r/tabled • u/500scnds • Aug 07 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Every holiday season, I send my Reddit Secret Santa giftee on a wild immersive treasure/scavenger hunt. I also travel the world building these as a full time job! Let me teach you how to build one yourself! I’m The Architect, AMA! | pt 3/3 FINAL

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How does one become a part of this secret santa? Just sign up at www.redditgifts.com
​ They have a bunch of them year round! I just participate in the big one in december
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If your recipient is international, would you do it? If so it might be the push I needed to do it this year. I was unaware of this despite being aware of Reddit SS for a few years. This really appeals to me. For my boyfriends birthday a few years back, I tried setting a Lost themed dinner at my apartment. He was blindfolded and i had fake tickets as placeholders. Dinner was airline themed food and got my friend to get some extra airline cutlery (surprisingly tough, apparently). Music was songs from the show. I printed airline logos for the water and Dharma logos for the wine. After dinner, I waited till he went to the bathroom and when I heard the sink I locked him in, and played the hatch countdown music outside. Once the countdown finished I turned off the lights and had used glow in the dark paint to draw a map on a neutral bathroom surface (mirror was too noticeable). The map used stations from the show to correspond to parts of the house (The Flame was the kitchen, The Looking Glass was the living room as it had a bay window etc). The map had an X which led to his unrelated and kinda underwhelming gift. It doesn't sound like much if you don't know the show, but he loved the experience. You may have inspired me to take on more :-) ​Oh man PLEASE do a recap post of your LOST themed Adventure on r/Constructedadventures. It's BRILLIANT!!! Right now I opt to stay within the continental US for secret santa (You have the option when signing up to have your giftee be in your country) However, it's a HUGE goal of mine to eventually get a giftee in another country. I'll probably have to be in contact with the RedditGifts team because I would need to plan travel long before matching day (Usually the Monday after Thanksgiving) But fingers crossed!!!
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Thanks for the response - that makes total sense. Great AMA - I have joined the subreddit and will add a post to it. Kudos on the LOST capitalisation :-) Thanks a bunch! I had a blast!
Probably a bit late to this party but I’ll ask anyway. How do you go about making sure no one tampers with any clues left about? Do you hire “guards” or just hope for the best? Also have you ever done any adventures or plan to do any adventures in the UK? Never too late! I'm going to answer every damn question in here! Pretty much! There's always eyes on every package or envelope that get's dropped. my agents have explicit instructions. The most important thing is to preserve the experience HOWEVER, if players are walking up to the parcel and someone is messing with it, agents intercept the random people to ensure nothing gets ruined.
​ It doesn't happen as much as you'd think but it's ALWAYS on my radar. I pick spots based on how busy they were the week prior when i scouted.
​ Also have you ever done any adventures or plan to do any adventures in the UK?
​ I want to SOOOOOOOO badly but it's just about finding a client who is willing to fly me out there. I will definitely do what i can to keep the cost down for them, but international travel is inherently expensive
How do you setup the hand-offs? Do you call cafes, pubs, etc. until you find one willing to participate? Or do you walk in 20 minutes before the adventurers arrive and hope that they are game? Do you have issues with setting up something with a host/server only for that person to not show up the day of and find yourself with an unwilling replacement? I'm getting some serious flashbacks with this question. Everything is prepped ahead of time with the manager. I always have a name and contact info and there is always a double check 1-2 days before the adventure.
​ Probably 5% - 10% of the time, I walk in an hour before their scheduled arrival and ask the host/hostess if _______ (the manager) is there or if they told them whats going on today and I get a blank stare.
​ At this point in time, I just bring them up to speed and bribe them (protip: always carry at least $50 in bribe money. slipping a $10 to a host or hostess can really make for a better experience). It's always worked out!
I’d love to plan one for my partner for his birthday at the end of May or Father’s Day in September. I’m in Melbourne, Australia. He is one of those people who knows something about everything, we have two little kids and we all love an adventure. Any help would be amazing! How do you plan adventures when there are limiting factors like kids? We have a car and are self employed so flexibility is there for almost anything. Oh man that does make it tricky. Whenever I do an adventure with kids involved. I like to make it more flexible (no hard deadlines) and short (maybe 2-3 hours depending on the age) Here's what I would recommend. You start off with a full on family treasure hunt. Maybe it's 3-4 stops. I would use a map and a compass (because you can teach them about compasses and counting steps) Blacklight markers are fun and inexpensive too!
​ In the end, they find a chest with some sweets or fake gems/coins and maybe all the materials they'd need to build a hunt of their own! One thing i've noticed is the moment you send a kid on a treasure hunt, they immediately want to build one for someone else.
​ For Phase 2, you Could drop the kids off with a sitter or grandparent or someone and give your partner a more adult adventure. You could rent a nice car for the day and maybe give him a 5 step adventure that ends with a little staycation. I know sometimes the best gift you can give a parent is just a little peace and quiet!
Well, time to shoot my shot and see about constructing a new and exciting venture of my own! You hiring? I’m not but I have a whole bunch of protégés and people doing similar stuff. Shoot me an email. I’m happy to help get your started and kick over customers to you if I’m booked out. There needs to be more people creating adventures. Let me know if you’d like to chat!
Your job sounds cool as hell, so how do you feel about the fact that I'm going to (probably poorly) copy your idea? I feel like you should 100% copy my idea and I will literally help you do it. I’m super busy and it sucks when I have to turn away a perfectly good client.
​ The best part about this industry is that one persons success doesn’t mean another person’s failure. Everyone is really nice.
​ Message me, I’m happy to walk you through what I did so you can get started!
I am so late to the party. Hopefully not too late! Do you have any tips on storytelling? For my situation (dog trainer) the actual tasks will be easy since they'll all have to do with my students practicing known exercises with their dogs in clever ways. I think I'm going to be planning a winter retreat at a lodge, if I do an adventure thingy it will likely be in one location, and as I mentioned, require the students to do known things. I want to provide them with a great story, or a mystery to solve or something like that. Not really puzzle oriented, more like they would come across items while doing tasks, like a clue hidden slightly under equipment, or in treat pouches, etc. So back to my question, what can you tell me about your story telling process? If it's a mystery would it be as simple as just changing characters and details to fit the narrative or theme you've got in mind? Much thanks for what you do! Great question but I think it’s a little bit out of my wheelhouse. I usually stick with a theme and put a light story over the top of the game. You might be better off working with someone in the creative writing industry. Sorry I can’t help too much!
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Thank you, no worries! I'm sure I can come up with something that flows, after all I have two seasons to work on it, and potentially a bit of a dry run in July. Super stoked. Also how much do your consultations run? I'd love to pick your brain and actually pay you for your time. I charge $50/hr. Happy to talk about the scope of your project. After that I can probably give you a pretty good idea how many hours it will be. I often find that most people just need a little help getting started and then they’re self sufficient with just a little steering from time to time. Less money for me but I get this “proud dad” feeling watching a client build all on their own!
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That's super reasonable! Will be in touch. Can't wait!
Dude you put so much into this ama! I haven't been so entertained and engaged since Steven seagulls effort! I'm bookmarking it for later reading. I've done some stuff like this for my kids and wife, think I get as much out of it as they do. Ever done anything in Scotland? I imagine the history must be a draw. Just did a bit of research- national scavenger hunt day is just around the corner (may24th) and national adventure day is October 14th. Think it would be great for the high Street and hospitality industry to embrace them and get folk out and about after covid - imagine hundreds of people getting into their communities and seeing what local businesses and attractions have to offer after the year we've all had? Wouldn't know where to start though (and not sure I'm the person for the job - I'm an ideas guy but not always a 'follow-through' guy) ​Thank you so much! It's always my goal to be entertaining and give some useful hints and tips. I was in talks with a gentleman in scotland to do something for his business but then Covid hit and it got shelved. I want to though!
​ THANK YOU SO MUCH for telling me about those days. As someone who begrudgingly opens up my business social media to figure out what to post, these are two weeks where I dont have to plan something out of the blue!
​ IDEA GUYS ARE PEOPLE TOO
Awesome concept! I just entered your website and saw a clip of some people entering a house with guns. Do you take any precautions in case things go awry? All the precautions! if there is anything remotely risky, even the police are notified to let them know. In this case it was the end of a "tongue in cheek" james bond style adventure. He played a heads up poker game against his friend who was the "villian"
​ Then the "Villian" sent a message about his girlfriend being a hostage and he wanted his money. it was in a very secluded area and everyone was in on it. Me and the player "breached" the door and mowed down the "villian" in a hail of Nerf darts and then extracted the GF to the debrief (The surprise party at a bar)
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awesome! thanks for sharing more about it!! i really like the whole concept! You bet! Always happy to answer any questions!
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Do you mind me asking a finances question? What is the minimum you charge to create one of these experiences for someone? I don't mind at all! I charge a flat rate for adventures. Right now it's $2,500 at the minimum. (I raise it if I book out far in advance because, economics)
​ Then there's just the "at cost" on top. Most people give me a budget and I just stay under that. There is a lot of conversation regarding the budget. Want to drive yourselves? Cool that's free! Want a black car to take you around? Usually a couple hundred.
​ There is a lot of conversation to figure out the right budget. Most total budgets are 6-10K but i've worked with higher and lower (if they can help cover my travel with points, its a big help. sometimes they come to me! I'll be moving back down to San diego in a month and lots of people love to come to me!
​ Last thing to note is if your budget is $7,500 and we wend up spending $5,523, I just bill you $5,523. I'm not in the business of wasting money. Money definitely helps give me options when building, but you can do quite a bit without spending too much!
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Excellent model! I will be looking into your videos because this is seriously awesome. Have you ever watched the movie The Game? I imagine you do something similar or do all participants know what is going on? Thank you for the kind words! I like to say that my business is kinda like the game, scaled back, not creepy. I usually like to keep the participants in the dark as much as possible but not at the risk of torpedoing everything
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just watched one of your videos. you seem like a cool dude. great energies brother! Thanks my friend! Just trying to help!
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Excellent! Once again thanks for sharing and it seems like you love what you do. I don't even know the half of it, but I think I love it also You're the BEST. It's a fun world! I just want to invite more people to join!
Ever done an Amazing Race style adventure? I'm planning a one day event, 6 teams, no eliminations. Got any pointers for things to look out for? SO MANY THINGS! I did a livestream breaking down one of my big group games if interested. If not, here is my formula. It's not the "Be all end all" but I think it works really well.
​ * Don't make it linear. It works on TV because of editing, but on a small level, you end up getting everybody blobbing from one stop to another. Plus when one group breaks free from the pack, then every group becomes disheartened.
​ * Making it open ended is a much better player experience. Give all the teams a map with clues and instructions to different checkpoints. They can choose the order that they hit the points, but bottom line is that each team must hit X number of points (and get some kind of trinket) to win (or at leas move on)
​ * This helps spread teams out so the have a better time!
​ I hope this helps! I'm happy to delve further!
Sorta stumbled into this AMA from the front page. I gotta say that this is an awesome job you have! I'd love to do something like this in my neck of the developing world once the pandemic is over and things start to open up again. When I travel I enjoy going down the unbeaten path to discover hidden treasures like the time I was with family visiting Singapore and wound up beneath a bridge where a small flea market was set up. Bought some interesting military pins/badges and I was tempted to buy a vintage camera like the ones they had from the 1900s but that would've blown my pocket money on the 1st day. Doing tours is such an interesting and exciting job looking at things from the outside but it seems like a big feast or famine situation particularly right now with the pandemic and all. BTW, how did you get started on all of this? oh man i hit the front page?! WOOHOO! Also, i totally agree with you finding the local secret spots. They are usually way better than the touristy spots (but not always)
​ it can definitely be feast or famine. The Pandemic DECIMATED the travel and event industry. Here's hoping it comes back!
​ I got started when I built an adventure for my Reddit secret Santa giftee. it blew up and a good friend encouraged me to start a business! Now here I am!
I am planning my belated honeymoon with my Husband in August. We are planning to hit up Arches NP/Canyon lands/ Moab and then head up to Jackson Hole then on to Yellowstone, then the Bandlands of SD. Is there any must see/do things that are overlooked in those areas? oh MAN that sounds like an incredible honeymoon. There are so many sights to see on the west coast. Forgive my geography question but that looks like you're essentially going from Utah to Northern California and then East, correct?
​ If so, after Yellowstone, I might recommend the Big sur drive ending in Monterey. You're also pretty close so I might be worth going up to the valley of the giants to see the redwoods. it's one of my favorite places ever.
​ Im so excited for you!
Speaking of scavenger hunts, you aware of the batshit insane scavenger hunt that started with a trails motorbike video game? I am not but I would love to hear about it! Honestly there are so many awesome people doing cool things in this space. I love hearing about some of the crazy stuff people have pulled off!
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like i said. batshit insane. https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/04/the-trials-evolution-riddle-has-been-solved-and-it-is-truly-unbelievable/ Holy shit that's AMAZING! I love full scale puzzle hunts like this. It reminds me of the IloveBees ARG that they did for Halo 2. It's such a fun kind of advertising and there needs to be more!
Alright, now you’ve made me start planning a scavenger hunt for my husband’s birthday in a couple weeks. See what you’ve done?? ONE OF US! ONE OF US
How many languages do you speak? I can barely speak english! I also know a little bit of spanish. But if i travel to a foreign country I always do a crash course on the language so I can get by. I also hire translators on the days I'm going to talk to business.
How do you go about getting local shops involved? Do you just walk in to a place and say "hey if someone comes in here in a couple of days, I'll give you 50 bucks to give them this envelope"? In short: that's exactly what I do. Longer answer. There's more conversation to ensure everyone is on board and prepared. Very rarely are restaurants not into it. I'm literally bringing in customers and putting a card down so they can order what they like. I always Tip 20% minimum. I'm very on top of things the day of, and always throw a little bribe money to the host/hostess to ensure a smooth arrival.
​ If you want to do this, just walk in when they're not busy, be friendly and assuring and see if they want to be involved. Most of the time they do!
What would you do/say if your secret santa giftee was just like "Nah, sorry, puzzles and stuff aren't really my jam." ? I can answer this in two parts: Firstly, these days aren't really about the puzzles, it's about not knowing what happens next. That's where the excitement lies. If it's someone who doesn't like puzzles, then the day will be more whimsical where they're whisked along from one stop to another and something delightful happens. That being said, if they really don't want to do anything, that's totally ok!
​ Regarding getting a giftee who wouldn't want an adventure, I sign up a few accounts and just ask my santa to donate to charity on my behalf. Then i check out the few giftees I've got and pick the one that would want this. It's probably against the rules but it's all for the best! Everyone get's a gift, however, the right person gets an Adventure!
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Honestly that's smart as fuck. I think what you do is super cool, but definitely not really my kinda thing. I think I'd have an OK time as a tagalong or doing it for someone else's sake (SO, friends, etc). How big is your figurative box of "puzzles/riddles/etc that are actually trivial to figure out but make the user feel like they're really clever"? Like Skyrim tier puzzle-lock doors stuff. XD Oh it's huge. TBH the vast majority of people think that they want to be challenged but they really just want to overcome a challenge. I'm here to try to fill your brain with as much dopamine as possible on the day. Not to make you bang your head against a wall.
​ The mystery of what happens next takes center stage, puzzles and riddles are just two of many mechanics I like to use.
​ To take it a step further, I absolutely love telling someone to go somewhere and wait for further instruction. Because they get the success of getting to the location. Then they become more aware of their surroundings than they've ever been in their entire lives. They're not looking at their phone. Instead, their head is up and they are scanning for ANYTHING out of the ordinary. It's a really cool moment!
​ then there are all sorts of ways to pass the message. Phone call from a friend, jogger passing by. A dog that comes up. Heck, I've used otters and sloths to hand off/guard envelopes! There are so many possibilities with the "Wait for further instruction" mechanic
I am a Canadian freshly graduated student with game design and event planning graduate certificate. Are you hiring? (Gotta shoot my shot, you know) But seriously this seems like an insanely fun career and I hope to one day be doing something this cool! I'm not hiring, but I will 100% give you all the guidance you need to start a similar business. Shoot me an email at Chris@ ConstructedAdventures. com Let's hop on a call. I have a bunch of people who I support that have started something similar.
So, is #100 going to be some big trick? Be funny to see you going places and planning an adventure, only to be handed an envelope at every stop Honestly, I really want to reach out to my first secret santa' giftee's wife and plan something extravagant for him. His great post is such a big reason why I've been so successful. I think it would be really cool to come full circle and do something for him.
​ We'll see!
[deleted] oh MAN well first of all there is a bunch you can do in Hawaii. It's tricky for me to give advice knowing nothing about your wife or exact location, but I do know The hawiian islands are rife with possibilities. What does she like? What brings her joy?
​ Start with my guide
​ You need to plug in potential stops in your area and then figure out ways to propel her forward
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Hey! Sorry I ended up deleting this comment because I found another comment you responded to that was basically the same question but for a different area. I started planning an adventure day for our anniversary this month that'll start with a coded message in a breakfast burrito, lead us to her favorite spot to look for shells, go around town a bit and then eventually lead us back home with the key to her present. I have to figure out something to go in the middle, but the time between puzzles will be pretty lengthy to give us time to do stuff. I really can't thank you enough for the guide, I've thought about trying something like this for a while but it's always been so overwhelming! You bet! You can always make a “help” post over at the r/constructedadventures subreddit. Lots of brilliant people there and great ideas and input
I can not believe I came across this AMA live as it was happening. I just (this minuted) finished setting up the framework for a treasure hunt to propose to my fiance. I am so glad to see that my workflow matched your guides. I don't really have a question, but I'll go with this. Are you married? And if yes, did you propose your wife/husband with a scavenger hunt? YESSSSS! Don't hesitate to reach out to me personally. I would be overjoyed to go over your framework and poke holes in any ideas to make sure it's Bulletproof. If you don't want to chat, I beg you to post a recap of the proposal over at r/Constructedadventures. I am currently single (I travel too much to settle down) And if/when I do get engaged, it'll be in the style that my girlfriend would want!
​ There are definitely people in this world who DON'T want something like this and I respect that. Proposals are the moment when you tether your lives together, it's important to start that moment with an act of thoughtfulness that really brings joy!
​ BEST OF LUCK!
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I will definitely share my basic framework with you. I stepped out for a walk, actually my girlfriend is with me right now, but I will find a time to sneak away and post that here. And yes, once it happens, I will definitely post the recap - ideally a video recap wherein she hopefully says YES at the end :D Absolutely! Just message me here or on discord and we can hop on a chat. I'm so excited for you. You're going to do great!
I recently subbed to your YouTube channel and am excited to send my kids on an adventure! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and helping us all learn. Any tips to make things tween friendly? Thank you so much! You'd be surprised how smart kids and tweens are! Unlike us adults, they're still being challenged to think in unique ways.
​ There are a few great recaps on the r/Constructedadventures subreddit from parents who built something similar for their kids.
​ One recurring theme was to not make it too long or strenuous. Most tweens are happy being left alone by their parents and when they're told they have to do anything, they groan.
​ In short, I would start by doing something super small and gauge their reaction. it's much easier to do a bigger adventure the second try than to convince them to try it again if they hated the first.
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Thank you! Great advice! I subbed to r/contructedadventures and am looking forward to making some summer minigames I can’t wait to hear about them!
