Podcasts about q should

This week, Jenna Stoeber joins the crew to chat about Monster Hunter Wilds, Frank continues his run on the island of relevance in WWE 2K25, Jesse's fighting his way through the dark of AC Shadows, and Danny reports back from GDC. Check out Jenna Stoeber's streams, podcasts, and videos on her various platforms: Video Essays: https://youtube.com/@the_jenna Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/the_jenna Jenna's Patron: https://www.patreon.com/thejenna Big Game Hunger: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-game-hunger/id1705967709 Burnt Cook Book Party: https://shows.acast.com/bcbparty Assassin's Creed Shadows: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3159330/Assassins_Creed_Shadows/ Wreckfest 2: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1203190/Wreckfest_2/ Monster Hunter Wilds: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2246340/Monster_Hunter_Wilds WWE 2K25: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2878960/WWE_2K25/ Citizen Sleeper 2 Starward Vector: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2442460/Citizen_Sleeper_2_Starward_Vector The Stone of Madness: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1309710/The_Stone_of_Madness/ Deliver At All Costs: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1880610/Deliver_At_All_Costs/ iTunes Page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/noclip/id1385062988 RSS Feed: http://noclippodcast.libsyn.com/rss Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5XYk92ubrXpvPVk1lin4VB?si=JRAcPnlvQ0-YJWU9XiW9pg Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/noclippodcast Watch our docs: https://youtube.com/noclipvideo Crewcast channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/noclippodcast Learn About Noclip: https://www.noclip.video Become a Patron and get early access to new episodes: https://www.patreon.com/noclip Follow @noclipvideo on Twitter Chapters: 0:00:00 - Intro 0:04:54 - Danny's Time @ GDC 2025 0:22:16 - Should they move GDC? 0:27:37 - Assassin's Creed Shadows 0:49:20 - Wreckfest 2 0:59:31 - Monster Hunter Wilds 1:11:21 - WWE 2K25 1:20:17 - The Division 2 1:26:04 - Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector 1:29:30 - The Stone of Madness 1:31:15 - The Finals 1:32:30 - Deliver at All Costs 1:34:12 - Citizen Sleeper 2's Bigger Space 1:38:02 - Jenna's Next Video Essay Is... 1:39:49 - Q: Should a studio's background/drama matter? 1:52:47 - Noclip Updates 1:54:50 - Jenna thanks OUR Patreon supporters! 1:57:26 - Check out Jenna's work - links in the description! 2:00:56 - Sign Off

My observation during the past 40+ years as an ad writer has been that television and radio professionals spend so much time trying to sell television and radio ads, they have no time to learn how to make those ads work.When you know how to make ads work, and can prove it, television and radio are incredibly easy to sell.Instead of asking a salesperson to help you with your ads, let me tell you everything you need to know.“Q” represents your unspoken questions.“A” represents my answers to those questions.Q: Who should I be targeting?A: I've never seen a business fail because they were reaching the wrong people. But I have seen lots of businesses fail because they were saying the wrong things in their ads.Q: Are you saying you don't believe in targeting?A: The most effective way to target is to write ad copy that speaks directly to the felt needs of your customer. Targeting isn't accomplished by reaching the right address, but by demonstrating to people that you feel the way they feel, and that you believe the things they believe.Q: Are you saying I can write ads that target specific types of people in mass media?A: Yes, but you get a lot more than that. Mass media reaches not only your target; it reaches all the influencers of your target. Is there anyone that you don't want to know you, like you, and say good things about you? Every person is an influencer, and decisions are never made in a vacuum.Q: If targeting the right person is no longer my primary objective, what is?A: You want to become the solution provider that people think of first and feel the best about. When you say the right things to the largest number of people you can afford to reach with sufficient repetition, you become a household word.Q: Which media will work best for my business?A: The media doesn't make your ad work. Your ad makes the media work. The media is just a vehicle that delivers your message, your ad. The wrong message will fail in every media, and the right message will work in every media. It is the message, not the media, that either works or does not.Q: Is there a proven way to create the right message?A: Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.Q: Can you give me some specific tips?A: Sure. Here are 4 of them.Talk to the customer about what the customer already cares about. Most ads answer questions that no one was asking. This is why people hate most advertising.Always say something new, surprising, and different. Never say what people expect you to say. Predictability is what makes ads sound like ads.Don't just describe the process of what you do and how you do it. “We use only the freshest ingredients, and everything is made from scratch.” The process is informational. The outcome is motivational. Describe the outcome. “Food so good your head will explode.”Bad ads are about you and your company. Good ads are about your customer and their happiness. Ads filled with “me, my, we,” and “our,” are about you and your company. Ads filled with the words “you” and “your” are about the customer and the happiness you want to bring them.Q: Should every ad have a call to action?A: No, because if they did, your ads would be predictable.Q: Are you saying that NO ad should have a call to...

(Fritz Berggren answers question about “White Supremacy” and racism. His controversial blog “bloodandfaith.com” raises many questions.) Q: White and Christian Nations? Sounds like White Supremacy. Would you like to explain? A: “White supremacist” is a term of opprobrium invented to put Whites on the defensive, much like the terms “racist,” or “homophobic” are used to morally impugn people. It is a not a term that should be respected — it is a lever, a form of accusation, a moral cudgel used to beat people into submission. I reject that on its face. Q: Yes, but your website as “bloodandfaith.com” says, explicitly “White and Christian Nations.” That's provocative, racist even. A: What is wrong with the idea of Christian nations? The concept of Islamic nations is very important in Arab nations, in Turkey, in Indonesia . . . It would be insulting to most Arab nations to suggest they cannot be explicitly Moslem. Do people reject the concept of White nations? I don't see anyone rejecting the concept of a “Palestinian” nation, or a “Jewish nation,” or a Chinese nation. Rejecting the concept of White nations is fundamentally hatred toward the White race. If I said, “It's OK to be White,” would that also offend you? Q: Do you reject the idea that non-Whites can be Christian? Doesn't God love everybody the same? A: Many non-Whites are Christian . . . the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts comes to mind. Yes, Jesus Christ will have a people from “every tongue, tribe, people, and nation.” A: I dispute fundamentally the idea that God loves everyone the same: “Jacob I love, Esau I hated,” says the Scripture. Did God love the people who he killed the flood? Did God love the Canaanites whom Joshua was commanded to destroy? Will God's love be shown on the Judgement Day when most end up in hell? If the answer is “Yes, He loved them the same,” then my response is “well then that it is a mistake to assume that “love” means treating everyone the same. God does not treat every one the same, and he does not love everyone the same. Q: Should you try to build tolerance and understanding between people? A: That's not my mission and that's not my goal. Look, I love my race. No apologies for that. Moses and the Prophets all felt the same about their own race. Q: More than other races? A: Yes. All of them were race loyal to their own people. Saint Paul expressed a willingness to surrender eternal life for the benefit of his own race: “For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race,” Romans 9:3. Jesus Christ said “I only came for the lost sheep of the House of Israel?” Are you going to accuse Jesus Christ of being a racist? If so, that's simply proof that the term “racist” ought not be taken seriously as a moral value. Q: Do you believe the White race is superior to other races? A: Superior in what way? Define superior. Again, people are used to tossing ill-defined accusations in people's faces in order to put them off guard, to accuse them, to manipulate them. I've figured this out and so I'm not controlled by those terms any more. And that angers the people who are used to being in control — they don't want freedom to catch on out there. Q: Do you prefer the White race? A: I prefer my own kin to others. The Berggren family is the greatest family on earth as far as I'm concerned. Alex Jones, you, or Joe Biden may prefer their own families, and they should. I have zero compunction to apologize for this or to couch my message in such a way so as not to offend people who believe “White supremacy” is a moral concept I must reject to their satisfaction when no one can really pin down what it means. It's purposefully kept vague in order to keep people manipulated and morally leveraged. Q: Yes, but Hitler was an evil man. A: I am glad you have such a strict moral code and sense of right and wrong. But I'm not available for people to manipulate just because they can sling out phrases like “racist,” or “White supremacist,” or “Hitler.” It's silly, really.  That makes some angry because they lose control.  For others, they have not fully thought through he purpose and meaning of these terms and remain in mental bondage. A: In a sense, no man — certainly not a White man — can be free as long as he allows himself to controlled by these cudgels of guilt and shame. The terms create a false moral cover for hatred against the White and Christian race, they are levers designed to undermine and destroy us. I feel no need to accommodate that project. In fact, I feel an obligation to resist the genocide my own race. Very few are willing to do this and, unfortunately, fewer still within the Christian Church. Q: Thank you for you time. A: Your welcome. I look forward to talking again. Fritz Berggren, PHD bloodandfaith.com  

My client spent 14 years thinking she had acne when she didn't have acne. Turns out this isn't a unique experience. Tune in to hear how you can stop falling for the same trap!Topics covered:

 A client story who thought she had acne. PSA about Banish (the brand) and why you shouldn't use them if you want clear skin. People with skin conditions as a marketing strategy. How to reframe your skin condition so you can take better care of your skin. Diagnosing vs. describing. About dermatologists Doctors are not free from bias either. What are the right questions you should be asking about your skin? What if our parents reacted differently to our bodies changing? My experience with skincare as a teen. Q: Is there one supplement that you would take without fail? Q: How to get oily skin to stop clogging? The thing people forget about their skin. Q: I'm moisturizing but why does my skin still itch? Q: What would your recommend for rosacea in general? Q: Do you prefer physical or chemical sunscreen? Q: Should you change your moisturizer between summer and winter? Q: Is it possible to get rid of acne scars? The truth is going to shock you... If you could read ONE thing I wrote let it be this article. Where to find clear skin solutions? Visit my website https://www.olenabeley.com and sign up for 28 Days of Clear Skin (free email series).Join me on Instagram where you can see the latest skin transformations without diets, pills, or fancy treatments!

