right questions enabled him to apply the retained approach to new clients and to some legacy clients as well. Wes is confident that he made the right decision, saying “honestly there is nothing in my mind that can convince me otherwise to do anything different.” Aside from the outstanding results profit-wise, he found that it makes more sense for him and his clients. With this approach, he is able to foster a working relationship based on trust. To Wes' realization, if a client would not want to pay an engagement fee, it could be that they don't trust you. He believes that if a client does not trust you, it will not be a good working relationship and best to move forward. How to Stand Out in A World of Noise Wes also shared his best approach to improving his messaging. There is a lot of noise out there at the moment, so how did Wes change his business development strategy? His approach is more niche specific. He also utilizes LinkedIn automation. He explained that it is not overbearing, it's important to come across as a normal person. His messaging leans more on being raw, real and relevant. You will hear how he turned his messaging upside down and generated better results. Our Sponsors This podcast is proudly sponsored by i-intro and Recruitment Entrepreneur. i-intro® is an end-to-end retained recruitment platform. Our technology and methodology allow recruiters to differentiate themselves from the competition, win more retained business, bigger fees and increase their billings. Be sure to mention Mark Whitby or The Resilient Recruiter for a 25% discount. Book your free, no-obligation consultation here: www.recruitmentcoach.com/retained We're excited to announce that Recruitment Entrepreneur will be sponsoring the podcast! If you've dreamed of starting up or scaling up and exiting your recruitment business, this is your chance. James Caan and his team at Recruitment Entrepreneur are actively seeking ambitious recruiters who they can invest in. Start a conversation here: https://www.recruitmentcoach.com/vc Wes Ashworth Bio and Contact Info A member of The Pinnacle Society, Wes continues to find success through his strong belief in doing the right thing, caring about people and fostering close relationships with both the company and the candidate. His proven process to align talent to grow businesses starts with taking the time to deeply understand what a business needs, the culture they've created for their team members and what type of candidate will help them grow. It stretches into getting that same level of understanding from the candidate. This work goes beyond a traditional meet and greet or interview. It's more than a job description and more than a resume. For Wes, getting the perfect fit is the name of the game. Finding the candidate that fits the company and the company that fits the candidate are both critical. Only with a carefully evaluated fit will a candidate be positioned for success and find fulfillment in their job. In turn, companies benefit from an engaged employee who is a top performer over the long term. Wes' laser focus on fit and long-term success has served him well. Recalling a client who turned to Lee Group Search with a job opening that several other agencies could not fill after more than six months of searching for candidates, Wes took the time to learn about the company and get up to speed on the nuances of the specific job requirements and culture of the organization. Within a few weeks, he was able to fill the position with the right candidate who went on to be successful with the company. Today, Wes counts the company as one of his most loyal clients. When he's not matching candidates with positions, Wes enjoys spending quality time with his family and being around the water – piloting his kayak, catching a fish, or simply relaxing at the beach. Wes on LinkedIn Lee Group Search website link Lee Group Search on Facebook Lee Group Search on YouTube The Pinnacle Society website link Danny Parch's PMC (Cause Wes wishes to support) website link Experience Camps website link People and Resources Mentioned Joe Rice on LinkedIn Rich Rosen on LinkedIn Josh Braun on LinkedIn Connect with Mark Whitby Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call Mark on LinkedIn Mark on Twitter: @MarkWhitby Mark on Facebook Mark on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach Related Podcast You Might Enjoy TRR#67Think Like a Big Biller: How to Get Repeat Business and Referrals, with Rich Rosen TRR#55 How to Build (or Rebuild) Your Recruitment Firm to 7-Figures From Scratch, with Joe Rice Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter
In today's episode, Gina shares some helpful affirmations you can use to float through any stress that comes your way. Initially, the affirmations are mentioned and discussed. Later, Gina slows down the affirmations and reads them as a brief guided meditation. Listen in to add these affirmations to your anxiety-reduction repertoire! Ned Become the best version of yourself and get 15% off Ned products with code ACP. Go to https://helloned.com/ACP or enter code ACP at checkout. Find even more peace and calm with our Supercast premium access membership! https://anxietycoaches.supercast.com/ Here's what's included for $5/month: ❤ New Ad-Free episodes every Sunday and Wednesday ❤ Access to the entire Ad-free back-catalog with over 600 episodes ❤ Premium meditations recorded with you in mind ❤ And more fun surprises along the way! All this in your favorite podcast app! To learn more go to: https://www.theanxietycoachespodcast.com Join our Group Coaching Full or Mini Membership Program Learn more about our One-on-One Coaching What is anxiety? Quote: The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength. -Marcus Aurelius
Father-of-four Jonathan Joly and his family have lived in the public eye for more than a decade as YouTube sensations. Amid the pandemic, when his 8-year-old daughter came out to him as trans, Jonathan decided to tell the world that he identifies as non-binary. Initially, the Joly family underwent an onslaught of negativity from both the media and the parenting community, but they have since found strength in their new identity as a queer-centric family.On this episode, Jonathan tells GWK host David Dodge about his childhood in Ireland, his early experiences as a non-binary person, and how he created an imaginary world full of acceptance which inspired his new book; "All My Friends Are Invisible." Jonathan also discusses how he and his wife dealt with the public backlash of his announcement, how they talked to their kids about understanding gender identity, and how he continues to speak out about being a non-binary parent with a trans kid through his online content.Find GWK on social media @gays_with_kids and learn about becoming a gay dad with the help of GWK Academy at GaysWithKids.com/GWK-AcademyThanks to our sponsors: - Little Spoon organic baby, toddler and kid food; Get 50% off your first order of delicious pre-made healthy plates at LittleSpoon.com with the checkout code GWK50. - Mosie Baby, helping queer families avoid some of the high costs of IVF; go to MosieBaby.com and get 10% off at-home insemination kits with the code GWK10. - Magic Spoon healthier cereals, go to MagicSpoon.com/GWK and use the code GWK for $5 off.
Be part of our community by joining our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtbehindthings In tonight's conversation with our special guest, Parvez Abbasi. What has Parvez's journey been like? Why did he move to London, and how did it go? What was his first job like? Parvez's first investment. What was life like in London during the 70s? Initially, what was his role at British Telecom & how did it progress? Why did he switch? What caused his relocation to Pakistan? How did he figure out what he needed to do here? Joining Mobilink and what was his experience working there? Why was he laid off? What happened after? How did he end up starting his own company? What was next for him? What projects did he work on? Why did they move back to London and then come back? The thought behind National Incubation Center? How are they growing? How do they fund it? What partners do they have? Why wasn't it working out? Would they think about altering the model right now? How many startups do they incubate? Has there been any evolution? What is an incubation center? How can people explore the NIC? How does he envision the Pakistan of 2050? Catch this and much more in tonight's episode. Do not forget to subscribe and press the bell icon to catch on to some amazing conversations coming your way! Connect with us: • https://www.instagram.com/thoughtbehindthings • https://www.instagram.com/muzamilhasan Parvez's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parvezabbasi/ One8nine Media: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6akyz6EpkwyzBmKh0L2rSQ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/syed-muzamil-hasan-zaidi3/support
Experiencing Financial Contentment with Dominique Henderson, CFP® | Get Better Results in Your Life
Welcome to another episode of the Conversations for Financial Professionals podcast where we are shaping the next generation of financial advice. Today we have Elois Joseph, MBA who is an accomplished financial services professional with an extensive career in brokerage operations, regulatory compliance, and exchange registration services. She holds a MBA from Northern Illinois University and a BA in Journalism from Columbia College Chicago. Her career spans 20+ years; however, she could no longer resist the call to dedicate her expertise full-time to the Greenwood Project. Over the last two years, Elois has harnessed her expertise to bolster the capacity of The Greenwood Project by creating a framework to expose and educate minority students to a world that they never knew existed. Consequently, the organization grew from serving 120 students and 8 firms in 2017 to 400+students and 50 partner firms in 2021. The Greenwood Project introduces Black and LatinX students to careers within the financial industry via paid summer internships, educational field trips and their summer institute for high school students. The organization was established five years ago by Elois and her husband, Bevon Joseph. Initially, the organization's mission was to introduce academically talented students from Chicago's under-resourced communities to opportunities within the financial industry. However, they have now expanded that mission to reach Black and LatinX youth nationwide. In our discussion we talked about:
In the fourth episode of British Murders Season 6, I tell the story of Scottish double murderer Iain Scoular. Between October 1, 1982, and December 2, 1982, Iain Scoular murdered 36-year-old taxi driver Catherine McChord and 48-year-old midwife Elizabeth Walton in Cambuslang, Scotland. Initially, the police did not link the two murders. They had no suspects until Iain strolled into the police caravan HQ and told them he'd seen a stranger acting suspiciously on the night of Elizabeth's murder. In a bizarre turn of events, Iain's mum Jean's testimony inadvertently led to her son's capture. Iain was handed two life sentences on June 6, 1983, with a minimum term of 20 years. He was released from prison in 2003. For all things British Murders, please visit my website: https://www.britishmurders.com/ Intro music: David John Brady - 'Throw Down the Gauntlet' https://linktr.ee/davidjohnbradymusic My recording equipment: Shure SM7B Vocal Microphone Cloud Microphone Cloudlifter CL1 Focusrite Scarlett Solo USB Audio Interface Rode PSA-1 Professional Studio Boom Arm Recorded in: Hindenberg PRO Edited in: DaVinci Resolve 17 References: www.britishmurders.com/iainscoular/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Bert Weiss was born in Dallas, Texas. Starting small, the host spent a decade as a sidekick on different radio shows like “Kidd Kraddock.” After spending a decade as a sidekick, Bert moved to Atlanta and met Brian Phillips, who helped him start a new radio station on a new signal, Q100, and "The BERT SHOW" was born! Ironically, morning radio found Bert Weiss, not vice versa. Initially, Bert wanted to be a sportscaster. During college at San Diego State, the New York native who had moved to California as a child began working at a country radio station as a research assistant. “There was no sports department, but just having station letterhead could get me access to a sporting event,” Bert left college to pursue his radio career, which took him to Dallas and Washington D.C. before coming to Atlanta to helm The Bert Show for Q100 in 2001. The lifestyle and entertainment show airs each weekday from 5:30 to 10 a.m. and features a cast of four sharing their real-life moments and struggles, in addition to national entertainment news and celebrity interviews—all while serving up a boatload of humor. Bert also launched a podcast in 2014. Since its inception, the Atlanta-based show has grown considerably. Thanks to a dynamic cast of personalities and devoted listeners, it has sky-rocketed to one of the most highly acclaimed radio shows in Atlanta and has recently expanded to encompass has recently expanded to encompass markets like Dallas, Salt Lake City, Charleston, Nashville and many others. Key Takeaways You Won't Want To Miss:(03:15) After 20 years of winning with The BERT SHOW, he shares some of the top things that he attributes to such longtime success? (04:47) Now that he's in upwards of 30 other markets, Bert reveals some of the biggest challenges shifting focus from doing a show for one market to hosting a network program. (06:09) Always experimenting with new tech, Bert gives us a sneak peek at how using Artificial Intelligence for Voice Work is becoming a reality, and where this technology lead us in the future! (09:04) Bert shares the biggest misconceptions of those who THINK they'd like to be in a bigger market or even hosting a network show…but aren't quite ‘there' yet, and how to preparefor the next level. (13:32) Bert reveals the ONE INGREDIENT that will determine whether ANY media team will make it or not. http://rhzrbbwk.podcastwebsites.com/one-minute-martinizing-readers-are-leaders/ (Check out ONE-Minute Martinizing)Please help us thank these supporters who help keep BRANDWIDTH ON DEMAND free! Musicmaster https://bit.ly/KipperSwag (Radio Swag Shop) https://thebertshow.com/affiliates/ (Get THE BERT SHOW for your market!)
