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What's your recommended recipe for homemade seed compost? What makes a dog friendly garden? What is the most inappropriate piece of garden advice that you've received?Peter Gibbs and the panel offer advice to an audience of keen gardeners in the borough of Wokingham. Joining Peter are house plants expert Anne Swithinbank, garden designer Bunny Guinness, and proud plantsman Matthew Biggs.Later in the programme, for Plant Health Week, Kirsty Wilson visits the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to meet biosecurity officer Matt Elliot and discover how new pests and diseases are threatening our gardens — and what we can do to fight back.Producer: Matt Smith Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod Executive Producer: Carly MaileA Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4Plant List Questions and timecodes are below. Where applicable, plant names have been provided. Q - Do the panel have any favourite help or design features in their gardens made by their pets? (01'45")Q- Could you give me some top tips on growing Dahlias? (05'40")Q- How do you manage a wildflower area after the first year of flowering? (10'18")Feature – Kirsty Wilson and Biosecurity Officer of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh discuss how we can protect our plants from new pests and diseases (14'20")Q- My Fatsia Bush has flowered – do I prune it back or leave the fruits for the birds? (19'30")Q - Which exciting new plants should we be looking forward to growing in the south-east of England? (22'31")Bunny Guinness – Diospyros virginiana (F), common persimmon Diospyros 'Nikita's Gift' (F), Nikita's Gift Persimmon. Salvia involucrata 'Hadspen', rosy-leaf sage ‘Hadspen'Matthew Biggs – Salvia officinalis 'Bicolor', sage 'Bicolor' Echium Echium wildpretii, tower of jewels Echium pininana giant viper's buglossAnne Swithinbank – Leonotis Leonurus, lion's tail Dictamnus albus, burning bush Eriobotrya, loquatQ - What is your recommended recipe for homemade seed compost? (28'00")Q - I have a small starter allotment; can the panel advise me on how to make the most of my small plot? (32'10")Bunny Guinness – Onion Garlic LettuceMatthew Biggs – Lettuce, fresh beetroot, fresh carrots, finger carrots Baby leaf Spinach radish courgettes French beans Runner beans Anne Swithinbank – Foeniculum vulgare var. azoricum, florence fennelQ - What is the most inappropriate piece of garden advice that you've received, and did you follow it? (37'24")
In December 2024, IEMA's membership voted tochange the Institute's name to the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals (ISEP), to better reflect thework of the profession and help to grow their membership and influence. In this episode of Root Cause Analysis podcast, Chris Newson talks to Martin Baxter, Deputy CEO, to get exclusive insight into this important change and what it means for environmental and sustainability professionals.Timings00:00:17Martin Baxter, Deputy CEO, IEMA00:01:00 Q:Tell us about yourself and how you got to where you are today00:08:00 Q:Can you tell us about IEMA00:13:54 Q:Could you tell us about the upcoming change, the impact and the process you'vebeen through00:24:00 ~Keeping members informed is critical00:27:45 ~Engagement and collaboration with stakeholders and members has been at theheart00:28:45 Q:What does the rebrand mean for the post-nominals (designatory letters) after myname?00:31:20 Q:What impact do you think the name change will have?00:35:00 Q:Where do you see the field of sustainability going in the next 12 months /5-years?00:42:20 ~The distinguishing feature between health and safety and environmentalmanagement00:44:10 Q:How important do you think competency is?SponsorWoodland Grange - Woodland Grange, in Leamington Spa, is a residential conference venue and hotel, set in 16 acres of beautiful gardens in the heart of the Midlands. It's the ultimate venue to balance both work and relaxation
Are you constantly juggling client projects, feeling stuck on the client service hamster wheel, while your agency's growth seems just out of reach? In today's fiercely competitive landscape, where time and resources are scarce, having access to effective coaching can dramatically ease the burdens of decision-making and sustained growth. Yet, many agency owners struggle with the costs and time commitments required to work with a traditional coach, making it difficult to achieve their full potential. By tuning into this episode of The Agency Accelerator podcast, you'll discover how to: 1. Leverage AI-powered coaching to overcome the common barriers of cost and time, making top-tier guidance both accessible and affordable. 2. Enhance your decision-making process and avoid costly mistakes with real-time, on-demand advice from an AI coach. 3. Free up crucial time and resources, allowing you to focus on growing a profitable, sustainable, and enjoyable agency. Unlock the potential of AI coaching to transform your agency's growth journey; press play and find out how! Questions Answered in this Episode Q: Why are so few marketing agencies currently working with a coach, and what are the main barriers hindering them? Q: In what ways can a coach save time and effort for agency owners who often feel overwhelmed? Q: How is AI transforming the coaching landscape, and how does it make coaching more accessible and affordable? Q: What makes AI coaching different from using general AI platforms like ChatGPT, and how tailored is the guidance it offers? Q: Could you explain how on-demand AI coaching works and how it can support agency owners at any time of day? Quotations "AI is democratising coaching. It's not about replacing human coaches but complementing them, providing high-quality insights whenever you need it." – Rob Da Costa "Imagine having access to personalised, expert advice 24/7, at a fraction of the cost. That's what AI coaching offers to agency owners." – Rob Da Costa Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode.” If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people — just like you — move towards a Self-Running Agency. Scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the podcast. I'm adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you're not subscribed, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Subscribe now! Useful links mentioned in this episode: Try, your AI Digital Coach, AskRobAnything, for freeAttend my free on-demand workshop ‘Harness AI to Unlock 7 Key Growth Areas - Escape The Agency Owner's Trap - Free Yourself from the Daily Grind & Scale Your Agency' The Self-Running Agency - AI edition
Are you struggling to set prices that reflect your agency's true value whilst at the same time, staying competitive? In today's challenging business climate, many agency owners face the tough task of balancing fair pricing with higher client expectations, all while ensuring profitability and sustaining growth. Whether it's overcoming the legacy of outdated pricing models or navigating the intricacies of value-based pricing, getting this balance right is crucial for long-term success. By tuning into this episode of The Agency Accelerator podcast, you'll discover how to: 1. Use anchoring techniques in your pricing strategy to shift client focus from cost to value, helping you secure better deals. 2. Implement time tracking and gross profit margin measures to accurately assess team efficiency and overall agency performance. 3. Transition your agency to value-based pricing, offering multiple pricing options that enhance client perception and satisfaction. Take a step towards transforming your agency's pricing strategy for growth and profit! So grab a coffee and let's get started. Questions Answered in this Episode Q: How does the concept of anchoring impact the way agencies set their pricing strategies? Q: Can you elaborate on the benefits of tracking gross profit margin as opposed to solely focusing on revenue? Q: Why is it essential for agencies to aim for a 45-50% gross profit margin, and how can they achieve this target? Q: What significance does having a clearly defined niche hold when transitioning to value-based pricing? Q: What are the advantages of offering three pricing options to clients, and why should the highest option anchor the price? Q: How should agencies approach the delicate task of discussing price increases with their existing clients? Q: Could you share insights on transitioning from time-based pricing to value-based pricing and its potential impact on agency growth and client relationships? Quotations “Stop obsessing over industry averages. Instead, aim for a 45-50% gross profit margin and watch your agency thrive.” - Rory Spence “Present three pricing options to your clients, let the highest price anchor their perception, and make the middle option irresistible.” - Rory Spence “When you focus on value-based pricing rather than selling time, you can transform not just your profits, but your client relationships too.” - Rob Da Costa Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode.” If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people — just like you — move towards a Self-Running Agency. Scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the podcast. I'm adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you're not subscribed, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Subscribe now! Useful links mentioned in this episode: Get in touch with Rory SpenceDownload the latest BenchPress reports by The Wow CompanyDownload a FREE value pricing guide
Are you struggling to expand your email list with genuinely interested prospects? In today's marketing world, the challenge to continuously feed your sales funnel with qualified leads is a common yet critical problem. Creating a dependable system to attract and convert high-quality leads is essential for sustainable growth if you want to avoid the dreaded feet or famine cycle that agencies who rely on referrals or word-of-mouth invariably find themselves in. Dive into this episode of The Agency Accelerator podcast, and you will learn how to: 1. Craft irresistible lead magnets that capture the attention of your ideal audience, ensuring that you grow your prospect database every single day. 2. Integrate these lead magnets seamlessly with your email marketing strategies to maintain engagement and nurture your leads effectively. 3. Employ proven promotional techniques that amplify your reach, ensuring your lead magnets get in front of the right people at the right time. Join me today and discover the strategies that will boost your lead generation and nurture your prospects into loyal customers. Questions answered in this episode Q: What precisely is a lead magnet, and how does it function to gather email addresses? Q: What types of lead magnets are there and which are particularly effective for engaging an audience? Q: What should the format of a successful lead magnet be? Q: Could you share some examples? Q: How do I integrate a lead magnet with my email automation system to optimise lead nurturing? Q: What are the key performance metrics that should be monitored to assess the effectiveness of a lead magnet? Q: How crucial is A/B testing in refining lead magnets, and what specific elements should be tested? Q: What are some optimisation strategies for enhancing the conversion rates of lead magnets? Quotations "Don't be afraid of giving away genuine value in your lead magnet. Prospects will buy from you because they want 1-2-1 guidance and not because the content is already available somewhere on the web!" – Rob Da Costa "A well-crafted lead magnet not only helps you build your email list but also positions your agency as the trusted authority in your industry." – Rob Da Costa "Embrace a mindset of continuous improvement and iteration. Regularly analyse your performance data, identify areas for optimisation, and implement changes based on these findings." – Rob Da Costa Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode.” If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people like you to move towards a Self-Running Agency. How to leave a review on Apple Podcasts Scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then, let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the podcast. I'm adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you're not subscribed, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Subscribe now! Useful links mentioned in this episode: Register for my FREE webinar ‘5 Ways AI Will Impact Your Agency in the Next 12 Months' Practical Applications For Your Agency's GrowthLearn more about email marketing Join my Group Coaching Agency Community, The Self-Running Agency
In this week's episode, I'm talking about my weekend, one movie recommendation, Harrison Butker's commencement speech, and answering your questions!✨Q: I need poop help! Since I've stopped drinking coffee first thing in the morning, I can't get a morning poop before my early morning gym session. ✨Q: Can you give suggestions on what to eat before a morning workout? ✨Q: How do I get muscle definition? I want to be able to SEE my muscles. ✨Q; Creatine, should an intermediate gym enthusiast take it consistently or on and off?✨Q: Could my electrolytes be making me add water weight?✨Q: Normal when cutting for your mind to lag behind in seeing progress? Like, you still see yourself 5 or 10lbs heavier?✨Q: I'm not consistent with rest times between sets. Does this matter? I just do the next set when I feel like it. Plus, I have 4 kids and sometimes have to make lunch in between sets lol. ✨SPONSORS:✨LMNT electrolytestruLOCAL meat deliveryNatura Market: ALICIA10 for 10% your first order of 59.00 or moreInterested in working together? Here's how I can help:fill out my application form Body recomposition: Sustainable fat loss--for good. If you feel like you want personalized support in taking the final steps towards improving your relationship with food and your body, I am here to provide one-on-one guidance. This may be especially helpful if you have already been working on this for some time and are looking for additional support to make further progress. Establishing and focusing on healthy habits (movement, nutrition, sleep, stress management), and/or Finding a balanced, flexible, & sustainable approach to achieving your body goals, then I'd love to connect: info@wellnesswithalicia.com OR fill out my application form. Send me a DM on Instagram: @aliciamayconnorsCheck out my Website: www.wellnesswithalicia.comCheck back every week for a NEW episode! Currently available on Spotify, ...