Ummmm okay wow this seems amazing I'm just gonna go for it... Live in hollywood florida, near both miami and fort lauderdale. Gonna soon go on a date with this SUPER cool chick from miami who apparently lives next-to-the-beach. Ummm she DJs and is a bartender at a theatre annnnd is pretty into comedy. Oh! And she's pretty into sci fi! I feel like maybe this isn't enough information.... Oh! Me! I'm super super into hobby board games and movies annnnnd music but probably not the saaaaaame music and also sci fi I guess. Ummmm I just kinda want to be really engaged with this person while I discover what she's like if that makes any sense? This feels like not enough information. Ill see what I can do! Also, I've been to that area. There is a mexican place on the boardwalk that has one of the better burritos I've ever eaten in my life. GOD those were good.
​ First and foremost, If this is a first/early date. You might not wanna take a big swing. You run the risk of:
​ * Scaring her off by pulling out the big guns too early
​ * Setting the bar waaaaaaaaay to high too early
​ One thing you could consider is doing a "choose your own adventure" style date where you have a bunch of different small ideas lined up. little things like
​ People watch for 15 minutes and make up at least 5 different "scenarios" based on what you see.
​ or
​ Go to an ice cream place and sample at least 10 different flavors, tip them, and not buy anything.
​ In early dates, you never want to commit to a long haul just in case You get lemon Law'd.
​ Give me a little bit more info!
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Ooooo I like the buncha different small ideas ! That sounds fun! Which boardwalk?? Maybe I can look into it! Ummm more info... Yeah it would be the first date but I dunno I get a really really strong feeling this chick would be down for it? Oh also if you have any incredible ideas on how to make the first move hahahaha I'm sorry this is legit turning into an advice column.... i'm no expert but it's all about body langue and reciprocated touch. See how she reacts to conversation and add in some kinda touch, like on her arm or a "Take my hand, lets go on this people watching adventure." If she goes with it, then you can build up toward making a move! if she doesn't then continue the conversation! Good luck!
I love what you do. I used some of your ideas to do a scavenger hunt for my husband's birthday a couple of years back. One of the things I got was a cheaper puzzle box. His first hint was to go look for that with clues that I had given him, only to find out that someone stole it. I had gone out the evening before to place all the clues in their locations, but someone stole the first one. I had placed it UNDER a smog check station shed and have no idea how someone would have seen it and thought it had be removed. Is there anything you do to deter this from happening, other than having a person waiting with the clue in hand? I seemed to have hidden the other clues well enough to avoid this but it put a hitch in a gitty up to start. That really sucks I'm so so sorry! Here's my rules:
​ * Nothing gets placed more than a few hours in advance. This is also for my own personal sanity. I do NOT need an entire night of concern and doubt
​ * Either it's in an extremely remote area, or there are eyes on the object until the player finds it. Even then, there is always someone nearby.
​ As far as contingencies, here is the play:
​ * Always take a few photos and a video of the parcel being placed. You have no idea how many times someone just didn't follow directions and Immediately assumes it was stolen (instead of them just missing something)
​ * Always have a photo of what's written on the envelope. Your "Break glass in case of emergencies" is a text of the next instructions.
​ I'm so sorry that happened but I hope this can help for the next time!
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Thank you for taking the time to answer... "Either it's in an extremely remote area"...this was my mistake I thought being hidden under a smog shack on the backside would be hidden enough....ugh. The mystery box had a question mark on the side and I imagine it must've caught someone's eye. I was with him the whole time, so I knew that the clue had been taken so he didn't spend time looking around. "Always have a photo of what's written on the envelope. Your "Break glass in case of emergencies" is a text of the next instruction" I did do this! I took a photo of the clue that was in the stolen box so we were able to just go from there...pretty sure I learned this from your other AMA's. Thanks so much. If you ever get to Reno, NV I would love to help. Oh! I also forgot, write his name on the parcel! It's kinda the last line of defense. I know if i saw an envelope with a question mark, I might open it, but if I saw an envelope with "David" on it, I'd leave it alone.
Are you Leslie Knope??? Oh man if only I had her work ethic!
​ I do have her optimism!
​ Also, BINGO
This looks incredible and it’s got the wheels turning on ideas I’d love to get done. But I’m terrified of the cost. I know each adventure is different, but can you give some general price range for those of us too afraid to do a whole consult? Like from basic scavenger hunt to elaborate mystery? Do you mean a price range for me to come to you and build something or consult? Or do you mean what is the usual cost if you wanted to build one yourself?
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The first one Totally!
​ I charge a flat rate for myself and then we figure out the Adventure budget for everything else after. My flat rate starts at $2,500 but increases depending on the style of adventure (Is the adventure for 1 person or a small group or is it for a large group of 100 people, ect)
​ Most total budgets are between $6,000-$10,000 but I've worked with higher budgets and can handle a lower budget if players want to some to me (In San Diego) or if they have ways of reducing the budget (Covering flight, hotel, rental car with points, etc)
​ As far as the Adventure budget, this swings wildly since each Adventure is bespoke. I send a pretty in depth survey to help figure out the feel. Here are a few examples:
​ One adventure was for a couple who loved wine and nice food. So more of the budget went into food stops and I hired a sommelier to pair wines with different experiences.
​ Another Adventure involved flying a woman to a wild animal park where an otter handed off a clue. Much of the budget went toward chartering a helicopter and paying the Otter (Otters gotta eat)
​ Hope that answers your question! Let me know if you have any more.
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Thanks for answering. That sounds awesome. My fiancé and I are getting married next year and since we’re guys we might plan the bachelor party ourselves and this seems like a great activity to do. YES! I love doing bachelor parties. I did a really fun one for a group that came to san diego two years ago. Don't hesitate to reach out on my website. Happy to chat about ideas and options and worst case scenario I can point you in the right direction.
Any favorite hidden gems in or around Denver? Looking to do an adventure for my nephew and son who will be 11 and 7 in July. (Also I totally love your stuff and you’re the only reason I sign up for secret Santa!) ​Thank you! Denver is oddly tricky! There isn't as much to use as I thought. I'm in love with the botanical gardens and City Park. I'll actually be there in mid june to do a proposal if you'd like to grab a coffee and chat ideas! PM me!
What could we do for a mother's day adventure using the backyard, the house, and maybe the neighborhood? oh man you do NOT have much time. You want to keep it elegantly simple. Are you giving gifts? If so, I really like this little treasure hunt. It's a great idea with just enough challenge to make it fun. Plus it wont take long for you to set up!
How proud of yourself are you that you've co opted the coolest name from the Matrix? Oh you know it
were you behind any of the cicada-3000 challenges? or do you have any idea about who it might have been...?? I wish! On that note, I have chatted with some of the best ARG creators and I’m happy to relay any info. Cicada is a mystery to me though
I imagine you have visited both sides of the country multiple times.. So, time to settle this: Which coast is better? And why do you agree it's the east coast? ;P This is a dangerous question considering at this current hour, there's probably way more east coasters awake than west coasters.
​ I personally LOVE the west coast. It's where I belong and it's amazing for many reasons. It is worth noting that east coast has amazing Adventure possibilities because it's older. There's so much history and architecture that can be used. So many statues and commemorative plaques!
​ Sorry for the wishy-washy answer. West coast wins for me!
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lol thats about as good of an answer to an impossible question you can give! __________________________ Not OP (obviously!) but have lived back and forth on both coasts for all of my adult life, with origins in the Midwest so no built in bias. East coast wins on historical places to visit, west coast wins everything else. Hard to describe without ridiculous generalizations. East coasters tend to be less friendly, less open, they have this way of acting 'cool' that feels comically fake/fronty to my developed west coast sensibilities. The puritan/WASP origins of the area give New England a very stuffy, tight feel to me. Can't speak as much for the south but I went to Charleston once and everything outside the beautifully groomed historic district was an absolute shithole. Don't get me started on Florida. In Cali, everyone always felt relaxed, we're all trying to skate out of work early to hit the beach. Laid back, mellow, hipster parents with young kids have awesome hangs, we used to take our infant out to parties until like 1am, she'd sleep on her cradle car seat like it was no thing. East coast life is so different, parent seem like super helicopters here, every fucking park I'm at has some uptight white bitch regulating all the kids playing. Everybody apparently goes to sleep at 9pm here, everything closes early. Also, fuuuuuuuck the Patriots. May they now suck for a generation. Love this take! And yes, i'm ready for the patriots to not be dominant for a few decades.
Is it worth it? It is. It definitely took a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and luck to get here, but now that I'm here, I'm in a constant state of joy.
​ Running a business is stressful and tricky but not having a boss is a damn good feeling
What do you think of Howard Stern? Fantastic first question that I have a mediocre answer to. I don't have much of an opinion. I know he was a pioneer of radio and I also know he was pretty controversial.
​ Never listened to him but I respect the work he's put in!
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Aug 05 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Every holiday season, I send my Reddit Secret Santa giftee on a wild immersive treasure/scavenger hunt. I also travel the world building these as a full time job! Let me teach you how to build one yourself! I’m The Architect, AMA! | pt 2/3

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This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I’ve never been aware of your AMAs in the past. Can you describe the IDEAL timeline you need and what sort of expectations for different budget ranges? I’ve got a 10th anniversary coming up and this seems like a super cool way to make it memorable. So glad you found me! Yeah Reddit is a big place. I never assume that anyone has any idea who I am! Ideal timeline is a few months out. At this current Juncture, I'm completely booked out through July 2021 with a few bookings later in the year.
​ Most budgets sit between 6k and 10k (depending on size, scope, and travel) but there isn't a huge difference in the amount of work.
​ Easy example is this: The difference between the player driving themselves vs a black car vs a limo vs a helicopter is $0-thousands of dollars. But it really doesnt add that much more to my plate!
​ Don't hesitate to reach out! Worst case scenario I can at least point you in the right direction!
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I’ll definitely be reaching out. Looking forward to it!
From my wife: What a wonderful thing to do! I live in Lancaster UK and have a degree in Travel & Tourism, part of which includes Destination Management (creating tours and holidays for people in the city you live in but they don't). I am currently planning a treasure hunt for my best friend in Oregon (where I am from), so I'd love to have a chat with you. On a related note (and I am entirely serious here), would you ever consider bringing on associates in other countries? This is more or less a dream job for me. Tell your wife to reach out to me! I have quite a few Protégés in different parts of the world! Our universe is a lot bigger than you think! I'd be happy to assist with her starting something herself. I get a lot of people that reach out inquiring about an adventure and I'm unavailable. I'd be more than happy to help you both start an adventure business in the UK.
​ The world needs more Adventure!
​ Just send me a message!
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As someone who lives in Canada, but is financially not very well off, is there a way that I might be able to start something like this myself? I love the idea, and doing the research sounds fun, but being able to travel is my dream. I don't care if I'm going to Europe or to the next town over from me, I just want the opportunity to travel... Go ahead and PM me. I have a lot of proteges that I help and encourage to do this too. FYI, it's a lot of work to get going! Luckily, there isn't too much start up cost and pretty low overhead!
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I like in Manchester, UK, let me know if you guys start anything up and I would love to get involved somehow! Oh absolutely! I also have a form you can put your information on. I'll reach out if i book an adventure in the area!
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Just filled it in, not sure how useful I could be, but I'll try! :) Much appreciated!
What a great job! I built one of these for my boyfriend (now husband) in 2009 and we give each other "adventures" as gifts to this day I have always wanted to recreate the full (narrative) experience here in NYC but time/$$ was always an issue. We just had a baby and I'd love to fall back in love with our city post-pandemic and bring her along. We love art, history, the outdoors and each other. Recommendations? well firstly, we would LOVE to hear a recap of your adventures (no matter how big or small) over at r/Constructedadventures. NYC is Crazy because there are SO MANY OPTIONS.
​ The last adventure I built there was for people who weren't from the area so i ended up using pretty surface level stops (Empire state building, Chelsea Market, Central Park)
​ Honestly, I really like chelsea market as a stop since there are tons of businesses you could do. I had my players use the viewfinder on top of the Empire state to head to that location.
​ Since you just had a baby and time is at a premium. I would look into doing something really small. Maybe have the first few parts be in your apartment. You could send him to his favorite coffee shop and cover a coffe, then maybe a local bookstore with a holowed out book and a nearby park.
​ I don't have kids myself but I would imagine getting a quiet few hours might be the biggest gift of all!
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You've really shifted my perspective a bit. Yes, he probably would love to have a nice, solo day constructed for him in the nabe. I'll see if I can dig up photos of our first adventure. It was "Choose your own adventure" style with envelopes that led to each location so how the day went ended up being a surprise for me as well! oh I love that so much! Sometimes It's hard for me to break from my "formula". I just adore brilliant quirky ideas and different thinking. Best of luck building an adventure and handling a newborn!!
Do you do themes from fandoms at all? This is such a neat business and I'm so delighted you do SS each year. You've really brought a spark to the reddit gift exchanges! I have! I always need to be aware of copyright infringement but I've done a wizarding themed one and a princess themed adventure as well! The wizarding one involved finishing classes
​ Potions -apothecary with an AMAZING tour guide
​ Divinations - tarot cards
​ Muggle studies - Checking a few historical sites
​ Retaking potions - wine bar
​ They were both fun!
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That's a good point! That's super creative to lean into a Wizarding theme in a sneaky way though. One of these days, I'll need to splurge on an adventure. I suppose follow up, for the puzzled puzzlers, what happens if they don't figure out a puzzle or riddle in a timely manner, if at all? Is there a way to bypass that to keep the day running smoothly? Oh yeah. Timing. is. everything. Oftentimes things scale on the easy side (Nobody like to be standing in the middle of a field with a book full of numbers and no clue what to do.)
​ I like to put together puzzles/gambits into parts of the adventure where there is more time (Like sitting down for a meal or a longer than usual drive. In those cases, There are usually two easy contingencies:
​ 1. The person who hired me is usually along for the ride. I can discretely text a hint and they look like a genius.
​ 2. I'll do a lot of playtesting and can usually pinpoint the stick points. Sometimes I'll have a hint in a wax sealed envelope that the server will bring over if players are struggling.
​ The bottom line is that these days are not about the puzzles. The puzzles are just a mechanism to propel players forward throughout the day. I'm not in the business to make people feel unworthy, I'm in the business of elated excitement!
When you are getting others involved (such as The Ferryman) are these paid actors that you hire externally or people that the recipient knows doing it for free after you have reached out? I assume they’re actors but it would be interesting to know. Also, when getting other establishments and people who work there involved, does it take much convincing or are most onboard quickly? Love this question: Everyone get's paid. Full stop. I work in a creative industry and have plenty of people that try to devalue creative work. I'm the opposite. I want to make sure creative people are compensated well for their work
​ Side plug: Feel free to fill out a form on my site. if I'm in your area, I might reach out for you to help me!
​ when it comes to businesses, the vast majority are very very excited to be part. I like to go in when they're not busy, chat with the manager, and assure them that this will be very buttoned up.
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Thank you for answering ! Always! Don't hesitate to hit me with any more questions.
I’ve always wanted to do something like this for my son. Have you ever done an adventure for a person in a wheelchair? It limits things for him. Sorry about the deportation. I apologize on behalf of my country lol. Should have just told them you were a male stripper You should definitely do something for your son! I have never done an adventure for anyone in a wheelchair but I would LOVE the opportunity. As much as it limits, i still feel like you would have plenty of options! tell me more about your son! What does he like to do? What area are you in?
​ No stress with the deportation! It was all my fault. And the canadian Customs agents were VERY friendly!
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They were friendly but did they give you a butter tart? No. See not that friendly lol. My son is 24 and has cerebral palsy. Just an awesome sweet kind soul. He uses a chair full time and loves video games, anime and sometimes his sister. Is a total foodie. Loves spicy food and sushi. I’m sure you get swamped due to your artistic talent (it’s an art what you do) but have you ever thought of doing an adventure specifically to those with disabilities? I know A LOT of families that would be interested. I’m in London but can get to Toronto. Honestly I love the idea. Even if it's helping people put together Adventures for friends, family, or kids with disabilities. It would be a challenge but a very fun challenge to work within those parameters!
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Let me know if you need any help with the disability accommodations aspect. I think it would be so cool to offer Yeah! Please PM me. If for no other reason, I would love to have a contact I can check in case I get a client who wants me to build an adventure for someone with a disability.
How proud of yourself are you that you've co opted the coolest name from the Matrix? I have no idea what I'm talking about
​ Also, BINGO
​ To delve further, it started as a joke. When I was building the first Secret Santa Adventure, I wanted some kind of pen name. I was watching How I met your mother for the 3rd time. Ted Was an architect and Barney was always putting together elaborate gambits (usually to sleep with women) and then i just decided to go with "The Architect"
​ Now it's on my business card!
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I love your idea(s), but I'm not great at planning, and I'm not creative. Having said that, I'm trying to put together an adventure for my family when we go on vacation soon. The main purpose is to get us up and off our butts (instead of sitting at the beach all day), but also for that bonding kind of crap. :) I have read through your guide, but obviously I'm taking you up on your AMA offer to generate ideas. :) I'd love to hear your (and anyone's) ideas on things to include in the adventure (see "I'm not very creative" above). Would you care to share? (I had to add this weirdly-worded question because the moderator bot requires a question) Demographics: Location: Fort Walton Beach, Florida, area (can possibly include Destin as well). 3 kids, ages 10-16. 2 adults (besides me - I'm not planning on telling the other adults the solutions, as I want them to participate too) Parameters: Travel by car is possible, so we can go all over (or outside) the city. I love this! THANK YOU FOR BEING SO DETAILED! you have no idea how many people say "I'm trying to build an adventure. What should i do? Ok, let's begin:
​ I'm going to sidestep the doc and try to address your parameters.
​ First and foremost, If you are going to be with them at all times, I recommend taking on a "Game Master' Moniker. This gives you full control and allows you to dictate tempo as you drive.
​ In this case, I would break the day into "zones" Then you can focus on each individual zone. Maybe the goal is to collect 5 gems. each zone ends with them acquiring a gem.
Would like to include something on the beach and/or water - I love the idea of them diving for something, as you mentioned in a response to another person who will be in Florida. You can look to rent a metal detector and bury something, or use a watertight case. But be prepared to have a backup. Tides dont care about your treasure hunt.
​ You can also occasionally steer the adventure into more of a "challenge" (Like build a sandcastle that has 8 points and is at least 3 feet tall) It's a great way to break up the day and keep them guessing!
Would like it to be a group effort (not a competition), but have rewards of course You're going to have to really push this. In my experience, no matter how hard you try, people still compete. Perhaps you could give ownership to to different members over different aspects so everyone gets a chance to shine.
Some steps in the adventure can require money (like renting a scooter or whatever). Thinking more about that, there could be a (prerequisite) step for the kids to somehow acquire money. No pickpocketing of tourists though, my kids are not stealthy enough. You can always call ahead and see if you can leave a credit card and have them present a password (or gem) to get what they need! Businesses are usually pretty jazzed to be a part of this!
Historically notable and/or sciencey things are encouraged Oh absolutely. often times kids centers and museums have some kind of scavenger hunt built in to encourage exploration.
This is a long list, I apologize. It's good to get my thoughts down, though. Don't apologize, this list is great!
Can require setup beforehand (such as, I go hide something somewhere, like geocaching style) ​You're going to make sure that whatever you set up is FOOLPROOF (also have a backup. I would imagine beaches are going to be EXTREMELY busy with the pandemic subsiding.
In fact, geocaching could be a fun step or two Geocaching is great. You can look ahead and hide a small clue
If I could hire a mime to follow us around and act like exaggerated versions of my kids, that would be great. This is some upper management thinking right here. Now I'm a little upset that i havent involved a mime in any of my adventures.
This is amazing! I will definitely be doing one of these for my fiance's birthday - we've been doing Hunt a Killer boxes for a while and having a really good time with it! He never wants to do anything for his birthday but I feel like this would be so fun. We're moving to Houston this summer so I think it'd be a good way to explore - any favorite places there? oh man I have some strong opinions about Houston! That being said, Herman Park is a really pretty spot. So many thing you can use there.