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai became a cosmopolitan hub with communities of Japanese, British, Russians, Jews, and others including Indians – most of whom were Sikhs. The story of Indians in Shanghai has however been largely elided. From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945 (Brill, 2017) by Yin Cao uncovers the lesser-known story of Sikh emigrants in Shanghai across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from their arrival in the city in 1885 through the end of World War II in 1945. Cao argues that the cross-border circulation of personnel and knowledge across the British colonial and the Sikh diasporic networks, facilitated the formation of the Sikh community in Shanghai, eventually making this Chinese city one of the overseas hubs of the Indian nationalist struggle. Initially brought in as policemen by British colonial authorities to discipline the local Chinese population, Sikhs in Shanghai transformed into anti-colonial revolutionaries. Shanghai became a conduit within Indian anti-imperial connections that linked the Punjab to Canada and California. Rather than just doing a local history of Shanghai's Sikhs and just seeing Shanghai as a gateway to China, Cao places this community within a global context and sees Shanghai within a transnational network in East and Southeast Asia and beyond, stretching from India to North America. By adopting a translocal approach, this study elaborates on how the flow of Sikh emigrants, largely regarded as subalterns, initially strengthened but eventually unhinged British colonial rule in East and Southeast Asia. Yin Cao is associate professor and Cyrus Tang Scholar in the Department of History at Beijing's Tsinghua University. He studies global history, modern Indian history, the British Empire, and India-China connections. Shatrunjay Mall is a PhD candidate at the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He works on transnational Asian history, and his dissertation explores intellectual, political, and cultural intersections and affinities that emerged between Indian anti-colonialism and imperial Japan in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai became a cosmopolitan hub with communities of Japanese, British, Russians, Jews, and others including Indians – most of whom were Sikhs. The story of Indians in Shanghai has however been largely elided. From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945 (Brill, 2017) by Yin Cao uncovers the lesser-known story of Sikh emigrants in Shanghai across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from their arrival in the city in 1885 through the end of World War II in 1945. Cao argues that the cross-border circulation of personnel and knowledge across the British colonial and the Sikh diasporic networks, facilitated the formation of the Sikh community in Shanghai, eventually making this Chinese city one of the overseas hubs of the Indian nationalist struggle. Initially brought in as policemen by British colonial authorities to discipline the local Chinese population, Sikhs in Shanghai transformed into anti-colonial revolutionaries. Shanghai became a conduit within Indian anti-imperial connections that linked the Punjab to Canada and California. Rather than just doing a local history of Shanghai's Sikhs and just seeing Shanghai as a gateway to China, Cao places this community within a global context and sees Shanghai within a transnational network in East and Southeast Asia and beyond, stretching from India to North America. By adopting a translocal approach, this study elaborates on how the flow of Sikh emigrants, largely regarded as subalterns, initially strengthened but eventually unhinged British colonial rule in East and Southeast Asia. Yin Cao is associate professor and Cyrus Tang Scholar in the Department of History at Beijing's Tsinghua University. He studies global history, modern Indian history, the British Empire, and India-China connections. Shatrunjay Mall is a PhD candidate at the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He works on transnational Asian history, and his dissertation explores intellectual, political, and cultural intersections and affinities that emerged between Indian anti-colonialism and imperial Japan in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Prof Esser talks about what we know with regards to what impacts the circadian rhythm (and what even is it?) and how important regulating both our master clock and the peripheral clocks for our overall health outcomes. We discuss how exercise impacts our circadian biology, and if there is a ‘better' time of day to do exercise. We also talk about the impact of the circadian rhythm on metabolising different nutrients and what we do or don't know about the impact of the circadian rhythm on the absorption of pharmaceuticals and supplements. We also talk about sex differences. This is a great conversation and I think you're going to love it.Dr Esser is a Professor of Physiology and Associate Director of the Myology Institute at the University of Florida.Her lab has been working in the area of skeletal muscle adaptation for over 20 years. Initially research was focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie adult skeletal muscle adaptation to exercise. However, in 2002 they were using an early generation microarray assay and discovered that genes important for circadian rhythms were also at work in skeletal muscle. Since that early observation, her lab has pioneered research on the role of circadian rhythms and the circadian clock mechanism in skeletal muscle. Currently our lab is focused on; 1) basic science experiments to define the genomic network downstream of the clock that modulates muscle health. 2) learning how age changes the clock function in skeletal muscle and other tissues; and 3) learning how exercise works with the circadian clock to help promote tissue and systemic healthDr Karyn Esser can be found here https://www.linkedin.com/in/karyn-esser-a187333Contact Mikki:https://mikkiwilliden.com/https://www.facebook.com/mikkiwillidennutritionhttps://www.instagram.com/mikkiwilliden/https://linktr.ee/mikkiwillidenSave 20% on all NuZest Products with the code MIKKI20 at www.nuzest.co.nz and www.nuzest.com.auSave 30% on Hoka One One with the code TEAMMIKKI at www.Hoka.co.nz
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai became a cosmopolitan hub with communities of Japanese, British, Russians, Jews, and others including Indians – most of whom were Sikhs. The story of Indians in Shanghai has however been largely elided. From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945 (Brill, 2017) by Yin Cao uncovers the lesser-known story of Sikh emigrants in Shanghai across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from their arrival in the city in 1885 through the end of World War II in 1945. Cao argues that the cross-border circulation of personnel and knowledge across the British colonial and the Sikh diasporic networks, facilitated the formation of the Sikh community in Shanghai, eventually making this Chinese city one of the overseas hubs of the Indian nationalist struggle. Initially brought in as policemen by British colonial authorities to discipline the local Chinese population, Sikhs in Shanghai transformed into anti-colonial revolutionaries. Shanghai became a conduit within Indian anti-imperial connections that linked the Punjab to Canada and California. Rather than just doing a local history of Shanghai's Sikhs and just seeing Shanghai as a gateway to China, Cao places this community within a global context and sees Shanghai within a transnational network in East and Southeast Asia and beyond, stretching from India to North America. By adopting a translocal approach, this study elaborates on how the flow of Sikh emigrants, largely regarded as subalterns, initially strengthened but eventually unhinged British colonial rule in East and Southeast Asia. Yin Cao is associate professor and Cyrus Tang Scholar in the Department of History at Beijing's Tsinghua University. He studies global history, modern Indian history, the British Empire, and India-China connections. Shatrunjay Mall is a PhD candidate at the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He works on transnational Asian history, and his dissertation explores intellectual, political, and cultural intersections and affinities that emerged between Indian anti-colonialism and imperial Japan in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-ocean-world
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai became a cosmopolitan hub with communities of Japanese, British, Russians, Jews, and others including Indians – most of whom were Sikhs. The story of Indians in Shanghai has however been largely elided. From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945 (Brill, 2017) by Yin Cao uncovers the lesser-known story of Sikh emigrants in Shanghai across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from their arrival in the city in 1885 through the end of World War II in 1945. Cao argues that the cross-border circulation of personnel and knowledge across the British colonial and the Sikh diasporic networks, facilitated the formation of the Sikh community in Shanghai, eventually making this Chinese city one of the overseas hubs of the Indian nationalist struggle. Initially brought in as policemen by British colonial authorities to discipline the local Chinese population, Sikhs in Shanghai transformed into anti-colonial revolutionaries. Shanghai became a conduit within Indian anti-imperial connections that linked the Punjab to Canada and California. Rather than just doing a local history of Shanghai's Sikhs and just seeing Shanghai as a gateway to China, Cao places this community within a global context and sees Shanghai within a transnational network in East and Southeast Asia and beyond, stretching from India to North America. By adopting a translocal approach, this study elaborates on how the flow of Sikh emigrants, largely regarded as subalterns, initially strengthened but eventually unhinged British colonial rule in East and Southeast Asia. Yin Cao is associate professor and Cyrus Tang Scholar in the Department of History at Beijing's Tsinghua University. He studies global history, modern Indian history, the British Empire, and India-China connections. Shatrunjay Mall is a PhD candidate at the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He works on transnational Asian history, and his dissertation explores intellectual, political, and cultural intersections and affinities that emerged between Indian anti-colonialism and imperial Japan in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai became a cosmopolitan hub with communities of Japanese, British, Russians, Jews, and others including Indians – most of whom were Sikhs. The story of Indians in Shanghai has however been largely