Are you tired of constant email management that eats up your time and gets you nowhere? Or perhaps you email your list sporadically (or not at all!)? In today's fast-evolving digital world, maximising lead generation and nurturing customer relations are paramount. Yet, many agency professionals are bogged down in an endless cycle of manual email tasks or worse, stuck in client service with no time to focus on lead generation. This not only slows down progress but also hampers the agency's scalability and client engagement - the very lifeline of the business. By tuning into this episode of The Agency Accelerator podcast, you'll discover how to: 1. Harness the power of email automation to scale up your marketing efforts efficiently, saving both time and resources. 2. Set up robust, email sequences that effectively guide potential clients through each stage of their journey, from lead to conversion. 3. Combine precision targeting and personalisation to send impactful messages, ensuring your emails resonate with and captivate your audience. Unlock the full potential of your agency's lead nurturing with cutting-edge email strategies. Press play and let's journey together towards effortless email success. Questions answered in this episode Q: What factors should you evaluate when selecting the right email automation software for your agency? Q: Could you elaborate on how email sequences nurture leads through the sales funnel? Q: What are some popular email automation platforms and their respective pros and cons? Q: How do personalisation and segmentation enhance the impact of email sequences? Q: What are the types of lead capture forms and their best placements on websites and landing pages? Q: What are some best practices for creating effective and engaging email sequences? Q: What key performance indicators should agencies track to measure the success of their email campaigns? Quotations "Automation is the key to scalability, efficiency, and consistency in today's fast-paced digital landscape, not just in email marketing but across your whole agency." — Rob Da Costa "Craft your email sequences as compelling narratives; use consistent tone and messaging to guide subscribers through a journey, providing real value every step of the way." — Rob Da Costa "By embracing a culture of continuous testing, tracking, and optimisation, your email automation system can remain a powerful lead generation and conversion engine for your agency." — Rob Da Costa Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode.” If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people like you to move towards a Self-Running Agency. How to leave a review on Apple Podcasts Scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then, let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the podcast. I'm adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you're not subscribed, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Subscribe now! Useful links mentioned in this episode: Discover the Build, Nurture, Convert Blueprint training courseExplore the Self-Running Agency Membership ProgramFurther information on the Creative Crew Community
Do your meticulously crafted email campaigns feel like they're vanishing into the ether, met with silence or a swift move to the 'trash' folder? Or maybe you know you should be using email as a lead generator but you're not! In today's noisy landscape, grabbing the attention of your audience is more challenging than ever. Email marketing might not be sexy or trendy but it is still one of the best ways to build a 1-2-1 relationship with your ideal target customer. By listening to this episode of The Agency Accelerator podcast, you'll gain insights on how to: 1. Implement email marketing strategies that rise above the digital noise, ensuring your message reaches—and resonates—with your ideal audience. 2. Harness cost-effective techniques that turn your email list into an owned asset, creating a direct and powerful communication channel with prospects. 3. Examine the importance of tracking and refining your campaigns, transforming analytical data into newfound opportunities for growth and engagement. Discover the art of captivating your subscribers and converting them into loyal clients through email marketing. Questions answered in this episode Q: Why is email marketing still the best method for lead generation in the fast-paced digital era? Q: What are the fundamental advantages of using email marketing over other channels like social media or traditional advertising? Q: How does owning an email list offer more control and security compared to building a following on social media platforms? Q: Can you delve into the cost-effectiveness of email marketing for agencies of various sizes? Q: What metrics should be considered to accurately measure the success of an email marketing campaign? Q: What strategies are recommended for segmenting your email list to enhance campaign personalisation and impact? Q: Could you outline how automated email sequences benefit engagement and the sales process? Quotations "Remember, you own your email list, whereas you rent your social media audience. Build an asset that's yours, adding value to your business." - Rob Da Costa "By delivering personalised, valuable content through email, we're not just making one-time sales but nurturing long-term relationships that foster trust and loyalty." - Rob Da Costa "Get the 80/20 content balance right in your email marketing: 80% value-add, 20% sell. It's about creating emails that your audience looks forward to, not spam." - Rob Da Costa Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode.” If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people like you to move towards a Self-Running Agency. How to leave a review on Apple Podcasts Scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then, let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the podcast. I'm adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you're not subscribed, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Subscribe now! Useful links mentioned in this episode: Explore additional FREE resources on email marketing and lead generationLearn more about AskRobAnything, the AI coaching platform Further information on the Creative Crew Community
Ryan Smart, Executive Director of the Florida Springs Council, joins Cathy and Rick on the podcast to answer a listener's questions about Florida springs.Q: If the springs naturally come to the surface, why would the bottled water companies need permits to pump out? A: We answer this more in-depth in the podcast, but it's because they don't scoop the water out of the springhead — they tap the spring with a well, and they need permission for that. Q: When I lived in Orlando there was a Spring on the West bound lanes of Hwy. 17-92 in Longwood and people, including myself, would just stop with empty milk bottles and fill up with the spring water and drink it at home. They have since shut the location off from the public and I don't know the current status. A: That's near the now-gone famous tree in Sanford, the Senator, and yes, you're correct, it is closed to the public. Q: Could you repeat the ways to help springs ? 1. Stop drinking bottled water.2. Plant Florida-friendly landscaping.3. Turn off your irrigation or change to drip irrigation.4. Don't fertilize.5. Connect with and support with a group advocating for springs. A great start is the Florida Springs Council or any of Florida's Riverkeepers. Get involved!Things You Can Do To Make a DifferenceBerkey water filtersFive-gallon water jugs and USB water jug dispensersLinks We MentionedSanta Fe Springs Celebration (April 27, 2024)Support the Show.Support the podcast! For $5/month, you get premium Florida Keys history and travel tips with Brad Bertelli and Cathy Salustri.Subscribe to The Florida Spectacular newsletter, and keep up with Cathy's travels at greatfloridaroadtrip.com. Find her on social media: Facebook.com/SalustriCathy; Twitter/IG: @CathySalustri Question or comment? Email: cathy@floridaspectacular.com. Free, weekly episodes of "The Florida Spectacular" are co-hosted by Rick Kilby.Get Rick's books at rickkilby.com/ and http://studiohourglass.blogspot.com/. Connect: Facebook.com/floridasfountainofyouth, Twitter (@oldfla), and IG (@ricklebee).Premium, biweekly episodes of "The Florida Keys" Spectacular are co-hosted by Brad Bertelli. Find Brad's column in The Keys Weekly newspaper, ch...
Are you ready to explore the AI revolution in the agency world and maximise your creative and operational potential? In an industry that is always evolving, agency owners and employees constantly seek ways to stay ahead of the curve, increase efficiency, and drive growth amidst fierce competition. The rise of artificial intelligence offers unprecedented opportunities to revolutionise how we run agencies, tackle common bottlenecks in project management, and exceed client expectations while fostering a stimulating work environment for employees. In today's show, I outline 10 ways in which AI is and will be used. You will learn how to leverage AI for pinpointing and engaging with ideal prospects, gain insights into blending AI-assisted content creation without compromising on originality, and discover AI's role in optimising project and financial management to cut down on costs and burnout. Questions answered in this episode: Q: In what ways is AI reshaping the journey from lead generation to customer engagement? Q: What improvements in media efficiency can agencies expect from leveraging AI in paid advertising campaigns? Q: Can you outline the role of AI in providing clear insights through reporting dashboards and how this affects decision-making? Q: How is AI automating the more mundane aspects of project management and what impact does this have on team wellbeing and productivity? Q: How AI is streamlining agency finance management? Q: How is the AI coaching platform 'Ask Rob Anything' designed to personalise support for agency owners and their team members? Q: Could you share insights into the implementation of AI within agencies for optimising internal communications and employee development processes? Quotations "Imagine your agency where AI takes you from 0 to 60%, leaving your human creativity to race from 61 to 100%. That's not the future, that's now." — Rob Da Costa "Empowering every agency owner with a coach, and every team member with a mentor – that's the vision. AI isn't just changing the game; it's personalising it." — Rob Da Costa Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode.” If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people like you to move towards a Self-Running Agency. How to leave a review on Apple Podcasts Scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then, let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the podcast. I'm adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you're not subscribed, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Subscribe now! Useful links mentioned in this episode: Learn more about AskRobAnything, your AI Agency Coach and MentorLearn more and join the Creative Crew Community
Are you ready to turn leads into loyal clients by transforming your agency's sales strategy? In the hyper-competitive agency landscape, breaking through the noise and winning a consistent flow of new ideal target clients is a challenge many face. Our latest episode with Ben Potter throws a lifeline to agencies stuck in a cycle of unproductive sales tactics or overreliance on referrals and word of mouth. In this episode you will learn: 1. Strategies to drill down to what potential clients truly need, which goes beyond their initial briefs, delivering a more impactful and personalised service proposition. 2. The importance of why a clear positioning of your agency can drastically cut through competition and how a niche focus can attract more qualified leads. 3. Actionable advice on crafting a sales process that's both consultative and relationship-driven, ensuring your agency doesn't just chase opportunities but builds them from a foundation of trust and expertise. Another super practical episode so let's dig in and let insider knowledge from Ben Potter reshape the way you think about agency sales. Questions answered in this episode: Q: Could you dissect the concept of not taking a client brief at face value and the significance of understanding individual challenges within it? Q: Why is a marketing plan pivotal, and could you outline the components of a robust sales process for an agency? Q: Could you explain what social selling is and why is it gaining preference over traditional cold outreach methods? Q: In what ways can the approach of buying cold lists for email marketing backfire and tarnish an agency's reputation? Q: How does the correct positioning influence lead generation quality, and why is a measured stance in pursuing opportunities beneficial? Q: Why is a slower and more consultative sales process advocated over a quick proposal-writing approach? Quotations Ben Potter: "Peeling back the layers of a client brief is critical; it's about solving their challenges, not just fulfilling a list of requirements. Dive deep to deliver real value." Rob Da Costa: "When it comes to sales and marketing, in all you do, foster relationships first, sell second." Rate, Review, & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts “I enjoy listening to The Agency Accelerator Podcast. I always learn something from every episode.” If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people like you to move towards a Self-Running Agency. How to leave a review on Apple Podcasts Scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then, let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the podcast. I'm adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you're not subscribed, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Subscribe now! Useful links mentioned in this episode: Agency Accelerator LIVE workshopsLearn more about AskRobAnything, your AI Agency CoachBen's websiteBusiness development scorecard quizReach Ben on Linkedin
In this episode of the Used Car Dealer Podcast, Zach interviews Luke Lunkenheimer, an inspiring trainer in the automotive industry and owner of a multi-rooftop used car dealership group. Luke's journey from a past of addiction and prison to the cover of Used Car Dealer Magazine as a successful car dealer is nothing short of remarkable. Zach delves into Luke's transformative journey, discussing how he overcame the stigma of his past, the unique strategies that set Luke's dealerships apart, and the impact of training on sales. This conversation is a deep dive into the resilience and entrepreneurial spirit that defines Luke Lunkenheimer.Some of the questions asked include:Q) Can you summarize your journey from addiction and prison to successful car dealership owner?Q) How did you overcome the stigma of being a felon and rebuild your professional life?Q) How has your family's history in car dealing influenced your business approach?Q) Could you describe the current scale and evolution of your dealership operations?Q) What key lessons from prison have shaped your business and personal life?Q) What unique strategies differentiate your dealerships in the competitive used car market?Q) How have online platforms and digital marketing changed your sales strategy?Q) What are your biggest challenges in inventory management and how do you address them?Q) Can you elaborate on how you maintain ethical practices in your business?Q) What advice would you give to someone in the car business struggling with addiction or major setbacks?Q) What are your future goals for your auto business and personal endeavors in 2024?Q) Can you tell us about your new sales training venture, 'Paid 2 Persuade' (https://training.paid2persuade.com) and its impact?Listen to our other podcast episodes: https://www.sellyautomotive.com/podcast Transcribe of this podcast - https://blog.sellyautomotive.com/blog/luke-lunkenheimer-2024
In this episode of the Used Car Dealer Podcast, Zach interviews Jeremy Robb, Senior Director of Economic and Industry Insights at Cox Automotive. They delve into the dynamic shifts in the automotive market, focusing on the trends and challenges of 2023, the evolving landscape of used vehicle values, the critical role of data in decision-making within the industry, and 2024 predictions. Some of the questions asked include:Q) What sparked your interest in the automotive industry and led to your career there?Q) Reflecting on 2023, what were some unexpected developments in the automotive market?Q) Could you discuss the latest trends in used vehicle values from the Manheim Market Insights?Q) What role do you foresee for data in automotive industry decision-making, and how is Cox Automotive aiding dealers in this area?Q) With your experience at Nissan and Cox Automotive, how do you approach forecasting in the dynamic automotive sector?Q) How is the recent economic climate impacting auto loan defaults and repossessions?Q) How is the focus on EV batteries and technology influencing the traditional used car market?Q) What advice would you give to used car dealers for optimizing inventory and managing customer price expectations?Q) Based on current trends, what are your predictions for the used car market in 2024?Q) What advice would you offer to dealers to navigate the current economic and industry challenges in 2024?Q) Looking ahead, what are some key developments at Cox Automotive that dealers should be excited about in 2024?Listen to our other podcast episodes: https://www.sellyautomotive.com/podcast Transcribe of this podcast - https://blog.sellyautomotive.com/blog/jeremy-robb-2024
Q: Could you explain how the interest rates and terms offered by SBA 504 loans stack up against those of other available financing options? Thanks, Dameon If you'd like to meet with Beau to talk financing, book a call here ( http://bookwithbeau.com/ )