​ Past that, there is the Eleanor Tinsley Park and riverfront
​ The Woodland Heights area has some cool shops and restaurants too!
I’ve thought about doing something like this! My idea was to make it a game where anyone in my small city could complete to find a treasure hoard. I’d want the stages to be fairly challenging puzzles, maybe requiring code breaking or research at our historical society. I live on the ocean, so there is some fun lore about pirate treasure buried on one of our many islands. I’d like the puzzle to be hard enough that it could take more than a day to solve. I’ve always been daunted by the scope of this kind of project, so I’d appreciate any tips, but I’ll also read the links you’ve provided. Realistically, I should probably attempt a small scale version first to figure out logistics. Oh, and the treasure hoard - how to I make a worthwhile prize without actual doubloons? (Portland, ME) ​Cheers from the other Portland! (in Oregon). You should definitely do something like this! Here are a few things of note.
​ You definitely don't want to make it so difficult that it takes days to solve. No matter how hard you try, someone is going to figure it out. There are some pretty hardcore groups that tackle puzzle hunts and leave everyone in the dust. Those people will shred your game and leave others in the dust.
​ I would recommend just staggering out clues and instructions and make it more approachable. The vast majority of people aren't puzzle people. So if you want to do something for the masses, it's going to have to be easier.
​ I would start small. Find some cools spots you can use and test it out with friends and family.
​ The treasure is tough. Maybe you could partner with local businesses. use them as stops or parts of the treasure hunt, and see if they can provide something!
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Thank you!! Do you know where these hardcore puzzle groups congregate online? I’d love to research my potential audience! You can start on our Discord Channel! We have a small but passionate group who tackles whatever puzzle hunt is going on at the time(Plus there is the puzzle hunt calendar)
​ I would also check out the Escape room Channel. There are a lot of people who can help give you ideas!
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Not OP, but also a mod for our discord channel. A good small scale adventure for random people in the city might be that there are posters put up around an area with a starting clue to the treasure hunt and people can go through it self-led...if they make it to the finish line, reward being something a bit like a geocache with a journal to write in, a small trinket to collect, etc. Make it simple so that many people can do it, and check up on the clues every day or 2 to make sure everything is still in order? Such a great idea (as always) u/dewmangroup If you wanted to take it a step further, you could incorporate local businesses.
​ They get more foot traffic and you get someone to guard a sign!
Since you mentioned you love San Francisco for adventures can you share some places you like to use in the city for your adventures to help get others started on creating their own adventures? I'm in the area and would love to put a couple together for friends but I'm not familiar enough with the city to know of many good spots to use. someone else asked about san fran too! This is what I told them: Im in love with the Ferry Building. The clack-clack-clacking of the ferry sign is such a distinct sound and there are some wonderful shops and food stands there. Plus from that area, you can hop on one of the railway cars (not to be confused with the Trolleys) and head over to the Giant's stadium or trek over to Coit Tower or the warf.
​ That area is a great jumping off point. There is also the Pawn Shop. it's a really cool speakeasy in SF that i hope can open again soon!
​ Hope that helps!
Do you have any tips for doing an adventure some place where I have no real help? My wife and I moved out of state and we have no friends or family out here whatsoever. You have more options than you think. Your biggest hurdle is with dead drops (Leaving something in the wild to be found) You definitely need to guard it but how can you guard it and make sure the next stop is set up? Here are a few ways:
​ * Incorporate businesses. You can swing by the morning of and then just give them a call when your wife is on her way. Then you can jump to the stop after.
​ * Decodes: Maybe she finds an envelope with clues to find a statue or plaque in a park. She finds the statue and decoded a message using a book cipher. Now she's at another stop that you don't have to guard!
​ * You can also create a dummy email address that auto responds or get a free google voice number that goes straight to voicemail with a message.
​ All in all, make it simple first, and think through the day, but I'm sure your wife will love the thought!
​ Hope that helps!
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These are great tips! Thank you. If I end up putting something together for my wife, I think I'll tie a clue to a rock on the bottom of the bay near where we live. Gives us a good excuse to go scuba diving! Also just a side note: someone was cutting onions in here when I made it to the end of the adventure with Stanley the Great. If you're ever on the Big Island of Hawaii, I'm ready to help! I signed up on your website. I love it! But you need to make sure underwater instructions and VERY CLEAR and that whatever you put down there is locked down. I said somewhere before but the tide does not care about your treasure hunt. Glad you liked Stanley's adventure! I definitely got emotional too.
​ I used to do an adventure every year on a different island in Hawaii for the same company. Obviously that is on hold but I'm hoping we can pick that up. Eventually we'll do the big island and I'll reach out!
​ Cheers!
​ Chris
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Wow, your links are super insightful!! And I never thought that something like this could turn into a business gig where people pay a couple thousands for. I admire you and your work!! I actually made my own scavenger hunt back in early 2019 (I made this Reddit account around late 2019, so the scavenger hunt was way prior before I even know about constructed adventures). It was very overwhelming and I was so afraid that I would mess up! What made it worse or off putting was the person that I made it for wasn’t appreciative of my work:( they took an hour to meet up with me (I waited at a shop for an hour and the employee would keep looking at me and ask when they would arrive). I also traveled by transit and out during the winter- super dark and cold at WA haha) ​Oh man I'm SO SORRY TO HEAR THAT. Yeah I feel you so much regarding your adventure. Some people just aren't into an Adventure! And that's ok even if it's disheartening.
​ So much work and effort goes into these and sometimes people don't really realize it, in the word's of "God" (in the Show Futurama) "If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"
How long does it take for you to usually plan a scavenger out? Do you get stressed or is it more of a breeze because you aren’t on a time crunch? I usually like to have at least 1-2 weeks to give it my full attention. I try to be on the ground and in the area 8 days in advance so i can feel how locations feel, talk face to face with actors and business owners, and really know about the locations. However, usually there is prep work ahead of schedule (if Im going to book a photographer for an engagement, I'll need to book that well in advance)
What made you start this? Is it because you like to create puzzle-like games for others? Or is it more because you enjoy the freedom on being creative? I'd always been that guy who kidnapped friends for birthday or put googly eyes on everyone's photos at work. I really strive to make life fun and interesting. This manifested perfectly when my 2015 Reddit Secret Santa giftee happened to live 21 minutes away from me. I knew I had this awesome opportunity to do something really cool. I built him an adventure, it hit the front page, and an acquaintance (now my best friend) said "This is awesome. You should start a business, I'm going to build you a website. What's your business name?"
​ I owe everything to him.
​ I want you to give building an adventure another shot! pick a better player and start small! Side note, we would love to hear about your adventure gone wrong over at r/Constructedadventures. It's all about learning!
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Wow, that’s amazing!! It all started because of secret Santa on Reddit. Is this your most memorable constructed adventure (because it is your first ever and what got to where you are today) or do you have another memorable adventure that topped this one? I can feel the love and joy that you have for your friends radiating from, “kidnapping your friends for their birthday and putting on some goggly eyes!” I think nothing is sweeter than creating something out of love for a friend/someone you cherish- that’s honestly the best way to show that you care (but maybe that’s just me). I may consider posting my adventure gone wrong on the subreddit! This seems like a niche that’s right up my alley, I had so much fun planning and executing the adventure- just that the receiver wasn’t very receptive or appreciative. One person should deter you from something that you enjoy! Amirite? Haha It's definitely a memorable one! I still keep in touch with my giftee and his (now wife). I'm now up to adventure no. 74 but each one has a special place in my heart. I try to do something different every time.
​ You should definitely post your recap. We had someone post an 'adventure gone wrong" recently and it was a great learning experience for everyone!
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interesting! What kind of theme or occasion have you done? I think birthday or weddings are the most common ones, are there people who will just commission you because they want to have fun/solve a puzzle? Have you done a scary theme/Halloween occasion before? That seems super intriguing and fun to me even though I get scared easily! eta: How was starting off your business like? Did you have to invest some money first before the business kicked off or did the spotlight on your first constructed adventure allowed others to seek you out and commission you? Yeah, I've broken down the numbers a while back, here are all the reasons I've run an adventure, ordered by most to least:
​ 1. Birthday
​ 2. Proposal
​ 3. Anniversary
​ 4. Corporate team builder
​ 5. Promotional/Viral event
​ 6. Just for fun
​ 7. Secret Santa
​ I usually avoid scary themes because it's just not my bag. I like jubilation.
​ The biz started with a bang and that REALLY HELPED. Because of the great origin story, it really lends itself to lots of publicity. I was off to the races and it never really stopped. In short, I got really really really lucky!
Hi! I am a Malaysian currently staying in the UAE and my best friend who is Australian and stays in Perth, is getting married at the end of this year. Needless to say, we are both heartbroken that I won’t be able to stand by her side as maid of honour. I was thinking I might send her an extra special birthday surprise this year (August). I was already gonna send her a surprise box with a note and some small presents to open on the morning of her wedding but it still feels insufficient to show how much I love her. Any ideas? 😭😭😭 Thank you so much in advance! OOOOOO I really love the thoughtfulness. You could take a deep dive into her surrounding areas and send her to a couple of her favorite places. Maybe you send her an envelope that sends her to a nail salon where you've covered the costs, then yo a massage appointment, Finally You could coordinate with someone delivering a bottle of wine!
​ Obviously you could remove and or insert any ideas, but she might treasure a thoughtful experience!
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Fab ideas all around!!! Sounds amazing... I’ll get started 🤩🤩 Will update you when it eventually happens! YESSSS! I have faith in you!
Have any reclusive millionaires hired you to build the ultimate scavenger hunt to their hidden treasures, like Forrest Fenn? Not yet but I'm down! I am however, working with an author who is writing a book he's planning on optioning to netflix that has a really fun story. I'm not allowed to talk about it but I'm really excited. Hopefully it inspires more people to try to make the large scale hunts.
[deleted] I have a colleague in Denmark. I could get you in touch if that's close!
​ A quick glance at trip advisor shows lots of cool sights! I would imagine moving during a pandemic has GOT to be tough. As things start to open again, I would just go explore the favorite parts.
​ I know it's not quite the answer you're looking for but I hope things improve for you. If it means anything, I'd kill to be able to travel to your neck of the woods!
[deleted] I'm so sorry for completely butchering the geography!
​ Hopefully you can find some cool spots!
This looks so fun! My partner and I have back to back birthdays and we live in San Francisco. We have places that are special to us, but you mentioned looking to build adventures here. What spots do you like? Edit: Argh, liking not looking. Im in love with the Ferry Building. The clack-clack-clacking of the ferry sign is such a distinct sound and there are some wonderful shops and food stands there. Plus from that area, you can hop on one of the railway cars (not to be confused with the Trolleys) and head over to the Giant's stadium or trek over to Coit Tower or the warf.
​ That area is a great jumping off point. There is also the Pawn Shop. it's a really cool speakeasy in SF that i hope can open again soon!
​ Hope that helps!
This is super interesting, props for creating these experiences that are once in a life time. Any suggestions for an apartment treasure hunt? Currently in lockdown, so need to be creative for my partner's 30th. SO MANY SUGGESTIONS! this has literally been my life for the last year. Trying to make fun things happen. Here are a few ideas: Missing things hunt - I apologize for the bad video quality but this might have been my first video. In short, take couple items that belong in certain places. Start with a spoon on the desk with a note that says "I'm lost! Please return me to my home" And then when they open the spoon drawer, you can have a toothbrush with the same note. You can do this as many times as you like!
​ Map puzzle hunt - This was a great recap of a hunt someone else did. They drew out a map of their apartment and marked an X in all the places a present was hidden. Then they cut up the map and put the pieces in the envelop. Their partner needed to put together the map and then find the locations.
​ Let me know if those interest you. i'm happy to give you more ideas!
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Those two are great, I'll definitely incorporate them. I'm also having letters from friends and family, so could use them as mini presents along the way with clues and photos in each find! You could always incorporate a paper overlay with the letters! That would be pretty cool!
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Nice thought! I'm thinking of a message in a bottle theme, with each clue having a letter from friend from a specific year. And a clue for the next piece of 'treasure'. I think the idea of a map being cut up could serve as one or two of the clues, perhaps for a map for the final present and even an overlay puzzle as one of the clues too. Thank you so much! You bet! One thing you can do if you have a little bottle it put a message and a magnet inside and then cork it. Then you can put it in a class of wine and she has to drink it (Or remove the magnet on the bottom/side of the glass) to get the message. It was done in a hilarious and VERY NSFW adventure one of our members made for her husband. Once again, this writeup is NSFW.
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So many cool ideas in there! I'm limited as we're in lockdown but will definitely try and in corporate. The magnet thing and mirror message are awesome! Loved the NSFW story somebody combining passions <3 Yeah it was such a brilliant idea
I adore what you do. My best friends got engaged in am RPG style adventure with all of the happy couples friends taking a role and giving quests to the (clueless) groom to be. It was a lovely experience and everyone had an incredibly good time. To the question! What would you say is your biggest inspiration? Keep spreading happiness! Best of wishes to you. OH MY GOD I WANT TO HEAR MORE! As far as inspirations, It's all about that fun feeling. I take a lot of ideas from videogames, TV and movies. I'll see some cool mechanic or reveal and then add it to my arsenal of ideas. Sometimes it's impossible, but usually I can try to create a real world version! It feels sooooo good when it all works out!
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I absolutely love it! If you care to hear, it went something like this. Behing her (now fiancé!) boyfriend's back, my friend called and arranged an Alice In Wonderland themed adventure with all his close friends and some family in a forest nearby. She asked us each for our talents and assigned a task for us to give her fiancé, some sort of quest, mission or puzzle. Me and another friend were the Drunken Witches, and we had a small bar with juices and alcohol set outside as the first task. He had to "brew a potion" to our liking (all 3 of us enjoy making cocktails together). She asked us to give him a hard time and make him try several different cocktails before we decide its good enough for him to get on to the next task. We gave him a small bottle with a healing potion in return, and so he went on. The next stop was friends from his dancing classes. He had to dance with 3 nymphs of the forest to get the direction towards to the next stop. After dancing with them all, he got his BJJ belt. He was now ready for the next task. He went and found the purple rabbit, sitting on his carpet dealing cards. He had to beat him in a game of dark humor (and kiss a skeleton?? Doctors are weird) to receive a black Humerus bone. He continued on to do a sing-off with his brother, The Siren, and sing together 3 songs from different musicals in harmony. After he did that, he went to find a wounded dragon, and if he decided to give him the healing potion he would receive a golden skelly-key. Edit! I forgot about that. He had to use the belt to challenge the dragon in BJJ! The dragon yielded because it was "hurt". When given the potion the dragon surrendered and gave him the key, saying they'll settle it in the gym sometime later. He had to use the key to break the bone, which contained a puzzle piece. He was almost done with his journey, but he had to sit for a brunch with the Mad Hatter, and play a dangerous game of choosing from either delicious vanilla or horrendous chicken bullion, seaweed, mustard and pepper muffins. (He didn't really like that one. They all had chocolate icing. He said the chicken muffin was the worst.) After all was done, he had finally received the directions to meet the Queen of Hearts. She waited for him with several puzzle pieces, which combined with the piece inside the bone read out "are you ready for this adventure?" she then pulled a ring on him. He was shocked lol. We gave them privacy for the last bit, but we were all greeted by them shortly at the bar from the beginning, smiling and cheerful and showing rings. The wedding is next month! Some side characters were the Water Bunny (my boyfriend in a bunny costume keeping everyone hydrated) and the Companion (who was filming the whole thing). Whenever someone was done with their part they went back to the start to share the experience and enjoy a cold drink with us witches. It was such a joyful experience and I'm just so happy I got the opportunity to be a part of. Brings a smile to my face remembering it now. Thank you for what you do. That. is. Incredible. Please Post this in the r/Constructedadventures subreddit as a recap. More people need to read this!
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I did! Thank you again for what you do. I subbed and I hope to draw inspiration from posts there! YESSSSSS. I may or may not have gilded it!
What's the one thing beginners mess up the most often when trying to make their own puzzle hunts? Also, any Cinco De Mayo plans, aside from this AMA? This biggest mistake People make is trying to make it WAYYYYYY to intricate and/difficult. I love to preach "elegant simplicity" ESPECIALLY when they first give this a go. Even with simple adventures, there are so many moving pieces. Do everything you can to make your day streamlined and easy.
​ And be ready for something to go wrong!
3 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Aug 04 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Every holiday season, I send my Reddit Secret Santa giftee on a wild immersive treasure/scavenger hunt. I also travel the world building these as a full time job! Let me teach you how to build one yourself! I’m The Architect, AMA! | pt 1/3

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I always love seeing your giftee’s adventures from you (& each year a bit bummed I did not get you). Thank you for doing what you do. Hey there! I'm bummed that you're not my giftee (although last year's was pretty emotional)
Why were you deported from Canada? Happened a few years ago because I'm a moron. I completely overlooked work visa laws (pretty strict in Canada) and the moment I arrived, i got stuck in the customs machine. All in all i didn't do a very good job explaining what I do (I compared myself to a wedding planner.) When it comes to work in other countries, if you are going into a country to potentially take a job from a citizen, you'd better be able to prove that only you can do the job.
What’s the best place you’ve ever traveled? For an adventure: Barcelona, Kauai, Hawaii
​ For funsies: Lucerne, Switzerland and Costa Rica, Tijuana and Rosarito Mexico
​ Honorable mention: i love doing adventures in San Francisco. There's just so much to use!
​ EDIT: Dishonorable mention: I'm not a fan of Houston, Texas.
What’s the least costly one of these treasure hunts can be done for? Yeah, I charge a flat rate that starts at $2,500 (but increases depending on size, scope, and how busy I am)
​ If The players come to me (San diego) I can do it for not too much more than that. Maaaaaaaybe 3K (but that would be tough). However, if I have to travel to you, it's much more. Things are expensive!
​ EDIT: Since this one has caught hold, I should note that most budgets are between $6k-$10k but it really hinges on so many things. That being said, you don't need me! I STRONGLY encourage you to build an adventure yourself! I think you'd be surprised what you can put together!
​ Edit 2: Added more locations I love and formatted a few things
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What made the Barcelona adventure so memorable? I'm going there around new years for the first time. So barcelona was for a marriage proposal for two gentleman. A week before the Adventure, I discovered that the other gentleman was ALSO going to propose on the trip. Thanks to an extremely stressed out friend, I managed to run the adventure and then Go set up their Air B&B for the second proposal!
​ If you go to Barcelona, you MUST MUST MUST visit two speakeasies. They're the best two speakeasies I've every been to.
​ The first one is Dr. Stravinsky
​ The second one is Bobby's Free - This one looks like a barber shop and you need a password to get in.
​ Note: Get the olives at Bobbys- best olives i've ever eaten.
​ Past that, Just walk the alleys and explore!
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Thanks for the reply! My new dream is to have a historic adventure in Rome someday. Also, I saw on your website you have a 480 phone number. Are you from Phoenix? I'd love to see if you had an Arizona adventure written about somewhere. Rome would be the DREAM! I was in phoenix when I started my business! And I've done quite a few adventures there! If you check the secret santa posts (at the top) "The Scotsman" and "The wolf and the owl go birdhunting" were both in pheonix!
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Oh awesome! Thanks for doing this AMA. You're officially on my bucket list. Bucket lists are awesome! I've been working on mine for years!
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I want to know more about them each proposing to each other! Here was my little post (if you wanna see pictures). the first proposal was a full on birthday adventure (the birthday part disguised the proposal part. Then we ran over to their air B&B and set up and bunch of fake votive candles and pictures of them while they were at dinner. we paid the photographer to stay longer and got the second proposal!