Sam Vecenie goes live after the Lakers-Grizzlies Game 3 to break down all the action from that game. Then, he breaks down all of the action from earlier in the day. Russell Westbrook shines but Suns continue to take control and get a 3-1 lead against the Clippers. The Heat and Bucks play Game 3. And then the 76ers eliminated the Brooklyn Nets. Where does Brooklyn go from here. CHAPTERS 0:00 How the Lakers used ONE single set to beat the Grizzlies 23:24 Jimmy Butler's empty side actions beat Milwaukee 32:12 Phoenix takes 3-1 lead on LA, Deandre Ayton rim runs were huge 46:48 How do the Brooklyn Nets handle this offseason? 1:07:55 Q: Who should the Cavs start at SF vs. New York? 1:10:09 Q: How does the new second round contract exception impact the value of second round picks? 1:15:20 Q: Should the Nets try to acquire Pascal Siakam? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#83: Host Chris Hutchins tackles questions about fighting jet lag, his favorite podcasts, cancel-for-any-reason travel insurance, virtual assistants, food planning, virtual credit card numbers and much more. This episode is packed with many of the incredible insights that Chris has earned from his years optimizing his life!Full show notes at: https://allthehacks.com/listener-questions-6 Partner DealsVuori: 20% off the most comfortable performance apparel I've ever wornDeleteMe: 20% off removing your personal info from the webRocket Money: Easily cancel your unused subscriptionsButcherBox: High-quality meat, delivered to your door + Free Thanksgiving Turkey Resources MentionedTimeshifter AppAppointment ScannerPassword Managers: 1Password, KeepassXCTaking Notes on PodcastsFamily Operating System: TrustworthyLocal Experiences: WithLocals, Peek, Airbnb ExperiencesCapitalOne Venture and VentureX Cards (75,000 point signup bonus)Virtual Credit Cards: Privacy.com, CapitalOne Eno ExtensionPaprika AppNick Gray's Virtual Assistant Twitter Thread and Blog PostFavorite PodcastsThe All-In PodcastAnimal SpiritsMy First MillionSmartLessThe DailyPBS NewsHourMacro VoicesThe Tim Ferriss ShowRich RollHow to Take Over the WorldI Will Teach You To Be RichThe Colin and Samir Show Full Show NotesQ: Which is better, Bora Bora or the Seychelles for an exotic vacation [05:00]Q: Hotel Strategies for Families of 5 (or more!?) [09:20]Q: Any hacks for booking a cruise? [10:46 ]Q: Should language barriers be a barrier for travel? [11:49]Q: Should I purchase travel insurance? [14:58]Q: How does Chris deal with jet lag? (Bonus: Tried and true strategies for combatting jet lag) [21:18]Q: Are guide-led group tours a worthwhile experience? [23:58]A really good airplane WiFi hack! If you travel often, don't skip this part [26:19]Q: Is there a hack for setting up Global Entry appointments? Yes! AppointmentScanner [27:51]Using virtual credit cards to make online purchases [30:03]Q: How to set up my Trustworthy account for the easiest use by my family if I were to pass away? [31:51]What is the best password manager, preferably not stored in the cloud [35:03]What are Chris' favorite podcasts? [39:09]How to take notes from a podcast  [44:42]Building your own Peloton… and then later purchasing a Peloton [47:00]Food planning! How to hack the family kitchen? [48:50]Has Chris ever used a virtual assistant? [53:05]Recent developments regarding credit card providers offering cell phone insurance [54:20]How to know when you are taking optimization too far? [58:00] SponsorsDeleteMeDeleteMe is a simple subscription, privacy service for reducing unwanted personal information exposed on the public Web. They'll remove your cell phone #, address, email, family members and more from hundreds of data broker websites and then continuously scan for new data that shows up and get that removed as well. On average DeleteMe finds and removes over 2,000 pieces of data for a customer in their first two years.Get 20% off a plan for you or your entire family at allthehacks.com/deleteme ButcherBoxButcherBox makes it easy to get high-quality, humanely raised meat that you can trust. They deliver delicious, grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken; heritage-breed pork, and wild-caught seafood directly to your door. You can pick a curated box or customize your own. And I'll save you some time, I compared the prices to what I can get locally at Whole Foods and Safeway and ButcherBox is a better deal.To get a 10-14lb Thanksgiving Turkey FREE in your first order + a $10 coupon, go to allthehacks.com/butcherbox Rocket MoneyRocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don't need, want, or simply forgot about. You can see all your unwanted subscriptions in one place, keep the ones you want and cancel the ones you don't – right from the app. Your Rocket Money concierge is there to cancel your subscriptions, so you don't have to. No talking to humans. No difficult conversations.Join over 2 million users who've used Rocket Money to save over $100 million and start canceling your unused subscriptions today, by going to allthehacks.com/rocketmoney VuoriVuori is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel. Perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed to work out in, but doesn't look or feel like it. The product is incredibly versatile and can be used for just about any activity like running, training, swimming, yoga; but also great for lounging or weekend errands.To get the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet with 20% off your first purchase (plus free shipping on any US order over $75 and free returns) visit allthehacks.com/vuori Connect with All the HacksAll the Hacks: Newsletter | Website | Facebook | EmailChris Hutchins: Twitter | Instagram | Website | LinkedIn

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers' questions about working with engineering leadership as a director of product, the idea of moving from a leadership position back to an individual contributor to gain a wider skillset, and whether or not SAFe is the answer for a small product org.  Q: What should my one-on-one's with my engineering team look like as director of product? How do I find a partner and not an order-taker? [2:30] Q: Should we adopt SAFe? Any tips on what I should study up on and propose as a right solution to process and procedure? [6:56] Q: What advice would you have for someone who is considering stepping out of leadership and back into an IC role to grow their product skillset? [11:01] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers' questions about working with engineering leadership as a director of product, the idea of moving from a leadership position back to an individual contributor to gain a wider skillset, and whether or not SAFe is the answer for a small product org.  Q: What should my one-on-one's with my engineering team look like as director of product? How do I find a partner and not an order-taker? [2:30] Q: Should we adopt SAFe? Any tips on what I should study up on and propose as a right solution to process and procedure? [6:56] Q: What advice would you have for someone who is considering stepping out of leadership and back into an IC role to grow their product skillset? [11:01] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

A big part of the reason my latest podcast guest, Rohit Sood, has become a successful and recognized leader, mentor and growth advisor in the pharma industry, is because he has been able to build successful teams. This is how his colleagues describe his unique success story as a recognized pharmaceutical industry scholar, Rutgers Business School lecturer, expert in organizational change, investor, and senior executive in life sciences who currently serves as Executive Vice President of Global Commercialization at EVERSANA. Rohit prefers to make deep and deliberate connections in business and he shares some truly unique, practical case studies and solutions on performance metrics, hiring, team dynamics, mentorship, growth mindset, and execution in this episode. 3:10 - Q: What were some of the strongest teams you worked with or led in your career that you still remember today? 6:47 - Q: What are the principles to building a strong team? 9:32 - Q: How do you design a structure around a team with a strong culture and vision? 13:45 - Q: Why do teams with best products and best performers fail? 19:27 – We discuss a story of a state tennis champion three years back to back who plays on a high school basketball team as a bench player the entire season, wins a state championship, and later admits openly to his teammates that winning as a bench player was his biggest accomplishment to date because he was a member of a team even though he had won individual tennis state championships. Rohit: we all have certain role players on our teams. You do not have to be at the center of every play or decision of your team. One of my favorite interview questions - tell me about a time when you were a role player - what was your contribution to the success of failure, and reason? 21:12 - Q: Performance metrics - Do you think performance metrics can be designed to promote collaboration as well as healthy competition? The Net Promoter Scores at Eversana are very high. Team Collaboration will be one of our metrics we will be tracking at Eversana that will be a part of the variable compensation of our employees! We will capture these metrics by gathering feedback from various brand teams across different functions. Did you feel included? Did you know what decisions were being made? We have also implemented frameworks around processes and operations. Our philosophy is that leaders have to be consistent. And consistency does not just happen. There have to be operations and processes in place that allow for consistency in execution. In summary, we are focused on 3 KPIs - 1) internal behaviors that ensure a collaborative culture; 2) behaviors that stimulate our clients and stakeholders' satisfaction of the quality of our products through their feedback; and 3) operations and processes to ensure consistency. 25:56 - Metrics also impact how you think about your goals for the year. We have three tiers of goals at Eversana. The first goals are tied to organizational performance. The second are corporate citizenship goals - make sure to do something in your role that impacts work outside of your day job! The third level of performance goals are related to individual interests. 33:06 - Aspirational idea of 1 single global metric - earnings per share. If not met, individual metrics come into play - hierarchy / tiered approach. 36:45 - Q: How do you recalibrate teams after successes or failures? 38:39 - Case study of a recent team member's problem with a deadline 41:28 – Q: Do you think the sense of belonging is what helps the best teams to succeed specifically? 45:24 - Q: How do you manage transitioning from team to team as often as we do today? 49:43 - Q: Should everyone start a team of their own regardless of their role or experience? 58:54 - Key Final Messages from Rohit!

Q: Should a woman be pro-active in finding a boyfriend? 