elided. From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945 (Brill, 2017) by Yin Cao uncovers the lesser-known story of Sikh emigrants in Shanghai across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from their arrival in the city in 1885 through the end of World War II in 1945. Cao argues that the cross-border circulation of personnel and knowledge across the British colonial and the Sikh diasporic networks, facilitated the formation of the Sikh community in Shanghai, eventually making this Chinese city one of the overseas hubs of the Indian nationalist struggle. Initially brought in as policemen by British colonial authorities to discipline the local Chinese population, Sikhs in Shanghai transformed into anti-colonial revolutionaries. Shanghai became a conduit within Indian anti-imperial connections that linked the Punjab to Canada and California. Rather than just doing a local history of Shanghai's Sikhs and just seeing Shanghai as a gateway to China, Cao places this community within a global context and sees Shanghai within a transnational network in East and Southeast Asia and beyond, stretching from India to North America. By adopting a translocal approach, this study elaborates on how the flow of Sikh emigrants, largely regarded as subalterns, initially strengthened but eventually unhinged British colonial rule in East and Southeast Asia. Yin Cao is associate professor and Cyrus Tang Scholar in the Department of History at Beijing's Tsinghua University. He studies global history, modern Indian history, the British Empire, and India-China connections. Shatrunjay Mall is a PhD candidate at the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He works on transnational Asian history, and his dissertation explores intellectual, political, and cultural intersections and affinities that emerged between Indian anti-colonialism and imperial Japan in the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
When Ibraheem Basir launched A Dozen Cousins in 2018, retail buyers questioned the marketability of the brand's first products, a line of premium-positioned cooked beans. Four years later, those buyers are asking a different question: “How do we keep up with consumer demand?” A former marketing executive with General Mills, Basir founded A Dozen Cousins to increase accessibility of better-for-you food within Black and Latino communities via healthy ingredients, authentic seasonings and convenient preparation. Available in varieties such as Mexican Cowboy Pinto Beans and Trini Chickpea Curry, the beans are packaged in microwavable pouches that can be heated in 60 seconds. As A Dozen Cousins expanded distribution, the brand found traction with a broad variety of consumers seeking a quick, flavorful meal or side dish. The company has since added two complementary product lines – bone-broth cooked rice and seasoning sauces for rice and meat dishes – and widened its presence in stores across retail channels, including Whole Foods, Walmart, Trader Joes, Kroger and REI. In an interview featured in this episode, Basir spoke about how the brand's initial focus has evolved, working with co-manufacturing partners to ensure quality standards, why sampling was critical to its development and why keeping a foot in the familiar is a key tenet of its innovation strategy. He also explained why A Dozen Cousins is relatively quiet about raising capital and shared his take on improved opportunities and continuing challenges for BIPOC food entrepreneurs. Show notes: 0:42: Interview: Ibraheem Basir, Founder & CEO, A Dozen Cousins – Basir spoke with Taste Radio editor Ray Latif at NOSH Live Summer 2022 where they discussed their shared experience growing up in large families, alternate names for A Dozen Cousins and how the brand addresses “two different levels” of consumer needs. Basir also spoke about how he prepared for a national launch at Whole Foods while the brand was still in its infancy, the impact of his experience as an employee at a large food conglomerate, what social media taught the company about the unexpected ways consumers used the beans and what moved the needle for retail buyers that were initially skeptical about the brand. Later, he explained why the launch of A Dozen Cousins' rice was about creating something “additive” to the category, why he wants the brand to be “in the middle of the spectrum” when it comes to innovation, the reason the company isn't vocal about funding and why he points to the lack of “insider knowledge” as a hurdle for BIPOC founders. Brands in this episode: A Dozen Cousins, Annie's
Today on Midday, we continue WYPR's Special Coverage of the historic Supreme Court ruling overturning 50 years of constitutional protections for abortion rights. Writing for the High Court majority that overturned Roe v Wade in a 6-3 decision announced Friday, Justice Samuel Alito said that the decision “returns the authority to regulate abortion to the people” meaning states can decide whether or not abortions will be allowed. A poll released this morning by PBS shows 56% of Americans oppose the ruling. In his noon-hour remarks from the White House on Friday, President Biden said the only way to restore abortion rights is to codify the provisions of Roe into law. The current Congress will not make that happen. Here in Maryland, women will have access to abortion, but Governor Larry Hogan is refusing to release money approved by the legislature to expand the number of people who can perform abortions. Initially, the General Assembly wrote the law so that training would begin in July of 2023. A new urgency has arisen to begin training these providers because of the SCOTUS decision, and legislators want to start next month instead of next year, but the Governor isn't budging. Among Tom's guests today are Baltimore City Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, who represents the 10th District in South Baltimore; Professor Mary Fissell, a medical historian at Johns Hopkins University; and Miriam Burg, a Rabbi and Jewish educator who works with pregnant women. We were told that Catholic Archbishop William Lori would be able to join us today as well, but this morning, his spokesperson said he would not be available. We hope to have him on at another time. But we begin with Karen J. Nelson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Maryland, a major provider of reproductive health services across the state. Like our other guests, Ms. Nelson joins us on Zoom… See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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NEWS: Sugar-studded protein is key to an Alzheimer's cure | The Brighter Side (01:38) In a bit of “reverse engineering” research using brain tissues from five people who died with Alzheimer's disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they discovered that a special sugar molecule could play a key role in the development of Alzheimer's disease. This could indicate the molecule, known as a glycan, to be used as an early diagnostic test. And opens a way to perhaps prevention of the disease Cleaning up the disease-causing forms of amyloid and tau is the job of the brain's immune cells, called microglia. Earlier studies found that when cleanup is impaired, Alzheimer's disease is more likely to occur. Thought to be caused by an overabundance of a receptor on the microglia cells, called CD33. Past studies by the researchers showed that for CD33, these “connector” molecules are special sugars.These molecules are ferried around the cell by specialized proteins that help them find their appropriate receptors. The protein-glycan combination is called a glycoprotein. The researchers, to find out more about the glycoproteins, obtained brain tissue from five people who died of Alzheimer's disease and from five people.Among the many thousands of glycoproteins they gathered from the brain tissues, only one connected to CD33. What was this mysterious glycoprotein?The researchers determined the protein component's identity by taking its “fingerprint” using mass spectroscopy, which identifies protein building blocks. Then they compared the molecular makeup of the protein with a database of known protein structures. The research team was able to conclude the protein portion of the glycoprotein was receptor tyrosine phosphatase (RPTP) zeta. Further experiments showed that the brain tissue of the five people who died with Alzheimer's disease had more than twice as much RPTP zeta S3L as the donors who did not have the disease. Implying that this glycoprotein may be connecting with more CD33 receptors than a healthy brain, limiting the brain's ability to clean up harmful proteins. Gonzalez-Gil Alvarenga, Ph.D., first author on the study stated:“Identifying this unique glycoprotein provides a step toward finding new drug targets and potentially early diagnostics for Alzheimer's disease.” A Surprising Link Between Immune System and Hair Growth | Neuroscience News (07:36) Salk scientists have uncovered an unexpected molecular target of a common treatment for alopecia, a condition in which a person's immune system attacks their own hair follicles, causing hair loss. Corresponding author of the study, Ye Zheng, associate professor in Salk's NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis, stated:“For the longest time, regulatory T cells have been studied for how they decrease excessive immune reactions in autoimmune diseases … Now we've identified the upstream hormonal signal and downstream growth factor that actually promote hair growth and regeneration completely separate from suppressing immune response.” Initially the researchers were interested in researching the roles of regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones in autoimmune diseases.They did not function together to play a significant role in any of these conditions. Thought they'd have more luck looking at environments where regulatory T cells expressed particularly high levels of glucocorticoid receptors The glucocorticoid receptor (GR, or GCR) also known as NR3C1 (nuclear receptor subfamily 3, group C, member 1) is the receptor to which cortisol and other glucocorticoids bind. The scientists induced hair loss in normal mice and mice lacking glucocorticoid receptors in their regulatory T cells.After two weeks, the researchers saw the normal mice grew their hair back, while the ones lacking the receptors struggled to grow it back The findings suggested that some sort of communication must be occurring between regulatory T cells and hair follicle stem cells to allow for hair regeneration.They continued to investigate how the regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid receptors behaved in skin tissue samples. They found that glucocorticoids instruct the regulatory T cells to activate hair follicle stem cells, which leads to hair growth. Depends on a mechanism whereby glucocorticoid receptors induce production of the protein TGF-beta3, all within the regulatory