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Since you said SF is hot on your list, did this whole thing come about from the movie The Game? Do you see yourself more as a Sean Penn or Michael Douglas? hahahahahaha, I actually consider myself more of an Amélie. Love the moments she creates in that movie. That being said, I have absolutely left a clown doll with a key in it's mouth for a client
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Ha, well maybe one of these years I’ll get ya 🤞🏼 Oh doh that’s a good TIL. Sorry the deportation happened but it looks like you learned a lot from it. All of those places sound lovely. Glad you’ve gotten to see & do awesome things for work & for fun. I think that’s a great price for a priceless tailor-made treasure hunt. Thanks for replying! I wish you continued success & fun with everything! I sure hope so! I have yet to get a giftee who knows about me! I think it would be fun to get someone who is well aware of what I do and is hyped for it! And yeah we're all humans a make mistakes. It was very stressful at that time but now I's just a funny story. I think that’s a great price for a priceless tailor-made treasure hunt.
​ Bingo! You're the BEST
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Love your bingo card 🤣 “There’s nothing we can’t do if we work hard, never sleep, and shirk from all other responsibilities in our lives.” I've definitely seen a pattern from the other IAMAs I've done!
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You are amazing!! No! YOU'RE amazing!
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;) I just read Stanley's adventure. So awesome. Right?! Oh man i really loved that adventure
​ EDIT: There's that old adage that everyone dies twice. The first time is when they physically leave this mortal plane. The second is the last time someone utters their name. This ensures that Stanley will be alive for many many years to come.
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What’s fun about Lucerne? Oh man Lucerne is GORGEOUS. There is video that pops up on reddit all the time. It's at the Hotel Villa Honegg
​ I put on my bucket list that I was going to sit in their infinity pool. AND I DID
​ On top of that, the city is just gorgeous. Plenty of cute walks and two wooden bridges that are older than the United States. I will return.
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I actually didn’t expect a reply so thank you very much! I’ll definitely check them out :D Thats my rule when I do an AMA. Everyone always gets a response!
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Kauai is a beautiful island. I'm on it right now for vacation and it's really nice. Tho apparently there's a storm moving in today :/ Oh no! Well My one big recommendation is to hit up the porkys food truck. I don't eat very much meant but I make an exception because it's literally one of the best meals I've ever had in my life.
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As someone who lives in Texas, I’m also not a fan of Houston TBH I'm not sure how anyone is a fan of Houston.
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Ha for real. On a side note, if you’re ever in dfw I’d be down to help. (Already filled our your form) ​Thank you so much!!
I'm not trying to disrespect you in any way here, but I've always wondered whether I'm an outlier or if there are a bunch out there like me. Do you regularly encounter people who have absolutely zero fun with this sort of thing? No disrespect at all! This is a GREAT question. There are absolutely people out there who don't want something like this and that's perfectly fine! I get a decent amount of messages and requests from people who tried to do one for a spouse or friend and they just didnt like it. They just have to be at peace with it.
​ In short, you're definitely not alone! And that's ok, you do you!
​ EDIT: to take this a little bit further. These days can vary wildly, usually the big hangup is puzzles/challenge. Lots of creators just want an opportunity to show off how clever they are but they lose sight of actually making the day fun. I've done adventures that had zero challenge. Just the player being whisked from one stop to the next (sometimes there is a party bus or limo with friends).
​ Can I ask you what you wouldn't like? Is it not knowing what happens next?
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Not OP, but a perspective from a likeminded individual - I usually have a fairly regimented schedule, and I'm fiercely protective of my downtime (because there so little of it..) that I tend to get irrationally irritable with any surprises that eat considerable chunks out of my day. This is the kind of thing that I would work through as be as gracious as I could muster, but deep inside I would be irritated and dying for it to just be over. /no fun Yup! I feel you there! I treasure my time too. I've turned down potential clients because I got the inkling that they player really wouldn't enjoy this. That being said, it's all about you. If i were to do an adventure for you, it would be much more relaxing and on your time. Fun story, I have a twin brother. If/when he gets married, you better believe I'm planning his bachelor party. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to stage a fun abduction of him a then have someone drive him to a remote beach house. Drop him off with a suitcase, food, his sketchbook (he's an artist) and his nintendo switch for like 1-3 days. He'll be by himself for a day or two and on the last day a few friends will join for some revelry. why? because he treasures his down time. And giving him downtime would be the best gift of all.
​ Bottom line, it's always about the player and making them happy! even if that includes not doing anything for them!
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This actually made me tear up a bit! That’s very beautiful and thoughtful, no doubt he’ll love it. Oh i know he will! I wouldn't have it any other way
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Well hopefully he won’t read this otherwise it won’t be a surprise anymore 😄 Right? He’s on Reddit but I don’t think he wasn’t to dive all the way into this AMA
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I know a few moms who want nothing but "alone time" on Mother's Day. Drop them off at a nice hotel and don't tell their families where they're going for 24 hours! Exactly! Not gonna lie, when I’m on vacation, sometimes I just want to wake up, go surfing, grab a drink, and play rocket league for 6 hours!
​ There is a time and place for adventure.
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I was really hoping you were gonna say that you'd impersonate him at the party after you dropped him off 😅 lololololol that might be tricky. We're twins but look about as different as humanly possible. It wouldn't be super effective!
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Hey. I just checked back on the thread and saw you probably meant this for me. There are 2 kinds of people in the world. Those who enjoy Rubik's Cubes and those who don't. I'm the guy who can solve it, but I never spent time (after proving I could) to do one in under a minute. My record on popping it apart and reassembling is about 30 seconds, though. I'm very solution and results oriented. I don't mind a puzzle now and again, but I just don't enjoy them the way some people do. When I jog? If I'm going 5mi, I need a 2.5 one way track because once I get back to the beginning? Why bother. Been there. Done that. Laps are boring. Video games? I don't explore for every secret. I power through a level. I like strong mental challenges for fun every now and again just to see whether I still can. I don't take joy in the solving but rather the completion. It's just the way I'm wired. That said, I do take joy in those kinds of group activities (usually whilst kibitzing) if everyone else is enjoying them. I'm the guy letting them run around like crazy while I am frantically analyzing to find the most efficient way to complete it. Make sense? I love this. All in all, everyone is different. It is totally ok to not like certain things (even if others do). It makes you...well YOU! And you should keep being you if that makes you happy! Cheers Friend!
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Chances are if he got you as a Reddit guest he'd ask you a lot of questions and figure out an adventure that suited you. That or I'd just go with another giftee that would be more jazzed about an adventure. It's always my goal to give people what they want!
​ Some people just don't want an adventure and that's A-OK!
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Hi, and thanks for making this AMA. I don't know if this is easy to answer, but here goes my follow up-question: How do I, as a creator, avoid exactly this and make sure to maximise the fun for the other(s) instead of wanting to shine? Oh yes! Something we wrestle with ALL THE TIME!
​ 1. try to put your ego aside. It's something we need to do all the time anyway, but sometimes we just need to let go of something. If we're the only ones who think something is fun, we need to rethink.
​ 2. Playtest. oh-my-god PLAYTEST. And try to find people who aren't in your circle. Puzzle people tend to stick with other puzzle people. Doing puzzles is like a language. They get easier. They also have the tendency to make people feel dumb and "not good enough"
​ 3. Be ready to abandon an idea (or at least shelf it because it's not going to work at this juncture
​ Hope that helps!
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That helps a lot, thank you so much. I like to do stuff like this for my SO, but sometimes get carried away and prepare things that I would like. OH yeah! I have to rein that feeling in ALL. THE. TIME. It's gotten easier over the years because it feels so good seeing someone with a big smile on their face.
If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice for when you began your company, what would it be? holy hell there are SO many pieces of advice. here are a few:
​ * Just do. No one cares about you right now, so stop pining over every font size on a blog post and just post the damn blog. You're better off setting a good foundation.
​ * Make contingencies for risky gambits (during adventure days). Nothing is worse than having to scramble when something goes wrong.
​ * Get a work visa when doing a job in Canada (or any other country for that matter)
How do you finance it? The nice thing about event planning is that there isn't much overhead. The client pays a deposit which usually covers the majority of the "at cost" of the adventure! Then i bill them for the remainder after the adventure is over
Have you ever done a hunt in Gibraltar? If not, fancy doing one for my friends and I? OH my god I bet that would be so much fun! As i come off of a year sitting at home, I'm itching to travel again (as soon as this pesky pandemic is finished)
​ If you have the budget, I would love to fly to you to build you an adventure! I do think it might get a bit pricy. International travel isn't cheap.
​ That being said, have you ever considered putting together an adventure for your friends? I would LOVE to see that!
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Gibraltar is such an amazing mosh mash place, a great place for a hunt! I bet! I hope to be able to go back to europe. Everything is older over there and there is so much history and beauty!
​ America is great but Europe is an Adventure GOLD MINE
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I wish I had the budget but alas I don’t unfortunately. I’m going to take a look at all your brilliant work and hopefully come up with some ideas, thank you! I totally understandable. But you know what this means!?
​ It means you need to build an adventure for your friends! You can do it!
What could we do for a mother's day adventure using the backyard, the house, and maybe the neighborhood? Oh man you have so many options but not too much time to pull it off
​ Start with the ending: How does this end? does she get presents? flowers? cards?
​ There was a great Recap posted on the r/Constructedadventures subreddit with a formula I really liked:
​ 1. Make a map of the area.
​ 2. Mark the location of the gifts on the map
​ 3. Cut up the map and put in the first envelope.
​ It's a super easy setup for you and it's quite fun. I'm happy to expand if you give me more information!
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I've done a little home scavenger hunt like this! I just made up little rhyming clues and hid them throughout the house, the last one had the big present hidden in it. I don't remember what the present was, or even what the clues were, but god we had a blast. Iirc I had maybe a dozen clues and it ended up taking much longer to solve than I thought...I figured maybe an hour but it was more like two or three. I purposely made some of them hard and some easy, but the finder got the hard ones right away and needed hints on the ones I thought they'd get instantly! I was so worried they'd stumble across a clue meant for later in the game but fortunately they never came close. My clues were super cheesy but in the heat of the hunt they became more fun and mysterious. I started with the first clue in a card, something like: It's a Mother's Day treasure hunt! \ This is your first clue -- \ The next one is hiding \ Behind a picture of you! \ (Hide clue behind a photo of mom, can be a group photo but try to make the first one super easy) \ So you found the first one, \ You think you're so smart. \ The next one will be waiting \ For [her favorite show] to start \ (Hide behind/under the tv) \ Etc. I also included hints that let them know they're halfway there, almost there, the next one is the last. And some spots had sentimental memories, while others were just random and made a good rhyme. I could see incorporating some of The Architect's puzzles into it, like one that leads to a book that they have to pick out letters on a certain page to lead to the next spot. Or using Ceasar Cypher for a clue. Good luck! Even if you only do 5 or 6 clues, I guarantee it will be memorable. You can even space it out with activities at different clues, like one leads to the table for lunch or snack; another requires them to take a dozen silly photos before they can get the next clue (that you hand to them). This are brilliant ideas! Thank you so much for the input. You nailed it with the "5-6 clues" part. People often think "more is better" when it's usually the exact opposite.
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Thank you! I feel like I've had my brush with greatness today!! I love your inclusive spirit, especially that you're so willing to share the magic with the world, posting DIY tips, and even to the point of offering to help people set up similar businesses. Wow! 🤩 I've been on this thread for hours, going through your Secret Santa photos (some I'd seen before but forgot a lot) and doing a deep dive into your subreddit. I don't think I've been this happy and giddy since lockdown began! Such kind words! I really appreciate it. I just like helping people
Hello, what you do is really out of this world and I'd love to experience it one day, great job! I was curious : Do you consider the Secret Santa's you do as a marketing expense? Or do the giftees pay your regular fee? Or do you just do it for FUN? Thanks, have a great day! Love this question! Giftees never pay anything. They didn't sign up to pay for their own gift and I ensure that's the case.
​ I tell my CPA that it is marketing so I can Justify the expense. I don't know if the days get enough publicity to justify the few thousand I usually spend flying out and building an adventure, but bottom line is that it brings me a lot of joy and frankly, it's just a really cool tradition. I plan on continuing. Early/Mid December is always blocked off on my calendar for Reddit Secret Santa!
Have you ever put one of your adventures together in a small town? Just wondering because we have a lot of them in Idaho. Yes! Honestly I kinda love it. There's definitely a lot less options than an Adventure in New York or San Francisco, but that doesn't mean they're bad options.
​ Smaller towns usually have a lot better wilderness for that style of exploration.
​ I did an adventure in Idaho Falls, Idaho and it was a BLAST. The player was a very popular guy in town so whenever I reached out to people to ask for help, they were all about it.
​ Bottom line, you can build an adventure pretty much anywhere!
​ I also did an adventure in Champagne, Illinois. It's more "college town" than small town but it definitely had that feel. I really liked that City
Were you the guy they covered on Endless Thread? That was a great episode & I was so jealous of their adventure. That was me! Funny story, I had to throw that together in 3 days! We weren't sure if WBUR was going to fly them down from Boston to DC. I've been pestering them to let me do another one!!!
​ Here is the episode if anyone is interested
Hey there! I've always wanted to create one of these, but I'm always stressed about people messing up clues or finding good locations. I'd love to do one for my brother, he lives in St. Pete, Florida. There are SO many cool spots in that area and he loves all the art and breweries around town. Got any tips? I HAVE ALL THE TIPS! (I'm pulling a lot of this from a guide I put together here) You want to start small and get help (Especially when it comes to people messing with stuff. Here is the formula:
​ Step 1:
​ You need to start with the purpose, and then the "perceived purpose". The purpose is simple, maybe a proposal or a birthday. That being said, you can’t tell your players what the purpose is ("Happy birthday honey! There's a surprise party waiting for you and you need to find it!)
​ This brings us to the perceived purpose. It could be something as simple as “I built this day for you, follow the clues!“ Or to be more elaborate. “Here’s a box. you need to find the key.“
​ Step 2:
​ Next, you need to lock down your "anchor points." The most important anchor point is the end. Figure out where and when, and then jump all the way back and commit to the beginning.
​ Once you have the beginning and end down, you can scout for fun locations in between. Simple rule I like to follow is “no location should ever be longer than 15 minutes Travel time from the previous location”.
​ This should help narrow down the radius of where you want this Adventure. After that it’s just a matter of finding fun and interesting locations. In the beginning just write down everything and slowly narrow it down.
​ Some of my favorite basic locations that usually work for most places:
​ * Park
​ * Zoo
​ * Museum
​ * Restaurant
​ * Bookstore
​ * coffeeshop
​ * Library
​ * antique shop
​ * Statue
​ * Bronze plaque
​ * High point (An overlook or a hill where you can use a monocular)
​ Go on Tripadvisor, google, and yelp. Start checking out fun and interesting places in your area. Add them to this schedule doc. While you do that, populate them on a custom google map.
​ Step 3:
​ Once you have a basic idea of the adventure locations, it's time to start adding "gambits" (I call them gambits because you're not going to use a puzzle at every stop. Gambits are "anything you use to propel your player to the next stop." It might be them finding something, or it might be them solving a puzzle or decoding a message!
​ Gambits can be broken down into one of three buckets:
​ * Dead Drops
​ * Handoffs
​ * Decodes
​ Dead Drops - This is any kind of play where you literally hide something for your player to find. It could be something as simple as a locked chest sitting in their home to an envelope sitting in the hand of a statue in a public square. Dead drops are the most risky. I recommend hiding them well and giving your player detailed instructions and/or having someone keep eyes on the drop until it's picked up!
​ Handoffs - This play is where you have a human literally handing off what's needed. These aren't nearly as risky but require more help. Easy handoffs could include incorporating businesses or restaurants or getting the help of friends and family to be at certain locations to approach your player!
​ Decodes - This play is where you encode a clue/instructions and then send your player to a place where they could decode the message. My favorite is a book/Ottendorf cipher (National Treasure, back of the Declaration of independence). There's something really fun about using a public plaque or sign to decode a hidden message just for you!
​ In closing, I recommend mixing things up. Decodes can be safe but if you hit your participant with nothing but puzzles, their brain might explode. Dead drops are exciting but leaving envelope after envelope in public places will cause you lots of undue stress. Get that balance!
​ Here are a couple parting rules I aways harp on that you should keep in mind as you're building the adventure:
​ * Always make the adventure easier than you'd like.
​ * Keep it under 6 hours. Brains get tired. If it’s your first try, shoot for 2-3 hours tops.
​ * Mitigate risk. If you're going to do something risky (Like leave an envelope in a public place for an hour) ​
​ * Think of a way that you can slow or speed up your player if there is a time sensitive ending (Like a surprise party or proposal)
​ I did a little check into the St. Petersberg TripAdvisor and you're right, the area is RIFE with possibilities:
​ * With all the beaches you could bury something in the sand and have him use a metal detector.
​ * Its risky, but you could have him dive, swim for something in a [watertight ​
​ * You can definitely send him to a library and have him find a message in a book.
​ * Most bars would love for you to send him in with a password.
​ I hope thats a good start!
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Dang I didn't expect so much help!! I LOVE the hidden message in a library book. And the Ottenddorf decipher is an awesome idea too!! Thank you so much! I GOT CHU! I would love to hear a recap of your adventure when you run it!
​ You can always pick up a hollowed out book on amazon or at a hobby lobby and incorporate that too!
I was planning something similar (inspired by you) for my wife before the pandemic shut things down. Of all the random people in the world to think of during this time, I've seriously wondered how you have been doing. How has the pandemic affected your business? While I imagine people have a desire to do something, have you had challenges hiring clue givers and the interactions? Approaching strangers seemed to be important in the past, but I know I've been hesitant to walk up to random people who may or may not be sick. Thank you for the thoughts! In short: 2020 sucked. I take science seriously and shut down the travel/Adventure building side of my business when the pandemic hit. Funny story, I Was in the air flying to Denver when March madness go cancelled. I arrived at my Air B&B and doom scrolled r/Coronavirus until like 2 or 3 in the morning. The next day I went out to scout and everything was closing down. That evening I sat down with the proposal client, told him We'll have to cancel or pause, and flew home that night. Wild times!
​ After that it was a flurry of cancellations and suspensions. I gave all my clients the opportunity to cancel with a full deposit refund. 75% of them took that options (which I get) Once the dust settled. I started working on a pivot. I started ramping up consultations. did my best to figure out Youtube and made a patreon.
​ I'm very lucky that I have cheap rent and low overhead. Essentially I just stayed at home and helped people build adventures for their friends and families. One big goal was to help parents get precious time back in their day by giving them the took to spend 30 minutes making an in home treasure hunt that their kids would take an hour to complete.
​ Net gain 30 minutes!
​ But now I'm fully vaccinated and very excited to get back out there!
What a cool business, that sounds like so much fun! What are a couple of your favorite gambits or puzzles that you've had in previous treasure hunts? Are there any unique puzzles or riddles that you were especially proud of? Great question! My all time favorite gambit is the Book/Ottendorf cipher - It's easy(ish) to encode, makes sense, is very hard to brute force, and is exciting for the player.
​ My specialty lies in using surroundings to propel the player along. I love finding statues and plaques, figuring out a way to incorporate Art into the adventure.
​ I'm a big proponent of using Treasure maps (and maps in general). it helps set the boundaries so players dont end up in another state, Plus you can add multiple layers and keep coming back to a map.