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers' questions about topics across the board- she covers the responsibilities of a Director and VP of Product Management, how to get in your product reps outside of work, her thoughts on sharing your roadmaps with your customer, and product managers vs project managers.  Q: Do Directors of Product Management pull out of the day-to-day and just manage the departments? [1:34] Q: How might a non-technical PM find or develop products outside of work? [4:39] Q: Should we make our roadmap public? What are the complications that may arise if we do? [7:21] Q: How do the roles of project and product managers differ? Where do you see the practical and pragmatic product management's response to value delivery when there are time and money constraints? [9:51] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers' questions about topics across the board- she covers the responsibilities of a Director and VP of Product Management, how to get in your product reps outside of work, her thoughts on sharing your roadmaps with your customer, and product managers vs project managers.  Q: Do Directors of Product Management pull out of the day-to-day and just manage the departments? [1:34] Q: How might a non-technical PM find or develop products outside of work? [4:39] Q: Should we make our roadmap public? What are the complications that may arise if we do? [7:21] Q: How do the roles of project and product managers differ? Where do you see the practical and pragmatic product management's response to value delivery when there are time and money constraints? [9:51] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers questions about approaching your product management career thoughtfully and strategically. She covers what PMs are particularly good at and how to reframe the idea of PMs being “generalists,” what she thinks about product management certification courses and FAANG companies, and what taking an alternate route via product operations would look like.   Q: What tips would you give to someone who is concerned about being a generalist? [2:06] Q: Should a product manager aim for a start-up or one of the FAANG companies in the beginning of their career? [8:13] Q: What is the career track for product operations, and how do you support a person to grow in this role? [16:06] Q: Are product management certificate courses worth the effort, and which do you recommend? [20:34] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers questions about approaching your product management career thoughtfully and strategically. She covers what PMs are particularly good at and how to reframe the idea of PMs being “generalists,” what she thinks about product management certification courses and FAANG companies, and what taking an alternate route via product operations would look like.   Q: What tips would you give to someone who is concerned about being a generalist? [2:06] Q: Should a product manager aim for a start-up or one of the FAANG companies in the beginning of their career? [8:13] Q: What is the career track for product operations, and how do you support a person to grow in this role? [16:06] Q: Are product management certificate courses worth the effort, and which do you recommend? [20:34] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers' questions about which part of an organization really owns user research, the scope of a product team's vision and strategy, and how to tell when your product has too many features.  Q: How do you delineate the goals of product manager and product marketing research? [2:03] Q: Should every product manager have a 2 to 10-year vision and strategy, or should each respective PM rather craft division and strategy only covering the current strategic intent? [7:27] Q: How do you know when you have too many features in your product? Any suggestions on how to change the mindset that more is better? [13:26] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers' questions about which part of an organization really owns user research, the scope of a product team's vision and strategy, and how to tell when your product has too many features.  Q: How do you delineate the goals of product manager and product marketing research? [2:03] Q: Should every product manager have a 2 to 10-year vision and strategy, or should each respective PM rather craft division and strategy only covering the current strategic intent? [7:27] Q: How do you know when you have too many features in your product? Any suggestions on how to change the mindset that more is better? [13:26] Resources Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter MelissaPerri.com

Welcome To Plotpoints Podcast! Mark Sevi And Guests Show Notes February 12,2021 EP 198 This is Plotpoints Podcast! www.plotpoints.com GO HERE FOR INFO ON SCRIPTWRITING CLASSES Mark’s Co-Host: Author/Screenwriter Christopher Stires Joins The Podcast. SHAMELESS PROMOS: Chris’ latest book is: Silk & Swords: A Thurian Chronicles Novel: On Amazon #Starbeasts #PaladinsJourney #RebelNation #TheInheritance #DarkLegend #thurianChronicles Chris’ Amazon Page |  Chris’ BarnesAndNoble   |  Chris’ webpage ~~~ GO HERE FOR INFO ON SCRIPTWRITING CLASSES Creative Screenwriting Magazine –  ARTICLES BY MARK SEVI FOR CS MAGAZINE Latest Article for CS Magazine, Part I: Write Your Script Without Tricks Final Draft – ARTICLES BY MARK SEVI FOR FINAL DRAFT SHOW DETAILS 00:00:00 INTRO Music by Mark Sevi, Interstitial Music by BenSound 00:00:20 USELESS CHATTER Mark, Chris 00:00:30 WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON? Mark, Chris #scriptwritingbook #screenwritingbook #thrillerscript #vomitdraft #springbreak 00:05:35 WHAT ARE WE WATCHING? Mark, Chris #lawandorderUK #perrymason #earlstanleygardner 00:8:20 TOP 5 MOVIE MOMENTS Chris’ List: #IreneAdlerIntro #1stAvengerChesty #AngelsWithDirtyWingsExecution #RobRoyswordFight  #AquietPlaceNail #FieldofDreamsCatch Mark’s List: #StreetofFireDiner #BladeRunnerRoof #TombstoneRingoShootout #CinemaParadisoEnding #GodfatherKissingRing 00:13:30 Q&A/TIPS Q: Should you watch “bad” movies?… Read the rest

We are back with another episode of the Undeniable Level Up Podcast.  Last week we discussed extreme ownership.  We heard an amazing speech from former Navy Seal Jocko Willink, who hosts an amazing podcast.  It was actually one of the first podcasts that I ever listened too.  We will provide a link in the show notes if you want to go and check him out. Today, we are going to talk about the rules.  And why rules are for stupid people.  Dr. House from the television show, "House" is fond of saying, "Rules are just helpful guidelines for stupid people…". Q: Would you agree with Dr. House?So I was first exposed to the "Rules are for stupid people" philosophy when I was deployed to Afghanistan during my first tour, between 2008 and 2009.  I deployed there as part of an advisory MiTT Team.   Our call sign was Vampires and I was Vampire 4.  We were known as Team Vampires.  We were deployed to the Paktika Province, a small outpost called Forward Operating Base, or FOB Bermel.  For my Vampire brothers out there that may be tuning in, I miss you guys!  There are bonds that are forged in combat that can't be broken by time or distance. The mission of a MiTT team is to serve as combat advisors to Afghan and Iraqi combat troops so that they can continue the counterinsurgency mission long after we are gone.  Our job was to "build an Army".  The only problem is that this is a mission typically reserved for Special Operations units.  These are typically heavily resourced teams with priority support that allow them to operate independent and with disregard of the battlefield owner's control.  MiTT teams on the other hand were severely under-resourced, lacked any type of priority and often fumbled throughout the battlefield space struggling to reach higher echelon leadership.  We were often outside of commz, unable to gain air support and riding solo throughout some of the most treacherous geography that Afghanistan has to offer.    When we traveled, we often traveled with two MRAPs, three U.S. Soldiers per MRAP; a driver, a tank commander, or T.C., typically the highest ranking person in the vehicle and then the Gunner.  Oh yeah, and an Afghan Interpreter.    The team was rank heavy with mostly Captains and Senior enlisted non-commissioned officers and few junior Soldiers for a total of six to 200 - 400 Afghan Soldiers in Hilux Pickup trucks.   Our team leader was a Major, and on our team, that was MAJ Mike.  This dude was fearless when it came to moving with the Afghans.   There was a mission that we were on once where an Afghan commander, enraged for whatever reason, began to beat one of his Soldiers with the butt of his AK47, pulling him out fo the back of the Hilux Pickup.  We were in the middle of a convoy at the time, we hadn't gotten our MRAPs yet, so we re in armored Humvees, and I was on the .50 Cal machine gun when MAJ Mike jumps out and rushes over to stop the commander from beating his Soldier to death.  I tried to stop him, but he wasn't having it.  The whole time I had the .50 cal trained on the Afghans knowing that if they responded aggressively toward Mike that it would turn into Custer's last stand.   Fortunately for us, Mike was able to de-escalate the situation, being the phenomenal diplomat that he is.I say all of that and share that story to set the tone for what happened when I challenged one of MAJ Mike's decisions.  I can't remember the context of the discussion.  I just remember telling him, "We can't do that, it's against the rules," to which he responded, "Rules are for stupid people!"   Now, let that sink in, the same way I did, when I first heard it.   Q: What do you think about small pearl of wisdom? Ray A. Davis says, "Following all the rules leaves a completed checklist.  Following your heart achieves a completed you." (Discuss the quote) As I returned from my first deployment to Afghanistan, I had been doing some consulting there on contracts for the local contractors that were building roads, guard towers and buildings on our small outpost for free.  They would bring me government proposals and ask me to interpret them so that they can submit bids.   When I redeployed back to the U.S., I began getting emails from these same contractors, asking if I could take some time to assist them with these proposals.  This was the point at which my first official business was born.  JLM Consulting provided consulting on government contracts for Afghan Construction Contractors.  My services were free, and I was only compensated when the contractor was awarded a contract that I had consulted on and helped prepare.  This made me a lot of money, very quickly. "Rules are for stupid people,"  is equivalent to "legal opportunism".  This is the act of circumnavigating the law.  Operating in the gray areas between what is black and white.  Sometimes this can be a moral sticky ground.  When someone is using this philosophy to live their lives, they aren't breaking the rules, they are just bending them to a point where it is advantageous.   Q: Have you ever had to bend a rule to capitalize on a situation?  In an article titled, "Why Entrepreneurs Say Rules Shouldn't Apply To Them", author, Derek Ludlow states that entrepreneurs are "prone to breaking or ignoring the rules".  He calls out both Uber and AirBNB for using rule breaking for creating their multi-billion dollar companies. Uber has been sued by multiple cab companies and taxi commissions around the world, saying that they do not follow the rules that apply to Taxi Cabs.  I know recently in California the state ruled that Uber was misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors instead of as employees in order to avoid increased costs due to benefit requirements.   Additionally, AirBNB has received complaints from hotels for not having to pay hotel tax fees, which drive up costs for hotels versus AirBNBs.    Q: Do you believe that entrepreneurs should be exempt from rules or be allowed to bend rules in order to drive innovation? In the cannabis industry, we have federal regulations that still make cannabis an illegal substance, but states have approved both medicinal and recreational use.  Oregon just recently opened the flood gates to almost all illegal drugs to include heroin.   Q: Should businesses be profiting from a business structure that has traditionally resulted in criminal punishment? What about the fact that these laws often targeted minority communities, but the entry into most of these markets are so difficult that most of those victimized by these rules, cannot participate in them legally. Q: Do you operate from a "Seek forgiveness, not permission", or are you a permission seeker when it comes to your entrepreneurial spirit? Q: What rules should never be bent or broken from a business or entrepreneurial perspective? The following three (3) CEOs are known for being rule breakers:  Jenny Fleiss - CEO of Jetblack, a dress rental business raised over $200M in venture capital…WITHOUT A BUSINESS PLAN! Jeff Raider - CEO of Harry's men's grooming product. They started in 2013 with NO CAPITAL AND NO FACTORIES and grew their business as the demand grew. Payal Kadakia - CEO of Classpass launched a her company, a platform that allows members to book fitness classes…BEFORE SHE HAD THE PLATFORM BUILT.  The following three (3) companies got ahead by breaking rules:  AirBNB - In order to grow supply for their service, they turned to Craigslist, contacting people who had listed their homes for rent and asked them to list on AirBNB. TOMS - A shoe seller sold shoes from a residential apartment, hiding it from his landlady. Dropbox - Sold their product before they were done building it to test out the market demand.  Read: Dan Pierce, from Single Dad Laughing says, “Most rules are made by people with no authority who want to control and limit you from reaching your true potential. Ignore them, break their rules, and wave at them as you soar past them to greatness.” It's time to level up and stop allowing yourself to be constrained by the boxes that have been designed to keep business owners, entrepreneurs and leaders from reaching greatness. Anyone who has achieved significant success, has done so by bending and occasionally breaking a rule or two.  How do you call yourself an out-of-the-box thinker, if you've always been to afraid to get out of the box. If you're ready to start breaking some rules and getting ahead, I encourage you to read the book, "How to Succeed in Business By Breaking All the Rules, A Plan for Entrepreneurs", by Dan S. Kennedy.  This book gives you the understanding of how to become comfortable in the gray in order to climb out of the red and stay in the black. It's time to stop letting rules, limit your ability to achieve success."How to Succeed in Business By Breaking All the Rules, A Plan for Entrepreneurs", by Dan S. Kennedy - https://amzn.to/3cg3f1DThe Jocko Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jocko-podcast/id1070322219 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