Venerable Robina Courtin is known for her clear teaching, explaining the Buddhist approach to thinking and acting in terms we can understand. Through examples that are relevant to our lives, she presents multiple ways we can put these ideas into practice. Venerable Robina explains the beneficial actions of body, speech and mind we can adopt, and actions to avoid. She gives us ways to create positive new habits benefiting ourselves and those around us, and how to slowly - completely - rid ourselves of harmful, ancient, negative ones. Impermanence (1:49) To practice what? (6:50) The revolutionary shift in the mind (17:00) The unique approach of the Buddha (17:48) Get Wisdom!! (18:28) Causes of suffering: karma and delusions (24:46) The subtlest misconception (27:00) Receiving the cake making initiation (the benefit of a spiritual teacher) (32:00) Choose your guru very carefully, you're going to end up like them (34:37) Q: What about when someone says they are self taught? (36:06) Q: Could you please offer some tips on building and maintaining motivation in the early days of developing a daily meditation practice? (40:27) Q: If the best way to get there is with a teacher … then who taught Bach when he was playing so well at 5 years of age (47:22) Q: I understand intellectually how objects conventionally exist and the emptiness of objects, what I struggle with is to transfer that to situations, for example being criticised at work (49:06) The Ikea "I" (54:22) "One or many" logical argument (56:58) His Holiness Dalai Lama on dependant arising (1:04:14) Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the realisation of the emptiness of "I" (1:05:17) Dependant arising and Emptiness is the most delicious way to understand emptiness (on the Heart Sutra) (1:07:32) Emptiness on the "I" (1:09:33) Nihilistic Insanity (1:10:53) Q: Are you saying that the mind was not experiencing fear, but the body was … because the body was trying to survive altho the mind wasn't (1:20:08) How to apply dependant arising and wisdom in the supermarket aisle (1:22:04) Medicine Buddha Mantra (1:27:32)
20 YEARS IN PERSPECTIVE:I never intended to start a space rocket company.I started to literally Google “How do you build a moon rocket”Consulting has never been my kind of thing, you don't have enough responsibility I think in consulting for execution, I quite like the responsibility of execution.Rule 3 was “Don't fuck it up”.CEO role in that kind of company is 24 / 7 / 365.Stubbornness and stamina are really massively important in any entrepreneurial task.“You're really stubborn. You don't give up. You don't quit, you just keep pushing, keep pushing, until eventually something breaks in your favor and you get there.”The smallest mistake can result in mission failure.I think I kind of knew this intuitively, but someone should tell you explicitly you can do anything.I kind of see success as stepping stones in a way, you need to achieve this, to achieve that, to achieve the ultimate goal.ON TOPIC: OF SPACE, OBRITS, ROCKETS AND POTATO LAUNCHERSI do expect people to land on Mars while I'm still alive, assuming I survive another decade or so.Your mobile phone has something like a million times more computing power than, the Apollo that took people to the Moon.Q: “Could you do something like this?” A: “Yes, but have you got any money?”Orbex today, even with my biased rose-tinted sunglasses on, it is quite objectively viewed as the leading player in a new private space launch industry in Europe right now.Most of the applications of space technology are geared towards driving a better world on the surface of Planet Earth.And what that drives then is a lower economic cost to get things into space. And that's always been the real barrier to getting lots of things into space.To lift a kilo through the gravity well of Earth into orbit is very, very expensive. Once you're in orbit, it's relatively easy to get to other places, but getting into orbit is the expensive, difficult part of space access.I see the gap, the physical gap between Earth and Mars as being the equivalent of the Atlantic ocean, going back a few centuries.I think we're at the dawn of a really new chapter in human history, where we're not just talking about oceans and airplanes, we're talking about interplanetary things in a genuinely realistic way.Space is, I've learned, all about margins - safety margins, margins for performance, margins for mistakes and recovery of mistakes.Getting to orbit is a much, much harder problem than suborbital flight. The difficult part is achieving that velocity and it's a lot, it's tens of thousands of kilometres per hour to get to orbit.Imagine if every time you flew to New York from London you have to throw away the airplaneReusability, that's something we focus on at Orbex as well, reusability and environmental sustainability.The annual volume of Rocket Launches is the global equivalent of the entire airline traffic globally, it's a massive problem, because of that black soot that gets deposited by nonclean combustion of fossil fuels.References, mentions:UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Orbex, Ariane 5, “Zen and the art of the motor motorcycle maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig, Dame Ellen MacArthur, “Stolen focus” Johann Hari, Lifespan by Dr. David Sinclair, Why we sleep by Matthew Walker
In this episode of the Used Car Dealer Podcast, Zach is joined by Jeff Martin, CEO of NIADA, for a preview of the upcoming NIADA Convention 2023, they touch on key topics like regulatory compliance, overcoming used industry challenges, building stronger dealerships, and networking with federal agencies.Some of the questions asked include:Q) Why should someone think about attending the NIADA Convention this year?Q) Who should be brought from the dealership to this event? General manager, finance manager, who else should attend?Q) How long have you been involved with NIADA and attending their conventions?Q) What is different about this year's expo for dealers?Q) What can dealers expect to gain from the convention and Expo that will help them create a near immediate positive impact at their dealership?Q) Could you tell us a little more about what else attendees can expect from NIADA and the Expo Hall?Q) What excites you about the outlook for the used car marketplace this year?Q) What are some other events in 2023 that NIADA puts on?Q) If a dealer is listening and they're not yet a member of the NIADA, why should they join?Q) How do they sign up for their pass to go to NIADA?Listen to our other podcast episodes: https://www.sellyautomotive.com/podcastTranscribe of this podcast - https://blog.sellyautomotive.com/blog/jeffm/may2023
Patrick, Dennis and Angelo welcome to the studio Kate Bodner. Kate is a London based Creative that has blended her love for the Performing Arts with Augmented and Virtual Reality. Having lived in Ireland, Australia, and now London, she is embarking upon an exciting career after completing her Master's Degree in Big Data Culture & Society at Kings College London. We look forward to sharing with you her journey as well as some local insight to fantastic 'Spoons' located around the London area. 00:00 Welcome to the Show 00:25 Update with Dennis, Angelo, and Patrick 03:33 Kate Bodner: Welcome to the Show! 05:40 Kate's beginning within Performing Arts 05:40 Q: What was one of your earliest performances? 08:00 Q: Describe your experience at the Conservatory at Point Park 10:30 Q: What did you learn while training with the Conservatory? 15:00 Q: How did you fuse Performing Arts with Augmented Reality? 22:10 Q: Could you speak about your research at Kings College London related to the 4th Wall and Augmented Reality in a performance? 29:15 Q: Could you share some perspective of performing arts from being abroad? 30:20 Q: What have you learned from your time in Ireland, Australia, and London? 35:15 Q: What is the best advice Kate has received? 37:50 Q: What advice would you give to our audience? 42:30 Q: What is the one food you miss while living abroad? 43:50 Kate shares the phenomenon of ‘Spoons' in London 46:30 Staying connected with Kate 47:50 Dennis & Patrick answer Audience Questions 48:38 Q1: Should I take lower paying job that I'm excited about or a higher paying job that I would not really be happy doing? 52:30 Q2: Dennis, Angelo, Patrick, what have you learned about leadership from hosting the podcast? 55:25 Q3: How can I become better at integrating my instincts into decision making rather than always looking for additional quantitative data? 1:00:40 Q4: Angelo, Dennis, Patrick… what is your favorite Ice Cream? 1:03:30 Final Thoughts 1:04:00 Final Credits
Whilst we wait for the announcement for 23.2 we've got the reactions from the main sponsor, spectators and athletes straight after 23.1 in Madrid. And, we have a statement from Adrian Bozman answering these questions... Q: What was the decision behind the repeat of 14.4?Q: Could the inclusion of such technical gymnastic movements in the first test of the season a barrier to participation for the majority of Open participants? Q: Was the mistake with the loading down to conversions between the weights? Listen to the pod to get his answers. By the way, GOWOD has a free offer for everyone doing The Open, so go download the App https://www.gowod.app/ and help yourself to improve your score. We have an EIC offer for you. You can get a 10% discount on all of The Progrm courses or the Athlete Academy, just pop in the code EIC at the checkout to get the deal. Visit https://theprogrm.com/ and take a look at the COURSES and ACADEMY and make your pick!You can find Vicki at https://www.instagram.com/vicmcleod/The Progm at https://www.instagram.com/theprogrm/
Q: Could you explain the concept of "testing God with your offerings"? Does God "return favors" to us? Where is the line with the prosperity gospel in regards to offerings? Resources Mentioned: Joyce Baldwin- Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi Lewis Sperry Chafer- Systematic Theology Craig A. Blaising, “Malachi,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures Read the full episode blog post here. Call or text us your question at 615-281-9694 or email at question@michaelincontext.com.
Q: Could there be anything better than our life in Jesus? A: No.
Q: Could you please offer any advice or wisdom you might have on what to say to a friend who is deep into a "christian" cult. I feel good about defending, explaining and preaching what the Bible and the Gospel actually say. And I also feel pretty good on explaining what I find very problematic on his beliefs. So I am mostly interested in any general tips on interaction. How do I navigate a meeting with a former Christian acquaintance who is fully in a cult? We have talked a bit on and off lately on the phone wanting to catch up in person. When that happens I know it may be a bit of a friendly Bible/theology shootout. I want to tell him in love that he is in a very dangerous spot and that its not just about my side being right. If you can share any similar experiences and tips, I would deeply appreciate! Call or text us your question at 615-281-9694 or email at question@michaelincontext.com.
The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
Please support our sponsors because they make the show possible! Get Opteo for free for two months - https://opteo.com/psp2 Show Notes:This week the guys are tackling more of your Google Ads questions regarding the staffing and recruiting industry, finding value in a campaign that doesn't track conversions, the usefulness of the ad preview tool, the impact of pausing a campaign, and what to do if your conversion rate is showing over 100%. (3:47) Q: Could you talk about the staffing and recruiting industry? It seems like a different beast with more targeting restrictions and high CPCs. A: It's a unique industry because of the intensity by which people search. High volume, high response, and a lot of competitors mean you have the unique opportunity to try a lot of experiments. Drill down on what job you offer specifically.(12:42) Q: My client is not able to track conversions. Would you accept clients who have this setup? How do you judge success? How do you know what to optimize? A: It's not as big of a problem as it seems. The campaign will never be as good as it would if you had the tracking/conversion data, but it's still a good value for marketing money because of search terms, CPC, and keywords. You can judge success on many other secondary factors.(19:24) Q: Do you think the ad preview tool is useful for clients to see their own ads without affecting search results? A: It's usually a last resort to a client who doesn't see their ad. Because we're working with a digital product, we have to work with the numbers we see. (25:48) Q: Will stopping my ads have a negative impact on a campaign and/or account level due to a build-up of negative history on the days the ads aren't running? Ideally, we would like to run our ads every day but sometimes we aren't able to due to budget and cash flow problems.A: There is not a negative impact on a campaign just because you pause it, but there is a momentum shift. You're not being hurt, but you're not getting the benefit of the momentum. The second part of the question is a budget consumption issue. Someone is overstepping the budget and not appropriately distributing it across a month.(31:39) Q: We're an eCommerce site only tracking sales as conversions, but are seeing a 500% conversion rate on one click/keyword. Can you convert more than once from one click or is this a bug?A: This is a conversion tracking issue. Go to search terms and search by conversion rate then look at the conversion count setting – change it from “every” to “one”. It could also be an issue with the conversion tracking code placement.We need your help! Please help us grow the show: If you don't mind, please leave us a rating and review where you listen to podcasts and share the show with friends because it helps us grow the show and create more content. Send us your questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/ First 100 Episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive/ Adventures by A Himitsu https://soundcloud.com/a-himitsu Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/2Pj0MtT Music released by Argofox https://youtu.be/8BXNwnxaVQE Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/MkNeIUgNPQ8
Though pro leagues are slowly adjusting to the reality that marijuana is not a performance-enhancing drug, it remains squarely on the banned list for Olympic sports.That reality will force American sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson to miss the Olympics this month.Shortly after she won the Olympic trials in Oregon last month, she tested positive for chemicals found in marijuana. Though it was acknowledged the drug was not used for performance-enhancing purposes, Richardson still had her results erased and received a one-month ban.A few questions about marijuana policy in sports:Q: If marijuana isn't thought to enhance performance, then why is it still banned?A: According to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, "For something to be added to the ... Prohibited List, it must meet two of the three inclusion criteria: a) it poses a health risk to athletes b) it has the potential to enhance performance and c) it violates the spirit of sport." Though WADA has increased the threshold for a positive test, it has not taken marijuana off the list because it still asserts that the drug meets at least two of the above criteria. Also according to USADA: The 2021 World Anti-Doping Code newly classifies THC as a "Substance of Abuse" because it is frequently used in society outside the context of sport.Q: What changed recently in the American pro sports leagues?A: All the leagues have greatly loosened their restrictions on marijuana over the past years. For instance, the NFL has raised the threshold for a positive test and eliminated suspensions. And the NBA stopped random testing for marijuana in March 2020. These changes have come as laws prohibiting marijuana use around the U.S. and the world have been relaxed, and as studies that link marijuana to medicinal and pain-relief benefits have become more common.Q: What changes have occurred in the Olympic testing program?A: Not long after the London Olympics in 2012, international regulators increased the threshold for a positive test from 15 nanograms per millilitre to 150 ng/m. They explained the new threshold was an attempt to ensure that in-competition use is detected, but not use during the days and weeks before competition. The sanction for a positive test when an athlete can establish the drug was not used to enhance performance is three months. That can be reduced to one month if the athlete completes counselling.Q: If Richardson's ban is 30 days and ends July 27, then why can't she compete in the Olympic 100, which starts on July 30?A: Because her first-place finish at trials, which is what earned her the spot, is scratched out of the record books because of the positive test.Q: Could she still compete in the Olympics?A: Because her ban is over before the start of the women's 4x100 relay, there's a chance she could be named to the team. But the relay pool is presumably filled by athletes who have a result from the trials. Richardson does not officially have a result, so it would potentially take some legal wrangling or cooperation from other athletes to allow her on the team.Q: Could Richardson appeal the ruling?A: Although athletes have the right to appeal any positive tests, two people familiar with this case told The Associated Press that Richardson is not appealing her case. The people did not want their names used because of the confidentiality of doping cases.