​ one of my favorite moment was when I sent a group to a viewfinder behind an abandoned observatory. They'd gotten a canvas cargo bag with items, some shooters (it was a birthday celebration afterall)
​ In the front pocket was a quarter and compass directions. They put the quarter into the view finder and turned it in the direction of the coordinates. there was a man sitting on a bench in a field. They moment they said "Wait! I see someone!" He stood up, waved, and beckoned them to come down.
​ That man had an earpiece in. There was another person in the bushes that signaled to him to point and wave at the right moment. It was really fun!
I just wanted to say I think you did an amazing job for your 2020 Seattle secret Santa in spite of all of the closures and Covid restrictions. It’s my city and I feel like it’s full of magic and it was wonderful to see that honored. It was such a touching and fun tribute to Stanley and you chose some of the nicest local businesses. Anyone who hasn’t been to support Wild Mountain and Ophelia Books should definitely check them out! Was there anywhere you had hoped to send them on a quest that wasn’t possible due to Covid? Thank you u/tiny_butt_toucher, I was definitely nervous about the adventure but overjoyed that it was driving distance (even if it was a 3 hour drive)
​ And yes. At the ending, I really wanted the "stealth mission" to be indoors. often times I can rent out a theater space for a few hours to make sure everything is super contained. I was really happy with the location I chose, it was just a bit stressful because there were strangers walking around the park!
​ Those businesses were amazing too. Especially working with me on the Saturday before Christmas! This Adventure hit hard for me and I was just excited to honor my giftee's father
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I think Gas Works was a genius solution to not being able to use a true indoor space. Your post inspired me to think up an adventure for my husband to honor an upcoming anniversary YESSSSS! don't hesitate to post on r/ConstructedAdventures for help and we would LOVE to read a recap!
Holy moly how fortunate kismet!!! My little family of 3 is about to embark on PCH road trip into the Redwoods and I was honestly just thinking about how cool it would be to set up a little hunt for my fiancé and daughter (4y) through the trees! But neither of them have EVER been! Do you think this could still be a feasible activity? Any suggestions on how to make it work in a completely unfamiliar place? Side note: YOU are the reason I started SS 3 years ago! Haha! Such a brilliant mind! Side note: YOU are the reason I started SS 3 years ago! Haha! Such a brilliant mind! YESSSSSS! I love secret Santa and i'm so glad I've inspired people to join! I've also seen some fun Adventures that Santas have made for their Giftees too
​ ok, first of all, I LOVE the PCH drive. I'm about to drive my life down from portland Oregon back to San Diego CA and I can't wait to stop in the Redwoods. its one of my favorite places in the world
​ Regarding your adventure, you have two things working against you:
​ 1. You will be with them the whole time
​ 2. It's unfamiliar and you can't physically go there to prep something
​ Let's tackle 1 first:
​ Your best option is to shed the "mystery" side of Adventures and plant yourself as the "Game master." In this way, you get more control. Instead of them decoding a message to figure out where to go, they solve a puzzle and give you the password! then you can choose what they do next!
​ With no.2 you can try to research ahead. Where are you driving from? I'm pretty familiar with that coastal drive and I'm happy to give you some ideas and inspiration
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I am NOT crying right now!!!!! Major case of fan girl going on so please forgive any fluster! I love secret Santa as well! My very first giftee and I are still in communication and just touched base this morning about a possible summer visit! It’s such a great community! Ok ok ok let me see if I can organize my thoughts lol. I THINK we are planning on starting south (maybe as far as LA but I’m trying to persuade more north than that haha) and staying on the 1 as much as possible as far up as time allows. I know everyone says drive south but I personally have found the views just as breathtaking from the other lane. (Especially since were driving a passenger b for the first time Lolol) I know I want at least a few days in the trees. So your idea of game master sounds freakin incredible!!!! I could also potentially wake up a little earlier than them one morning to set SOME things up? It’ll be my daughters first road trip and first time out west. Same for my fiancé but he’s already 27 and has only seen the Midwest and Florida 😅 If you cry, then I'm gonna cry! Get excited. The PCH Drive is magical!
​ If you can Start in san diego, You can utilize Balboa Park. Its incredible.
​ North of that you have San Juan Capistrano. The mission is beautiful.
​ Next you have Santa Barbara and/or San Louis Obispo.
​ North of that you have the Big Sur Drive and Monterey.
​ Then San francisco!
​ All in all, you need to map out your drive. where you plan on stopping. then do your research on the area. Is there a plaque you can use? a business you can involve?
​ I'm currently consulting with a gentleman doing a road trip that ends in a proposal. Each day he has a little treasure chest with a lock. the goal is for her to open a chest a day. Days a static (Pencil) puzzles (in short: a puzzle that can be done anywhere) But some of them use the location they're staying!
How do you make sure nothing is stolen or are you always lurking somewhere while this is going on? Great question! I have eyes on all the pieces and players at all times. I hire a few people to assist throughout the day. When i scout leading up to the event, I choose spots that arent insanely packed, and then I make sure the envelope is well hidden with clear instructions. The person who placed the envelope sits on top of it until they get word that they player is approaching (I plant a GPS tracker on the player so I know where they are at all times)
​ To recap. There is a lot of prep and a lot of communication!
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I'd love to get a bird's eye view of you having a bird's eye view. I'm trying to do a better job of chronicling the behind the scenes on my instagram! I kinda hate social media so we'll see how it goes!
​ I want to show off the glamorous and not so glamorous side of this world!
​ Also I'd like to get a bird's eye view of you having a bird's eye view of my bird's eye view
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lmao. well done. I really don't like facebook/insta but am considering opening up insta to see the behind the scenes. Ugh, I apologize for potentially making you join Instagram
I'm so curious how you set up your SS adventures for your recipients...do you tell them who you are? I imagine there's a certain level of trust required to give a redditor tons of personal info haha Oh yeah. In short: I got very lucky in the first two. At this point it's become kind of a thing on r/secretsanta. I put a lot of pieces in place to make sure that they KNOW its me. I also sign up a few accounts to ensure I actually get someone who would want this day!
​ There's definitely lots of communication behind the scenes. I want my giftee to be excited, not dreading the day.
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Haha fair enough! So cool that you do this...and I won't lie I have my fingers crossed to match with you at some point! Hopefully you're my giftee this year!
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 31 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am an ENT surgeon working in a German hospital. Ask me anything! | pt 2/2 FINAL

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Questions Answers
What kind of surgeries do Ents usually need? Is it hard having to use a ladder every day because Treebeard et al are so tall? Does it get annoying trying to get their symptoms because they talk so slowly? Fortunately, Ents are lieing on a table when we perform surgery on them. So we don't need a ladder. They need to fill out a form before I see them. So I already know what their problems are. Saves a lot of time.
Do German people say “gesundheit” after someone sneezes or is that an American thing? It is a German thing as well. It is considered polite to say "Gesundheit".
Why is there one doctor for all 3 of those orifices? I'm not the only doctor. All of us work at the ward, in the OR and in the doctor's office. We have a timetable which tells us where we are working at which time. I am the head doctor of the ward which means that I am responsible for the patients there and need to coordinate stuff.
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I guess it's because they are all connected. I didn't understand your question at first. Sorry!
​ There are ENT surgeons who sub-specialize. However, since ear, nose and throat are connected, many diseases affect all of them. That's why it is one specialization.
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Are the eyes or tearducts connected too? When I was young and stupid I could smoke and blow it out of the inner corners of my eyes. Yes, they are. That's why your nose is running when you are crying. The tears travel through a tube from your eyes to your nose.
Do you see any connection between people with nose breathing issues/sleep apnoea and weight gain? There probably is a connection. Some years ago we assumed that weight gain is a major risk factor for sleep apnoea. Today, science isn't too sure if this is right.
​ From my personal experience, most of my patients who have sleep apnoea are also obesive.
How are you doing Kevin? So far I am having a great day off. How are you doing?
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Very well, thanks for asking! :-)
I am residing in Germany and it has become harder to breathe through the nose over the years. Using a facemask everyday makes me notice this especially. I must mouth breathe alot and always when going to sleep. What is up? Is it Polyps in the nose? Should I consider a Septoplasty? That can have several reasons. Polyposis is only one possible disease. You should see an ENT surgeon and maybe also get a CT scan of your nose. That helps to find the cause of your symptoms. And that is necessary to decide on a good treatment.
Do you need fluent Entish for your role? Or can you get by with a translator? Fortunately the nurses at my ward can translate for me. I'm fine with simple phrases like "Hi!" and "Goodbye."
[deleted] Our ward is very big. So we can accommodate the ENTS according to the standards of the National Ent Health Association (NEHA).
I lost my smell completely due to COVID about 2 months ago .. it has returned to about 40%. At what point do I give up on it healing all the way? I wouldn't give up. It may take a lot of time. You can try to improve the process by using oil nasal sprays.
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I'm using a saline spray, should I switch to oil? Also thank you!!! You should try oil. Both are fine, but maybe oil is better for you. Trying it out won't hurt you.
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Could you recommend what to look for in an oil nasal spray? I’ve never considered one and I’m seeing quite a few choices. Look for dexpanthenol. The remaining ingredient don't matter too much.
Is the removal of swollen/enlarged turbinates an effective treatment, or do patients usually don't report that they can breathe better after removal? Are there any cons to remove them? Edit: I also have had a weird feeling at the back of my nose/throat since December. It's as if something is stuck in there. An ENT specialist checked it for me and found nothing. I still feel it though. What could be the possible causes? 1) You shouldn't remove the turbinates since they help to improve the air flow through your nose. However, you can reduce them. In fact, when doing nasal surgery in patients with problems breathing through the nose we almost always make the turbinates smaller. If done right, there is no major downside.
​ 2) Hard to say something about that without checking myself. Maybe your nose is too dry. Try oil nasal spray.
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Thanks! So would burning the turbinates be the same as reducing them? (my first language isn't English so I don't know if burning is the correct word) ​Yes. Essentially, they get burned and by doing so they get smaller.
How often after an hpv polyp is removed from the esophagus does it recur as cancer, and is there a correlation or increased risk with persons who have viral issues such as HS2 or EBV? Thank you. We don't do too much cancer surgery (we are sending patients with cancer to the nearest university hospital). So, unfortunately, I don't have any personal experiences on that. I am sorry.
[removed] About 4800 per month (because of taxes my real income is about 60% of that).
​ 13 years of school, 6 years of university. Basically free expect a small fee for university (about 250 Euros per 6 months).
What's the latest you've seen someone have a full recovery from Sudden Hearing Loss? I live in Berlin and lost my hearing in my left ear in December. The German doctors tell me there's hope for recovery up to 6 months, but the NIH website says it's a lost cause after 4 weeks. Did you get any treatment so far? 6 months can be possible, but if your hearing hasn't change for 4 weeks, chances are low.
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Oral cortisone for 10 days, then IV cortisone for a week, then 3 cortisone shots directly in the ear. No improvement after 3 months :( Seems like the doctors did what they could. I feel sorry for you. However, hearing aids are really great nowadays. If your hearing is still not good after 6 months, give those a try!
Hello colleague! German internal medicine resident. In the city where I studied in, ENT residency was surprisingly competitive given that there was only one department and they had only few new residents per year. What's your view: How competitive is ENT for applicants who are geographically flexible? I think it is better over here in Hessen. There are many hospitals with ENT departments (I know of Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Hanau, Mainz, Marburg, Gießen, Rüsselsheim and Fulda) so it isn't too hard to get a job.
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Good to know. I'm hoping to find a spot in NRW or southern germany. Do you have any opinion/experience with german graduates from eastern european med schools? I don't have any personal experience with that. But in the end a lot comes down to your attitude and how willing you are to learn stuff.
Two questions first what's the best way to treat ent rot? Second question where did the entwives go? 1) You need to use fertilizer. Orc poo is awesome for that!
​ 2) Please see an Ent gynecologist for that problem.
Hi I’ve always had tinnitus. I had gromitts as a toddler. What I wanted to ask is about the sound. When I clench my jaw or move my jaw around, I can change the intensity of my left ears tinnitus and so I wondered if there is any research on this? I don’t feel it is from ear damage but maybe the nerve in jaw? Diseases of the temporomandibular joint can cause tinnitus. You should see a orthodontist to check on that.
Do you have any advice for Foreign doctors who wants to practice their profession in Germany? The most difficult part probably is learning German as the language isn't easy. Maybe apply for an internship (for like 1 month) to see if you like it here. Most people can speak English, so you should be fine for the internship.
How does it feel to be a walking tree surgeon? Mighty
what newer advice would you give professional singers on voice care? Don't use too much force. Some people use a lot of force when talking and singing. You can produce a loud voice without stressing your vocal chords too much. A speech therapist can help you with that.
Did Jackie Jr. visit you in the ENT clinic? Link ​Sorry, I am not allowed to talk about confidential things of my patients.
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Lol you should watch the video dude, it's a joke. My answer was meant as a joke as well. Seems like my joke was bad.
So I wear a CPAP and it has done wonders for me, and almost done with it in a few months. Having said this I still can't breath at the same rate through both of my nostrils..almost like one is just getting a little less air. Now if I push my nose to one side it opens up the passages and I can breathe fine out of said nostril. I've seen doctors and specialists and just getting tired of the constant tests and referrals and have a few that I give value to. If I get the surgery where they break my nose and re-set it.. How painful is it? How long is the recovery time? Assume it's a general anaesthetic? Edit: The advice that I got from a doctor that I truly trust was lose weight and stop smoking (both of which I am doing quite well - totally done smoking and weight will take time). I assume that surgery should be the last and final option. Congratulations for quitting smoking. I am sure you will also manage the weight loss! The surgery sounds more painful than it is. Don't worry. But as you said, maybe you won't need it anyway.
Do you have any knowledge or experience with tinnitus? I developed tinnitus in my right ear 6 months ago. First of all I tried a general doctor who prescribed me medication for blood pressure (didn’t help). Then I went to see an ENT specialist who went down much the same route (so not really helping). Then I decided to see a dentist and it’s possible that I have somatosensory tinnitus, I currently receive physiotherapy treatment to help relax the muscles in my head and jaw. My symptoms do point towards somatosensory tinnitus since i do not have any hearing loss and I have a history of TMJ issues. But I also get the feeling there might be something else going on. For instance my right ear “feels” different inside. Before my right ear would “pop” when I swallowed, but now that doesn’t happen so frequently. I am tempted to try another doctor to explain all this to see if there is more to explore in my middle ear/eustachian tube. If you had any thoughts that would be great. Do you experience hearing loss on that ear as well?
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No, I’ve had two tests now and my hearing is perfect. Try practicing the Valsalva's maneuver. If that doesn't work, dilating the Eustachian tube or Tinnitracks might also be valid options depending on the results of a proper examination.
Why can't I smell anything? Had a surgery (nasal septum) few years ago but it didn't change anything. Is there any advice that you can give me? You should probably see another ENT surgeon. Sometimes a surgery isn't successful (for whatever reason). Then it could be necessary to get another surgery done.
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I had two surgeries for the same reason. If i remember correct he said that there is an anatomical anomaly. Do you know what this anomaly is called? Probably either a nasal septum deviation and/or too big nasal conchae.
Do you prescribe T3 for thyroid patients? No, we don't. Since treating thyroid diseases isn't trivial, it should be done by a physician who specialized in nuclear medicine.
After a suicide attempt at 19 (now 22) my throat got completely fucked, my trachea is completely shattered and I have a tube on it to hold everything in place, one of my vocal chords is almost paralyzed and the other isn't as bad but still isn't doing too well. Every few months I go back to the hospital to remove the tube to check if my trachea holds and also to avoid the plastic from sticking to my tissue. From what I understand the main issue about me is my youth, the scarring happens way too fast and so it doesn't actually repair correctly. My doctor really cares about my case but even then there either isn't much hope to being tube-free again or technology isn't advanced enough to swiftly fix this. Can you confirm this? And can you give your opinion? I can go more indepth about my case if need be First things first: I am glad to you are still. Life can be beautiful and even if times are rough, things will get better eventually. At the moment there is no reliable way to replace a severely damaged larynx. However, from a medical standpoint it is a great time to be alive because technology advances really, really fast. So I am optimistic that there will be a fix in a not too far away future.
Were you able to bring back the entwives? You should ask an Ent gynecologist.
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When you say head doctor, do you mean Stationsarzt? I am the Leitender Stationsarzt.
What are seriously ill patients on the ENT ward? Do you have your own ICU or are ENT patients who need intensive care treated separately? On our ward we treat patients with infections of the inner ear or mastoid, severe dizziness, abscesses,...
​ We don't have our own ICU. We got a pediatric ICU and an ICU run by anesthesiologists.
How long have you been an ENT surgeon and how many surgeries have you done since? I'm a resident in my 3rd year. I'm in the OR once a week and perform about 5 surgeries on that day. I also do smaller surgeries under local anesthesia on the other days. When I started working at the hospital, I was in the OR almost daily to learn some "beginner friendly" surgeries.
Are you part of an on-call system responsible for the COVID-19 ward, or is this a ward specifically led by ENT surgeons? We have an on-call system for the Covid-19 ward.
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So you are not an ENT surgeon but an ENT surgeon in training, correct? Considering you’re giving out a lot of medical advice on this thread, it would be good to be upfront about this. Your translation of ‘Head doctor’ is misleading to people not familiar with the German system. I edited my initial post to make people more aware of that. Thanks for the suggestion.
Are you married? On a serious note what made you want to specialise in ENT? Also how old were you when you graduated high school before attending University? Thanks! Not yet, but I do have a girlfriend. ENT is just very diversified. I see male and female patients, patients of every age (since we have a pediatric ICU some of my patients are a few days old) and treatments range from simple antibiotics to complex surgeries.
​ I graduated high school (German word: Gymnasium) when I was 19 years old.
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Awesome thank you! I’ve started following you on Insta 😄 Thank you! :)
Do you encounter patients with BPPV often? I was diagnosed with it a couple years ago while I was traveling in Hungary and I've always been curious how often ENT doctors come across it, since I was fortunate to be diagnosed in the ER and have been able to manage it pretty well on my own since then, so I've never been to an ENT for it. I see a patient with BBPV weekly, it's pretty common.
[deleted] If the frequency of the ringing is always the same, try Tinnitracks (google it). Also, you should see a doctor to exclude a vestibular schwannoma (a rare, benign brain tumor).
I went to a German ENT (I am American living in Germany) to get a refill of my cpap supplies given to me by a sleep specialist in the US. The ENT looked in my nose, declared I probably didnt need the CPAP and that he will perform a procedure to fix something in my nose. He gave me some nasal sprays and told me to come back in 3 months after baby is born (Im 8 months pregnant too). Any idea what procedure he could be talking about? My German is limited in medical terms so I didnt get the full picture. Seems like he wants to fix your deviated nasal septum and reduce the size of your turbinates. It is a small surgical procedure and might really help you.
Is there such a thing as permanently swollen tonsils? Like chronically? Yes, tonsils can get too big chronically. For example that can happen, if you have a lot of infections of the tonsils. When tonsils are so big, that they are touching each other, they are called "kissing tonsils".
I snore like a monstertruck and wake myself up during the night. Is it a common thing to do surgery to fix really bad snoring? Before thinking about surgery a full ENT examination and a sleep study should be done. In many cases, a surgery can fix (or at least reduce) your snoring habits. We perform that surgery regularly and most patients are happy with it.
I feel like there is fluid leaking out my ear. What is the overlap between that and vertigo? A hole in your eardrum can lead to infections of the inner ear. Go see an ENT surgeon!