 Learn how to make your business as a retreat leader grow and become more profitable Discover ways on how to increase your sales and take your business as a retreat leader online Recognize the mistakes your business is making and know the right and proper solutions for it Resources/Links: Check out Sheri's Website: http://www.wanderlustentrepreneur.com Check out Sheri's Retreat Blueprint Program: https://www.wanderlustentrepreneur.com/retreat-blueprint-program/ Summary Have you ever grasped the difference between a retreat and a workshop? Has your business as a retreat leader been slow because of the pandemic or because you're just not attracting enough attention? Sheri Rosenthal is a practicing physician. She is also the owner of Journeys of the Spirit Travel. It's a boutique agency specializing in the planning and management of group travel. She loves helping clients plan, fills, and profit from transformational retreats that change lives while adding serious income to their bottom line. In this episode, Sheri shares her insights on how understanding retreat as an experiential and transformational event rather than treating it as a workshop can attract more clients and increase sales. She also adds how you can shift your in-person retreats to online retreats in the midst of the Corona Virus pandemic. Check out these episode highlights: 2:31- Sheri's ideal client: “Basically, Tom, heart-based entrepreneurs who want to run transformational retreats, change lives and travel the world. Those are our favorite folks at Wanderlust Entrepreneur, which is my main company.” 2:51 - Problem Sheri helps solve: “Okay, so we help in two ways, Tom. First, we train our clients on how to plan, price, profit, and monetize their retreats, which is critical. And second, we train them on how to bring their in-person retreats and businesses online which is really critical right now.” 3:18 - Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Sheri: “So, Tom, most retreat leaders make no or very little money on their retreats, or they can't fill them because they don't know how to design and position them properly, or have a proper marketing plan in place, okay? Also, many of our clients who have been working strictly in person are realizing now that they need to move their offerings online so they can have an income even during a pandemic. So, they could do like a virtual retreat, but they got to get online.” 4:41 - Common mistakes that people make before they find Sheri's solution: “Absolutely. So, when retreat leaders see that their retreats are not selling, one of the biggest mistakes they make is to lower the pricing and put it on sale.” 5:43 - Sheri's Valuable Free Action (VFA): “Oh, absolutely. So, people do not want to travel and sit in a classroom all day, they want to experience something. They want the cosmic 2x4 to hit them upside the head and they want their lives to change. If you can create a retreat that promises that, your retreats will always sell out, I can promise that.” 7:19 - Sheri's Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Sheri's Retreat Blueprint Program: https://www.wanderlustentrepreneur.com/retreat-blueprint-program/ 8:17 - Q: Should folks be planning a retreat for 2020? A: The answer to that would be an absolutely, positively, hell yes! Because people are dying to get away and go on a retreat. I am. And if you don't have one ready, they're going to come on mine instead of yours. Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

 Learn how to make your business as a retreat leader grow and become more profitable Discover ways on how to increase your sales and take your business as a retreat leader online Recognize the mistakes your business is making and know the right and proper solutions for it Resources/Links: Check out Sheri’s Website: http://www.wanderlustentrepreneur.com Check out Sheri’s Retreat Blueprint Program: https://www.wanderlustentrepreneur.com/retreat-blueprint-program/ Summary Have you ever grasped the difference between a retreat and a workshop? Has your business as a retreat leader been slow because of the pandemic or because you’re just not attracting enough attention? Sheri Rosenthal is a practicing physician. She is also the owner of Journeys of the Spirit Travel. It's a boutique agency specializing in the planning and management of group travel. She loves helping clients plan, fills, and profit from transformational retreats that change lives while adding serious income to their bottom line. In this episode, Sheri shares her insights on how understanding retreat as an experiential and transformational event rather than treating it as a workshop can attract more clients and increase sales. She also adds how you can shift your in-person retreats to online retreats in the midst of the Corona Virus pandemic. Check out these episode highlights: 2:31- Sheri’s ideal client: “Basically, Tom, heart-based entrepreneurs who want to run transformational retreats, change lives and travel the world. Those are our favorite folks at Wanderlust Entrepreneur, which is my main company.” 2:51 - Problem Sheri helps solve: “Okay, so we help in two ways, Tom. First, we train our clients on how to plan, price, profit, and monetize their retreats, which is critical. And second, we train them on how to bring their in-person retreats and businesses online which is really critical right now.” 3:18 - Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Sheri: “So, Tom, most retreat leaders make no or very little money on their retreats, or they can't fill them because they don't know how to design and position them properly, or have a proper marketing plan in place, okay? Also, many of our clients who have been working strictly in person are realizing now that they need to move their offerings online so they can have an income even during a pandemic. So, they could do like a virtual retreat, but they got to get online.” 4:41 - Common mistakes that people make before they find Sheri’s solution: “Absolutely. So, when retreat leaders see that their retreats are not selling, one of the biggest mistakes they make is to lower the pricing and put it on sale.” 5:43 - Sheri’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “Oh, absolutely. So, people do not want to travel and sit in a classroom all day, they want to experience something. They want the cosmic 2x4 to hit them upside the head and they want their lives to change. If you can create a retreat that promises that, your retreats will always sell out, I can promise that.” 7:19 - Sheri’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Sheri’s Retreat Blueprint Program: https://www.wanderlustentrepreneur.com/retreat-blueprint-program/ 8:17 - Q: Should folks be planning a retreat for 2020? A: The answer to that would be an absolutely, positively, hell yes! Because people are dying to get away and go on a retreat. I am. And if you don't have one ready, they're going to come on mine instead of yours. Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode: “It's about creating experiences, not about just talking at people in a classroom, that's called a workshop.” -Sheri RosenthalClick To Tweet Transcript (Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast) Tom Poland 0:09 Hello everyone,

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk all about side hustles with special guest Courtland Allen, from Indie Hackers! They talk about the story behind Indie Hackers, how to start your own side hustle, where to find ideas, listener questions, and more. LogRocket - Sponsor LogRocket lets you replay what users do on your site, helping you reproduce bugs and fix issues faster. It’s an exception tracker, a session re-player and a performance monitor. Get 14 days free at LogRocket. Freshbooks - Sponsor Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at Freshbooks and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Show Notes 1:05 - What’s the back story behind Indie Hackers? 5:30 - What is a side hustle? 11:21 - How do you validate your idea? 13:15 - What are some different types of side hustles? 31:55 - What about people who don’t like marketing? 33:57 - What are some important pieces of side hustles? 39:04 - How do you sell a business? 42:40 - Listener Questions: Q: How do you stop the side hustle from affecting your main job in regards to things like overtime, sleep and commitment? Q: Should you frame yourself as a one-man-band or as a company? Q: Have you heard stories of people living in cheap places, making bank? Are there any white whales you have been chasing to interview? Links Carrd Balsamiq Mockups Flickity Nomad List Evan You Evan You Patreon Park.io Making $125,000 a Month as a Solo Founder with Mike Carson of Park.io Patreon Drift Stripe ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Courtland: Post-it Notes and Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger Scott: Akimbo Wes: Elastic Wallet Shameless Plugs Courtland: IndieHackers Podcast Scott: Animating React Wes: CSS Grid 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

In this bonus episode, we are joined by Kevin Henderson, the head of US operations for Pimax.Q: Kevin, tell us about yourself, your tech history and how it lead to Pimax?Q: Did you ever try in of the early VR machines in the 80s or 90s?Q: Communication from Pimax is a concern, as Spokesperson will be improving communication? Q: Pimax was supposed to ship in early 2018, but it ended up being 1-year later, was there a particular holdup? Q: You mentioned an 8% defect rate, it seems the cable is the biggest culprit, what steps has Pimax done to rectify that and other quality issues? Q: What are Pimax's distribution plans heading into general release? Q: Will the audio strap be shown at GTC? Q: Should we expect parallel or linear development and release of accessories?Q: Will the wireless module require compression, and are Pimax partnering with another company on the module? Q: Has there been any talk with other tracking systems other than SteamVR, such as Mo-Sys?Q: Is there a chance for Pimax to make a tracking puck? Q: Is there any news or updates on lighthouse availability?Q: What is the status of the 8KX, and have you tried it? Q: We assume you have a 5k+, 8k, and 5kBE. Which is your favorite? Q: Can you talk about anything Pimax had to hone in on, such as the lenses, and will there be additional refinements? Q: Let's talk about the Oculus software support integrated into PiTool. Is it Revive or Pimax solution? How will it be supported going forward? Q: Is there a difference in the LCD panels for newer builds vs older builds?Q: Can you update us on the eye-tracking module?Q: Where do you see VR going in the next few years? Not just from Pimax perspective, but industry wide? [Q: The Community likes you, but they still want a Kickstarter update for each SKU, can you give us one? Q: Steve gets corrected on ending on a high-note (regarding delivery) Q: What are you favorite games to play on the Pimax, what do you look forward to playing? Q: What GPU do you use? Q: Do you adjust SS in PiTool or SteamVR? Q: Do you have any concerns of Pimax's unique market window of wide-FOV could close with other hardware announcements like StartVR, Xtal, ect? Q: The floor is yours! Q: Do you think VR displace home TVs, home-cinema? If so, when? Q: Closing Note: We are now streaming live on Youtube when we record the latest episode, audio version will always be made available in podcast form. Also, please keep in mind the live nature of the Roundtable when listening back to the podcast uploade-mail: vrroundtable@gmail.comYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/vrroundtableFollow us on Twitter @VR_RoundtableFollow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/VRRoundtableFollow Gary on Twitter @ReckonerVRFollow Steve on Twitter @Scubasteve2365Follow Anthony on Twitter @VRGameRankingsFollow Chris on Twitter @Virtually_Chris