T cells. TGF-beta3 then activates the hair follicle stem cells to differentiate into new hair follicles, promoting hair growth. This study revealed that regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones are not just immunosuppressants but also have a regenerative function. Next, the scientists will look at other injury models and isolate regulatory T cells from injured tissues to monitor increased levels of TGF-beta3 and other growth factors. Engineers devise clever system for EVs to share charge—while driving | Anthropocene (13:34) The charging station expansion isn't keeping up with the growing number of EVs on the road.The number of EVs on the road per public charging point globally rose to 9.2 at the end of last year, from 7.4 at the end of 2020, according to a study by BloombergNEF analyst Ryan Fisher on the state of public charging infrastructure. In a new study, engineers propose a way around this conundrum: EVs that share charge with each other while driving. In their vision, cars with low batteries could buy some charge from others with extra to spare, all without stopping. Could be orchestrated via a cloud-based control system Electrical and computer engineer Prabuddha Chakraborty the University of Florida and his colleagues propose a two-battery system for EVs.A large, slow-charging lithium-ion battery would drive the car, A smaller, fast-charging battery would be used for on-the-go charging. Once powered up, the small battery would transfer its charge to the car's main battery. “Just like in your computer you have fast cache memory—but it's expensive—so you have other type of high-capacity memories that are slower,” said Tamzidul Hoque, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Kansas The cloud-based system idea:Monitor charge levels of electric cars. If a car's power is starting to run low, the network would alert it to other cars nearby with enough charge to sell. Once two cars are matched with owner consent, cables would connect them for charging and they would be locked at the same speed until the power transfer is complete. Yet even in a well-planned, dynamic peer charging network, the researchers found in simulations that the total charge of the network will slowly deplete.To try to get around this idea, they propose the concept of mobile charging stations: large battery-loaded trucks that would recharge multiple vehicles at once. Like military jets being refueled in-flight by tanker aircraft. Using popular traffic modeling software they were able to simulate their idea somewhat.They found that it would eliminate range anxiety and re-charging wait time, and reduce EV cost by eliminating the need to have big batteries. Scientists Use Vegetable Oil Byproduct to Remove Heavy Metals From Contaminated Water | EcoWatch (20:27) Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, collaborating with ETH Zurich, Switzerland (ETHZ), have discovered a way to turn byproduct from vegetable oil production into a membrane that filters out heavy metals from water. Ali Miserez, study author and professor at Nanyang Technological University, stated:“Water pollution remains a major global issue in many parts of the world…Heavy metals represent a large group of water pollutants that can accumulate in the human body, causing cancer and mutagenic diseases. Current technologies to remove them are energy-intensive, requiring power to operate, or are highly selective in what they filter.” The researchers noticed that proteins in peanut and sunflower oil waste byproducts, called oilseed meals, were useful in attracting heavy metal ions.Turned the oilseed meals' proteins into nano-sized protein amyloid fibrils, which strongly attract heavy metal ions. Combined these amyloid fibrils with activated carbon and tested the filters on three types of metal: platinum, chromium and lead. The membranes were 99.89% effective at filtering out all of the heavy metals from water, with the best results for platinum and lead. The membrane made from waste byproduct proteins is a low-cost option that requires little energy for decontamination, and the researchers say this innovation could work all over the world for water purification. “Recovering precious platinum, which costs US$33,000/kg, only requires 32 kg of protein, while recovering gold, which is worth almost US$60,000/kg, only requires 16 kg of protein. Considering that these proteins are obtained from industrial waste that is worth less than US$1/kg, there are large cost benefits,” Miserez explained. Because of the simple technology, this filtration membrane is readily scalable, according to the researchers. Tesla launches new virtual power plant that pays Powerwall owners to help end brownouts | Electrek (25:30) Tesla has launched a new virtual power plant in partnership with PG&E in California that will pay Powerwalls owners to help stabilize the electric grid and end brownouts in California. What is a virtual power plant?Consists of distributed energy storage systems, like Tesla Powerwalls, used in concert to provide grid services and avoid the use of polluting and expensive peaker power plants. Tesla has partnered with PG&E to launch a new version of its virtual power plant that will actually compensate people participating:The company's statement: “Become a part of the largest distributed battery in the world and help keep California's energy clean and reliable. Opt-in to the Tesla Virtual Power Plant (VPP) with PG&E and your Powerwall will be dispatched when the grid needs emergency support. Through the Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP) pilot, you will receive $2 for every additional kWh your Powerwall delivers during an event. Adjust your Backup Reserve to set your contribution, while maintaining backup energy for outages.” Depending on the events and the number of Powerwalls homeowners have, they could earn anywhere from $10 to $60 per event or even more for bigger systems. The extra capacity your Powerwall provides could help avoid or reduce blackouts in a severe emergency. This way, Powerwall can keep the lights on for both you and your community. Tesla said that it has about 50,000 Powerwalls that could be eligible for this VPP, which add up to a significant 500 MWh of energy capacity than can be distributed in any event.
Suzanne Cottrell, a member of Creative Voices, Taste Life Twice Writers, and NC Writers' Network, lives with her husband in Granville County, NC. An outdoor enthusiast and retired teacher, she enjoys reading, writing, knitting, hiking, and Pilates. Her prose has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including the Personal Story Publishing Project, Inwood Indiana Press, Quail Bell Magazine, Parks and Points, and Nailpolish Stories. She's the author of three poetry chapbooks: Gifts of the Seasons, Autumn and Winter; Gifts of the Seasons, Spring and Summer; and Scarred Resilience.
Revenue Generator Podcast: Sales + Marketing + Product + Customer Success = Revenue Growth
Co-founder of Founder Revenue Academy, Patrick Thorp talks about the various ways founders can structure their revenue team. Initially, founders have to take a founder-led approach to sales and as they gain more customers, they can adopt one of four structures. Today, Patrick highlights the different structures founders can adopt. Show NotesConnect With:Patrick Thorp: Website // LinkedInThe Rev Gen Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterI Hear Everything: IHearEverything.com // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Satellites offer a low-cost and scalable solution to tracking how much water your crops use and where it's used. The data is received quickly, is straightforward, and is easy to interpret. The best news is this information – provided globally by Agralogics – is now integrated into Jain Logic. Initially offered across the United States and Australia, this information can be accessed easily by anyone using Jain Logic. Capturing field-specific crop water consumption (ETc) and vigor from space can be incredibly valuable as a standalone product. Still, this data becomes even more powerful when combined with on-the-ground monitoring points like soil moisture sensors and weather station data. Whether a standalone or integrated approach is best for your growing operations, the information is accessible in Jain Logic today. We are fortunate to have both Jeff Tuel from Jain Irrigation, Inc. and Sumer Johal, a seasoned technology leader with more than two decades of experience in data analytics and founder and CEO of Agralogics, with us to teach how to use satellite imaging, and data analytics in cooperation with Jain Logic to be a better water manager. In this session, you will learn: How easily Agralogics' field-specific satellite and Etc data integrate with Jain Logic How to interpret the data How the combination creates an excellent water management tool How easy it is to sign up for a free subscription
EPISODE 291: High Priests Rebecca and Rey back up their episode released earlier in the week with another NEW comic book review! We certainly are lucky duckies when it comes to new Moon Knight content, and there is no better way to get it than with the first season finale of Jed MackKay and Alessandro Cappuccio's epic run! SEGMENT: MOONSHINE - NEW COMIC BOOK REVIEW Moon Knight Vol. 9 #11 - 'The Killing Time Pt. 2' Released June 22nd, 2022 Writer(s) Jed MacKay Penciler(s) Alessandro Cappuccio Colorist(s) Rachelle Rosenberg Letterer(s) Cory Petit BARE BONES (Written by Rey): As Moon Knight and Tigra race to get to the Midnight Mission, Zodiac and his team of thugs encounter Reese and Soldier, dressed as Mr. Knight. Initially surprised at seeing Mr. Knight there, Zodiac soon realizes the ruse and shoots Soldier dead, much to Reese's horror. Racing through the portal conjured up by Khonshu, Moon Knight and Tigra try to make sense of where exactly they are, as past Fists of Khonshu converge behind them, giving chase. It's not long before they arrive at the Midnight Mission, surprising Zodiac not only with their presence, but with the horde of undead Moon Knights in tow. A massive battle ensues with Moon Knight, Tigra, the undead Fists and Reese taking on Zodiac and his cadre of killers… Reese breaks and succumbs to her vampiric nature, intent on killing Zodiac to avenge Soldier's death. Moon Knight stops her as he not only doesn't want Reese to cross that line, but because he wishes to end Zodiac himself. As Moon Knight holds Zodiac in a death grip, he is unexpectedly interrupted - his alter Steven Grant appears and introduces himself to an astonished Reese. MOON RATING : Rebecca:
Initially recognized as a poison in blood sausage by a German country doctor in the 19th century CE, botulinum toxin was isolated and purified during world war II by the American military. It was ophthalmogist Dr. Alan Scott who recognized the clinical utility of the toxin, which now has over 150 different applications!