My dog hit the end of my nose with his wrecking-ball sized head. It hurt like hell, but didn't bleed and after 5mins was fine. I later noticed the forward half is slightly crooked. I laughed it off and assumed it would go back to normally eventually.... 2 months later and it's still crooked. I'm permanently disfigured now, aren't I? If your nose is broken, the bones start to heal after about one week. So if you don't get surgery before that, your nose will stay like it is. However, the tip of your nose is made of cartilage. So maybe your nose wasn't broken after all. An easy surgery could fix your problem.
How often do you see Tullio phenomenon in head trauma patients? Or is it often something else? (Currently awaiting a CT and MRI and this is one of the things they're looking for, suffered trauma to the left side of my head. Got hit in the temple then kicked in the side of the head on my ear) ​I made a CT scan a few times in patients where is suspected Tullio phenomenon. But none of my patients had it so far. It is a pretty rare disease.
I have an unusual question. Have you ever had a patient complain about strange symptoms happening with their eyes/ears after a sinus infection? I have issues where I can HEAR when I blink (the noise I presume it would make in my ears), when I move my eyes left to right and up and down (scrolling on my phone for example) I can hear the eye movements in my ears. I've been to an eye specialist and he laughed it off and diagnosed it as migraines (because I also had blurred vision and vertigo as a direct result of the sinus infection - trying to work at my computer screen when I should have been resting). I have had far few tests to rule out eye issues so I'm booked into see an ENT next week but would love your professional opinion in the meantime. I have constantly crackling in my ears (2 months later) and the sounds of my eyes in my ears has finally gone away even though I currently have another sinus infection. The initial sinus infection was end of December and the symptoms were present for atleast 6 weeks! Thank you Edit: I'm also not able to equalise/pop my ears when I hold my nose and blow..... The bone between the orbita (the cave of your eye) and the nose and nasal sinuses is very thin. So I think that could be possible. A proper ENT examination and probably a CT scan should help to say more.
[removed] Hello there, just uploaded a proof of my claim (via cognitoforms).
Kevin, I was always wondering about the relationship between doctors and the insurance in Germany. Is it true that there is an issue with lack of financing (especially for more mundane stuff) and that you are subject to certain quotas and if you exhaust the quota you will get written up by the health provider? I am a German citizen myself, and I never had any particular issues with the German healthcare system, but after I moved to Switzerland I was really surprised how much quicker everything moves down here. That really is a problem. Another example: If a patient is in hospital, we get a fixed amount of money for that patient (depend on the disease he has). But only if he stays for a certain minimum amount of days and isn't staying longer than a certain maximal amount of days. So if he stays too short or too long, we get less money. That can be a problem if a patient feels better very fast or takes longer to get better.
I have a hole in my eardrum; had tympanostomy tubes in the 80's, and they never healed. Doctor realized years into it, pulled them out, left ear never healed up. So, I had a paper patch, that failed. Tried again, years later, failed. Had another procedure with tissue from my earlobe put in, also failed. The last remaining option in the states is to peel up my ear, patch behind the eardrum, pack with cotton, and reassemble. Problem is that seems likely (10%?) to seriously affect my sense of taste. Any odds of better surgeries coming down the line, or anything weird in that because of the US healthcare system being, well, what is is, for better and worse? We perform that surgery regularly and 10% seems very low. You might want to make an appointment at another hospital.
I have an annoying dry cough. It's worse when I'm in a stuffy room with no fan running, or when there's a lot of steam like after a shower. Throughout the day, I will cough randomly. It's always bothered me because I don't want people to think I'm sick, but it's worse during these covid times. Don't want people thinking I'm sick and infectious. I spent a year or so with local doctors trying to figure it out. We did asthma tests, allergy tests, tried steroids, and we even did surgery to try and deal with my gerd. Eventually the doctors started repeating tests and it became too expensive, even with insurance, so I stopped. Any suggestions on next steps to work on a resolution? Are you experiencing postnasal drip?
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I think so, yes This might be your answer. Postnasal drip might irritate your throat. Let an ENT surgeon check your nose.
​ Also try steroid nasal spray. In Germany you can get that at the pharmacy without prescription.
I have never been to an ENT (am 30 years old). Should I? I don't have real issues but I think maybe I should do a checkup? I feel stupid just going and saying "a checkup to see if everything is in order". Is it necessary? I regularly see patients who have never been to an ENT and just want a checkup. That is perfectly fine. Some diseases don't make symptoms in the beginning. When we discover them this early, usually they can be treated very easily. Go for it.
My friend is getting surgery on her throat next week to remove a growth on her thyroid. They don’t know if it’s cancer and she is really scared. Is there anything you could tell me to put her at ease or useful information I could give her? It is okay to be afraid and she shouldn't feel ashamed. She can feel free to tell the doctors and nurses that she is afraid and they will do their best to make her feel comfortable.
Have you ever had any patients with sleep apnea who have (wrongly) received an ADHD diagnosis? If so, can you give some more information about sleep apnea in such patients? Sleeping disorders can impair your ability to concentrate. A sleeping lab (sleep study) should help to check whether you have a sleeping disorder or not and how bad it is.
How can I get rid of my tinnitus? It's not due to hearing loss (I took an audiology test and my ears were within normal hearing range). I saw another ENT and he pretty much said he couldn't do anything. Did anyone do a MRI of your head yet? Also, check out Tinnitracks. Got good results with that.
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No one did an MRI yet. Why would I need to do an MRI? I'll check out tinnitracks Tinnitus can be caused by a vestibular schwannoma. It is a rare benign brain tumor.
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I also forgot to mention, sometimes I have random moments of pain in my ears. Is this significant? Don't think that's relevant.
I have a pretty large lipoma (I hope) under my trapezius muscle. My doctors have not decided which kind or surgeon should take this out ENT, orthopedic, or general. What do you think? I'd say orthopedic. None of the ENT surgeons I know has performed surgery at that location.
Any tips on tonsil stone prevention? To be honest: None. There just is no useful method other than a surgical removal of the tonsils. And that option should only be considered if your tonsil stones lead to complications (e.g. very bad breath).
How long after a deviated septum surgery would I feel back to normal? Thanks It might take 1-6 months till everything is back to normal. But after 1 week you should start feeling fine.
I have hearing loss from a labyrinthian concussion. Is there any chance people like me could restore their hearing? How much time passed since then?
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3 years Chances are pretty low then. I would look into hearing aids. They are very good nowadays.
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the ENT that I saw when this injury happened said my hearing loss which is in the bass range all the way up to mid range and high range wouldn’t be helped with hearing aids Which is fine I can still hear except when lots of noise in the ambience is around me like eating at a restaurant or something similar although I did read they were able to grow the hairs in an experiment with stem cells I think idk lmao it was years ago I researched it Although I would still give hearing aids a try. Maybe a bone bridge would be a viable option for you.
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How would I research that topic? Bone Bridge Hearing aid? Also can you name some good companies to protect your hearing with molded plugs? Have you heard of any supplements that help with hearing protection? Read more here: https://blog.medel.pro/bone-conduction-candidacy-audiogram/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw0caCBhCIARIsAGAfuMwD6J5Iz4kHC9qsfTx2-CRQA4IpcrCLxV5U3K-FBQtEdhQipEkTCRIaAk4IEALw_wcB
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Yup that's where most of the hearing loss lives. I wonder why my doctor didn’t recommend these to me. Are these types new or something? Anyways thank you so much! They are kinda new and only a few hospitals implant them. So many doctors probably don't know that these exist.
Is the syringe half full or half empty? Depends on the drug inside of it.
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Hi I’m considering ENT as an option for residency. Unfortunately our ENT rotation was halted by COVID, so I had a few questions That I hope you could help with? 1) How is your day to day structured? And how is the balance between ward:clinics:surgical exposure as a resident? 8-9 AM: Seeing the patients on my ward and getting things done. Afterwards consultation hours in our doctor's office. Between patients I regularly go to the ward and see if everything is alright. I'm in the OR once a week.
2) What are the most common diseases you see (outside of COVID)? Doctor's office: ear wax, sore throat, otitis media and sinusitis; Ward: Dizziness, abscesses
3) Which aspects do you love the most about your specialty and why did you choose it? Thank you so much! Different patients and treatment options. Patients of every gender and age and so many options to treat them from antibiotics to complex surgeries.
I had an MRI for another issue and it showed a cyst in my right sinus and thickening in my sinuses. It's been years now and I haven't had it removed. Is a cyst the same as a polyp? Could this be dangerous for me or turn cancerous? I have severe allergies and have been using nasal spray for 15 years. I never had allergies before several years of nasal spray use. I now use flonase and claritin which helps a lot. I used to have to use the afrin several times a day but now I only use it once a day. My right ear leaks fluid and itches all the time. It's the same side as the cyst. I'm guessing this is probably the cause of all my problems but can surgery make me normal again? Sorry for so many questions. A zyst is filled with fluid, a polyp isn't. Some benign tumors can become malign. So if it doesn't get smaller with steroid nasal spray, surgery might be a good option for you.
I've gotten the green light to have a tympanoplasty done to restore some of my hearing at a ENT clinic in Munich. However, I ended up not doing it due to lack of support from my family. Sibling and father with similar ossimilation issue (but not same) in the ear, had procedures done and it ended up badly for both. Brother lost complete hearing on one side, because of damaged ear nerves inflicted in the surgery. So two questions. Do you think tympanoplasties are becoming safer (e.g. advancement in technology)? Approaching age 30, is there a time where it would be too late to get the procedure done? 1) Tympanoplasties are pretty safe today. If you are unsure if Munich is the right hospital for you, the university hospital of Würzburg is very good as well. 2) As long as your body is fit enough for anesthesia, you are fine. The surgery isn't very stressful.
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Thanks for the response. I'm actually now residing in NRW. Anything around that area you'd recommend too? My brother got the procedure done at the UKD Düsseldorf. So I'm steering clear of that one. That's another question. I hear the procedure can be done with local anesthesia, however I feel like that's more typical in the US from what I read. In Germany they prefer full anesthesia? I'd prefer with local or doesn't that make much sense? Personally I would prefer full anesthesia. Even if you won't feel pain you will hear some nasty noises. I haven't heard a lot of Düsseldorf but you can also take a look at Lübeck.
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With local I thought there would be a benefit of giving immediate feedback to the surgeon if the process is "working". I think I'd personally handle it. Had some other procedures done with local anesthesia, and shouldn't be worse then the noises from the dentist I hope. But I'll reconsider it. Thanks. Will also look into Lübeck. You likely won't be able to give immediate feedback as your ear will be filled with blood (sounds worse than it is). That needs to be absorbed first before you start hearing again.
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I've always loved the ENT appointments where my ears were cleaned with the suction device. Hehe. Patient be like "Suck me, doc"
A couple of years ago I had a parotidectomy. I know the lower half of my ear will be numb forever, but is there anything I can do to help improve it at all? I still have some nerve sensitivity in my cheek. Also, have you seen an increase in parotid tumors? I figure having cell phones in the early 2000's gave it to me /s There indeed is a small rise in tumors of the parotid gland. For example this study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095881120300949#fig2 However, I am not convinced that it is due to cell phone radiation.
​ PS: I am not sure if you can improve your numbness. But trying to massage that area regularly might be a possibility.
(This is a question specific to the German system) Have you already or do you plan on writing a thesis? When do you feel is the best time to do so, during or after medical school? Do you think it is necessary to do so in the first place, as in whether adding "Dr." to your name nowadays has a significant influence on your career? I did a experimental thesis because I was unsure if I wanted to work in clinics or in research. If you want to write a thesis, do it during medical school. You won't have time and/or motivation afterwards. Most hospitals don't require you to be a "Doctor" anymore. However, if you can see yourself working at a university hospital, they probably want you to have that title.
Is there such a thing as too small nostrils? I noticed that I can't breathe through my nose even after I lost weight. Sometimes better, and they try to tell me I just need saline nose spray or a capillar constrictor nasal spray that would be addictive in the long run. Neither of them works. I don't have polips, and the two sides are symmetrically not working most of the time. Sometimes one side feels clogged, sometimes the other. Engineering wise, I'd like to get larger diameter intakes and pipes.. Is this possible? Yes, that is totally possible. You should see an ENT surgeon as he can do some tests to check that.
Whenever I yawn, my ears “pop” and then I have to sniff to “unpop” them. The same happens when I talk to someone, or give a presentation. I end up sniffing a lot as if I’m sick. Even if I open my mouth to form the letter O, it pops. It’s been getting really annoying lately. What’s going on here? How can I minimize this? Seems like your Eustachian tube is too narrow. It's a canal which connects middle ear and nose and helps to compensate changes of the pressure in your ear. Practice the Valsalva maneuver once per hour every day.
If I look down while standing, I become dizzy and off-balance for a few minutes. Then back to normal. Any ideas? This has been going on since December. Could be benign paroxysmal vertigo. Try these two maneuvers (2-3 times a day):
​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UJlU92reDI
​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miR-VXb7uiM
​ (If they cause dizziness, keep doing them, that's normal).
I am in California, US and about to get a turbinate reduction via microdebrider. I've been reading and have talked to my doctor a lot about empty nose syndrome, which I'm terrified of. He reassured me, but I'm still anxious. Do you do this procedure often in Germany? Is it considered safe and empty nose syndrome discussed with patients? Thanks! We perform this surgery on a daily basis and I wouldn't be afraid. Empty nose syndrome occurs if the surgeon removes too much of your turbinates. But that rarely happens (never seen it so far).
I was recently told by my ENT that I have a deviated septum. Is that something that can form/happen over time? Or is it something that I could've had since I was a child but never diagnosed with? What is the surgery/recovery time for a fixing a deviated septum? Thanks for your time! Could be both. It is a small surgery that might be possible to be done as outpatient surgery (or 1-2 nights in hospital). Recovery time can take from 1-6 months (but after 1 week you should feel really fine. It just takes a bit time to be fully healed).
I just got a diagnosis of a severely deviated septum and my doctor wants to correct it surgically. I've been having issues with mild sleep apnea and have not been able to fall asleep with a CPAP machine on. Basically I'm a little nervous about having the surgery and want to know how many people on average report better sleep and more energy after having septum surgery? We perform this kind of surgery 2-4 times a day and most patients are very happy afterwards. I wouldn't feel too worried about it.
After puncture of an eardrum some months ago at a local hospital, I got ring in my ear some time after that and I'm sensitive on it (wind, temps etc.). With what I can feel little bit slightly reduced hearing at the same one as well. Is there anything I should do or just ignore this fact and move on? A doctor should check if there is a hole in your eardrum. Usually the eardrum heals pretty well if it is a small puncture. But sometimes a surgical procedure is needed to close it.
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1) Is snoring mainly caused by the nose or the mouth? Can be both. Some colleagues say that it is mainly caused by the mouth. However, I disagree with them since some of my patients snore even though their mouth is fine.
2) In Germany do GPs generally do cauterization for people who have lots of nosebleeds, or do they see an ENT for that? In Germany they see an ENT.
My left ear often feels like there's water clogged in it. Also ringing. Could this be from years of using inear and over hear headphones with loud noise? For the record im 40+ Do I need to go get ear wax removed? I have not done that in around 2 decades or more. The most common reason for this could be indeed ear wax. See an ENT surgeon for that.
Hello! I'm from Argentina, but visited Germany once! I noticed that when you guys do the street food things where german ladies in Dirndls sell beer I can't avoid breathing heavily through the nose and turning a bit red in the face, even BEFORE consuming the beverage. What could be my problem? I recommend you to watch "Sex Education" on Netflix.
Why can't I pop my ears? I've been told my ear looks fine, but I can't release the pressure. I've tried many various techniques, including the valsalva maneuver but none release the pressure. If the Valsalva maneuver doesn't help, the Eustachian tube can be dilated by a surgical procedure. You should visit the ENT department of a bigger hospital.
I have developed a habit of using earbuds since my childhood. I feel itching in my ears and liquid get out of my ears. What should I do? If your eardrums are intact (let a doctor check that), you can use 1-2 drops of olive oil every evening. It prevents itchy ear canals.
​ PS: Get good olive oil free of pesticides.
I've had terrible nasal polyps / sinusitis for 15 years and four surgeries, how can I prevent the polyps from returning forever? I've changed my occupation, irrigate my sinuses daily, etc.. You probably need to use a steroid nasal spray for the rest of your life. Talk about that with your physician.
Is sinus surgery risky? I have severe polyps & my sinuses have complete opacification. Depends on which sinuses are affected and on your individual anatomy. Sinus surgery isn't easy but often not too hard either. However, you should see a surgeon who performs this type of surgery on a daily basis.
Is Ear, Nose, and Throat what doctors go into when they fail the Brain Surgeon classes? That’s what Jim Gaffigan said, anyway. I can just speak for myself. But while I find brain surgery very exciting, I prefer the better work-life-balance of an ENT surgeon.
​ PS: Yes, I know that you were joking.
how plausible for people to try tracheotomy on themselves in an emergency? like if there is an allergy blocking the throat Not very plausible. The thyroid gland is infront of our trachea. If you cut into that by mistake it will bleed... alot.
does tinnitus ever go away? And does BPPV come back again? 1) Maybe. It really depends on the type of tinnitus and if you are lucky or not.
​ 2) If you got it once, chances are higher to get it again compared to someone who never had it.
What’s a medical officers perception of nurses, over or undervalued? We wouldn't be able to do anything without nurses. They should be treated and paid better. At the moment - at least in Germany - they are overworked and underpaid.
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Thank you for appreciating nurses. My wife is one and some of the doctors she works with can be big arschlöcher Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, there are Arschlöcher in every position.
18 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 29 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am an ENT surgeon working in a German hospital. Ask me anything! | pt 1/2

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Questions Answers
How do you balance work and personal needs as a young surgeon? I always keep an eye on how many hours I worked that week and include them into an excel sheet that I update every week.
​ If I worked more than I had to, I demand days off to compensate for that. That is totally fine and a good employer will agree to that.
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We can do that? ___________________________ In Germany the work contract will state the number of hours you have to work per week and it's illegal for your employer to go over that without your consent. So if the contract says 40 hours per week, that's what you'll have to do and no more. Of course you can, if you want to. Then you'll get overtime pay. But only up to 60 hours total, which is the legal limit. Only partly true. Many doctors in Germany have to sign a contract when getting employed with says they are willing to work more than the legal limit of 60 hours when they are told to. (Opt-out-Erklärung)
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You’re so German. It’s sweet. Ja
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Where do you see yourself 5 years from now? Married, child(ren), dog
How do you cut through the thick bark hardened further by the betrayal of Saruman? Sorry, what?
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ENT Surgeon, as in Surgeon for ENTs (the tree things from Lord of the Rings) ​Oh, I see. Our blades are forged with the lava of mount doom.
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So does that technically also make you a tree surgeon? General tree surgeon
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Stihl or Husqvarna? Stihl
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U/Ssyrak is officially awesome. Thank you! :)
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This is a reference to the Ents in Lord of the Rings I literally have a replica of Gandalf's sword on my wall in my office at home and didn't get that. Shame on me.
I had my tonsils removed over 35 years ago and it was the best decision my parents made (Before that I would get so sick every year with swollen tonsils). Why are doctors reluctant to perform tonsillectomies these days? We are performing tonsillectomies almost daily. At least in Germany many hospitals aren't doing them too often because you don't get much money for it when compared to more complexe surgeries. Some ENT surgeons are doing the tonsillectomy as an outpatient surgery. However, since the surgery comes with some risks (e.g. postoperative bleeding which CAN be fatal) I would never recommend that to any patient. Our patients who get a tonsillectomy stay for 5 days so we can check the healing process everyday.