This week's and next week's podcasts will focus on a Q&A session I had with two college students. They fired questions at me that are on their minds, as well as career-related questions their friends wanted to ask. Here are the questions we cover this week (for my answers, listen to the podcast!): Q: When should we start looking for an internship? Q: Where can I look for an internship? Q: How early in college should I start thinking about my career? Q: What can I start doing to make sure I have a job at graduation? Q: Does the major I choose require me to work in that industry? Conversely, do I have to have a specific major to get the job I want? Q: What do employers care about when they are hiring recent college graduates? In other words, what are they looking for? Q: What are some of the worst mistakes I can make on my resume? Q: Should a resume be one page? Q: Is it okay to be more creative with our resume, such as layout, format, color, etc? Q: What are the most important things I should have on my LinkedIn profile? Q: What's the best way to get letters of recommendation? Q: How do I get more connections on LinkedIn? Q: What's the story with the Endorsements section of LinkedIn? Q: How often should I be updating my LinkedIn profile? Q: Should I have business cards, and how should I use them? Q: I don't know anyone in my field. How do I begin networking? Q: What are some tips for making the most of approaching companies at career fairs? Q: What are the best networking tips for someone who hasn't networked before? Q: What are the critical elements of an effective elevator pitch? Q: How long should I wait after a job interview to follow up? Q: What are some good questions to ask the interviewer? Q: Should I bring up salary during the interview? Q: As a recent college graduate, how much wiggle room is there in negotiating my salary? Q: How do I showcase my personality in an interview? To visit my website: www.exclusivecareercoaching.com Follow My YouTube channel (Lesa Edwards); it's chocked full of value career management content is easily digestible bites. Want to speak with an expert about your career/job search goals? Need help figuring out what's holding you back from achieving your dream career? Let's talk. Here's the link to schedule a 30-minute consult call with me:  www.timetrade.com/book/D6KLN. Hope to see you soon! 