This week we're taking a deep dive into the discography of one of rock's most polarizing bands as we discuss The Best & Worst of Poison!Initially called Paris and formed in Mechanicsburg, PA, the band headed west for Los Angeles; landing on the burgeoning Sunset Strip scene. Quickly gaining popularity for their over-the-top look and relentless promotion, Poison became one of the must-see acts in Hollywood. With the release of 1986's 'Look What the Cat Dragged In,' the band scored hits with singles 'Talk Dirty to Me,' 'I Want Action,' and 'I Won't Forget You.' Superstardom would come next with 1988's 'Open Up and Say...Ahh!' release which resulted in chart positions for 'Fallen Angel,' 'Your Mama Don't Dance,' and the mega-ballad 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn.'The 90's would start strong on the release of 'Flesh and Blood' but everything was about to change. The exit of guitarist C.C. DeVille, entrance of Richie Kotzen, and change of sound on 1992's 'Native Tongue,' combined with the rise of grunge music, saw Poison's fortune change for the worse. Kotzen would be replaced by guitarist Blues Saraceno on the great, but shelved, album 'Crack a Smile' before DeVille returned a few years later. Since 2000, product from Poison has been sporadic but the band does still do well on the touring circuit; currently on the road with Motley Crue, Def Leppard, and Joan Jett.In this episode we take a spin through the whole Poison catalog and pick out our favorite and least favorite tracks. Did we get it right? Are we way off in our assessment? You tell us in the comments as well as YOUR picks for this episode.We hope you enjoy The Best & Worst of Poison and SHARE with a friend!Decibel Geek is a proud member of the Pantheon Podcasts familyContact Us!Rate, Review, and Subscribe in iTunesJoin the Facebook Fan PageFollow on TwitterFollow on InstagramE-mail UsSubscribe to our Youtube channel!Support Us!Buy a T-Shirt!Donate to the show!Stream Us!Stitcher RadioSpreakerTuneInBecome a VIP Subscriber!Click HERE for more info!Comment BelowDirect Download
Land Academy Member Casey Jewett Interview (LA 1790) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today we have member, Casey Jewett, who just informed us he's been a member for a year. But for some reason, I thought you were a member for a really long time. It doesn't matter. Jill K DeWit: That's good. Casey: Time flies. Jill K DeWit: You are involved and that's what's important. So thank you. Steven Jack Butala: And you said yes, that's what's important. You said yes to my assistant, Gabriel and thank you for being on the show. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. Casey: Of course, of course. It's hard to say no to you guys. Jill K DeWit: Aw, thank you very much. Steven Jack Butala: So how's Land Academy working out for you? Casey: It's well. Initially it's like drinking from a fire hose. There's just a lot of information, a lot of moving parts, you have to take it all in stride and take small steps as you move forward because there's going to be a lot that hits you, and a lot that continues, things that you maybe thought you knew that you don't know. Jill K DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: That's how I would describe the Land Academy for myself. Jill K DeWit: Exactly. What did you do before this? There's a certain mindset we pick up on people that get it and then some that don't get it. So what's your background? Casey: In college, my internship was actually as a real estate agent. So I got into real estate in 2005 initially in that regard. It just so happened that where I went to school they had a new internship and it was at one of the real estate agencies. I was like, "Cool, I can do that." My grandfather was an agent many, many years ago. I was like, "I'll give it a shot. See what's going on here," and so I became a realtor. They paid for my classes to take, get my license and kind of moved through that. I've been in real estate a long time. I've never done land, it's just not something that I had ever thought of. I have bought and sold hotels, residential real estate, mobile homes, mobile home parks, all kinds of things. I've been in the real estate realm for quite a while. 2008 happened, market went down, I actually decided I was going to become a fireman. So funny I said drinking from a fire hose, funny enough. Jill K DeWit: Love it. Casey: I spent five years as a fireman, but I also was still doing real estate on the side, just not as much as I was. Fast forward... I don't know, that was 2008... fast forward 10 years, I started getting more heavily involved in real estate, became a licensed agent again working as a realtor on the daily. Saw a book, started reading the book, got interested in land, took a little while to kind of do something. I was just finagling around on YouTube one night, found you all. I don't even remember if it was a podcast or what, but it was on YouTube, started watching some videos. And it wasn't not even a month, it was probably a couple of weeks that Career Path came out. I was like, "I'm doing this. I don't know what all it involves but I'm going to do it." That was, like I said, just over a year ago that've I've been calling it doing it full time. My wife allowed me to- Steven Jack Butala: Did you start as a commercial real estate agent. Did you seek that out? Casey: I didn't seek it out, no, just kind of started doing. In all reality I- Steven Jack Butala: What was the first deal you did? Did you sell a house first or was it commercial? Casey: Yeah, mainly I sold homes. And very similar to land, everything that I've done I've actually purchased and sold. For all of my investing stuff, I bought and then sold. So like hotel, bought and then sold it. Mobile homes, mobile home park, same thing, as opposed to listing it. Everything I've done as far as a real estate agent has been residen...
Chris is weathering through a slight lull, a holding period, where his team waits for new features to become available with some of the platforms they integrate with, and as they think out new facets of the platform they're building. Steph has been thinking recently about working in isolation. It's a topic that Joël Quenneville pointed out to her and mentioned. Can engineers work in isolation and be successful? Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of The Bike Shed! Transcript: CHRIS: Always be singing. STEPH: I can't remember if I've shared the story with you. But I had a beautiful little human moment with someone at airport security. Because when I travel with my mic, I always get stopped because there's the middle long, thin piece that looks like what you would screw on to a gun like for a silencer. And so [laughs] as he was going through, the person was looking at it, and then he called over a buddy. And then they called over another buddy, and there's like three TSA agents all looking at the X-ray screen. And finally, they're like, "Yeah, we need to flag it." So they moved it over. And then he was digging through, and he pulled out the big metal piece. And I said, "It's for a microphone." And he's like, "Okay," and he kept looking, and then he finally found the microphone. And he lit up because I guess he wasn't really sure to believe me at first when I said it. But he lit up, and he was like, "Karaoke?" [laughs] I was like, "No, it's for podcasting." CHRIS: But not 100% no because we do sing plenty on this show, so... STEPH: I think that's what made me think of it. It was your singing. [laughs] CHRIS: Yep. My wonderful, wonderful singing. STEPH: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly Podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Steph Viccari. CHRIS: And I'm Chris Toomey. STEPH: And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. So, hey, Chris? What's new in your world? CHRIS: What's new in my world? We are in sort of a...what's the word? There's a bit of a lull right now, not like a big lull, but we had a bunch of clear work that came into the team, did a bunch of iterations, some testing, built some new features, et cetera. And now there's a small holding period basically where we wait for some new features to become available with some of the platforms that we integrate with and also as we think out some new facets of the platform that we're building. So we've got this little bit of time here where we're not necessarily building out as many new novel features. But instead, as a dev team, we're taking this moment to be like, oh, cool, let's tie down. I want to make a sailing analogy here, but I don't know sailing. It's like tie down the somethings and batten the hatches, maybe. That sounds like a thing. [chuckles] But so we have a couple of projects going right now. We want to really accept the truth and lean into Sidekiq. So right now, we have a mix of ActiveJob and Sidekiq jobs. And they're confusing, and et cetera, et cetera. So we want to kind of lean into that, upgrade dependencies, that sort of thing. We are, again, doing a little bit of work on the observability foundation of our system. so how do we know what's going on at runtime? Also, working on just some core features and functionality. We have done a little bit of an exploration into the event processing stuff, some of that that I've been talking about. It's actually been very interesting. So we're working with Customer.io as a platform, which is omnichannel communication behavior-based messaging sort of thing. So when a user does X, send them an email and then wait three days. And if they haven't responded, then do this other thing. And I think I've said this in previous episodes; I'm so wildly impressed with that platform. They have done such a good job. And I know that good software doesn't happen in a vacuum. In fact, if we're being honest, a lot of the software out there is not very good. And not only do they do a good job, but it's across...there's a ton of functionality in Customer.io. And it's interesting because we're finding ourselves leaning into it even more because it is such a solid platform and because it connects into our event system. Like, it's a segment destination, so all of our analytics events get piped into Customer.io, and then we can action on any of them. And the actions can be quite complicated. And this is where we're getting into good idea, terrible idea space. And to be clear, this is still just an exploration. But we basically wanted a way to do more. There are a bunch of different actions that you can take so, like send an email, send an SMS, or there are a couple of other slightly fancier ones. You can trigger an event within the Customer.io system. You can actually do an arbitrary HTTP POST, PUT, PATCH, whatever, any web requests you want to make. So if you want to integrate with essentially anything else out there, you can do that. You can send some structured data over the wire. And so we've now been like, okay, what if, and stay with me here, what if we use our analytic system and we send events whenever a user does something, and then that event eventually trickles down to Customer.io? Within that, we allow ourselves to respond to that event by emitting a different event within the system, within Customer.io. And then, via the webhook functionality, we fire that back to the Rails application. And then there we can do whatever we want. And in a way, that sounds absurd because we're starting from our app, and then we're sending some events down, processing them in certain ways, sending it back to the app, and then maybe doing something. In particular, one of the things we want to do is richly formatted Slack alerts. And Customer.io has a Slack alert functionality, but they can't have any of the fancy stuff. They can't link to our customer in the admin dashboard. So we found that that functionality