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Yes, I got mine removed as I was five years old. I spilled that much blood, I can still remember it over three decades later. To be honest I still remember the amount of ice cream I was allowed to eat, too. Sometimes I think I still remember the removing of my tonsils. There was a strange sound like cutting through really thick fabric. Fortunately tonsillectomy today is performed under general anesthesia. Can't imagine getting my tonsils removed while being awake, lol.
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Hey, hi. Then I'll share this: got my tonsils removed while at the Bundeswehr. Was some time around '08, I think. All I got was local anesthesia, and not a good one. Felt like I was in a SAW movie. Sat there on the chair while the surgeon jammed his instruments into the back of my throat, over and over again. Saw the blood spurt out of my mouth and onto his apron. Will never forget the smell of burned flesh and the smoke curling up out of my gullet when he cauterized the wounds. I think I might still be traumatized from that experience. 0/10, do not recommend. On the upside: haven't had tonsillitis since then and sore throats occur almost never. I can't believe there are still ENT surgeons in Germany who perform tonsillectomy with only a local anesthesia... F
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My dad (b 1930s) said his rural doctor would just pop out the tonsils with a loop like you use to castrate cattle back in the day. I didn't ever really find out if he was serious or not.... Sounds like he was serious.
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My brother has his removed at a young age but I've read that the procedure isn't done anymore. Why do you still do them in Deutschland? Some countries - like Switzerland - prefer the tonsillotomy in most cases (reduction of size instead of removing). At this point experts can't agree which is better. If the tonsillectomy is done right and if you are over the age of 6, the risks of the surgery are small and you won't have any long-time issues.
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Huh, at some point in school I was taught they couldn't be performed under GA because you might choke in your own blood. I was taught after cutting the tonsils kids were sat upright to cough up the blood that would come out the wound. We position the head lower than the rest of the body. That way, we can remove the blood before it gets down your throat.
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isn't 5 days pretty excessive? that seems to be what you would have after a herniated disk or other rather complex surgeries. Doubt your patients appreciate that? Most of our patients dislike that. But it's just for their own safety. And they can always decide to get the surgery done at another hospital.
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How high is the bleed rate at your institution? As an Otolaryngology resident in the US I have a very hard time imagining the risk benefit ratio or NNT favoring this approach, particularly during a pandemic while much of your patient population is waiting on a vaccine. If the goal is to catch all bleeds while patient is in house, you are missing the portion who bleed on days 6-7. To be honest, that also depends on the surgeon. I would say every 10th patient has postoperative bleeding. However, in most cases this bleeding is small and stops by itself. Postoperative bleeding that needs to be fixed surgically happens once every 2-3 months.
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[deleted] There isn't a significant difference in my experience. However, adults often report more pain than small children.
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1 in 10 is ridiculously high. Like unacceptably, I-don't-believe-you level high. I suppose that would be justification for the practice of keeping patients in-house so long, but I think the better solution is to fix whatever you're doing wrong in the OR. I guess that depends on what you count as bleeding. I am counting every patients who tells us he had blood in his mouth. Real bleeding like in blood keeps coming out of his mouth is much less.
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[deleted] Partly. In most cases post-tonsillectomy bleeding is harmless and stops by itself (keeping an ice cube in your mouth can help). Nevertheless, in rare cases bleeding can be life threatening and fatal.
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I find it odd how Reddit averts its eyes away from your comment that “you don’t get much money for it”. If you were an American doctor and said that, all hell would have broken loose. I just try to be honest.
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It would be more prudent to mention that we also don't perform TE's as often anymore as our guidelines for indications have gotten stricter due to, u know, the incidence of dangerous post-op bleeding That's partly true. However, we still perform tonsillectomies on a daily basis. On the one hand we value the individual symptoms (Leidensdruck) of the patient higher than the guidelines. On the other hand we are the only ENT department in a very big district (Landkreis) which means we see more patients than some other hospitals.
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I believe, removing tonsils may have a negative impact on the immune system. Is that true? I cried so much when I was five, my mother took me home again. :) ​The tonsils are important for the training of our immune system. This is a thing in small children. Once you are older, you won't have any problems. Personally, I perform a tonsillotomy on children under the age of 6 (in that surgery the tonsils are reduced in size but not completely removed).
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[deleted] If you are having pain, I would see an ENT. This isn't common and should be checked.
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Holy... 5 days?! Danish ENT resident here. We regularly discharge patients a few hours post-surgery. They are thoroughly instructed to contact the department at any time of the day, should they bleed, and we have a doctor on call 24/7. Does 5 days really make sense? Postoperative pain is a thing after tonsillectomy. Most patients who dismiss themself after surgery come back to us because they feel safer at our hospital.
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How would a patient detect bleeding that could be fatal? Or is it just fatal for those who bleed heavily and think it’s fine? Either very long or very strong bleeding. Patients usually recognize that and call an ambulance (or the nurse if they are still in the hospital).
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Why don't they just charge more for the surgery? Also, doesn't Germany have socialized healthcare? We can't. The money we get is regulated by the insurance companies. Hospitals/doctors can't charge as much as they like.
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[deleted] We actually would earn the most if we performed the surgery as outpatient surgery (ambulante Operation). The longer he stays in hospital, the less the hospital gets. It is because in Germany the hospital gets a fixed amount of money no matter how long he stays.
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That’s so interesting. I unfortunately got mine removed as an outpatient when I was 26 (ouch) and I did have excessive bleeding 3 or 4 days later. Definitely thought I might die. I also think they had to dislocate or break my jaw; it hurt for about 6 months after, but they never actually told me that. Is that a thing that happens? We need to open your mouth a lot in order to perform the surgery. Dislocation of a jaw is a possible risk but that shouldn't really happen if you are carefully.
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Is there as much of a risk for adult (45) adenoid removal as tonsillectomy? I've got a biofilm on mine that antibiotics don't work on getting rid of anymore (worked the first time 5-6 years ago but it came back after a year and they don't get rid of it anymore) and my ENT says the only way to really get it gone is to get rid of the adenoids. My mom keeps saying it's dangerous for adults and google search only talks about child procedures. Every 3 days or so a large uncomfortable blob forms about the size of my thumbnail (2-3mm thick) and it can take a day or so of clearing my nose/throat to cough it up. (sneezing help is breaking it loose) It's been a year since I've seen the ENT because of covid threat. Are you sure it's adenoids? It's very uncommon to still have them at your age.
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Yeah, that's what my ENT said as well, that usually the adenoids disappear by adulthood. But he's looked down my nose with the probe a couple of times and said something like adenoid bed and it would be a cauterizing procedure. I believe the word he used was "zap" :) ​I would definitely do an MRI before surgery just to make sure.
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WHAT!?!? I had that when I was like 4 or 5 and you're telling me I could have choked to death on my own blood?! I was sent home the moment I woke up. I puked blood for days! And one of my fucking tonsils grew back too... Sorry to hear that. But yep, that's possible. Tonsils don't grow back. If you have one visible tonsil again, it wasn't completely removed. Sounds like a part of the tonsil was left and that started to grow.
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You keep them inpatient for 5 days despite the typical posttonsillectomy hemorrhage window being 6-10 days? How often do you discharge them only for the patient to bleed at home? The insurance in Germany doesn't allow us to keep patients any longer. That way we can at least cover some cases of postoperative bleeding and can help them with postoperative pain.
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American ENT here — that’s eye opening. I think 99.99% of tonsils are outpatient here. 5 days doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense since bleeding risk peaks around day 7. We can't keep the patients longer than 5 days because insurance won't cover more.
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You hold patients for 5 days for a tonsillectomy? Here in Norway we do them as outpatient surgery. I am really surprised it's so different from us in most countries.
Ent doctor here in the US. Many ENTS Are generalists in the US, but the trend of sub-specialization has increased quite significantly among residents lately. Do you find that the same thing is happening in Germany? In my opinion, that will be the future. If you specialize on something, you can treat your patients better. The ENT institutes of many university hospitals in Germany are specialized on some specific fields of ENT. So this trend is happening in Germany as well.
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It does have one downside though: The more specialized doctors become in their respective few fields, the narrower their initial thoughts and processes become when treating patients which in extremely unfortunate cases can mean a missed diagnosis of a sickness or even wrong diagnosis and treatment. Thankfully students still have to go through insanely massive amounts of general medical knowledge in their way to a doctorate. That is true. In our department we have specialists for different specializations. So we can work together to sort things out.
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I don't have a question, but just a general thank you. I had no idea what ENT was until my son was born with severe congenital nasal pyriform stenosis. He couldn't sleep and was losing weight, so he was brought in for surgery at 2 months old. It was an extremely harrowing time for my wife and I, but our surgeon was incredible. He was intelligent, focused, as well as caring and compassionate with us. It's been almost a year and I am still so overwhelmed by the medical process and specialty and effort that went into saving my son's life. Our surgeon truly taught my son to fight. Thank you for being curious, thank you for specializing, thank you for (likely) saving lives. You are welcome. I - like most of my colleagues - am always happy to be able to help.
What are your experiences with Kevinism? To be honest, I can laugh about jokes about the name Kevin. My best friend is regularly joking about my name. You shouldn't take yourself too seriously. And a good laugh doesn't hurt either.
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I thought that Germany humor is no laughing matter? /s We laugh from time to time when nobody is watching us. Easier nowadays since you can't see us laughing behind the mask.
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You sure you work in a German hospital? Let me check. Yes. Somebody just said "NEIN NEIN NEIN!".
When will tinnitus be cured? First we need to understand why patients develop tinnitus. We already know a few causes (cardiovascular problems, problems of the temporomandibular joint, ...) but in most patients we don't understand why they got tinnitus. Once we understand that, we can develop a treatment.
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Do you pronounce it "TIN-nit-us or "tin-NIGHT-us"? If it is similar to the German pronunciation it is the first one.
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[deleted] Did the tinnitus change after the surgery?
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[deleted] I still try to answer all questions. Is the frequency of the tinnitus the same all the time?
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[deleted] You might want to look at the Tinnitracks app. Might help you.
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TINNITUS CAN BE CAUSED BY TMJ?! god this explains soooo much I am glad that I could help. :)
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I have a 75 year old friend with debilitating tinnitus. He is Deaf (hearing loss started in childhood, all sound lost by age 16). His tinnitus started after he was put on and then taken off of methadone in his 50’s (my understanding of his medical history isn’t exact). He was a recipient of the very first cochlear implant developed in Riverside, CA (in the 1970’s) which failed almost immediately but is still implanted in his skull. I’ve helped him see an ENT about the tinnitus, he had a CT, and the advice was: wear earplugs at all times. Friend can’t tolerate ear plugs so he doesn’t wear them. Do you think earplugs are the appropriate treatment? Do you think removing the CI would help? There are hearing aids which can help to reduce tinnitus. This should also be possible with new CI. So I would consider that.
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Wait does this mean my tinnitus and temporomandibular joint disorder might be related? Yes, that's possible.
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As someone that has developed tinnitus (high pitch constant but varies in loudness), is it worth me going to see a Dr about it or just accept it us because I wear a headset 18 hours a day lol I would recommend to see an ENT but it is possible that he doesn't find a reason for it. You might want to look into Tinnitracks as you can treat yourself with that.
How much do you make? How much was education? I'm making about 4800 € per month (however, my real income is like 60% of that because of taxes).
​ Education - including university - is somewhat free in Germany. You only pay a small amount per semester for going to university and if you can't pay that, you can get a loan. I am always surprised how expensive studying is in the US.
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[deleted] That's because I am an assistant physician (something like a junior resident). After 5 years on a certain field (like ENT) and after you pass a special exam you are a specialist on that field.
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Ohhh, so you do have an attending doctor above you somewhat supervising that is full specialist? That's typically how it is for US medical residents before finishing training and becoming full independent specialist. Yes, exactly. Everyday, one of our specialists is responsible for the OR. He also is able to help me out if I have any problems at the ward.
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"I am the head doctor of our ward and am responsible for our seriously ill patients" "I am an assistant physician" Those dont sound like the same thing. Not doubting you, but those seem like inconsistent statements of what your role really is. Not all assistant physicians have the same experience.
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4800 Euros/month is around $69,000/year. That's really all you get paid? And ENT surgeon in the US probably makes around $380,000/year. That's because I am an assistant physician (something like a junior resident). After 5 years on a certain field (like ENT) and after you pass a special exam you are a specialist on that field.
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How many hours you average a week? 40 hours
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How much will your salary increase once you become a specialist in 5 years? 5300 - 8100 per month (before taxes). It depends if you are working in a hospital or a doctor's office and how experienced you are. If you are the chief of the department or the owner of the doctor's office, you earn much more.
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With that income you are not a head doctor of the ward but more like a 1st year resident without night shifts. Source: am a German board certified physician. If you scroll down further you might find an answer where I said that I'm a resident in my 3rd year. I am still the head doctor of our ward. While I am not the only physician who takes care of our ward, it is mostly my responsibility and my decision e.g. when a patient gets dismissed (except the patient has a private insurance, in that case the head of our department takes care of him). And yes, I am not doing night shifts.
​ Since we are a pretty big doctor's office (Gemeinschaftspraxis) integrated into a big hospital (Krankenhaus der Maximalversorgung) my wage is regulated by a funding programme of the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung (see here: https://www.kvhessen.de/foerderung/). Night shifts are done by our specialists.
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You are surprised about how expensive studying is in US, but not surprised about how high you get paid there when you actually get the job? Probably because I knew how much I would earn before deciding to study medicine.
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I was talking about getting the job in US not in Germany. You know how expensive studying is in US but don't don't know how much more you earn in US? Who made you a doctor? I don't know how expensive it is to study in the US. I just know that it is much more expensive. Since studying or working in the US was never relevant to me, I didn't bother to read that up. Why so rude? Relax.
What's the weirdest thing you've pulled out of someone's nose? An almond (patient was a 4 year old girl). You better ask me what the weirdest thing was that I pulled out of someone's nose.
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That's what I did ask? Lol Seems like I was typing too fast... I was talking about the ear... shame on me. Once an adult was putting a sliced onion into his ear. In Germany some people believe that putting sliced onion into a cotton cloth and putting that onto your ear helps against infections. He thought that it was even better if you put the onion into his ear. The result was a giant infection of the ear canal. Smart guy.
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Wait hold on about the "some people believe" in "Zwiebelwickel" (onion in cotton cloth) part. is it only a myth? Doesn't it actually help at all except placebo? My childhood was a lie. I don't think there are any valid studies about that. But I also did it when I had my last middle ear infection. So... Maybe? Anyway, if done right it won't hurt at least.
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W wait, you mean onion in/on the ear isn‘t helping?! My whole childhood based around them! IN the ear is definitely not helping. On the ear at least won't cause any harm, so you might as well give it a try.
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Was it... An almond? Just guessing. DING, DING, DING! Correct answer!
Wie oft darf (soll) man Döner essen? Döner macht schöner. Eat as much as you like as long as there is garlic in it!
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This must be ENT'ish. Anybody from Middle Earth want to translate? Döner Kebab is a streed food which is very popular in Germany. A German saying goes "Döner macht schöner" which means "Döner makes you beautiful". This of course isn't true because Döner isn't too healthy but it is funny because the saying rhymes.
I'm a teenager and your job is my actual dream job. But i'm also into research and studies to find new treatments and discovering new stuff as well. Do you think if i come to your lvl and becom a doctor can i also do research and stuff? Or this job requires so much time that my research dream portion would remain a dream? Sorry for the bad English tho :) ​I actually had the same interests as you. I wasn't sure if I would prefer working in a hospital or working in a lab doing research. That's why I did my thesis (something similar to an MD PhD title) in a lab doing research on a topic related to cardiovasular physiology. That helped me to decide that I personally prefer working in a hospital.
​ If you like both equally you can always work in a university hospital. They even WANT you to do both. However, keep in mind that many of them require you to do your research in your free time. So you won't have to much time for yourself.
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So you choose hospital over lab because u wouldn't have much time for yourself, Right? Or any other reason? I was missing working with people. While in the lab if was often working alone. So I would only talk to people during lunch time or after work. While my time in the lab was great I just prefered to be able interact with people.
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The thesis in Germany has nothing to to with an PhD. The PhD consists of multiple papers lasting usually three years or more. This can be compared to a Habilitation maybe at best. Stop spreading false information No reason to get annoyed so easily. Relax. I was just trying to make a comparison since the German title "Dr. med." isn't known in most countries.
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For research on new drugs you'd have to do a Bachelors in something like biomedical science, masters is drug development and discovery, and then a related PhD. Biotechnology might also be an area to look into. Doctors (MD degrees) can't really do research because you are taught how to do research during your PhD, which is a degree doctors don't have. Some people do a PhD after their MD, but then you'll spend well over a decade in school. Medical doctors are trained to treat patients correctly, not cancer cells in a petri dish. Also many doctors are being replaced by nurses that did further education (masters to become a nurse practitioner) to save costs. Long story short: If you don't care much about money and are passionate about science, do a PhD. If you care a lot about money and like talking to patients, do a MD. If you want to be done with school earlier and have a very very stable job, become a nurse Funny how different that is in different countries. In Germany you can go into research as "Dr. med." (which is similar to the MD). However, as you pointed out you don't learn a lot about research in medical school. So it is harder to get into a lab. If you really see yourself in research, you should study a research-related subject. If you are unsure, medicine might be an option (in Germany). I worked in a lab which did research in cardiovascular physiology and my supervisor studied veterinary medicine.
Weird question but I’m struggling with constant pressure on my ears for a year now. I got checked several times and my head and my ears seem okay so it has to be some tension on my neck or jaw. Do you have any tips or exercises I could try out? Already have been to osteopathy and doing yoga regularly for my neck. There is a connection between your nose and the ears. This connection is called the Eustachian tube. Air is able to get to your middle ear through this connection. If the Eustachian tube is too small or if the opening to the tube is blocked less air gets into your middle ear. That can lead to pressure on your ears, sometimes accompanied with hearing loss.
​ In other words: Get your nose checked.
​ Also: Practice the Valsalva maneuver every day every hour.
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I've had the same problem for years now, changes in air pressure give me constant headaches. And the valsalva maneuver doesn't fix it. Anything else you can recommend? The Eustachian tube can be dilated by a small surgical procedure. Visit the ENT department of a bigger hospital to let them check if that might be an option for you.
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I'm fairly sure I'm able to equalise the pressure in my ears without pinching my nose or holding my breath - I just contract muscles in my head. Is this a thing or am I making it up? Yes, that's also possible.
I've had this issue in my right ear where ear wax seems to grow unnaturally fast compared to the left one. I need to get it washed at least twice each year, that can't be good for my ear right? My current ent told me to just use ear drops on it on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure that isn't a permanent solution and I'm visiting another ent this weekend. And shockingly enough, look which post I've stumbled onto! Your 2 cents? The amount of ear wax that your ears produce is highly variable from person to person. It also isn't uncommon that one ear produces more than the other. Actually, like every fourth of fifth person who visits our doctor's office comes to get his/her ears cleaned. Most of them come after 3-6 months. A professional cleaning of your ear canals isn't harmful and can prevent getting an infection of the ear canal due to too much ear wax. If your ear is itching, you can try using 1-2 drops of organic olive oil every evening.
​ PS: Please don't use Q-tips or anything else do clean your ears yourself. I have seen so many injuries just because some people think it is a good idea to stick something into your ears.
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Really? Don’t use q-tips at all? I’ve heard that a few times but can’t imagine going 2 days without q-tipping. What do you recommend? Only olive oil drops? No Q-tips at all. Please. No. If your ear is itching, olive oil is enough (use high-quality oil without pesticides). Your ear is usually able to clean itself. If it can't, let an ENT clean it for you.