TrueOS stable 17.12 is out, we have an OpenBSD workstation guide for you, learnings from the PDP-11, FreeBSD 2017 Releng recap and Duo SSH. This episode was brought to you by Headlines TrueOS stable release 17.12 (https://www.trueos.org/blog/trueos-17-12-release/) We are pleased to announce a new release of the 6-month STABLE version of TrueOS! This release cycle focused on lots of cleanup and stabilization of the distinguishing features of TrueOS: OpenRC, boot speed, removable-device management, SysAdm API integrations, Lumina improvements, and more. We have also been working quite a bit on the server offering of TrueOS, and are pleased to provide new text-based server images with support for Virtualization systems such as bhyve! This allows for simple server deployments which also take advantage of the TrueOS improvements to FreeBSD such as: Sane service management and status reporting with OpenRC Reliable, non-interactive system update mechanism with fail-safe boot environment support. Graphical management of remote TrueOS servers through SysAdm (also provides a reliable API for administrating systems remotely). LibreSSL for all base SSL support. Base system managed via packages (allows for additional fine-tuning). Base system is smaller due to the removal of the old GCC version in base. Any compiler and/or version may be installed and used via packages as desired. Support for newer graphics drivers and chipsets (graphics, networking, wifi, and more) TrueOS Version 17.12 (2017, December) is now available for download from the TrueOS website. Both the STABLE and UNSTABLE package repositories have also been updated in-sync with each other, so current users only need to follow the prompts about updating their system to run the new release. We are also pleased to announce the availability of TrueOS Sponsorships! If you would like to help contribute to the project financially we now have the ability to accept both one-time donations as well as recurring monthly donations which wil help us advocate for TrueOS around the world. Thank you all for using and supporting TrueOS! Notable Changes: Over 1100 OpenRC services have been created for 3rd-party packages. This should ensure the functionality of nearly all available 3rd-party packages that install/use their own services. The OpenRC services for FreeBSD itself have been overhauled, resulting in significantly shorter boot times. Separate install images for desktops and servers (server image uses a text/console installer) Bhyve support for TrueOS Server Install FreeBSD base is synced with 12.0-CURRENT as of December 4th, 2017 (Github commit: 209d01f) FreeBSD ports tree is synced as of November 30th (pre-FLAVOR changes) Lumina Desktop has been updated/developed from 1.3.0 to 1.4.1 PCDM now supports multiple simultaneous graphical sessions Removable devices are now managed through the “automounter” service. Devices are “announced” as available to the system via *.desktop shortcuts in /media. These shortcuts also contain a variety of optional “Actions” that may be performed on the device. Devices are only mounted while they are being used (such as when browsing via the command line or a file manager). Devices are automatically unmounted as soon as they stop being accessed. Integrated support for all major filesystems (UFS, EXT, FAT, NTFS, ExFAT, etc..) NOTE: The Lumina desktop is the only one which supports this functionality at the present time. The TrueOS update system has moved to an “active” update backend. This means that the user will need to actually start the update process by clicking the “Update Now” button in SysAdm, Lumina, or PCDM (as well as the command-line option). The staging of the update files is still performed automatically by default but this (and many other options) can be easily changed in the “Update Manager” settings as desired. Known Errata: [VirtualBox] Running FreeBSD within a VirtualBox VM is known to occasionally receive non-existent mouse clicks – particularly when using a scroll wheel or two-finger scroll. Quick Links: TrueOS Forums (https://discourse.trueos.org/) TrueOS Bugs (https://github.com/trueos/trueos-core/issues) TrueOS Handbook (https://www.trueos.org/handbook/trueos.html) TrueOS Community Chat on Telegram (https://t.me/TrueOSCommunity) *** OpenBSD Workstation Guide (https://begriffs.com/posts/2017-05-17-linux-workstation-guide.html) Design Goals User actions should complete instantaneously. While I understand if compiling code and rendering videos takes time, opening programs and moving windows should have no observable delay. The system should use minimalist tools. Corollary: cache data offline when possible. Everything from OpenStreetMaps to StackExchange can be stored locally. No reason to repeatedly hit the internet to query them. This also improves privacy because the initial download is indiscriminate and doesn't reveal personal queries or patterns of computer activity. No idling program should use a perceptible amount of CPU. Why does CalendarAgent on my Macbook sometimes use 150% CPU for fifteen minutes? Who knows. Why are background ChromeHelpers chugging along at upper-single-digit CPU? I didn't realize that holding a rendered DOM could be so challenging. Avoid interpreted languages, web-based desktop apps, and JavaScript garbage. There, I said it. Take your Electron apps with you to /dev/null! Stability. Old fashioned programs on a conservative OS on quality mainstream hardware. There are enough challenges to tackle without a bleeding edge system being one of them. Delegate to quality hardware components. Why use a janky ncurses software audio mixer when you can use…an actual audio mixer? Hardware privacy. No cameras or microphones that I can't physically disconnect. Also real hardware protection for cryptographic keys. Software privacy. Commercial software and operating systems have gotten so terrible about this. I even catch Mac command line tools trying to call Google Analytics. Sorry homebrew, your cute emojis don't make up for the surveillance. The Hardware Core To get the best hardware for the money I'm opting for a desktop computer. Haven't had one since the early 2000s and it feels anachronistic, but it will outperform a laptop of similar cost. After much searching, I found the HP Z240 Tower Workstation. It's no-nonsense and supports exactly the customizations I was looking for: No operating system pre-loaded (Cut out the “Windows tax”) Intel Xeon E3-1270 v6 processor (Supports ECC ram) 16 GB (2x8 GB) DDR4-2400 ECC Unbuffered memory (2400Mhz is the full memory clock speed supported by the Xeon) 256 GB HP Z Turbo Drive G2 PCIe SSD (Uses NVMe rather than SATA for faster throughput, supported by nvme(4)) No graphics card (We'll add our own) Intel® Ethernet I210-T1 PCIe (Supported by em(4)) A modest discrete video card will enable 2D Glamor acceleration on X11. The Radeon HD 6450 (sold separately) is fanless and listed as supported by radeon(4). Why build a solid computer and not protect it? Externally, the APC BR1300G UPS will protect the system from power surges and abrupt shutdowns. Peripherals The Matias Ergo Pro uses mechanical switches for that old fashioned clicky sound. It also includes dedicated buttons along the side for copying and pasting. Why is that cool? Well, it improves secondary selection, a technique that Sun computers used but time forgot. Since we're talking about a home office workstation, you may want a printer. The higher quality printers speak PostScript and PDF natively. Unix machines connect to them on TCP port 9100 and send PostScript commands directly. (You can print via telnet if you know the commands!) The Brother HL-L5100DN is a duplex LaserJet which allows that “raw” TCP printing. Audio/Video I know a lot of people enjoy surrounding themselves with a wall of monitors like they're in the heart of NASA Mission Control, but I find multi-monitor setups slightly disorienting. It introduces an extra bit of cognitive overhead to determine which monitor is for what exactly. That's why I'd go with a modest, crisp Dell UltraSharp 24" U2417H. It's 1080p and yeah there are 4k monitors nowadays, but text and icons are small enough as it is for me! If I ever considered a second monitor it would be e-ink for comfortably reading electronic copies of books or long articles. The price is currently too high to justify the purchase, but the most promising monitor seems to be the Dasung Paperlike. In the other direction, video input, it's more flexible to use a general-purpose HDMI capture box like the Rongyuxuan than settle on a particular webcam. This allows hooking up a real camera, or any other video device. Although the motherboard for this system has built-in audio, we should use a card with better OpenBSD support. The WBTUO PCIe card uses a C-Media CMI8768 chipset, handled by cmpci(4). The card provides S/PDIFF in and out ports if you ever want to use an external DAC or ADC. The way to connect it with other things is with a dedicated hardware mixer. The Behringer Xenyx 802 has all the connections needed, and the ability to route audio to and from the computer and a variety of devices at once. The mixer may seem an odd peripheral, but I want to mix the computer with an old fashioned CD player, ham radio gear, and amplifier so this unifies the audio setup. When doing remote pair programming or video team meetings it's nice to have a quality microphone. The best ones for this kind of work are directional, with a cardioid reception pattern. The MXL 770 condenser mic is perfect, and uses a powered XLR connection supplied by the mixer. Backups We're going dead simple and old-school, back to tapes. There are a set of tape standards called LTO-n. As n increases the tape capacity gets bigger, but the tape drive gets more expensive. In my opinion the best balance these days for the home user is LTO-3. You can usually find an HP Ultrium 960 LTO-3 on eBay for 150 dollars. The cartridges hold 800GB and are about 15 dollars apiece. Hard drives keep coming down in price, but these tapes are very cheap and simpler than keeping a bunch of disk drives. Also tape has proven longevity, and good recoverability. To use old fashioned tech like this you need a SCSI host bus adapter like the Adaptec 29320LPE, supported by ahd(4). Cryptography You don't want to generate and store secret keys on a general purpose network attached computer. The attack surface is a mile wide. Generating or manipulating “offline” secret keys needs to happen on a separate computer with no network access. Little boards like the Raspberry Pi would be good except they use ARM processors (incompatible with Tails OS) and have wifi. The JaguarBoard is a small x86 machine with no wireless capability. Just switch the keyboard and monitor over to this machine for your “cleanroom.” jaguar board: Generating keys requires entropy. The Linux kernel on Tails samples system properties to generate randomness, but why not help it out with a dedicated true random number generator (TRNG)? Bit Babbler supplies pure randomness at a high bitrate through USB. (OneRNG works better on the OpenBSD main system, via uonerng(4).) bit babbler: This little computer will save its results onto a OpenPGP Smartcard V2.1. This card provides write-only access to keys, and computes cryptographic primitives internally to sign and encrypt messages. To use it with a regular computer, hook up a Cherry ST2000 card reader. This reader has a PIN pad built in, so no keylogger on the main computer could even obtain your decryption PIN. The Software We take the beefed up hardware above and pair it with ninja-fast software written in C. Some text-based, others raw X11 graphical apps unencumbered by ties to any specific window manager. I'd advise OpenBSD for the underlying operating system, not a Linux. OpenBSD has greater internal consistency, their man pages are impeccable, and they make it a priority to prune old code to keep the system minimal. What Have We Learned from the PDP-11? (https://dave.cheney.net/2017/12/04/what-have-we-learned-from-the-pdp-11) The paper I have chosen tonight is a retrospective on a computer design. It is one of a series of papers by Gordon Bell, and various co-authors, spanning the design, growth, and eventual replacement of the companies iconic line of PDP-11 mini computers. This year represents the 60th anniversary of the founding of the company that produced the PDP-11. It is also 40 years since this paper was written, so I thought it would be entertaining to review Bell's retrospective through the lens of our own 20/20 hindsight. To set the scene for this paper, first we should talk a little about the company that produced the PDP-11, the Digital Equipment Corporation of Maynard, Massachusetts. Better known as DEC. It's also worth noting that the name PDP is an acronym for “Programmed Data Processor”, as at the time, computers had a reputation of being large, complicated, and expensive machines, and DEC's venture capitalists would not support them if they built a “computer” A computer is not solely determined by its architecture; it reflects the technological, economic, and human aspects of the environment in which it was designed and built. […] The finished computer is a product of the total design environment. “Right from the get go, Bell is letting us know that the success of any computer project is not abstractly building the best computer but building the right computer, and that takes context.” It is the nature of computer engineering to be goal-oriented, with pressure to produce deliverable products. It is therefore difficult to plan for an extensive lifetime. Because of the open nature of the PDP-11, anything which interpreted the instructions according to the processor specification, was a PDP-11, so there had been a rush within DEC, once it was clear that the PDP-11 market was heating up, to build implementations; you had different groups building fast, expensive ones and cost reduced slower ones The first weakness of minicomputers was their limited addressing capability. The biggest (and most common) mistake that can be made in a computer design is that of not providing enough address bits for memory addressing and management. A second weakness of minicomputers was their tendency not to have enough registers. This was corrected for the PDP-11 by providing eight 16-bit registers. Later, six 32-bit registers were added for floating-point arithmetic. […] More registers would increase the multiprogramming context switch time and confuse the user. “It's also interesting to note Bell's concern that additional registers would confuse the user. In the early 1970's the assumption that the machine would be programmed directly in assembly was still the prevailing mindset.” A third weakness of minicomputers was their lack of hardware stack capability. In the PDP-11, this was solved with the autoincrement/autodecrement addressing mechanism. This solution is unique to the PDP-11 and has proven to be exceptionally useful. (In fact, it has been copied by other designers.) “Nowadays it's hard to imagine hardware that doesn't have a notion of a stack, but consider that a stack isn't important if you don't need recursion.” “The design for the PDP-11 was laid down in 1969 and if we look at the programming languages of the time, FORTRAN and COBOL, neither supported recursive function calls. The function call sequence would often store the return address at a blank word at the start of the procedure making recursion impossible.” A fourth weakness, limited interrupt capability and slow context switching, was essentially solved with the device of UNIBUS interrupt vectors, which direct device interrupts. The basic mechanism is very fast, requiring only four memory cycles from the time an interrupt request is issued until the first instruction of the interrupt routine begins execution. A fifth weakness of prior minicomputers, inadequate character-handling capability, was met in the PDP-11 by providing direct byte addressing capability. “Strings and character handling were of increasing importance during the 1960's as scientific and business computing converged. The predominant character encodings at the time were 6 bit character sets which provided just enough space for upper case letters, the digits 0 to 9, space, and a few punctuation characters sufficient for printing financial reports.” “Because memory was so expensive, placing one 6 bit character into a 12 or 18 bit word was