Venerable Robina Courtin continues teaching about the Buddhist approach to developing compassion. WHY ENDLESS COMPASSION? Sometimes it feels like the world's problems are demanding so much of our attention that our compassion reserves will run dry. How can we develop strong, resilient compassion that allows us to help others? Venerable Robina says: “You don't harm others even slightly if you love, have compassion, generosity, forgiveness - it's not possible. It's the delusions that cause us pain and cause us to harm others. So when we deeply understand that, it's like we've got compassion for ourselves. That's what qualifies us to have compassion for others - and that doesn't just mean the victims, it means the people who do the harm. This is a really tough level of compassion but we can not have it until we know ourselves, until we know what causes us pain.” Course notes: https://bit.ly/EndlessCompassionNotes *** Even if you're drowning, you might as well stay perky...(6:58) Q: How to recognise authentic compassion, compassion with wisdom? (7:36) Practices to develop compassion (14:55) Q: If removing the dirt from the water (as a metaphor for overcoming delusions) is possible - what is "the water"? (39:15) Q: How to apply equanimity to ourselves? Should we look at our afflictions with equanimity? (46:05) Q: How does talking about others destroy our equanimity? Is it because we can do it with anger. Is there ever a time that talking about others is okay and in line with our equanimity? (53:22) Q: It's difficult to fathom how one person is able to hold all beings with genuine love. If we forget about a stranger's headache in 1 minute - does a Bodhisattva keep thinking about it? Can we think about 7.5 billion peoples' headaches all at once? It seems like too big a job for a single person - how is that level of concern experienced by a Bodhisattva? (1:00:00) Q: I don't understand the suffering of change. (1:03:03) Q: What is the mudra when offering the mandala? (1:09:43) Q: Is it so: that which my mind labels as pleasure is actually a delusion and a kind of poison (1:12:24) Q: Could you please talk more about the connection between the mind and the body? Is this something that we can only experience/ observe through meditation? (1:22:32)
Teaching NotesI love how this reading ends like a cliffhanger, adrenaline surging but with jolted finish. There's a revelation –Jesus is alive! And yet, so many questions remain, dots still left to connect. Gasping for air, lost for words, the three women fled because they were “Trembling, bewildered, and afraid.” Q: Could you imagine? Q: What are you most afraid of right now? Q: How do we cope with these fears? Dave Barry the old humorist once said, “All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears – of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, of speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words ‘Some Assembly Required.'” And of course, there are “clinical” ways to face our fears and I can personally tell you that Christ-centered therapy has been a game changer. But as a pastor I want to approach this question theologically and say… “How do we not allow our fears to rule our lives? How can we have peace in our lives?” Well, here's the answer: Choose a better fear. Tremble at something bigger. “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you fear him.” Luke 12:4-5 What Jesus is getting at is this: Your God is too small. Your fear is too small. When we lose our fear in God, we will fear everything else, and that will take us down a vicious and repeatable cycle. Q: Can you see that progression in you? “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Luke 12:6-7 That's why the empty grave is so important. The empty grave confirms that, with God, there is no rival or equal. He is the most powerful. He conquers death (note: see 1 Corinthians 15:12-28). The empty grave reminds us that we stand before the Living God, awesome in power and mighty in strength. He has overcome death itself. Not only is his power confirmed, so too is his love. And because of an empty grave, we join Paul in saying: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 William D. Eisenhower explains the relationship with rightly fearing God this way: “Unfortunately, many of us presume that the world is the ultimate threat and that God's function is to offset it. How different this is from the biblical position that God is far scarier than the world…When we assume that the world is the ultimate threat, we give it unwarranted power, for in truth, the world's threats are temporary. When we expect God to balance the stress of the world, we reduce him to the world's equal…As I walk with the Lord, I discover that God poses an ominous threat to my ego, but not to me. He rescues me from my delusions, so he may reveal the truth that sets me free. He casts me down, only to lift me up again. He sits in judgment of my sin, but forgives me nevertheless. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom but love from the Lord is its completion.” So, in the midst of our ailment, suffering or pain…In the midst of our anxiety or fears, in the midst of our very real-world anguish and pain, we can say: Cheer Up! On Your Feet. The Risen One is calling you. And He is…All Powerful. All Good. Complete Love. And that's the difference. The women at the empty grave chose a better fear! The one who is “far scarier.” They were trembling, bewildered and afraid before an empty grave, not an empty life. The grave was empty, but their hearts were full. THEY TREMBLED AT AN EMPTY GRAVE. At nothing else and no one else. Q: Do you long to tremble like that? WE TREMBLE AT AN EMPTY GRAVE. At nothing else and no one else.So I call you to courage: We don't tremble over national elections. We tremble at the one who has the power of heaven. We don't tremble over outbreaks and pull backs. We tremble at the one who pulled back the veil of heaven. We don't tremble or wait for the next shoe to drop, because we tremble at the one who's sandal we cannot untie. We don't tremble at newsfeeds or breaking news, we tremble at the one who was broken for our sins; who was crucified, rose, ascended, and today sits on the throne as Lord over all creation. We don't tremble at doomsayer's predictions; we tremble at the one who promises to return and make all things new. WE TREMBLE AT AN EMPTY GRAVE. At nothing else and no one else. Because Jesus says: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Sunday Set ListWFC Lenexa/OnlineRattle- Elevation WorshipTremble- Mosaic MSMJesus Is Our King- The Collective KCThere Is A King- Elevation WorshipBecause He Lives- People & SongsWFC SpeedwayRattle- Elevation WorshipDeath Was Arrested- North Point WorshipGraves Into Gardens- Elevation Worship Feat./Brandon LakeRaise A Hallelujah- Bethel MusicJesus Is Our King- The Collective KCBe sure to save our Spotify Worship Playlist, updated weekly with the upcoming Sunday's set! Watching Group Content + DiscussionFind weekly watching group content here.What stood out to you from today's viewing?How would you summarize these chapters in a sentence or two?What did you learn about Jesus in these chapters?What did you learn about people/humanity in these chapters?What is God asking you to do, be, embrace, change and/or believe from these chapters?
Teaching NotesI love how this reading ends like a cliffhanger, adrenaline surging but with jolted finish. There’s a revelation –Jesus is alive! And yet, so many questions remain, dots still left to connect. Gasping for air, lost for words, the three women fled because they were “Trembling, bewildered, and afraid.” Q: Could you imagine? Q: What are you most afraid of right now? Q: How do we cope with these fears? Dave Barry the old humorist once said, “All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears – of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, of speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words ‘Some Assembly Required.’” And of course, there are “clinical” ways to face our fears and I can personally tell you that Christ-centered therapy has been a game changer. But as a pastor I want to approach this question theologically and say… “How do we not allow our fears to rule our lives? How can we have peace in our lives?” Well, here’s the answer: Choose a better fear. Tremble at something bigger. “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you fear him.” Luke 12:4-5 What Jesus is getting at is this: Your God is too small. Your fear is too small. When we lose our fear in God, we will fear everything else, and that will take us down a vicious and repeatable cycle. Q: Can you see that progression in you? “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Luke 12:6-7 That’s why the empty grave is so important. The empty grave confirms that, with God, there is no rival or equal. He is the most powerful. He conquers death (note: see 1 Corinthians 15:12-28). The empty grave reminds us that we stand before the Living God, awesome in power and mighty in strength. He has overcome death itself. Not only is his power confirmed, so too is his love. And because of an empty grave, we join Paul in saying: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 William D. Eisenhower explains the relationship with rightly fearing God this way: “Unfortunately, many of us presume that the world is the ultimate threat and that God's function is to offset it. How different this is from the biblical position that God is far scarier than the world…When we assume that the world is the ultimate threat, we give it unwarranted power, for in truth, the world's threats are temporary. When we expect God to balance the stress of the world, we reduce him to the world's equal…As I walk with the Lord, I discover that God poses an ominous threat to my ego, but not to me. He rescues me from my delusions, so he may reveal the truth that sets me free. He casts me down, only to lift me up again. He sits in judgment of my sin, but forgives me nevertheless. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom but love from the Lord is its completion.” So, in the midst of our ailment, suffering or pain…In the midst of our anxiety or fears, in the midst of our very real-world anguish and pain, we can say: Cheer Up! On Your Feet. The Risen One is calling you. And He is…All Powerful. All Good. Complete Love. And that’s the difference. The women at the empty grave chose a better fear! The one who is “far scarier.” They were trembling, bewildered and afraid before an empty grave, not an empty life. The grave was empty, but their hearts were full. THEY TREMBLED AT AN EMPTY GRAVE. At nothing else and no one else. Q: Do you long to tremble like that? WE TREMBLE AT AN EMPTY GRAVE. At nothing else and no one else.So I call you to courage: We don’t tremble over national elections. We tremble at the one who has the power of heaven. We don’t tremble over outbreaks and pull backs. We tremble at the one who pulled back the veil of heaven. We don’t tremble or wait for the next shoe to drop, because we tremble at the one who’s sandal we cannot untie. We don’t tremble at newsfeeds or breaking news, we tremble at the one who was broken for our sins; who was crucified, rose, ascended, and today sits on the throne as Lord over all creation. We don’t tremble at doomsayer’s predictions; we tremble at the one who promises to return and make all things new. WE TREMBLE AT AN EMPTY GRAVE. At nothing else and no one else. Because Jesus says: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!Sunday Set ListWFC Lenexa/OnlineRattle- Elevation WorshipTremble- Mosaic MSMJesus Is Our King- The Collective KCThere Is A King- Elevation WorshipBecause He Lives- People & SongsWFC SpeedwayRattle- Elevation WorshipDeath Was Arrested- North Point WorshipGraves Into Gardens- Elevation Worship Feat./Brandon LakeRaise A Hallelujah- Bethel MusicJesus Is Our King- The Collective KCBe sure to save our Spotify Worship Playlist, updated weekly with the upcoming Sunday’s set!Watching Group Content + DiscussionFind weekly watching group content here.What stood out to you from today’s viewing?How would you summarize these chapters in a sentence or two?What did you learn about Jesus in these chapters?What did you learn about people/humanity in these chapters?What is God asking you to do, be, embrace, change and/or believe from these chapters?
Charlotte Athletic Director Mike Hill is the latest guest to join Travis Smith on the Higher Ed Athletics podcast. Hill started the conversation profiling UNC-Charlotte and his thought process behind leaving Florida for the Charlotte AD job. The rest of the conversation dives into the importance of branding and relationships with administrators at the other universities in the UNC system. Below is a list of the questions: Q: Can you tell us about UNC-Charlotte as an institution? Because I don't think many people understand how big the university is. Q: After 25 years at the University of Florida you became the AD at UNC-Charlotte. At what point did you know that you wanted to pursue an AD opening because I'm always fascinated in career crossroad stories. Q: You entered the job as your predecessor was retiring after three decades leading the department. How does a new AD in that situation best approach the staff and eventually implement the vision you have for the department when change might be difficult for some? Q: Coming from Florida to Charlotte there's a difference in staff resources and probably a smaller alumni donor base due to it being a younger institution. Do the same strategies in marketing, fundraising and revenue generation apply to a Group of 5 institution, or is there a different blueprint to being successful? Q: UNC-Charlotte decided to brand athletics as Charlotte including adding a “CLT” logo mark. What was the strategy behind the decision? Q: Can you walk me through the steps and considerations you all made in the rebranding process and what you learned as the new AD? Q: Could you ever see a day in college athletics where a branch campus athletic department gets a better apparel contract or additional buying power in equipment purchases through being associated with the flagship campus athletic department? Q: What are some other ways maybe a flagship and its branch athletic departments could share resources to help it thrive? Or maybe they shouldn't crossover?