is particularly useful for our admin team. And so we're like, ah, this feels weird. But if we were to do this loop out and back, then ideally, we get the power of Customer.io for non-technical users or non-engineering team users to configure workflows and to say, "When a user does this, I actually want to alert the admin team via Slack." And we want it to be rich and have buttons that you can click and all that kind of stuff. And although the thing that I just described seems complicated, is a word that I'll use for it, confusing at times, it isn't...like, I don't want to do all of that in the app. I don't want the app to have to think about how do I wait three days? We technically can do that with Sidekiq, but it gets us in trouble and whatnot, whereas Customer.io that's a core concept for them. And so, again, very much exploration. This will probably be a future good idea, terrible idea segment. But that's been an interesting one to explore. STEPH: You have quite a talent for you preface something as a bad idea, and you do a very good job of making it sound reasonable and good. [laughs] So it's interesting to be on that side of like, good idea, bad idea. It's like, I'm looking for the bad. And I have questions, but overall, [chuckles] you do a very good job of being very thoughtful and walking through why it makes sense or what are the benefits of it. So you answered some of my questions around why still send it to Customer.io versus just having it all in-house. So the fact that the admin team has access to it makes a lot of sense. I want to clarify one point. So when you send it to Customer.io, Customer.io then needs to send a message back to your application. And then that's when you customize the Slack message. Do you need Customer.io to send that message, or could you just fire off an event to Customer.io to say, "Hey, capture this, but don't do anything with this. And then we're going to send the Slack message because we want to customize it."? CHRIS: I think the key is that we want to leverage the fact that Customer.io is the platform that our operations team really is now becoming comfortable with and using for this behavioral automation workflow type logic. So that idea of when this event, you know, when this triggering event happens, if this condition is true, then respond in this way. And so because Customer.io is the platform that A, is quite good at that and B, is where our admin team is now thinking about doing that, one thing that we might do let's say a user completes some action within the application. So they fill out a form to submit their interest in some new platform feature. Initially, what we might want to do there is alert ourselves to say, "Hey, this happened. Take some action." And then eventually, we may want to instead switch that over and send an email to the customer with the next steps that they need to do. And the ability to gradually transition across that spectrum is really interesting to me, and again, Customer.io being the platform, sort of the hub for how we respond to these events. At the same time, I know that this feels like a generic message processing system that might be a Kafka queue somewhere else. And so I've got that in the back of my head of like, is this weird? I think it's a little weird. But it also, thus far as we're exploring it, is very approachable for the admin team, very familiar for them, and reasonably powerful. And also, there's a drag and drop editor for the events and the payloads. And it knows for this event, here's the stuff that's available to you. And so the ability for our admin team to interact with that interface is really great. And we don't have to build it. We don't have to think about it. But I will say I've worked at so many different companies that have their ad hoc system that makes it easy to do generic X, Y, and Z. And it's bad, and it falls down. And it's impossible to know when anything happens. And so, I've got a lot of concerns in the back of my head, which I will want to at least think through and understand the trade-offs that we're making if we pursue this path, but it is very interesting to me. So right now, a lot of this logic does live in the app. But it means that it requires a code change for anything that we want to do like this. We want to have a Slack alert whenever X happens. Now, the developers are in the loop for all of that. And really, it's the operations team that owns the decisioning on that. And so if they can also self-serve and instrument the action, the alert, the follow-up, the whatever it is, if we can give them those primitives in a platform that they already understand, that sounds nice. I'm intrigued, is what I'll say. So anyway, while we're in this lull period, we are trying out some fun stuff like that and exploring those sorts of things. STEPH: I like that perspective that you're putting on it, or at least the one that's standing out to me is the concept of ownership is like who gets to own these actions. But then beyond that, that's the part where I feel a little squirmy is, so we are using this third-party tool because it makes life easier. But then, at what point when we start building software around this third-party tool to then customize it back on our own side. Then if someone is in Customer.io, so if an admin user is in there and then they trigger an event, is there going to be confusion as to what's going to happen? And can they retry an event? Because I'm realizing my initial suggestion where it was like, hey, notify Customer.io that this is there but then also manage sending the Slack message that would prevent them from being able to have that retry capability. And that may be very much worth preserving. So then it's understood that hey, if you want to manage this, we are giving you full access to manage this work. We may customize it, but this is still the interface in which you go through to have three tries or to manage that workflow or these actions that get sent to users. CHRIS: Yeah. I think you've perfectly highlighted the why this might not be a great idea or at least the concerns to explore before adopting this more thoroughly. And even just the idea of adopting it more thoroughly, like, how tied into the system are we? How business-critical does this new external piece of software become? Because I've seen that to be really problematic where there are organizations that I've worked with that are like, "Oh God, we would love to move off of system X. But unfortunately, it's basically the one thing holding this business up." And I'm like, yeah, I get that. And that happens. So yeah, being really intentional with that. And that's why we're very much in an exploration place. But we have a bunch of stuff that we've done that required engineering work. And we're now seeing like, actually, could we map this into this other tool? And can we build the set of primitives in that space that now this team can own that whole experience? And then critically, can they debug it? Will we know when something goes wrong, et cetera? Those are always parts. At this point, I don't think I can just imagine a happy path. And I hope this isn't true for the rest of my life. But the work as a software developer, especially after having done a couple of rounds of it and as a consultant, I just imagine failure modes. It's all I do. I'll be like, okay, we just need to wire X up to Z, and then we need to fire off a request. And then, once we get the message back, then we can process them. I'm like, right. You just described 13 things that can go wrong. Now let's imagine each of the different failure states because that's all I'm going to do. Who cares about the happy path? Those are easy. Those write themselves. It's all of the failure modes that I need to think about. And someday, when I retire, and I go to a log cabin in the woods, and I don't talk to people for a while, maybe I'll go back to a place of only happy paths. But that is not my truth right now. STEPH: I can't tell you how many people in my personal life I have annoyed so much [laughs] because all I see are failure modes. And one, that's a delightful t-shirt. [laughs] I'd love to have that. And then yeah, I feel you because there are so many times where someone is...like, I'm with someone who's like a big idea person. And so they're just launching into what-ifs, and we did this. And I can't help it, and I have learned to help it. But it has been a struggle with some strong feedback from family and friends to reel it in. Because then I will start to think through okay, well, what's the details? And I have some questions. What happens when this happens? And yeah, all I see are failure modes. [laughs] It is very true for me too, and not always...not so great. So I, too, shall get a log cabin one day and try to forget all of that. CHRIS: I will say I painted that as a particularly glib version of myself. But some of what I'm doing right now, particularly joining an early-stage startup and taking the role of CTO, was very much to try and intentionally resist that. Because right now, I have to be really careful with how much of the potential edge cases and whatnot. I'm considering exactly how robust of a platform are we building? Very is the answer. But what about extremely? Because extremely is an option but extremely costs four times as much. Mostly in time being the critical element there. And so part of the work that I'm doing now is just trying to push on those edges, push on those boundaries, find the places where we can move quickly, and still build a robust platform because frankly, we're building...Sagewell is a financial platform under the hood, and I can't be flippant with that. We as a team have to be really careful with the thing that we're building. But we also have to move quickly. We have to be able to iterate. We have to be able to build something and try it out and see if it works. And then, if it doesn't, maybe shelve it and pull it out of the codebase. And it has been a real challenge, but it was the challenge that I wanted here. And so I've been enjoying that work, but it has been a stretch, a growth moment, let's call it. STEPH: I don't know if you've shared that particular goal with me in transitioning to a CTO role, but I really, really like it. One, it's very aligned with who you are. You're very thoughtful, and you look for areas to push and ways to do that. And then I also struggle in those areas, and thoughtbot specifically and consulting has helped push me in directions, push me out of my comfort zones but still in a safe space where I have other people to talk to as I'm making those decisions and pushing past the comfort areas that I have. But one of them is that I will initially think things have to be perfect or really planned. And I had a really nice conversation with Chad Pytel, who is one of the Founders of thoughtbot and also COO and host of the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast. And we were chatting about a new offering that thoughtbot is bringing to the market. And it's one that I've been involved with. And I started getting really in the weeds of like, but we really have to plan out how this is going to look and all the actions that need to take place before then we can really sell this type of engagement to a new client. And as I was going through this list of worries, when I was done, he mentioned he's like, "All of those are valid and something to consider." He's like, "But we don't have any customers yet." So the first part is we feel that we are in a space that we have enough of information to get started. And it's something that we've done before. And then, we'd like to see where customers align with us on this need because we're going to end up shaping this work in response to what their needs are. And so, we can't really begin that