simply unacceptable so characters would be packed into words. This proved efficient for storage, but complex for operations like move, compare, and concatenate, which had to account for a character appearing in the top or bottom of the word, expending valuable words of program storage to cope.” “The problem was addressed in the PDP-11 by allowing the machine to operate on memory as both a 16-bit word, and the increasingly popular 8-bit byte. The expenditure of 2 additional bits per character was felt to be worth it for simpler string handling, and also eased the adoption of the increasingly popular 7-bit ASCII standard of which DEC were a proponent at the time. Bell concludes this point with the throw away line:” Although string instructions are not yet provided in the hardware, the common string operations (move, compare, concatenate) can be programmed with very short loops. A sixth weakness, the inability to use read-only memories, was avoided in the PDP-11. Most code written for the PDP-11 tends to be pure and reentrant without special effort by the programmer, allowing a read-only memory (ROM) to be used directly. A seventh weakness, one common to many minicomputers, was primitive I/O capabilities. A ninth weakness of minicomputers was the high cost of programming them. Many users program in assembly language, without the comfortable environment of editors, file systems, and debuggers available on bigger systems. The PDP-11 does not seem to have overcome this weakness, although it appears that more complex systems are being built successfully with the PDP-11 than with its predecessors, the PDP-8 and PDP-15. The problems faced by computer designers can usually be attributed to one of two causes: inexperience or second-systemitis Before the PDP-11, there was no UNIX. Before the PDP-11, there was no C, this is the computer that C was designed on. If you want to know why the classical C int is 16 bits wide, it's because of the PDP-11. UNIX bought us ideas such as pipes, everything is a file, and interactive computing. UNIX, which had arrived at Berkley in 1974 aboard a tape carried by Ken Thompson, would evolve into the west coast flavoured Berkley Systems Distribution. Berkeley UNIX had been ported to the VAX by the start of the 1980's and was thriving as the counter cultural alternative to DEC's own VMS operating system. Berkeley UNIX spawned a new generation of hackers who would go on to form companies like Sun micro systems, and languages like Self, which lead directly to the development of Java. UNIX was ported to a bewildering array of computer systems during the 80's and the fallout from the UNIX wars gave us the various BSD operating systems who continue to this day. The article, and the papers it is summarizing, contain a lot more than we could possibly dig into even if we dedicated the entire show to the topic *** News Roundup Two-factor authentication SSH with Duo in FreeBSD 11 (https://www.teachnix.com/2017/11/29/configuring-two-factor-authentication-on-freebsd-with-duo/) This setup uses an SSH key as the first factor of authentication. Please watch Part 1 on setting up SSH keys and how to scp it to your server. Video guide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5EuvF-iaV0) Register for a free account at Duo.com Install the Duo package on your FreeBSD server pkg install -y duo Log into the Duo site > Applications > Protect an Application > Search for Unix application > Protect this Application This will generate the keys we need to configure Duo. Edit the Duo config file using the course notes template vi /usr/local/etc/pam_duo.conf Example config [duo] ; Duo integration key ikey = Integration key goes here ; Duo secret key skey = Secret key goes here ; Duo API host host = API hostname goes here Change the permissions of the Duo config file. If the permissions are not correct then the service will not function properly. chmod 600 /usr/local/etc/pam_duo.conf Edit the SSHD config file using the course notes template vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config Example config ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 Port 22 PasswordAuthentication no UsePAM yes ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes UseDNS no PermitRootLogin yes AuthenticationMethods publickey,keyboard-interactive Edit PAM to configure SSHD for Duo using the course notes template Example config ``` # auth auth sufficient pamopie.so nowarn nofakeprompts auth requisite pamopieaccess.so nowarn allowlocal auth required /usr/local/lib/security/pamduo.so # session # session optional pamssh.so wantagent session required pam_permit.so # password # password sufficient pamkrb5.so nowarn tryfirstpass password required pamunix.so nowarn tryfirstpass ``` Restart the sshd service service sshd restart SSH into your FreeBSD server and follow the link it outputs to enroll your phone with Duo. ssh server.example.com SSH into your server again ssh server.example.com Choose your preferred method and it should log you into your server. FreeBSD 2017 Release Engineering Recap (https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/2017-release-engineering-recap/) This past year was undoubtedly a rather busy and successful year for the Release Engineering Team. Throughout the year, development snapshot builds for FreeBSD-CURRENT and supported FreeBSD-STABLE branches were continually provided. In addition, work to package the base system using pkg(8) continued throughout the year and remains ongoing. The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team worked on the FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE, with the code slush starting mid-May. The FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE cycle stayed on schedule, with the final release build starting July 21, and the final release announcement following on July 25, building upon the stability and reliability of 11.0-RELEASE. Milestones during the 11.1-RELEASE cycle can be found on the 11.1 schedule page (https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.1R/schedule.html). The final announcement is available here (https://www.freebsd.org/releases/11.1R/announce.html). The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team started the FreeBSD 10.4-RELEASE cycle, led by Marius Strobl. The FreeBSD 10.4-RELEASE cycle continued on schedule, with the only adjustments to the schedule being the addition of BETA4 and the removal of RC3. FreeBSD 10.4-RELEASE builds upon the stability and reliability of FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE, and is planned to be the final release from the stable/10 branch. Milestones during the 10.4-RELEASE cycle can be found on the 10.4 schedule page (https://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.4R/schedule.html). The final announcement is available here (https://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.4R/announce.html). In addition to these releases, support for additional arm single-board computer images were added, notably Raspberry Pi 3 and Pine64. Additionally, release-related documentation effective 12.0-RELEASE and later has been moved from the base system repository to the documentation repository, making it possible to update related documentation as necessary post-release. Additionally, the FreeBSD Release Engineering article in the Project Handbook had been rewritten to outline current practices used by the Release Engineering Team. For more information on the procedures and processes the FreeBSD Release Engineering Team follows, the new article is available here and continually updated as procedures change. Finally, following the availability of FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE, Glen Barber attended the September Developer Summit hosted at vBSDCon in Reston, VA, USA, where he gave a brief talk comprising of several points relating directly to the 11.1-RELEASE cycle. In particular, some of the points covered included what he felt went well during the release cycle, what did not go as well as it could have, and what we, as a Project, could do better to improve the release process. The slides from the talk are available in the FreeBSD Wiki. During the question and answer time following the talk, some questions asked included: Q: Should developers use the ‘Relnotes' tag in the Subversion commit template more loosely, at risk of an increase in false positives. A: When asked when the tag in the template was initially added, the answer would have been “no”, however in hindsight it is easier to sift through the false positives, than to comb through months or years of commit logs. Q: What issues are present preventing moving release-related documentation to the documentation repository? A: There were some rendering issues last time it was investigated, but it is really nothing more than taking the time to fix those issues. (Note, that since this talk, the migration of the documentation in question had moved.) Q: Does it make sense to extend the timeframe between milestone builds during a release cycle from one week to two weeks, to allow more time for testing, for example, RC1 versus RC2? A: No. It would extend the length of the release cycle with no real benefit between milestones since as we draw nearer to the end of a given release cycle, the number of changes to that code base significantly reduce. FLIMP - GIMP Exploit on FreeBSD (https://flimp.fuzzing-project.org) In 2014, when starting the Fuzzing Project (https://fuzzing-project.org/), Hanno Böck did some primitive fuzzing on GIMP and reported two bugs. They weren't fixed and were forgotten in the public bug tracker. Recently Tobias Stöckmann found one of these bugs (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=739133) (CVE-2017-17785) and figured out that it's easy to exploit. What kind of bug is that? It's a classic heap buffer overflow in the FLIC parser. FLIC is a file format for animations and was introduced by Autodesk Animator. How does the exploit work? Tobias has created a detailed writeup (https://flimp.fuzzing-project.org/exploit.html). The exploit doesn't work for me! We figured out it's unreliable and the memory addresses are depending on many circumstances. The exploit ZIP comes with two variations using different memory addresses. Try both of them. We also noticed putting the files in a subdirectory sometimes made the exploit work. Anything more to tell about the GIMP? There's a wide variety of graphics formats. GIMP tries to support many of them, including many legacy formats that nobody is using any more today. While this has obvious advantages - you can access the old images you may find on a backup CD from 1995 - it comes with risks. Support for many obscure file formats means many parsers that hardly anyone ever looks at. So... what about the other parsers? The second bug (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=739134) (CVE-2017-17786), which is a simple overread, was in the TGA parser. Furthermore we found buffer overreads in the XCF parser (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=790783) (CVE-2017-17788), the Gimp Brush (GBR) parser (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=790784) (CVE-2017-17784) and the Paint Shop Pro (PSP) parser (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=790849) (CVE-2017-17789). We found another Heap buffer overflow (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=790849) in the Paint Shop Pro parser (CVE-2017-17787) which is probably also exploitable. In other words: The GIMP import parsers are full of memory safety bugs. What should happen? First of all obviously all known memory safety bugs should be fixed. Furthermore we believe the way GIMP plugins work is not ideal for security testing. The plug-ins are separate executables, however they can't be executed on their own, as they communicate with the main GIMP process. Ideally either these plug-ins should be changed in a way that allows running them directly from the command line or - even better - they should be turned into libraries. The latter would also have the advantage of making the parser code useable for other software projects. Finally it might be a good idea to sandbox the import parsers. Dell FS12-NV7 Review – Bargain FreeBSD/ZFS box (http://blog.frankleonhardt.com/2017/dell-fs12-nv7-review-bargain-freebsdzfs-box/) It seems just about everyone selling refurbished data centre kit has a load of Dell FS12-NV7's to flog. Dell FS-what? You won't find them in the Dell catalogue, that's for sure. They look a bit like C2100s of some vintage, and they have a lot in common. But on closer inspection they're obviously a “special” for an important customer. Given the number of them knocking around, it's obviously a customer with big data, centres stuffed full of servers with a lot of processing to do. Here's a hint: It's not Google or Amazon. So, should you be buying a weirdo box with no documentation whatsoever? I'd say yes, definitely. If you're interests are anything like mine. In a 2U box you can get twin 4-core CPUs and 64Gb of RAM for £150 or less. What's not to like? Ah yes, the complete lack of documentation. Over the next few weeks I intend to cover that. And to start off this is my first PC review for nearly twenty years. As I mentioned, it's a 2U full length heavy metal box on rails. On the back there are the usual I/O ports: a 9-way RS-232, VGA, two 1Gb Ethernet, two USB2 and a PS/2 keyboard and mouse. The front is taken up by twelve 3.5″ hard drive bays, with the status lights and power button on one of the mounting ears to make room. Unlike other Dell servers, all the connections are on the back, only. So, in summary, you're getting a lot for your money if its the kind of thing you want. It's ideal as a high-performance Unix box with plenty of drive bays (preferably running BSD and ZFS). In this configuration it really shifts. Major bang-per-buck. Another idea I've had is using it for a flight simulator. That's a lot of RAM and processors for the money. If you forego the SAS controllers in the PCIe slots and dump in a decent graphics card and sound board, it's hard to see what's could be better (and you get jet engine sound effects without a speaker). So who should buy one of these? BSD geeks is the obvious answer. With a bit of tweaking they're a dream. It can build-absolutely-everything in 20-30 minutes. For storage you can put fast SAS drives in and it goes like the wind, even at 3Gb bandwidth per drive. I don't know if it works with FreeNAS but I can't see why not – I'm using mostly FreeBSD 11.1 and the generic kernel is fine. And if you want to run a load of weird operating systems (like Windows XP) in VM format, it seems to work very well with the Xen hypervisor and Dom0 under FreeBSD. Or CentOS if you prefer. So I shall end this review in true PCW style: Pros: Cheap Lots of CPUs, Lots of RAM Lots of HD slots Great for BSD/ZFS or VMs Cons: Noisy no AES-NI SAS needs upgrading Limited PCI slots As I've mentioned, the noise and SAS are easy and relatively cheap to fix, and thanks to BitCoin miners, even the PCI slot problem can be sorted. I'll talk about this in a later post. Beastie Bits Reflections on Hackathons (https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20171126090055) 7-Part Video Crash Course on SaltStack For FreeBSD (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HijG0hWebZk&list=PL5yV8umka8YQOr1wm719In5LITdGzQMOF) The LLVM Thread Sanitizer has been ported to NetBSD (https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/the_llvm_thread_sanitizer_has) The First Unix Port (1998) (http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/bits/Interdata/32bit/unix/univWollongong_v6/miller.pdf) arm64 platform now officially supported [and has syspatch(8)] (https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20171208082238) BSDCan 2018 Call for Participation (https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/news-and-events/call-for-papers/bsdcan-2018-call-for-participation/) AsiaBSDCon 2018 Call for Papers (https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/news-and-events/call-for-papers/asiabsdcon-2018-call-for-papers/) *** Feedback/Questions Shawn - DragonFlyBSD vagrant images (http://dpaste.com/3PRPJHG#wrap) Ben - undermydesk (http://dpaste.com/0AZ32ZB#wrap) Ken - Conferences (http://dpaste.com/3E8FQC6#wrap) Ben - ssh keys (http://dpaste.com/0E4538Q#wrap) SSH Chaining (https://www.bsdnow.tv/tutorials/ssh-chaining) ***