Charlotte Athletic Director Mike Hill is the latest guest to join Travis Smith on the Higher Ed Athletics podcast. Hill started the conversation profiling UNC-Charlotte and his thought process behind leaving Florida for the Charlotte AD job. The rest of the conversation dives into the importance of branding and relationships with administrators at the other universities in the UNC system. Below is a list of the questions: Q: Can you tell us about UNC-Charlotte as an institution? Because I don't think many people understand how big the university is. Q: After 25 years at the University of Florida you became the AD at UNC-Charlotte. At what point did you know that you wanted to pursue an AD opening because I’m always fascinated in career crossroad stories. Q: You entered the job as your predecessor was retiring after three decades leading the department. How does a new AD in that situation best approach the staff and eventually implement the vision you have for the department when change might be difficult for some? Q: Coming from Florida to Charlotte there’s a difference in staff resources and probably a smaller alumni donor base due to it being a younger institution. Do the same strategies in marketing, fundraising and revenue generation apply to a Group of 5 institution, or is there a different blueprint to being successful? Q: UNC-Charlotte decided to brand athletics as Charlotte including adding a “CLT” logo mark. What was the strategy behind the decision? Q: Can you walk me through the steps and considerations you all made in the rebranding process and what you learned as the new AD? Q: Could you ever see a day in college athletics where a branch campus athletic department gets a better apparel contract or additional buying power in equipment purchases through being associated with the flagship campus athletic department? Q: What are some other ways maybe a flagship and its branch athletic departments could share resources to help it thrive? Or maybe they shouldn’t crossover?
About this Episode Time Stamps Q&A About our Guests Resources After decades as a highly regarded teacher and school leader in New Jersey, Principal Baruti Kafele began a journey to share his knowledge and experience with educators across the country. On this episode of Keystone Education Radio, podcast host Annette Stevenson and Principal Kafele discuss his career, the attitude gap, how to approach conversations about racism and social injustice, his role in transforming Newark Tech into an award-winning high school, and why he has been coined as America's discomfort speaker. Skip to: 01:20 To begin with, would you give us an overview of the journey that brought you to where you are today as an educator, writer and speaker? Skip to: 02:30 We know about various “gaps” - the achievement gap, the opportunity gap - Could you explain what the attitude gap is? “I want to transform attitudes because if I can change the attitude, then the achievement will follow.” “The attitude gap is the gap between those students who have the will to achieve excellence and those who do not.” Skip to: 05:20 Following the killing of George Floyd, there has been a loud call for social change across the country. What guidance would you give to schools about how to approach conversations about racism and social injustice? “Leadership has to have the courage, the backbone, the spine, the audacity, to engage staff in that tough conversation.” Skip to: 07:44 Under your leadership, Newark Tech transformed from a low-performing school to being recognized by U.S. News and World Report Magazine as one of America’s best high schools, three times over. What was the primary catalyst for this change? “When the vision can be shared, now there's a higher probability that we can turn this thing into our reality. So, our vision was shared, the students embraced the vision of what we can become, and now we were able to go to work and make it happen.” Skip to: 09:04 You have been coined as America’s discomfort speaker because of how you force your audiences to reflect on themselves. Can you explain why this type of self-reflection is important? “I'm here for you to look within yourself because as you feel that pain, so to speak, that will be the motivation or the impetus for you to bring about change to your practice.” Skip to: 12:20 How can listeners learn more about your work and your books? Q: Could you give us an overview of your journey that brought you to where you are today as an educator, writer and speaker? A: Yeah, the short version is that I was teacher in 1988 in Brooklyn, New York City. I loved it and decided to do it full time, so I came back home to Jersey and continued it. I became an award-winning teacher in a very short period of time as teacher of the year at the school district, county and finalist for New Jersey State Teacher of the Year. I went on and became a principal, which I did for 14 years. But while I was doing that work, even as a teacher, I was writing. So, I was writing my first books and here we are up to number 11. I left my principalship in 2011 because I wanted to do this. I wanted a larger platform to do it. I had been doing it for 30 some odd years, but it was simultaneous with my principalship, so that meant weekends and summers and that type of thing. And I really wanted to live it. So, I left in 2011 and that's what I've been doing ever since. Q: So, we hear about different types of gaps – achievement gap, opportunity gap. Could you explain the attitude gap? A: Yeah, I've had a focus on attitude since my undergraduate days in the early 80s. I thought that the whole idea of a positive attitude was a powerful thing. So, as I evolved as a practitioner, as an educator, I started thinking about attitude, attitude, attitude. Then with the achievement gap language, No Child Left Behind language and the pressures to close this achievement gap – at that time,
We're back! This isn't a traditional podcast episode, but we wanted to share this conversation we had with Dr. Pam Wells because of the insights and ideas she shares regarding church school partnerships for the new school year in light of COVID-19. Don't have time for the full episode? Check out the "Table of Contents" below: 1:43 Pam's predictions for the new school year 9:51 Q: How can churches help? 10:09 A: Help with food insecurity 11:24 A: Help with the digital divide 12:55 A: Mentor 13:43 A: Pray 14:15 A: Support and appreciate teachers and staff 15:14 A: Help families apply for P-EBT (Deadline is 7/31!) 16:32 A: Provide mental health support ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS 17:47 Q: What about extracurricular activities? 19:47 Q: Additional P-EBT questions 21:03 Q: Can students access schoolwork on church computers? 21:50 A: Additional P-EBT answers 22:08 Q: Could schools within a district have different schedules? 23:33 Q: Have you learned from other countries' school systems? CLOSING 25:32 Pam's affirmations about church school partnerships! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: P-EBT Information: https://hhs.texas.gov/services/health/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-covid-19-information-texans/pandemic-ebt-p-ebt-due-covid-19 Listen to our full conversation with Pam: https://youtu.be/T6DIhIX3lJs (recorded 6/18/2020 during our Church School Partnership Leaders Gathering) Find more ideas and examples at http://lovinghouston.net/covid19 --- Pam Wells, Ed.D. proudly serves as the executive director for Region 4 Education Service Center, which is the largest of the twenty education service centers in Texas. Region 4 provides service to support more than 1.2 million students and approximately 99,000 professional educators in 48 school districts and 39 public charter schools in the seven-county greater Houston area.
We're back! This isn't a traditional podcast episode, but we wanted to share this conversation we had with Dr. Pam Wells because of the insights and ideas she shares regarding church school partnerships for the new school year in light of COVID-19. Don't have time for the full episode? Check out the "Table of Contents" below: 1:43 Pam's predictions for the new school year 9:51 Q: How can churches help? 10:09 A: Help with food insecurity 11:24 A: Help with the digital divide 12:55 A: Mentor 13:43 A: Pray 14:15 A: Support and appreciate teachers and staff 15:14 A: Help families apply for P-EBT (Deadline is 7/31!) 16:32 A: Provide mental health support ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS 17:47 Q: What about extracurricular activities? 19:47 Q: Additional P-EBT questions 21:03 Q: Can students access schoolwork on church computers? 21:50 A: Additional P-EBT answers 22:08 Q: Could schools within a district have different schedules? 23:33 Q: Have you learned from other countries' school systems? CLOSING 25:32 Pam's affirmations about church school partnerships! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: P-EBT Information: https://hhs.texas.gov/services/health/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-covid-19-information-texans/pandemic-ebt-p-ebt-due-covid-19 Listen to our full conversation with Pam: https://youtu.be/T6DIhIX3lJs (recorded 6/18/2020 during our Church School Partnership Leaders Gathering) Find more ideas and examples at http://lovinghouston.net/covid19 --- Pam Wells, Ed.D. proudly serves as the executive director for Region 4 Education Service Center, which is the largest of the twenty education service centers in Texas. Region 4 provides service to support more than 1.2 million students and approximately 99,000 professional educators in 48 school districts and 39 public charter schools in the seven-county greater Houston area.
It’s another potluck! In this episode, Scott and Wes answer your questions about custom hooks, static site generators, code management, CSS, and more! Sentry - Sponsor If you want to know what’s happening with your errors, track them with Sentry. Sentry is open-source error tracking that helps developers monitor and fix crashes in real time. Cut your time on error resolution from five hours to five minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code “tastytreat”. Freshbooks - Sponsor Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at freshbooks.com/syntax and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Show Notes 04:02 - Q: Could you do a quick overview of how to effectively use a platform like Cloudinary? I have a Gatsby site with a lot of images and want to use something like Cloudinary to help with optimization, but the docs aren’t completely clear to me how to get the most out of their service. 10:58 - Q: What kind of CSS pre/post-processor you usually use? What are the pros and cons of pre-processor (SASS, SCSS, LESS) and post-processor (PostCSS)? 16:22 - Q: What is the most effective way to share a project with the internet and get feedback? I’m in a phase right now where I’m building loads of new web things with React and JavaScript, but the only place I can think to share them is my Twitter, where only like 3 people will see them. 18:35 - Q: What are your thoughts on classes in JavaScript? Do we still need them in 2020, or has the functional programming paradigm made them largely unnecessary? Does the answer change based on the size of the project and/or team? 23:56 - Q: Does ES2020 have var? Also, is ES2020 a real spec or just a term people are using? 27:37 - Q: Have you tried gqless, a graphql client alternative to something like Apollo client? Very interesting idea for clean and maintainable code. 29:15 - Q: What are the main differences in working for a software agency and a software product company? Pros and cons of each? 33:53 - Q: Advice for having static blog with minimal moving parts? I used to have a static blog but I eventually got sick of touching it because instead of writing content I often got stuck keeping up with all the dependencies involved. 38:18 - Q: Micro Frontends—is it the solution to rewriting legacy components? 42:16 - Q: I am relatively new to web development and I feel like it is very difficult to “catch up” with JavaScript. It seems like whenever I try to contribute an open source, I can’t figure out the code because they’re using newer (and presumably better) ways of doing things. How can I get up to date with everything that’s going on in the JavaScript world? Also, at what point should I start learning a front-end framework? 46:56 - Q: My team and I are starting to write pretty complicated custom hooks gathering data from a number of different endpoints and/or polling certain endpoints on a continuous interval timer before returning it to the component that needs the data. Since this is the case some hooks have gotten fairly large with multiple functions inside of them getting called to get/manipulate all the data, or multiple hooks using those same functions to get slightly different data. Is it a best practice to keep all those hooks together in one file if they support all the hooks? Or should we break the hooks into separate files and move the helper functions into another file and just have one hook per file? 51:10 - Q: Any tips for navigating projects with bad project managers? Working with non-technical agency project managers makes it pretty difficult to effectively plan and allocate time to ensure that all of the projects are done on time, on budget, and done well. It’s important to me to maintain an optimistic attitude in the organization, but sometimes I’d love to just hit 'em with the 'ol “Peace out” and go smoke some pork butt. Wondering if you guys have any good experience managing these types of projects? 55:45 - Q: I’m committing often and early, but this means that I end up writing the same vague git commit message over and over again. I know the solution to the problem is to just be more verbose, but it’s a difficult habit to break. Any advice? Links imgIX Netlify Sass Less Bootstrap Stylus PostCSS WordPress Reddit StaticGen Gridsom Vue Laravel Hugo ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Jelle’s Marble Runs Wes: Hyundai HHC2GNK Vertical Style Electric Air Compressor Shameless Plugs Scott: Level Up Tutorials Pro - Sign up for the year and save 25%! Wes: All Courses - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for $10 off! Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets
It’s another potluck! In this episode, Scott and Wes answer your questions about Gatsby vs Next, Google Home and privacy, flat file CMS, working with designers, CSS frameworks and more! Netlify - Sponsor Netlify is the best way to deploy and host a front-end website. All the features developers need right out of the box: Global CDN, Continuous Deployment, one click HTTPS and more. Hit up netlify.com/syntax for more info. Freshbooks - Sponsor Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at freshbooks.com/syntax and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Show Notes 6:15 - Q: Curious if you would ever consider running your course platform on Gatsby instead of NextJs? If not, what dynamic content would prevent you from doing so? 10:48 - Q: What’s the difference between a software developer and a software engineer, in your opinion? 13:11 - Q: How do you deal with designers who design without any thought about how dev will implement it? 15:46 - Q: I saw that Wes has an example in one of his slides where the Array prototype is written onto the Nodelist prototype. Is this safe enough for production as it overrides all regular NodeList behavior? 19:18 - Q: In a potluck episode you mentioned that you do not host your clients’ website. If you don’t host you clients’ website how do you usually go about handling clients that are less tech savvy? Or do you avoid those types of clients? 21:30 - Q: I know you guys (especially Wes) have been pretty insistent recently on not hosting clients’ sites yourself, but what do you guys think about continuously hosting client sites with a service like Netlify? It’s highly unlikely to go down and scales all for you, so it might be a bit of reoccurring income if you bill them yearly for the minimal Netlify fees. 24:44 - Q: I was listening to your episode on “The Smart Home” and I’m very interested in buying a Google Home Mini myself. However, I cannot stop thinking about the privacy implications of an always listening device around the house. What are your thoughts on this topic and on privacy related to online services in general? 29:08 - Q: What are your thoughts about using a CMS that uses flat files vs one that uses a traditional MySQL or Postgres database for a company blog that won’t have insane traffic? We’re currently evaluating Grav CMS and Craft CMS. 32:17 - Q: Have you used data attributes as custom elements in CSS and JS? 37:32 - Q: Why do so many people jump on styled-components/CSS in JS? Are these all people who have never used Sass/SCSS?! It seems like such a PITA to get Sass working with either of these. It feels like coding tables vs HTML 5. To me it seems like a step backwards. 44:26 - Q: When do you, if ever, reach for a component library, like Material or Bootstrap? Currently working a corporate job where it’s almost expected to use one of these for all internal applications. I usually prefer to make my own, but I’m wondering if I’m just making my life more difficult than it needs to be? Any advice? 48:30 - Q: Could you guys chat about Git clients and which ones you guys use and why? Or are you guys hardcore terminal geeks? Links Gatsby Next.js Bling.js Syntax 118: The Smart Home Grav CMS Craft CMS prismic Sanity Contentful Tiny CMS Forestry Airdale Chemical Material Bootstrap VS Code ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: HeavySet - Gym Workout Log Wes: Baroness Von Sketch Shameless Plugs Scott: FullStack React with NextJS - Sign up for the year and save 25%! Wes: Beginner Javascript Course Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets
And which Comet deserves a look in the NHL? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
And which Comet deserves a look in the NHL? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s another Potluck! In this episode, Scott and Wes answer your questions about CSS, Angular, Svelte, dev job preparation and more! Sentry - Sponsor If you want to know what’s happening with your errors, track them with Sentry. Sentry is open-source error tracking that helps developers monitor and fix crashes in real time. Cut your time on error resolution from five hours to five minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners can get two months for free by visiting Sentry and using the coupon code “tastytreat”. Sanity - Sponsor Sanity.io is a real-time headless CMS with a fully customizable Content Studio built in React. Get a Sanity powered site up and running in minutes at Sanity. Get an awesome supercharged free developer plan on Sanity. Show Notes 3:23 - Q: How big is too big for state? I have an object of around 1000 items which will be used in a search box on the frontend of my site, but the list of items won’t be updated very often. What is the most efficient way to store these items and deliver them to the browser? Would you use state, a JSON object, a MongoDB document or some other way I haven’t thought of? 7:17 - Q: How much do I need to know before I start applying for dev jobs? 9:26 - Q: Do you folks have any opinions on Skeleton loaders, and any thoughts on how best to implement them? At my day job we’ve recently implemented skeleton loaders in a way that inherits the parent styles. Would love to know if there’s any best practices for this or ways we can improve our setup. 13:01 - Q: Do you think we still need to use CSS resets like normalize and sanitizer? 14:56 - Q: Scott, can you tell the story of how you landed an interview for a job in Japan? I am moving to Japan next year and wondering how that opportunity arose for you. 20:04 - Q: Do you guys have an opinion on angular good or bad? Or is it that you’re more comfortable and have used React and Vue more often, so they’re largely at the center of any framework discussions? 22:54 - Q: Could you talk about naming and structuring files/folders in your applications? How do you name components and folders? Do you follow some sort of path of how to structure files in a web app? 29:01 - Q: Do you think that Node is almost too powerful to handle some of the simpler tasks (a site that just needs a contact form for instance), or am I just missing some very simple configuration? It seems like other languages, such as PHP, might be better suited for some of these simple tasks and Node is really just meant for larger scale application? I guess what my question really boils down to is, for a freelancer, I understand that I need to have my hands in a lot of different tech stacks, but should I really dive in on PHP (or something else) to handle some of these simpler features a client might need? 33:24 - Q: What do you guys think about Svelte? Before everything goes WASM will Svelte be the future of web programming? 37:24 - Q: What smart phones and laptops do you use for work? (specific model and why) 42:38 - Q: Should I apply for other jobs even if my contract might get renewed? Should I feel loyal to a company? ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: DaVinci Resolve 16 Wes: Affinity Photo Shameless Plugs Wes: Wes’ Courses — use coupon code “syntax” at checkout and get and extra $10 off. Scott: Scott’s Crouses Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets
It’s another potluck episode in which Wes and Scott answer your questions! This month - organizing your Git repos, the difference between freelancing and contracting, changing careers, how to deal with spammers and more! Sanity.io - Sponsor Sanity.io is a real-time headless CMS with a fully customizable Content Studio built in React. Get up and running by typing npm i -g @sanity/cli && sanity init in your command line. Get an awesome supercharged free developer plan on sanity.io/syntax. Techmeme Ride Home Podcast From Techmeme.com, Silicon Valley’s most-read news source, The Techmeme Ride Home podcast is a short daily podcast about the day’s tech news. Mark Zuckerberg called Techmeme the one news source he definitely follows. New episodes are published every day at 5p.m. You can check out the show here, or search for “Techmeme Ride Home” in your favorite podcast player. Show Notes 1:55 Q: Do you prefer to have your backend and frontend in separate Git repos or together? What are the trade-offs? 5:12 Q: In web dev, what’s the difference between a freelancer and independent contractor? 9:45 Q: Default export vs named export? 11:35 Q: I’m looking to change careers, but I’m 41 this year. Is it too late? 16:12 Q: Have you guys made much use of multicolumn layout? If so, only for text, or have you come up with (or seen elsewhere) any interesting out-of-the-box uses? 20:11 Q: Since you publish your courses’ source code on Github, what do you think about people using that to learn instead of buying your course? Is it an intentional decision, or is it a compromise you’re willing to make? 23:52 Q: When is a certification needed for both jobs and side-projects? 29:35 How do you deal with spammers filling out forms? 34:05 Q: Could you better explain what a slug is? I’ve heard the term thrown around on a number of your episodes, but I don’t really know what it means. 37:44 Q: I am currently going through some currency conversion stuff for a project, what would you recommend to use for international conversions? Links Sanity Techmeme Ride Home Podcast Concurrently Rachel Andrew CSS Grid auto height of elements? Cloudflare Intl.NumberFormat ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Voxon Screwdriver Set Wes: Technology Connections Shameless Plugs Scott’s Level Up Pro Wes’ Courses Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets
Episode 31 We are very glad to have Mr. Zeng Ming from flight standard department of CAAC here. Let’s get to know something about civil Unmanned Aircraft System. Q: Could you please introduce yourself, Mr. Zeng? A: I am very happy to be a part of your podcast. Currently I am the deputy director of the general aviation division of flight standard department of CAAC. Before I came to CAAC, I was a captain flying in China Southern Airlines. Now I’m in charge of flight license issues and UAS affairs, and also general aviation operations of all sides. Q: How many civil UAS pilot are there in China? A: As of November 13, 2018, the number of civil UAS pilot licenses is 43440. Q: What is the difference between certificate and license? If I am a certificate holder, how can I renew my certificate to license? A: The certificate is issued by AOPA-China, while the license is issued by CAAC. If you are a...
We cover an interview about Unix Architecture Evolution, another vBSDcon trip report, how to teach an old Unix about backspace, new NUMA support coming to FreeBSD, and stack pointer checking in OpenBSD. This episode was brought to you by Headlines Unix Architecture Evolution from the 1970 PDP-7 to the 2017 FreeBSD (https://fosdem.org/2018/interviews/diomidis-spinellis/) Q: Could you briefly introduce yourself? I'm a professor of software engineering, a programmer at heart, and a technology author. Currently I'm also the editor in chief of the IEEE Software magazine. I recently published the book Effective Debugging, where I detail 66 ways to debug software and systems. Q: What will your talk be about, exactly? I will describe how the architecture of the Unix operating system evolved over the past half century, starting from an unnamed system written in PDP-7 assembly language and ending with a modern FreeBSD system. My talk is based, first, on a GitHub repository where I tried to record the system's history from 1970 until today and, second, on the evolution of documented facilities (user commands, system calls, library functions) across revisions. I will thus present the early system's defining architectural features (layering, system calls, devices as files, an interpreter, and process management) and the important ones that followed in subsequent releases: the tree directory structure, user contributed code, I/O redirection, the shell as a user program, groups, pipes, scripting, and little languages. Q: Why this topic? Unix stands out as a major engineering breakthrough due to its exemplary design, its numerous technical contributions, its impact, its development model, and its widespread use. Furthermore, the design of the Unix programming environment has been characterized as one offering unusual simplicity, power, and elegance. Consequently, there are many lessons that we can learn by studying the evolution of the Unix architecture, which we can apply to the design of new systems. I often see modern systems that suffer from a bloat of architectural features and a lack of clear form on which functionality can be built. I believe that many of the modern Unix architecture defining features are excellent examples of what we should strive toward as system architects. Q: What do you hope to accomplish by giving this talk? What do you expect? I'd like FOSDEM attendees to leave the talk with their mind full with architectural features of timeless quality. I want them to realize that architectural elegance isn't derived by piling design patterns and does not need to be expensive in terms of resources. Rather, beautiful architecture can be achieved on an extremely modest scale. Furthermore, I want attendees to appreciate the importance of adopting flexible conventions rather than rigid enforcement mechanisms. Finally, I want to demonstrate through examples that the open source culture was part of Unix from its earliest days. Q: What are the most significant milestones in the development of Unix? The architectural development of Unix follows a path of continuous evolution, albeit at a slowing pace, so I don't see here the most important milestones. I would however define as significant milestones two key changes in the way Unix was developed. The first occurred in the late 1970s when significant activity shifted from a closely-knit team of researchers at the AT&T Bell Labs to the Computer Science Research Group in the University of California at Berkeley. This opened the system to academic contributions and growth through competitive research funding. The second took place in the late 1980s and the 1990s when Berkeley open-sourced the the code it had developed (by that time a large percentage of the system) and enthusiasts built on it to create complete open source operating system distributions: 386BSD, and then FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and others. Q: In which areas has the development of Unix stalled? The data I will show demonstrate that there were in the past some long periods where the number of C library functions and system calls remained mostly stable. Nowadays there is significant growth in the number of all documented facilities with the exception of file formats. I'm looking forward to a discussion regarding the meaning of these growth patterns in the Q&A session after the talk. Q: What are the core features that still link the 1970 PDP-7 system to the latest FreeBSD 11.1 release, almost half a century apart? Over the past half-century the Unix system has grown by four orders of magnitude from a few thousand lines of code to many millions. Nevertheless, looking at a 1970s architecture diagram and a current one reveals that the initial architectural blocks are still with us today. Furthermore, most system calls, user programs, and C library functions of that era have survived until today with essentially similar functionality. I've even found in modern FreeBSD some lines of code that have survived unchanged for 40 years. Q: Can we still add innovative changes to operating systems like FreeBSD without breaking the ‘Unix philosophy'? Will there be a moment where FreeBSD isn't recognizable anymore as a descendant of the 1970 PDP-7 system? There's a saying that “form liberates”. So having available a time-tested form for developing operating system functionality allows you to innovate in areas that matter rather than reinventing the wheel. Such concepts include having commands act as a filter, providing manual pages with a consistent structure, supplying build information in the form of a Makefile, installing files in a well-defined directory hierarchy, implementing filesystems with an standardized object-oriented interface, and packaging reusable functions as a library. Within this framework there's ample space for both incremental additions (think of jq, the JSON query command) and radical innovations (consider the Solaris-derived ZFS and dtrace functionality). For this reason I think that BSD and Linux systems will always be recognizable as direct or intellectual descendants of the 1970s Research Unix editions. Q: Have you enjoyed previous FOSDEM editions? Immensely! As an academic I need to attend many scientific conferences and meetings in order to present research results and interact with colleagues. This means too much time spent traveling and away from home, and a limited number of conferences I'm in the end able to attend. Nevertheless, attending FOSDEM is an easy decision due to the world-changing nature of its theme, the breadth of the topics presented, the participants' enthusiasm and energy, as well as the