shaping until we understand more of what people are looking for. I was like, oh yeah, that's such a nice point. It just reminded me in regard to pushing those boundaries of yes, we need planning upfront, and we look for failure modes. But then there's also an important aspect of then finding ways to keep moving forward and getting more feedback and then balancing those two. CHRIS: Yeah, I think that's definitely right the as always, anchoring it to the customer. What is it that they need? How do we connect with them and hear from them? And ideally, keep those feedback loops as short as possible. That's the game, and everything else fits around that. But yeah, so we're trying some stuff. We'll see how it goes. I will certainly report back, depending on how it plays out. But that's a little bit of what's up in my world. What's up in your world? STEPH: I have been thinking recently about working in isolation. It's a topic that Joël Quenneville, who's another thoughtboter and has been on the show a number of times, it was a topic that he'd actually pointed out to me and mentioned. And so, I wanted to bring that here and share it with you because I'd love to get some of your thoughts on this as well. But I've typically had the viewpoint that when developers are sent off to work on a large, nebulous task, that it's a recipe for disaster, and almost everyone's going to lose in that scenario. And it tends to be a combination of isolation, very distant due dates, and loosely defined scope that leads to those really poor results. However, as developers, it's not inconceivable for us to land in that position. And it's very similar to my current project, who I'm working with Joël on, where we were given a very fuzzy project with some really aggressive goals, and the engagement is going really well. So that led Joël and I to wonder why is this working? This is the thing that we said that people should never do, but it's actually going quite well for us. So reflecting upon some of the things that are working well for us, even though we are in more of an isolated state than we would typically work, some of the things that I've been reflecting on or some of the strategies I should say that we've applied to this situation is number one, we did work hard to plug into an existing team. So when we joined, we joined more of an ad hoc volunteer team. And in everybody's spare time, those individuals were then contributing to the CI process in terms of trying to speed things up and improve things for the rest of the team. But otherwise, there wasn't really a team. There wasn't much structure to it. So it felt like everybody was very much off in their own world doing their own thing, occasionally putting up some code changes for review. And then you had to gain a lot of context to understand what it was that they were doing. So one of the things that I advocated for early on that I thought was more of just my personal preference but I think has actually worked well in regards to the success of the project as well is to plug into an existing team. So even if you are not working with that team on their day-to-day tasks, but you want to have more people to interact with and more people to share your context with. So you are essentially reducing the isolation of you're no longer these two people who are off in a corner working on something, and nobody has any idea what you're doing, and only one person is getting a status update. There is now a whole channel or team of people that have some insight as to what's going on. And they can also really unblock you for when you get stuck because then if you do have a question, but there's that one person who has been like your go-to person for this whole project, if they're out on vacation, or if they leave, or just something happens, you're suddenly blocked. And you don't know who to go to because you've been part of this larger company, but you haven't interacted with anybody outside of that one person. So at least if you're plugged into another team, you've immediately got some friends or some other people to go to and say, "Hey, I'm not sure who can help me with this, but I have this problem." And then, from there, you can get more help. CHRIS: This is super interesting. To start, I really like that you're framing this in terms of this is a thing that we often recommend against or see as an anti-pattern, and yet in this particular case, it's working. Let's look at that. Because I think the things that you're like, huh, that's interesting. That phrase "Huh, that's interesting" is very interesting. It often highlights like oh, something is behaving counter to how we would expect it to, so let's dig in and explore that. And so I love that that was the reaction and then sort of the conversation that spilled out of that. I'm also not super surprised that the combination of you and Joël were able to find a way to make this successful because you are two of the most capable developers that I've worked with but also particularly excellent communicators and advocates for the work that you're doing and the way that one should do the work. So the idea that there's a situation that may not be the ideal mode of working and that you're able to take that and say, "What if we shift it just a little bit and make it a little bit more manageable and whatnot?" So unsurprised, frankly, that you found a way collectively to make this a little bit better. And then I think yeah, it sounds like you're doing the things...so just like, we're in isolation, hmm, that doesn't seem great. Let's unisolate and connect to some people, and that just feels so true. I'm very interested to hear, though. I'm guessing there's more to this story or other things that you've done. Are there other tactics or ways that you've shifted this around? STEPH: Yeah, there's a couple more. So this is one that (And thank you for the kind words.) this was one that I think Joël is really exceptional at. So Joël is really good at building diagrams and graphs and then sharing that with the team as sort of like we've spent a couple of days understanding this big, messy concept. Here's a nice condensed graph that shows how we went about understanding this. And then here's the big overall picture of what we've learned from this, which has been wonderful for so many reasons. And every time that we share something with the team, one, it just helps build camaraderie, especially in remote days, it just builds camaraderie on hey, we're all online. And we're working. And here's the thing that I'm working through or struggling with or something that I learned. I often do that, especially when I get frustrated and something goes wrong. I love to share the I did this today. It went terribly. [laughs] Let me tell you about it, so you're aware of it in case it helps you. And specifically, the diagrams are really nice because then other people can just see and appreciate it, or they can point something out that we didn't know. Or they'll see a different angle because they're more familiar with the system. So they can say, "Oh yeah, that totally makes sense," or "I had no idea that was happening." So that's been a really nice way to engage with the team. And so, essentially, the little title for that strategy is just overshare. Just share all the things that you're doing and find ways to make it digestible for the team so then they can go along on this big, nebulous journey with you. And you can also put it in threads so that way, you're not flooding a channel, but then people can opt-in to that oversharing if they would like more insight into the work that you're doing. CHRIS: Opt-in to that oversharing. [laughs] STEPH: Exactly. I mean, it's not forced oversharing; it's just it's here if people would like it. That was a really nice compliment that some other thoughtboters received from their client team is someone had mentioned that there's so much information that's getting shared from the thoughtboters that they had trouble keeping up. And they really liked that. They really appreciated that they could then go check out this channel or these threads and see exactly the type of work that was happening and the outcomes of it. And then they could just check it maybe beginning of the day, end of the day and get that knowledge dump. Some of the other strategies that we've used are giving ourselves mini-goals to accomplish as part of the larger, more nebulous task. So as we have this very large goal in mind, it's like, where's the small piece? Where's an entry point? What's a task or a goal that we can define? And then we want to break that down into what questions do we need to ask? How can we start moving in this direction? And we want to find something that has an answer. So each time that we start researching once we've gotten to that point...and this is hard. I feel like people may know that, but I should just say that this is hard to take something nebulous and then find the entry point and break down some goals. And that has been one of the wonderful parts of then having a buddy for this type of project because then we can bounce ideas off of each other. And we can also help the other person not go too deep into an area. Because I have definitely had moments where I've been very passionate about like, "We need to do this," and Joël is just like, do we? And I'm like, "Yeah." And he's like, "Do we though?" And I'm like, "I guess not. I just really, really want to." [laughs] It's been very helpful to have a partner balance some of those feelings. And once you can break down some of that amorphous problem into those smaller goals, then you can also create tickets, which is also a really nice way to then surface the work that you're doing. You can document how you're researching, document the question. And then once you have that question of what you're in search of, it's so nice because then once you find the answer, that's immediately a good moment to pause and reflect. So I think in a recent episode, we were chatting about this where Joël and I were trying to understand why the tests weren't being balanced properly across each process that was available. And we found the answer, and we started immediately digging into fixing it or solutions. And then it took us a moment to go back and say, "Actually, this ticket is really just about understanding the problem, not fixing the problem." And so that was a nice; now that we understand the problem, let's go back high-level to define our next goal from this big, nebulous task because maybe fixing that balancing is the right thing to do, but maybe not, and we just need to reconsider. So for that portion of breaking down a big, nebulous task and then identifying smaller tasks that you can achieve, time-boxing has been huge for us in regards of what's something that we can accomplish this week, or what's something we can accomplish today that will then move us forward? And then making sure that we are setting deadlines for ourselves. So normally, this is another area where it's like, huh, that's interesting. I'm a big believer in deadlines. But I do think self-imposed deadlines are really helpful. CHRIS: I'm intrigued to hear you say that you're not a big fan of deadlines because I assume we're actually more aligned on this. But deadlines that are arbitrary and also come with fixed scope and other immovable things, yes, those are the worst in the world. But deadlines that we set for ourselves, and then we use that as a mechanism to hone and refine the scope that we're going to get out the door by that deadline, I find those incredibly useful. And that sounds like that's the same sort of thing you have going on here is like by saying we're willing to expend this much to get a result, that defines the work going into it. STEPH: Yeah, that's fair. Everything that you said is