The go-to insider’s sports podcast featuring the boys from Natch. Q // Should we pivot into a boutique creative agency? A // The Magician, The Hermit, Knight of Wands natch9000@gmail.com www.patreon.com/natch9000

The go-to insider’s sports podcast featuring the boys from Natch. Q // Should we bake the tarot into Natch? A // Wheel of Fortune, Cups VII, The Moon natch9000@gmail.com www.patreon.com/natch9000

The go-to insider’s sports podcast featuring the boys from Natch. Q // Should we keep making side shows? A // Page of Swords, Swords II, Hanged Man natch9000@gmail.com www.patreon.com/natch9000

Ep#28: Orna Ross and Joanna Penn answer members' questions on writing, publishing and promoting books. Here’s a summary of the questions in this month’s Ask ALLi with Orna and Joanna: Q: What should you do when you feel badly served by a self-publishing service provider? And do you have a list of book formatters? Q: How do you create front matter and chapter headings, so that they look good on Kindle? Q: What company would you recommend for a Non-Ficiton Hardback? Q: There’s still so many really bad Indie Book Covers, do you think they’ll every become a thing of the past? Q: Is there any good tools out there that can help you chart the months leading up to a book release? Q: I’m publishing a book about rural libraries in Zimbabwe, how can I have them published widely? Q: Once you’ve self-published, what would it take to get an agent interested? Q: How can I get estimates of adding illustrations to my KDP file? Q: Should manuscripts be proof-read after you’ve completed the interior book layout? Q: Do I own rights to my book cover designs? Q: Do I need a separate ISBN for my audio format? Q: How long does it take for Amazon to price match my book price after I’ve reverted from a free price-point? Q: What are your thoughts about Archway? I’m looking for assisted publishing for a memoir. Q: I have a signed contract with Matador to publish and market my book. What should I beware of, and what should I do myself? Q: Should I do a book tour to actual physical books stores, or pay for an online blog tour or a publicist?  Our weekly Self-Publishing Advice broadcast is brought to you by ALLi, the Alliance of Independent Authors. This Member Self-Publishing Q&A is one of four regular shows, which include a more advanced salon, a beginners' salon and a special guest highlight presentation from the Indie Author Fringe, ALLi’s free online author conference. Find more author advice, tips and tools at our self-publishing advice center, www.selfpublishingadvice.org. And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at www.allianceindependentauthors.org. Now, go write and publish. About your hosts Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author, as well as writing non-fiction for authors. She is also a professional speaker and entrepreneur, voted as one of The Guardian UK Top 100 creative professionals 2013. She spent 13 years as a business IT consultant in large corporations across the globe before becoming a full-time author-entrepreneur in September 2011. Connect with Joanna on Twitter @thecreativepenn Orna Ross launched the Alliance of Independent Authors at the London Book Fair in 2012. Her work for ALLi has seen her named as one of The Bookseller’s “100 top people in publishing”. She also publishes poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and is greatly excited by the democratising, empowering potential of author-publishing. Connect with Orna on Twitter @OrnaRoss

Ep#25: Orna Ross and Joanna Penn answer members' questions on writing, publishing and promoting books. Here’s the questions posed to Orna and Joanna this month: Q: Is ALLi continuing to work with Ingram Spark this year and are they offering a self-publishing discount to ALLi Members? Q: Do you have Insights about iUniverse Services? Q: What are the legal issues about setting up your publisher imprint? Q: What are the differences between CreateSpace and Ingram Spark POD distribution services? Q: Should authors release their books in Hardback? Q: Do ALLi maintain a list of reputable book Editors? Q: Is there such a thing as a "Book Shepherd" who could help an aspiring author publish their first book? Q: Is there any recourse if my publisher won't take my book off Amazon or Barnes and Noble? Q: I'm publishing my book via Lightening Source, but on CreateSpace it shows that it has a long lead time for delivery. Is there anything I can do about this? And why is this happening to a POD version of my book? Q: Where can I find my ALLi Author Seal (and affiliate code?) Q: What's the #1 Marketing Tip for Authors? Our weekly Self-Publishing Advice broadcast is brought to you by ALLi, the Alliance of Independent Authors. This Member Self-Publishing Q&A is one of four regular shows, which include a more advanced salon, a beginners' salon and a special guest highlight presentation from the Indie Author Fringe, ALLi’s free online author conference. Find more author advice, tips and tools at our self-publishing advice center, www.selfpublishingadvice.org. And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at www.allianceindependentauthors.org. Now, go write and publish. About your hosts Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author, as well as writing non-fiction for authors. She is also a professional speaker and entrepreneur, voted as one of The Guardian UK Top 100 creative professionals 2013. She spent 13 years as a business IT consultant in large corporations across the globe before becoming a full-time author-entrepreneur in September 2011. Connect with Joanna on Twitter @thecreativepenn Orna Ross launched the Alliance of Independent Authors at the London Book Fair in 2012. Her work for ALLi has seen her named as one of The Bookseller’s “100 top people in publishing”. She also publishes poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and is greatly excited by the democratising, empowering potential of author-publishing. Connect with Orna on Twitter @OrnaRoss

Show Log Episode 142, May 5, 2014 Guest: Noelle Romano, voice coach from Edge Studio George presents a “Whittam's World” on pre-fab vs. DIY isolation booths Dan talks about World Voice Over (WoVO) membership 0:04:40 Dan talks about WoVO Con One, the first conference of World Voice-Over. One of the best he's been to. It began two years ago, as an industry organization for voice-over. Coming up: resources and people so WoVO can be the “voice of the people who speak for a living,” all over the world. There's now a plan for a special website to promote members' work. Join WoVO to help make the industry better for everyone. To learn more go to: http://www.worldvo.org/ The meeting was very productive. There was a demo of all three online ISDN replacements. People worked together. 0:11:04 George asked what it takes to join. You have to be a working professional. It's a member-driven organization. 0:14:32 Break 0:16:47 They're back. The latest with Studio Suit: Dan has a bunch and will ship! Hang it up and it works. http://www.vostudiosuit.com/ 0:17:25 George's “Whittam's World” (Episode 22) on isolation booths: build your own or pre fab? The “usual suspects” in pre-fab are similar and start at $4000. 1) George suggests consider looking at resale value if you may have to move soon. 2) Did you consider buying a used booth? Not so hard in L.A., but elsewhere it might be harder. Used booths can cost $3000 and hold their value pretty well. 3) Do you have time to build a booth? Are you missing work without the booth? The do it yourself booths take a lot of time to put together, far longer than you might expect. 4) How good are you at building? Do you have skilled friends? Dawbox plans aren't the best and depend on your skills in building. 5) Acoustical treatments—all these need more than what they come with. They need denim panels (http://www.atsacoustics.com/) or other material. Some booths have pre attached foam that you need to work around. NONE have adequate acoustical treatment out of the box. Send questions for “Whittam's World” to George at whittamsworld@edgestudio.com. For one-on-one consulting, go to http://vostudiotech.com/ The video ended at 0:26:49. 0:26:50 George continues discussing the topic. George talks about Scott Peterson of L.A. (on Facebook) who makes collapsable, custom booths. https://www.facebook.com/scottsvobooths. Not available out of L.A. area. He cautions: often, the better the isolation, the worse the acoustics. It takes effort to make it all work. 0:29:19 Break 0:30:45 They're back, with a rant about looping software. 0:31:16 Noelle comes on. She introduces herself and how she got into VO. 0:35:45 She specializes in coaching children! 0:38:40 George asks what if he brought Ella in. 0:40:30 What does it mean for a kid to be “competitive”? It comes down to how well a kid can take direction and how consistent are they? Are they enjoying it? Are they understanding it? 0:44:37 How important is it for a kid to have an agent? It's important for getting access to bigger brands and clients. Otherwise, it would be a big workload for the parent. It's up to the parent. 0:46:30 George asked about successful kids. Noelle tells of a mom who made sure her daughter got lessons as well as work. 0:49:50 Live spot for Edge Studios. 0:51:01 George talks about his month-long special on TwistedWave effect stacks for $37.50. Coupon code: TWStackMay14. 0:51:53 Q: Do you teach Skype sessions, Noelle? A: Yes! 0:52:25 Q: What percentage of work is going to actual kids compared to adults doing kids? A: It depends on the style of the show. In the pre-school world, it's more likely to be a kid. For ages 7-14 and above, it tends to be adults doing kid voices. A problem with kid voices is that the kids grow up and their voices change! 0:54:43 Q: Does child acting work translate to adolescent and adult work? A: Noelle said it does, it can. 0:55:45 Q: Do you advocate a rounded acting education? A: Most of her kid clients are doing that. It comes down to the kid. 0:57:27 Q: Should you (the adult VO actor) choose a coach who is close to your own vocal style? A: Noelle thinks that can help, while not totally necessary. See her at NoRoVO.com. She advocates trying a lot of different teachers to cover a variety of learning styles. 0:58:40 Q: Is there work for kids not in L.A.? A: For kids, you typically want them in the room. You might, here and there, do an ISDN session once work is booked. The bulk of L.A. work is in person. Dan adds: NEVER direct your own kids! They can get surly. 1:00:03 Q: How much do you seek talent via auditions from agents or pay-to-play sites? A: Noelle has seen roles go to new talent, when the tried and true talent a studio is used to doesn't meet the need. The animation world in L.A. is a tough bubble to pop. Competition is intense. Producers love to have choices, assuming the talent isn't a celebrity. 1:02:50 Break 1:04:19 Dan is back with echo. Next week's guest is HARLAN HOGAN! 1:05:00 Go over to Voiceover Essentials, http://voiceoveressentials.com/, for the best collection of VO gear. Harlan will have a preview of a new mixer next week, including the mixer's makers. 1:07:30 Dan on travel fatigue. 1:08:30 Thanks to the sustaining donors. 1:09:29 EWABS t-shirt. George made the mistake of asking about the design. 1:09:55 T SPRING coming: the shirt will be for sale for a limited time and quantity. The proceeds will let George build a Windows computer for the show. Stay tuned for news on the shirt. 1:11:20 Q: Is the show streamed over YouTube Live? A: That's something the new computer will be able to do once we add some horse power in the graphics card. 1:12:50 If anyone can help create EWABS Essentials segments, George would train. 1:13:55 Show notes are “hot clickable” in YouTube. 1:14:26 Next week, Harlan; May 19: The Elusive Doug Terkel and a marketing for VO roundtable. May 26: Dark, no show. 1:15:13 In June, two audiobook producers, Debra Deyan and Colleen Marlow from the Deyan Institute http://www.deyaninstitute.com/home.html who offer classes, will be guests. 1:15:29 Thanks to sponsors, Harlan Hogan, Voice-Over Xtra, Edge Studios and Home Voice Over Studio (Dan) http://www.homevoiceoverstudio.com/. George is way behind, so feel free to drop your audio sample into Dan's “specimen cup.” 1:17:15 Thanks to support staff and wives, and Anthony Gettig for chat room herding, and Lee Pinney for the podcast work. 1:19:21 End of show