exemplary, very efficient conference organization. Another vBSDCon trip report we just found (https://www.weaponizedawesome.com/blog/?cat=53) We just got tipped about another trip report from vBSDCon, this time from one of the first time speakers: W. Dean Freeman Recently I had the honor of co-presenting on the internals of FreeBSD's Kernel RNG with John-Mark Gurney at the 3rd biennial vBSDCon, hosted in Reston, VA hosted by Verisign. I've been in and out of the FreeBSD community for about 20 years. As I've mentioned on here before, my first Unix encounter was FreeBSD 2.2.8 when I was in the 7th or 8th grade. However, for all that time I've never managed to get out to any of the cons. I've been to one or two BUG meetings and I've met some folks from IRC before, but nothing like this. A BSD conference is a very different experience than anything else out there. You have to try it, it is the only way to truly understand it. I'd also not had to do a stand-up presentation really since college before this. So, my first BSD con and my first time presenting rolled into one made for an interesting experience. See, he didn't say terrifying. It went very well. You should totally submit a talk for the next conference, even if it is your first. That said, it was amazing and invigorating experience. I got to meet a few big names in the FreeBSD community, discuss projects, ideas for FreeBSD, etc. I did seem to spend an unusual amount of time talking about FIPS and Common Criteria with folks, but to me that's a good sign and indicative that there is interest in working to close gaps between FreeBSD and the current requirements so that we can start getting FreeBSD and more BSD-based products into the government and start whittling away the domination of Linux (especially since Oracle has cut Solaris, SPARC and the ZFS storage appliance business units). There is nothing that can match the high bandwidth interchange of ideas in person. The internet has made all kinds of communication possible, and we use it all the time, but every once in a while, getting together in person is hugely valuable. Dean then went on to list some of the talks he found most valuable, including DTrace, Capsicum, bhyve, *BSD security tools, and Paul Vixie's talk about gets() I think the talk that really had the biggest impact on me, however, was Kyle Kneisl's talk on BSD community dynamics. One of the key points he asked was whether the things that drew us to the BSD community in the first place would be able to happen today. Obviously, I'm not a 12 or 13 year old kid anymore, but it really got me thinking. That, combined with getting face time with people I'd previously only known as screen names has recently drawn me back into participating in IRC and rejoining mailing lists (wdf on freenode. be on the lookout!) Then Dean covered some thoughts on his own talk: JMG and my talk seems to have been well received, with people paying lots of attention. I don't know what a typical number of questions is for one of these things, but on day one there weren't that many questions. We got about 5 during our question time and spent most of the rest of the day fielding questions from interested attendees. Getting a “great talk!” from GNN after coming down from the stage was probably one of the major highlights for me. I remember my first solo talk, and GNN asking the right question in the middle to get me to explain a part of it I had missed. It was very helpful. I think key to the interest in our presentation was that JMG did a good job framing a very complicated topic's importance in terms everyone could understand. It also helped that we got to drop some serious truth bombs. Final Thoughts: I met a lot of folks in person for the first time, and met some people I'd never known online before. It was a great community and I'm glad I got a chance to expand my network. Verisign were excellent hosts and they took good care of both speakers (covering airfare, rooms, etc.) and also conference attendees at large. The dinners that they hosted were quite good as well. I'm definitely interested in attending vBSDCon again and now that I've had a taste of meeting IRL with the community on scale of more than a handful, I have every intention of finally making it to BSDCan next year (I'd said it in 2017, but then moved to Texas for a new job and it wasn't going to be practical). This year for sure, though! Teaching an Almost 40-year Old UNIX about Backspace (https://virtuallyfun.com/2018/01/17/teaching_an_almost_40-year_old_unix_about_backspace/) Introduction I have been messing with the UNIX® operating system, Seventh Edition (commonly known as UNIX V7 or just V7) for a while now. V7 dates from 1979, so it's about 40 years old at this point. The last post was on V7/x86, but since I've run into various issues with it, I moved on to a proper installation of V7 on SIMH. The Internet has some really good resources on installing V7 in SIMH. Thus, I set out on my own journey on installing and using V7 a while ago, but that was remarkably uneventful. One convenience that I have been dearly missing since the switch from V7/x86 is a functioning backspace key. There seem to be multiple different definitions of backspace: BS, as in ASCII character 8 (010, 0x08, also represented as ^H), and DEL, as in ASCII character 127 (0177, 0x7F, also represented as ^?). V7 does not accept either for input by default. Instead, # is used as the erase character and @ is used as the kill character. These defaults have been there since UNIX V1. In fact, they have been “there” since Multics, where they got chosen seemingly arbitrarily. The erase character erases the character before it. The kill character kills (deletes) the whole line. For example, “ba##gooo#d” would be interpreted as “good” and “bad line@good line” would be interpreted as “good line”. There is some debate on whether BS or DEL is the correct character for terminals to send when the user presses the backspace key. However, most programs have settled on DEL today. tmux forces DEL, even if the terminal emulator sends BS, so simply changing my terminal to send BS was not an option. The change from the defaults outlined here to today's modern-day defaults occurred between 4.1BSD and 4.2BSD. enf on Hacker News has written a nice overview of the various conventions Getting the Diff For future generations as well as myself when I inevitably majorly break this installation of V7, I wanted to make a diff. However, my V7 is installed in SIMH. I am not a very intelligent man, I didn't keep backup copies of the files I'd changed. Getting data out of this emulated machine is an exercise in frustration. In the end, I printed everything on screen using cat(1) and copied that out. Then I performed a manual diff against the original source code tree because tabs got converted to spaces in the process. Then I applied the changes to clean copies that did have the tabs. And finally, I actually invoked diff(1). Closing Thoughts Figuring all this out took me a few days. Penetrating how the system is put together was surprisingly fairly hard at first, but then the difficulty curve eased up. It was an interesting exercise in some kind of “reverse engineering” and I definitely learned something about tty handling. I was, however, not pleased with using ed(1), even if I do know the basics. vi(1) is a blessing that I did not appreciate enough until recently. Had I also been unable to access recursive grep(1) on my host and scroll through the code, I would've probably given up. Writing UNIX under those kinds of editing conditions is an amazing feat. I have nothing but the greatest respect for software developers of those days. News Roundup New NUMA support coming to FreeBSD CURRENT (https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2018-January/068145.html) Hello folks, I am working on merging improved NUMA support with policy implemented by cpuset(2) over the next week. This work has been supported by Dell/EMC's Isilon product division and Netflix. You can see some discussion of these changes here: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D13403 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D13289 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D13545 The work has been done in user/jeff/numa if you want to look at svn history or experiment with the branch. It has been tested by Peter Holm on i386 and amd64 and it has been verified to work on arm at various points. We are working towards compatibility with libnuma and linux mbind. These commits will bring in improved support for NUMA in the kernel. There are new domain specific allocation functions available to kernel for UMA, malloc, kmem, and vmpage*. busdmamem consumers will automatically be placed in the correct domain, bringing automatic improvements to some device performance. cpuset will be able to constrains processes, groups of processes, jails, etc. to subsets of the system memory domains, just as it can with sets of cpus. It can set default policy for any of the above. Threads can use cpusets to set policy that specifies a subset of their visible domains. Available policies are first-touch (local in linux terms), round-robin (similar to linux interleave), and preferred. For now, the default is round-robin. You can achieve a fixed domain policy by using round-robin with a bitmask of a single domain. As the scheduler and VM become more sophisticated we may switch the default to first-touch as linux does. Currently these features are enabled with VMNUMAALLOC and MAXMEMDOM. It will eventually be NUMA/MAXMEMDOM to match SMP/MAXCPU. The current NUMA syscalls and VMNUMAALLOC code was 'experimental' and will be deprecated. numactl will continue to be supported although cpuset should be preferred going forward as it supports the full feature set of the new API. Thank you for your patience as I deal with the inevitable fallout of such sweeping changes. If you do have bugs, please file them in bugzilla, or reach out to me directly. I don't always have time to catch up on all of my mailing list mail and regretfully things slip through the cracks when they are not addressed directly to me. Thanks, Jeff Stack pointer checking – OpenBSD (https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=151572838911297&w=2) Stefan (stefan@) and I have been working for a few months on this diff, with help from a few others. At every trap and system call, it checks if the stack-pointer is on a page that is marked MAPSTACK. execve() is changed to create such mappings for the process stack. Also, libpthread is taught the new MAPSTACK flag to use with mmap(). There is no corresponding system call which can set MAP_FLAG on an existing page, you can only set the flag by mapping new memory into place. That is a piece of the security model. The purpose of this change is to twart stack pivots, which apparently have gained some popularity in JIT ROP attacks. It makes it difficult to place the ROP stack in regular data memory, and then perform a system call from it. Workarounds are cumbersome, increasing the need for far more gadgetry. But also the trap case -- if any memory experiences a demand page fault, the same check will occur and potentially also kill the process. We have experimented a little with performing this check during device interrupts, but there are some locking concerns and performance may then become a concern. It'll be best to gain experience from handle of syncronous trap cases first. chrome and other applications I use run fine! I'm asking for some feedback to discover what ports this breaks, we'd like to know. Those would be ports which try to (unconventionally) create their stacks in malloc()'d memory or inside another Data structure. Most of them are probably easily fixed ... Qt 5.9 on FreeBSD (https://euroquis.nl/bobulate/?p=1768) Tobias and Raphael have spent the past month or so hammering on the Qt 5.9 branch, which has (finally!) landed in the official FreeBSD ports tree. This brings FreeBSD back up-to-date with current Qt releases and, more importantly, up-to-date with the Qt release KDE software is increasingly expecting. With Qt 5.9, the Elisa music player works, for instance (where it has run-time errors with Qt 5.7, even if it compiles). The KDE-FreeBSD CI system has had Qt 5.9 for some time already, but that was hand-compiled and jimmied into the system, rather than being a “proper” ports build. The new Qt version uses a new build system, which is one of the things that really slowed us down from a packaging perspective. Some modules have been reshuffled in the process. Some applications depending on Qt internal-private headers have been fixed along the way. The Telegram desktop client continues to be a pain in the butt that way. Following on from Qt 5.9 there has been some work in getting ready for Clang 6 support; in general the KDE and Qt stack is clean and modern C++, so it's more infrastructural tweaks than fixing code. Outside of our silo, I still see lots of wonky C++ code being fixed and plenty of confusion between pointers and integers and strings and chars and .. ugh. Speaking of ugh, I'm still planning to clean up Qt4 on ARM aarch64 for FreeBSD; this boils down to stealing suitable qatomic implementations from Arch Linux. For regular users of Qt applications on FreeBSD, there should be few to no changes required outside the regular upgrade cycle. For KDE Plasma users, note that development of the ports has changed branches; as we get closer to actually landing modern KDE bits, things have been renamed and reshuffled and mulled over so often that the old plasma5 branch wasn't really right anymore. The kde5-import branch is where it's at nowadays, and the instructions are the same: the x11/kde5 metaport will give you all the KDE Frameworks 5, KDE Plasma Desktop and modern KDE Applications you need. Adding IPv6 to an Nginx website on FreeBSD / FreshPorts (https://dan.langille.org/2018/01/13/adding-ipv6-to-an-nginx-website-on-freebsd-freshports/) FreshPorts recently moved to an IPv6-capable server but until today, that capability has not been utilized. There were a number of things I had to configure, but this will not necessarily be an exhaustive list for you to follow. Some steps might be missing, and it might not apply to your situation. All of this took about 3 hours. We are using: FreeBSD 11.1 Bind 9.9.11 nginx 1.12.2 Fallout I expect some monitoring fallout from this change. I suspect some of my monitoring assumes IP4 and now that IPv6 is available, I need to monitor both IP addresses. ZFS on TrueOS: Why We Love OpenZFS (https://www.trueos.org/blog/zfs-trueos-love-openzfs/) TrueOS was the first desktop operating system to fully implement the OpenZFS (Zettabyte File System or ZFS for short) enterprise file system in a stable production environment. To fully understand why we love ZFS, we will look back to the early days of TrueOS (formerly PC-BSD). The development team had been using the UFS file system in TrueOS because of its solid track record with FreeBSD-based computer systems and its ability to check file consistency with the built-in check utility fsck. However, as computing demands increased, problems began to surface. Slow fsck file verification on large file systems, slow replication speeds, and inconsistency in data integrity while using UFS logging / journaling began to hinder users. It quickly became apparent that TrueOS users would need a file system that scales with evolving enterprise storage needs, offers the best data protection, and works just as well on a hobbyist system or desktop computer. Kris Moore, the founder of the TrueOS project, first heard about OpenZFS in 2007 from chatter on the FreeBSD mailing lists. In 