true, too; in regards to, I'm realizing I default that when I hear the word deadline, I'm so used to teams having deadlines that are defined by other individuals that are not part of the work. And as you said, the scope has already been defined, and it can't be changed. And it's all of the bad things that then go with it. So when I think of deadlines, I immediately think of that type of deadline versus the more self-imposed, yes, we can revisit, yes, the team has bought in and understands why this is important. Those types of deadlines are very helpful. It's that first part that I default to that I think of immediately, and I need some reassurance that that is not the type of deadline that I'm looking at or being forced to meet. I have a very similar feeling for estimates. Like, those both fall in the same category for me is; as soon as I hear estimation and deadline, I get nervous. And then I just need to understand the purpose of both and who is setting both of those and the communication around them. And then what does that failure mode look like, the one that we're always looking for? So yeah, deadlines and estimations fit into that. Initially, I'm very hesitant and cautious, but I think they're both very good tools. CHRIS: Yeah, I feel like those are very closely related. And they're definitely tools that can be used for great good or for great evil. And so, ideally, we advocate for the great good usage. But more generally, I love, again, the sharing around the process and what's worked for you in this less typical or often somewhat problematic workflow. I will say, again, so I gave you the series of compliments earlier, and I stand by those compliments for you and Joël. But I think also the sort of related aspect is that you two are both quite senior, very capable, very comfortable suggesting changes, suggesting workflows. So I think the potential dangers of isolation are still very much there. And the fact that the two of you have been able to find a way to work more effectively and perhaps change the terms of things just a little bit to make this effective is A, unsurprising but B, not something that I would expect of every team. I think you've described a wonderful list of the specifics as to how you did that. And ideally, if folks that are perhaps a little earlier on in their career are sent out for a month with a wild project, and they're sent to do it in isolation, hopefully, they can borrow from that list. But again, I do think this is a thing that, from an organizational perspective, we should be very careful with when we're imposing this isolation on it because it takes two fantastic folks like you and Joël to break out of the shackles of it. STEPH: The more we're talking about this, the more apparent it's also becoming that I started with this; how do you manage isolation? And my answer is you get out of it. [laughs] Get out of isolation as quickly as possible. Someone thought it was a good idea to put you there or a good idea to structure it that way. Or maybe they didn't mean it intentionally, but that's how things then shook out. So that's really what a lot of those strategies are about is, then how do I get myself out of this corner that you put me in? Because nobody put Stephanie in a corner. So it's essentially that's all the strategies are looking for ways to say, hey, I'm isolated, but I really don't want to be, and it's dangerous for me to be isolated in this way. Even as a more senior capable developer, it's more likely that things could go wrong, and miscommunications, misaligned expectations. So I need to find ways to then bring the work that I'm doing to make it more relevant to other people on the team. So then we can have more overlap, or at least I can share a lot of the work that's being done. CHRIS: Yeah, absolutely. I think with that wonderful summary and, frankly, utterly fantastic movie reference, what do you think? Should we wrap up? STEPH: Let's do it. Let's wrap up. CHRIS: The show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. STEPH: This show is produced and edited by Mandy Moore. CHRIS: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review on iTunes, as it really helps other folks find the show. STEPH: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us at @_bikeshed or reach me on Twitter @SViccari. CHRIS: And I'm @christoomey. STEPH: Or you can reach us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. CHRIS: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. ALL: Byeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.
This week we're taking a deep dive into the discography of one of rock's most polarizing bands as we discuss The Best & Worst of Poison!Initially called Paris and formed in Mechanicsburg, PA, the band headed west for Los Angeles; landing on the burgeoning Sunset Strip scene. Quickly gaining popularity for their over-the-top look and relentless promotion, Poison became one of the must-see acts in Hollywood. With the release of 1986's 'Look What the Cat Dragged In,' the band scored hits with singles 'Talk Dirty to Me,' 'I Want Action,' and 'I Won't Forget You.' Superstardom would come next with 1988's 'Open Up and Say...Ahh!' release which resulted in chart positions for 'Fallen Angel,' 'Your Mama Don't Dance,' and the mega-ballad 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn.'The 90's would start strong on the release of 'Flesh and Blood' but everything was about to change. The exit of guitarist C.C. DeVille, entrance of Richie Kotzen, and change of sound on 1992's 'Native Tongue,' combined with the rise of grunge music, saw Poison's fortune change for the worse. Kotzen would be replaced by guitarist Blues Saraceno on the great, but shelved, album 'Crack a Smile' before DeVille returned a few years later. Since 2000, product from Poison has been sporadic but the band does still do well on the touring circuit; currently on the road with Motley Crue, Def Leppard, and Joan Jett.In this episode we take a spin through the whole Poison catalog and pick out our favorite and least favorite tracks. Did we get it right? Are we way off in our assessment? You tell us in the comments as well as YOUR picks for this episode.We hope you enjoy The Best & Worst of Poison and SHARE with a friend!Decibel Geek is a proud member of the Pantheon Podcasts familyContact Us!Rate, Review, and Subscribe in iTunesJoin the Facebook Fan PageFollow on TwitterFollow on InstagramE-mail UsSubscribe to our Youtube channel!Support Us!Buy a T-Shirt!Donate to the show!Stream Us!Stitcher RadioSpreakerTuneInBecome a VIP Subscriber!Click HERE for more info!Comment BelowDirect Download
Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis
This week, we have a first for the podcast. Initially, our principal guest, Jeff Hays, lays out his views on why the Southern Terminus of the Appalachian Trail should move to Alabama. As Jeff says, "Why not Alabama?" Then, Jeff and Nathan Wright debate the issue as they see it. They keep it respectful and agree far more than they disagree. At the end, I weigh in with my opinion. I hope you all learn something from this discussion. You can learn more about the issues at stake by visiting Jeff's site, where he promotes building an entirely new trail. It is at https://www.at2al.net/ Jeff also offers the following site, which argues for using existing trails. That is at https://at2al.com/ You can find Jeff's hostel at https://www.nextstephostel.net/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NextStepHostel/ In between Jeff's chat with me and the subsequent debate, I caught up with Katie Westling, as she has now returned to the AT to continue her quest to complete her thru-hike. If you'd like to find out more about "Then The Hail Came," check out George's website at https://georgesteffanos.webador.com/. You can also find George's book on Amazon at this link. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QFG4ZR6 If you like what we're doing on the Hiking Radio Network, and want to see our shows continue, please consider supporting us with either a one-off or monthly donation. You'll find the donate button on each Hiking Radio Network page at https://www.hikingradionetwork.com If you prefer NOT to use PayPal, you can now support us via check by mailing it to Mighty Blue Publishing, PO Box 6161, Sun City Center, FL 35751. Any support is gratefully received. If you'd like to take advantage of my book offer (all three of my printed hiking books–with a personal message and signed by me–for $31, including postage to the United States) send a check payable to Mighty Blue Publishing at the address just above.
Grab your food rakes because today Rob Lowe and Alan Yang are swiping right on S3E10! In "Soulmates" Leslie is matched up with Tom on an Internet dating website, while Chris and Ron compete in a hamburger cook-off. On today's episode find out why clarity in comedy helps the audience laugh, how copyright trouble helped make better comedy, and why RoLo loves this episode! All of this and why Danny Glover's love for prop food is rivaled only by Chris Pratt's. Got a question for the Pawnee Town Hall? Send us an email: ParksandRecollectionTownHall@gmail.com Or leave a 30-Second voicemail at: (310) 893-6992 Chris enacts a government-wide health initiative in Pawnee, starting by banning red meat from the city hall commissary, much to the displeasure of Ron. He challenges Chris to a burger cook-off to prove red meat is superior to Chris' preferred lean meat, with red meat staying on the menu if Ron wins. Meanwhile, Leslie invites Ben out to dinner, but he turns her down, leaving Leslie confused because she was sure Ben was attracted to her. Ann, who is now dating multiple men after taking Donna's advice to be more adventurous, tells Leslie to join an online dating website called HoosierMate.com and helps set up her profile. Leslie finds a match that is 98 percent compatible with her – a "soulmate" rating – but is horrified to discover that it is Tom. Additionally, the crude sewage department employee Joe makes a romantic advance toward Leslie, prompting her to launch a "douche-vestigation" to find out why she attracts the wrong type of man. Meanwhile, Chris takes Andy, April, and Ron to a health food market called Grain 'n Simple, where he gathers numerous ingredients for the perfect turkey burger, but Ron is unfazed, simply buying a pound of red meat from his favorite food market, Food and Stuff. In her investigation, Leslie quickly learns Joe merely hits on any woman as long as she is not elderly. She takes Tom out to lunch to learn more about him. He responds to all of Leslie's questions with his usual chauvinistic answers, annoying her to the point that she admits she took him out because they matched on HoosierMate. A delighted Tom teases Leslie the rest of the day by pretending they are a couple, but she finally silences him by kissing him. Chris notices the kiss and warns Leslie that he has a strict policy against workplace dating. At the cook-off, Chris prepares his meticulous turkey burgers for the judges: Tom, Donna, Jerry, and Kyle. They all love it, but give much higher praise to Ron's simple hamburger on a bun. Initially surprised, even Chris comes to admit the burger is superior after trying it, so he agrees to reinstate red meat on the commissary menu. Chris later tells Leslie his dating policy has affected others, explaining that he earlier warned Ben not to ask out a co-worker. Leslie realizes that is why Ben rejected her and is glad when Ben asks her to eat in front of her favorite city hall mural. Leslie deletes her profile on HoosierMate, and is relieved to learn that Tom has 26 different profiles on the site to match himself with any type of woman, although the one Leslie matched with was his "nerd" profile.
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