2008, the TrueOS development team was thrilled to learn that the FreeBSD Project had ported ZFS. At the time, ZFS was still unproven as a graphical desktop solution, but Kris saw a perfect opportunity to offer ZFS as a cutting-edge file system option in the TrueOS installer, allowing the TrueOS project to act as an indicator of how OpenZFS would fair in real-world production use. The team was blown away by the reception and quality of OpenZFS on FreeBSD-based systems. By its nature, ZFS is a copy-on-write (CoW) file system that won't move a block of data until it both writes the data and verifies its integrity. This is very different from most other file systems in use today. ZFS is able to assure that data stays consistent between writes by automatically comparing write checksums, which mitigates bit rot. ZFS also comes with native RaidZ functionality that allows for enterprise data management and redundancy without the need for expensive traditional RAID cards. ZFS snapshots allow for system configuration backups in a split-second. You read that right. TrueOS can backup or restore snapshots in less than a second using the ZFS file system. Given these advantages, the TrueOS team decided to use ZFS as its exclusive file system starting in 2013, and we haven't looked back since. ZFS offers TrueOS users the stable workstation experience they want, while simultaneously scaling to meet the increasing demands of the enterprise storage market. TrueOS users are frequently commenting on how easy it is to use ZFS snapshots with our built-in snapshot utility. This allows users the freedom to experiment with their system knowing they can restore it in seconds if anything goes wrong. If you haven't had a chance to try ZFS with TrueOS, browse to our download page and make sure to grab a copy of TrueOS. You'll be blown away by the ease of use, data protection functionality, and incredible flexibility of RaidZ. Beastie Bits Source Code Podcast Interview with Michael W Lucas (https://blather.michaelwlucas.com/archives/3099) Operating System of the Year 2017: NetBSD Third place (https://w3techs.com/blog/entry/web_technologies_of_the_year_2017) OPNsense 18.1-RC1 released (https://opnsense.org/opnsense-18-1-rc1-released/) Personal OpenBSD Wiki Notes (https://balu-wiki.readthedocs.io/en/latest/security/openbsd.html) BSD section can use some contribution (https://guide.freecodecamp.org/bsd-os/) The Third Research Edition Unix Programmer's Manual (now available in PDF) (https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-v3man) Feedback/Questions Alex - my first freebsd bug (http://dpaste.com/3DSV7BC#wrap) John - Suggested Speakers (http://dpaste.com/2QFR4MT#wrap) Todd - Two questions (http://dpaste.com/2FQ450Q#wrap) Matthew - CentOS to FreeBSD (http://dpaste.com/3KA29E0#wrap) Brian - Brian - openbsd 6.2 and enlightenment .17 (http://dpaste.com/24DYF1J#wrap) ***
Hamilton Tang, managing partner of Chinese private equity firm SMC Capital China, is betting on horses; or more importantly, the growing number of wealthy Chinese who want to own one. Back in 2012, SMC invested RMB22 million (US$3 million) in Rider Horse Co., Ltd, a Chinese firm engaged in the age-old art of horse trading. With SMC's support and driven by growing demand from aspirational consumers eager to mimic the lifestyles of U.K. or European elite, the company has since expanded into horse breeding, managing horse clubs and equestrian events. Revenue has increased more than six fold. Despite a national ban on horse race betting in 2000, Rider Horse is among the most successful horse racing event organizers in China, Tang said during an interview on the sidelines of the HKVCA Asia Private Equity Forum 2017 in Hong Kong. The company imports roughly two hundred horses each year, including New Zealand thoroughbreds to meet demand from aspiring Chinese consumers engaged in recreational riding, playing polo and racing. But this ride is almost over for SMC, which hopes to gain a handsome return on investment when Rider Horse completes an initial public offering later this year. After SMC's initial investment, Rider Horse went on to raise a RMB45 million series B round led by CDF-Capital in 2013, and a RMB120 million series C round from Jiangsu Delta Capital Investment Management Co., Ltd, DT Capital Partners, Jiangxi Gaoqi Investment and Jimei Investment in 2014. It raised another RMB120 million series D round in 2015 from undisclosed investors in 2015, according to the company's website. The thorny question if whether Rider Horse's IPO can cross the finish line under current market conditions. A listing on China's A-shares market now requires years of waiting time. An IPO on the country's over-the-counter market, the so-called New Third Board, can be completed more quickly, but faces the critical problem of low liquidity. Nevertheless, Tang said the company is aiming to file for an IPO during the first quarter 2017, five years after its initial investment in the horse trade. You can listen to our conversation above or read a Q&A below. Don't forget to subscribe to China Money Podcast for free in the iTunes store, or subscribe to China Money Network weekly newsletters. You can also subscribe to China Money Podcast's Youtube channel or Youku channel. Q:Could you give us a short introduction to SMC Capital China? A: We have been a China private equity specialist for the past 14 years. We started our business way back in 2003, and in the past few years, we have been focused on the consumer sector in China, in particular consumer upgrades, consumer tech and cross-border deals. We focus on growth stage and typically are series A lead investors (in our deals). At the moment, we manage three private equity funds in addition to some co-investments pockets and deals that use our own balance sheet, with around US$700 million to US$800 million under management. Our most recent private equity fund, which is a vintage 2011 vehicle, secured US$100 million. Q: Back in 2012, SMC Capital launched a joint venture with Chinese equestrian company Rider Horse Co., Ltd. Could you tell us a little bit about how that company has grown over the past few years? A: Yes, we invested RMB22 million (US$3 million) in the company. Since our investment, the company has increased revenues by more than six times. Besides that, what I think is even more important is the composition of its revenues. When we met Lang Lin, the founder of the company, in 2011 or 2012, the business was entirely a horse trading business. But with our help, particularly helping with cross-border engagement, the company today is much more diversified. The company still has the horses buying and selling business, it also has a strong breeding program. It is also the largest importer of thoroughbred horses from New Zealand. In addition,
C-Bridge Capital, a Shanghai-based private equity firm focused on China's healthcare sector, hopes to profit handsomely by bringing better drug know-how from developed markets to the underdeveloped Chinese pharmaceutical industry. Headed by finance veteran Fu Wei, the US$700 million-under-management firm led a follow-on US$100 million round in Chinese pharmaceutical start-up Ascletis earlier this month. Ascletis has licensed and conducted clinical trail on a hepatitis C treatment drug developed by an American company, and is launching the drug in China during the first half of this year. The sheer scale of the Chinese market makes the investment attractive, says Fu, a University of Chicago Booth School of Business graduate. With 40 million hepatitis C patients in China, compared to just four million in the U.S., he is confident that the drug will hit it big and bring a lucrative return on his investment. C-Bridge Capital is also looking at other areas such as hepatitis B, which is an even bigger market, and also lung cancer, which has seen a dramatic increase in China due to an aging population of smokers and the effects of high pollution levels in Chinese cities. Fu also sees the need for widespread consolidation in the Chinese pharma and healthcare sectors, which he described as lagging other sectors of the economy by 10 years. He sees Ascletis as a vehicle for acquiring other, smaller players in the pharma sector. Likewise, he described a recent investment in Anrei Medical as a typical consolidation play where the company will be a platform to acquire consumable businesses, especially in the minimally invasive surgery category. You can listen to our conversation or read a Q&A below. Don't forget to subscribe to China Money Podcast for free in the iTunes store, or subscribe to China Money Network weekly newsletters. You can also subscribe to China Money Podcast's Youtube channel or Youku channel. Q: Could you give us a brief introduction of C-Bridge Capital? A: C-Bridge Capital is a China-focused healthcare fund. Our name, "C" stands for commercialization, consolidation and China. It's because we invest in growth-stage healthcare companies, and the industry in China is being increasingly commercialized and waiting to be consolidated at the same time. Currently, we manage US$700 million in total including our Fund I with US$200 million, plus US$100 million in co-investments. We also manage a venture fund called I Bridge, it’s a US$100 million vehicle led by Jimmy Wei, who was a partner at Kleiner Perkins. Q: You've worked at all kinds of financial institutions before setting up C-Bridge, including Far East Horizon, Themes Investment Management, Goldman Sachs. How did these experiences lead to the establishment of your current fund? A: Working in all sorts of funds offered me the experience of different investment strategies, as well as cross-sector investment experience. In general, I think the healthcare sector is ten years behind (other sectors in China). Unlike the boom of TMT (technology, media and telecommunications), the boom of financial institutions and the boom of consumer goods, which all started in around 2004 and 2005, the healthcare sector is ten yeas behind. Consumers of healthcare products and services are mainly 55 years old or older, so it’s the old people’s demand. China is just rapidly aging. From the supply side, if you want to be in healthcare, you need to be a PhD with ten years working experience in a big pharmacy company. So China is entering the time for healthcare to repeat what other industries did ten years ago, such as 20% annual growth and industry consolidation. Q: You recently made a follow-on investment in Chinese pharmaceutical start-up Ascletis. How did that investment came about? A: This is a typical example of a commercialization story in China. Gilead Science is a US$100 billion U.S. company with huge success in hepatitis C.
Q: Could you tell us a little about how this research began? A: Actually in 2013 Flavio Garcia, a computer scientist at University of Birmingham, and a team of researchers were about to reveal a vulnerability in the ignition of Volkswagen cars that allowed them to start the car and drive off without a key. This vulnerability was present in millions of VWs. Q: You say “about to reveal”? A: Yes, they were sued, which delayed the publication of the work for 2 years. They used that time to continue their research into vulnerabilities with VW cars. Q: So did they find anything new? A: They sure did. The paper they just published identifies flaws not only with the ignition system, but also with the keyless entry system. Q: How many cars are we talking about? A: The researchers claim that every Volkswagen sold since 1995 is affected. The estimate is nearly 100 million cars! Q: Which cars are affected? A: There are two distinct attacks – one impacts Audi and Škoda cars; the other Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Fiat, Ford, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Opel, and Peugeot. Q: Do they provide any details of the attack? A: They use radio hardware to intercept signals from the victim’s key fob, using the intercepted signals to clone the key. They started with software defined radio connected to a laptop, but have moved to a small $40 setup that includes an Arduino board with an attached radio receiver. Q: How concerned should we be? A: Of the two attacks, the one targeting Volkswagen cars is most concerning because (1) there is no indication to the drivers that they’ve been compromised, (2) one a single button press needs to be intercepted. Q: Why is the security weak? A: It turns out that millions of Volkswagen vehicles share a single cryptographic key. Using the hardware we described earlier, researchers capture another key unique to the target vehicle that is transmitted every time the button on the key fob is pressed. By combining these two key, the researchers can clone the key fob. A single interception and the car is “owned”. Q: So it’s that easy? A: Not quite that easy. A few caveats. The attacker has to be within 300 feet of the car. The shared key is not quite universal. The shared key may change based on the model of the car and the year. Also, the internal components where the shared is extracted from may be different. Q: So the key’s not universal. That’s good, right? A: Yes, except that the 4 most common keys are used in nearly all the 100 million Volkswagen’s sold in the past 20 years. Q: So should listeners sell their Volkswagens? A: No, not yet. The researchers have not revealed where the shared key is stored, but a determined hacker could reverse engineer the keys and publish or sell them. And a newer locking system, used in the VW Golf 7 and other models, uses unique - not shared - keys and it his immune to these attacks. Q: You mentioned that there are two attacks. What’s the second? A: The second technique exploits flaws in a common cryptographic scheme called HiTag2 that is used in millions of vehicles. Q: How does this attack work? A: The hardware setup is similar to the previous attack. One big difference is that you don’t need to extract any internal keys from the car. You do have to intercept more codes from the target key fob - eight codes specifically. These codes include a rolling code number that changes with every button press. Q: Sounds a lot like cracking a WEP key on a wireless network. A: It is. In fact, the researchers suggest jamming the key fob so that the driver has to repeatedly press the button. Essentially generating more traffic to capture. Similar to a so-called replay attack used to help speed up the cracking of WEP keys. Q: Why not just updated the encryption scheme? A: It turns out the HiTag2 crypto system is hard coded into chips made by semiconductor company NXP. According to NXP HiTag2 is a legacy security algorithm - 18 years old. Since 2009, they have introduced new, more advanced algorithms, but car makers have been slow to transition to these new chips. Q: So attackers can unlock the car. Can they steal the car? A: While these attacks focus on the key fob and unlocking the car. Other research - even these researchers previous work - focuses on exploiting vulnerabilities in the ignition system and bypassing so-called immobilizer systems that are intended to prevent the car being driven without the key fob present. Combining these attackers, it would be possible to steal the car. In fact, there is already evidence of sophisticated digitally-enable car thieves using mysterious “black box” devices to steal cars. Q: So what should car owners do? A: Car owners can’t fix the vulnerabilities, so there’s little they can do to avoid these sort of attacks. If you’re concerned about someone cloning your key fob (1) don’t leave valuables in the car, (2) avoid using the key fob at all.
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