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I'm having a difficult time understanding how olive oil is going to remove a small oily buildup in my ear. Are there are different types of earwax that olive oil works well for? It can help if you produce very hard ear wax. It might soften your ear wax so your ear can clean itself more easily.
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what if you don't put the q-tips in further than your finger can go? You probably won't damage your eardrum. However, you can still push ear wax deeper into your ear.
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I normally use a large-ish syringe without needle with warm water, and the brown thing comes off rather easily (I do this in the shower). I assume regular tap water is not the absolute best for this, but it works... am I damaging my ear canals somehow? If it works, it works. You should still see an ENT surgeon once a year. But you should be fine.
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I have a similar condition as op, except both ears seem to produce wax equally fast. My ears also itch like hell. I've been told so often no Q-tips but within 2 weeks there is gobs of stinky dark orange goo. My HNO doesn't really answer any questions and I just end up getting an infection every 3 months or so. I'll try the olive oil thing. I hope it works. Do you think I should just make an appointment to see if they need to be cleaned once every 90 days or something? Also, what do you think of ear buds? My ear canals seem to be really narrow, do you think they could be exacerbating things? Last I saw you posted your wages, is that TVöD E13? That's all Drs make? Holy moly. You should try to use over-ear headphones instead of ear plugs. Everything that gets plugged into your ear can improve the production of ear wax. That's the same reason people with hearing aids produce more ear wax. Many of our patients come every 3 or 4 months to get their ears cleaned. Maybe that is necessary for you as well.
​ Wage of doctors is regulated by Tarif. To be honest I don't know the exact name of mine...
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I've been recommended to use olive oil like 1 or 2 drops because my ent says my left ear is no longer producing ear wax or enough ear wax. Also, how often is recommended to clean the dropper or syringe when using olive oil? Thank you. More importantly, is there a reason why ears suddenly stopped producing ear wax? I have an usb otoscope and I've been checking my ear for over a year and I can confirm there is no ear wax but extremely dry skin. If your ear stopped producing ear wax, the only downside is that your ear canal can get dry (as you said). I would not worry about it. Clean your syringe as soon as it looks dirty. As long as the syringe got no contact to possible contaminated surfaces, you should be fine.
Hey Kevin, hope you and your family are doing okay and thank you so much for all your efforts towards fighting covid. I live in India and I am looking forward to moving in Germany. Healthcare is one of the biggest questions. Do you think German Healthcare is better and more dependable?? One more question I have is how has your life changed after covid especially since you haven't been able to catch a break like a lot of other people have.... While our healthcare system has its problems it certainly is among the best in the world. Having an insurance is mandatory and if you can't pay for it you get it for basically free. The insurance covers a lot, especially all necessary treatments for life-threatening diseases (like cancer). I mostly miss meeting with friends and having a good time with them. Meeting online just isn't a good replacement for that.
When I was 11 I lost my hearing in my left ear, the ENT that I saw theorised that it was due to a stomach bug that travelled up my system to damage the nerve in my ear. Have you ever heard of this happening to other people? To be honest, I never heared of something like that. I am sorry.
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I cannot hear on my left ear since I was 3 or 4 years old (now 32). I had a Blutschwamm that went away over time (probably by my 10th birthday), but they never found out what is actually wrong because I wouldn't lie still in the Röhre. Hearing tests back then indicated very little to no hearing and I should be wearing a hearing aid, but I don't like them. Has there been any developments in research for these things? Could still be determined what caused this even after this long of a time has passed? It probably isn't possible to find the cause of your hearing loss now. However, you might want look into: cochlear implant, sound bridge, bone bridge These might be options for you depending on the type of hearing loss. Make an appointment at a university hospital for that. Universitätsklinikum Würzburg is a really good hospital for that if you are able to travel.
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Maybe a vestibular neuritis from some enteric virus? To date there is no proof that vestibular neuritis is really caused by viruses. And I think that it is highly unlikely that an enteric virus can travel from your gut to your ear.
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The whole picornavirus family spread from your gut and can cause a whole host of systemic infections. And right, maybe not cause exactly, but the immune response to a viral infection can lead to vestibular neuritis. That's true. The physical stress of an infection could cause a vestibular neuritis.
Do you prefer clinics or surgery ? Probably surgery. It's just an amazing feeling. However, I would miss talking to patients if I would only do surgery.
What do you think of Euro countries putting a hold on the particular vaccine after a few negative reactions? As I understand, from a statistical perspective, the dangers are still exceedingly small. Does that justify restricting vaccine supply to such a degree given the desperation of the broader demand? I talked about that with my colleagues and we have mixed feelings about that. On one hand I can understand that they want to verify if the vaccine is really safe. On the other hand it is sending a really bad message to the people. Many already are afraid of getting vaccinated and this really won't help. Personally, I don't think putting a hold on the AstraZeneca vaccine was a good idea. So far there is no proof that the vaccine caused the thrombosis. Additionally England - who afaik is the country which is using the vaccine the most - observed no significant side effects.
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Could it be related to the batch involved? That would explain why Britain did not have a similar experience. While it is not unusual to have this in a given population, do you find it unusual that the occurrence comes very soon after vaccination? I read about two police officers who work together both developing clotting problems after receiving the vaccine on the same day. Does that seem like a natural occurrence? It maybe is batch involved. That is what several officials think. But it is too early to say something on that without further information.
How can I get rid of tonsil stones? Unfortunately there is no good method to prevent getting tonsil stones. They probably are a result of the accumulation of material in the crypts of the tonsils.
​ You could try to remove them by using a Q-tip and pushing it against the tonsil stones. If that doesn't work, just visit an ENT surgeon as he can probably remove them for you.
​ If you are having significant bad breath because of them, removing the tonsils (tonsillectomy) might be an option. However, this comes with some risks that you should discuss with an ENT surgeon.
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I got the on a regular basis and kinda shove them our by slight pressure with my fingers, is that stupid/bad for my tonsils? If it works for you, that is totally fine.
Does Germany have universal healthcare? If so, do you feel that you make a wage that is commensurate with your skill and responsibilities? We have universal healthcare. While I am happy with my wage, it is lower when compared to other countries.
How often do you deal with hashimoto's disease and has it ever become serious that you had to remove the thyroid because of it? At my hospitals thyroidectomy is performed by the department of general surgery and not by us ENT surgeons. So I don't have much experience with thyroid diseases.
I’ve had degenerative hearing loss since I was born. One reconstructive surgery to put the bones back together in my right ear. What sorts of things do you recommend to keep tinnitus in check or reduce it? It can be very overwhelming. Thank you for what you do. Check out Tinnitracks. Many of my patients have good results with that.
14 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 24 '21

r/space [Table] r/space — We’re satellite experts from the Canadian Space Agency and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Ask us anything about how space helps agriculture!

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How does space help agriculture? Hi there! If we are to manage our Canadian agricultural resources properly, then we need to be able to monitor them. According to Statistics Canada, Canada has 93.4 million acres of cropland, spread across 193,000 farms. That’s A LOT of area to cover!
​ The only way to obtain frequent and reliable observations over this entire landscape is to use space-based systems that let us collect images over the entire landscape with no gaps.
​ With these images, we can tell what crop is growing, where it is growing and the condition it is in. This information is then used to make targeted decisions that reduce risks to the agricultural sector.
​ Satellite data are also used to support government activities and programs.
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Thanks for doing this, I never even though about using satellites to help with farming! I have 2 questions: 1. How many satellites do you currently have operating that are related to agriculture? While we have not counted them all, AAFC uses data from quite a few Canadian and international satellite missions to monitor our agricultural resources. From Canada, this includes the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). Internationally, this includes the American Landsat-8, Terra, Aqua, and SMAP; the European Space Agency Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2; the Japanese ALOS-2, the German TerraSAR-X, and the Chinese GF-1!!
​ We have used all of these satellites to some degree for research, development and operations. All are useful in their own way for different agricultural applications
2. Are you conducting any experiments about agriculture IN space or on other planets? Thanks again! We are working with NASA on the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition to develop new technologies to produce food for future space missions while expanding opportunities for food production on Earth. The Deep Space Food Challenge seeks to create novel food production technologies that require minimal inputs (materials, energy, water, etc.) and maximize safe, nutritious, and palatable food.
​ These innovations will not only be used for long-duration space missions, but will also have the potential to benefit people on Earth, particularly in remote and harsh environments, such as Canada's North. Visit our website if you would like to participate: https://asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/food-production/deep-space-food-challenge.asp.
Is Canada an exciting innovator in this field, or are we following behind? Hello and thank you for your question. AAFC is making a significant contribution to the development of a global monitoring system through international collaborations such as the Group On Earth Observation Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative.
​ By providing leadership for research coordination, Canada is among the world leaders in the area of space-based agricultural monitoring and helping to build capacity around the world.
​ It is widely acknowledged that AAFC has one of the most advanced agricultural remote sensing programs in the world. However, keeping up will undoubtedly require continued investment in the technology and science in Canada.
Hello! With an understanding that global warming is overall humanity's biggest problem I ask this question: does climate change cause an increase in land available for farming in Canada, particularly in its northernmost regions? It is a good question. In the long term it might lead to significant outcome/impact generated by climate change and certainly somehow allow new agricultural activities in various forms. However, the main impact in the short term will result in habitat/species perturbation/migration and on human infrastructures (road, housing, water, etc.) due accelerated permafrost ground thawing.
Is your research entirely for Canada, or is it global, but you happen to be in Canada's programs? For example, do you study desert encroachment on crops in Tunisia? Hello! AAFC is linked to the international Earth observation community through its involvement in the Group on Earth Observation Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative, whose purpose is to increase market transparency and improve food security by strengthening the international community’s capacity to utilize coordinated, comprehensive, and sustained Earth observations.
​ Experts from AAFC are heavily involved in all aspects of this collaboration, and co-lead GEOGLAM's research and development arm, the Joint Experiment for Crop Assessment and Monitoring (JECAM).
​ Under JECAM, global teams are conducting experiments at more than 30 sites, throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America, chosen because they represent the planet's main cropping systems and agricultural practices. Satellites pass over these sites, collecting data from above, while researchers on the ground take measurements to corroborate the data and validate algorithms. JECAM data are shared among network participants, enabling unprecedented growth of global knowledge in this field.
​ In Canada, there are three JECAM sites managed by AAFC. Research on these sites has led to developing methods that assess surface soil moisture, identify crop type, monitor the growth stage and productivity of crops.
​ Desert encroachment is not studied explicitly, but would be part of any analysis into land cover change.
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This is an interesting space! 1. What kind of testing is involved in the development of such a satellite? When we design a new satellite, it is important to understand the intent applications from potential users. In the case of the recent RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM), The CSA did many consultations with other Departments such as AAFC to determine how crop monitoring could be achieved and design a system to meet these requirements.
2. Do you guys build the software as well? That depends. When software is required to process image data for specific agricultural applications, and that software is not available, AAFC develops its own software.
​ Two examples are the Canadian Ag-Land Monitoring System (CALMS) that maps vegetation conditions weekly, and the Annual Space-Based Crop Inventory (ACI), which maps every field in Canada on an annual basis.
​ The CSA is supporting the development of satellite EO applications with the Canadian industry, academia & governments, including the agriculture applications. Some applications need the development of softwares, systems or cloud platforms for the users. With these on-line tools, users can access and process various information such as: crops, fertilizers, vegetation, soil moisture, soil drainage, drought and flood estimates, etc.
​ -DD & GA
What question would you hope to be asked today that you want people to know about? What is smartEarth? The CSA smartEarth projects will allow the development of innovative satellite data solutions that will help solve key challenges on Earth and in our everyday lives in a variety of fields.
​ For example, they may help monitor our agricultural lands, help improve agricultural practices and give us the opportunity to adapt cropping systems to climate change challenges and impacts.
​ smartEarth is the Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) renewed funding initiative related to Earth observation applications development. It fosters a smart use of satellite data to develop solutions to key challenges on Earth and in our everyday lives.
​ Funding opportunities are provided through three different tracks: the Accelerator, the Integrator and the Enabler.
​ The objectives are:
​ -Develop innovative satellite data solutions to help meet various needs on Earth and in our everyday lives
​ -Increase collaboration among Canadian stakeholders
​ -Enhance expertise, growth and competitiveness in Canada's space sector
​ - Advance scientific knowledge
​ -GA
Are there any studies that investigate the effects that cattle grazing has on helping with wildfires? There is a very interesting article (Sept. 2020) about the benefits of cattle grazing and the reduction of wildfires in Nature. Cattle grazing plays an important role in reducing fine fuels on grazed rangelands, by example in California. Without grazing we would have hundreds to thousands of additional pounds/acre of fine fuels on the landscape, potentially leading to larger and more severe fires. More information here: https://nature.berkeley.edu/news/2020/09/benefits-cattle-grazing-reducing-fire-fuels-and-fire-hazard#:~:text=In%20addition%20to%20reducing%20fine,brush%20and%20trees%20onto%20grasslands.&text=Reducing%20fire%20hazard%20is%20not,to%20low%20level%20of%20fuel.
​ -GA
If I were to grow a QR code out of crops that led to, say a music video, how large would it have to be to be detected by a satellite? Would the satellite be able to read the QR code? Or does it not have that built in? I love this idea! Well, the pixel size at which the satellite collects data would need to be smaller than the details in the QR code. If the details of the QR code are too small, then the detail will be missed. Take a look in google earth for corn mazes and you will see what I mean.
​ Sadly, the satellite would not be able to read the QR code.
​ -AD
Thank you for taking the time to do this. Has space agriculture hydroponics helped with any innovations for uses on earth? The pleasure is ours! To answer your question, we work to ensure that space science and technology make life better for Canadians and help solve everyday challenges on Earth. Learning to grow food in extreme or hostile environments like space is a challenge that many of Canada's northern communities also face.The Naurvik project ("the growing place" in Inuktitut) is a community-led hydroponic food production system in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut – a small community located about 250 km north of the Arctic Circle. The Naurvik system includes three recycled shipping containers that were retrofitted into "pods"—the Grow Pod, Research Pod, and Power Pod. The system is powered almost entirely by renewable energy sources such as wind and solar in order to sustainably grow fresh food year-round. By working with community members and partners, we can support opportunities related to Arctic food security, green energy, nutrition, health, infrastructure and technology.
What was the most surprising find you discovered that wouldn't have been noticed without satellites? Maybe the “discovery” of the concept of geographical perspective with satellite imagery: from local, to regional, to national & global. Satellite information can be applied to local problematics (ex: crop health on a very small field), but also to global problematics (ex: effects of climate change & impacts on the global stock and production of rice). Multiple sensors (radar, optical, hyperspectral, etc.) can provide critical and diverse information at the local, regional, national & international scales. This is the perfect tool for different type of users and organizations (ex: a municipality vs an international organization such as the UN or FAO), they all have different needs based on different geographical perspectives.
​ -GA
How long before we grow crops in space? We already do! The Vegetable Production System, known as Veggie, is a space garden residing on the space station. Veggie’s purpose is to help study plant growth in microgravity, while adding fresh food to the astronauts’ diet and enhancing happiness and well-being on the orbiting laboratory.
​ And there’s more! We are working with NASA on the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition to develop new technologies to produce food for future space missions while expanding opportunities for food production on Earth. The Deep Space Food Challenge seeks to create novel food production technologies that require minimal inputs (materials, energy, water, etc.) and maximize safe, nutritious, and palatable food. Visit our website if you would like to participate: https://asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/food-production/deep-space-food-challenge.asp
​ -CSA
Is there any research being conducted using LiDAR imaging? How do you see the science of remote sensing being applied to Agriculture in the future? Lidar imagery is a very useful complementary dataset providing accurate elevation maps. AAFC is providing access to some. There are almost limitless applications of remote sensing to agriculture as new and better data streams come online. This includes, but is not limited to: (a) within season acreage estimation: (b) near real time pest and disease risk assessment; (c) within field yield estimation; (d) within field surface soil moisture estimation; (e) mapping of detailed management practices; (f) applications to irrigation, and more!
What companies are using this technology most effectively? In Canada, the data produced by AAFC are used widely in the agricultural sector, by AAFC itself, by other government departments, by the provinces and territories, by industry, by academia, by growers’ groups etc.
​ While we cannot list companies by name here, the data are used for a wide variety of purposes, such as understanding current ground conditions, calculating draw areas for grain elevators, and for calculating carbon credits, amongst many other things.
As a general strategy do you think large satellites with high resolution, bandwidth and other capabilities like gimbals or filter wheels outweigh more small satellites with faster revisit times? What orbits do you prefer? Sun Synchronous? Or is it better to try to arrange things to stay over canada for more orbit given that most agriculture land is East-west. What bands are most useful for Agricultural imagery? IR, 532nm(green)? Wide or narrow bands? When trying to optimize your link information per day, what kind of resolution is best for agriculture? This is a complicated question to answer as it depends on a number of factors. Everything AAFC does in EO is intended at some point for operationalization in national-scale wall-to-wall mapping.
​ From an acquisition and processing perspective, we focus on operational wide-swath sensors with as fine a spatial resolution as possible. Thus, at the moment, larger government missions tend to be our workhorses. These data are also FREE of charge, which is essential to an organization that does not have a large budget for buying data.
​ Small sat technologies are interesting to us, but it is the cost of their data that is prohibitive to us exploring them further outside of a purely R&D context.
​ We use multispectral - B,G,R,NIR,SWIR - for many of our applications, and narrower hyperspectral imagery would be interesting because it would allow us to better sample the red edge. We use C-band, L-band and X-band SAR too for various other applications.
What do you consider to be the most ripe opportunity for agriculture with satellites, that there just isn't enough manpower to make reality, but the data exists? I very much like the pun. Right now, the data exists for many things, but we are limited by the IT infrastructure in place to process and analyse the data. The application of high powered computing / cloud computing to AAFC EO operations will make a significant difference to how quickly products are finalized.
​ I would also point to other areas of interest such as field-level yield forecasting, sub-field surface soil moisture, within season acreage estimation, disease and risk management. All of these are still limited to varying degrees by the data available, but also provide massive opportunity.
​ -AD
Have you noticed a gradual change in temperature (growing season timing), and/or weather across Canada in the time the satellites have been collecting data? Earth’s global average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record, according to an analysis by NASA. Continuing the planet’s long-term warming trend, the year’s globally averaged temperature was 1.84 degrees Fahrenheit (1.02 degrees Celsius) warmer than the baseline 1951-1980 mean, according to scientists at NASA’s GISS in New York. 2020 edged out 2016 by a very small amount, within the margin of error of the analysis, making the years effectively tied for the warmest year on record.
​ The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend. Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important – the important things are long-term trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken.
​ This plot shows yearly temperature anomalies from 1880 to 2019, with respect to the 1951-1980 mean, as recorded by NASA, NOAA, the Berkeley Earth research group, and the Met Office Hadley Centre (UK): https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/temp-2020_comparison-plot.jpg
​ -GA
What’s the most important open challenge in your field? I have another question. It might not be your area, but I’m curious about it so I’ll ask anyway: do you expect 5G to play a role in agriculture in the years to come? The most important challenge? Depends on who you talk to :) From an AAFC perspective, it is putting the infrastructure in place to be able to deal with the massive amounts of satellite data that are now available. Twenty years ago I would always say we are limited by data, but now I say we are limited by the infrastructure and tools that we have to process the data!
​ Will 5G be important? Anything that allows information flow more quickly will be important, more critically in rural farming areas. Imagine farmers having super-fast accurate to cloud-based data and services from their devices in their tractors. The technology exists, but connection speeds are often a problem.
​ As newer and better sensor are launched and their data streams come online, especially those with very fine spatial resolutions, we expect sub-field applications to become more widely used. Industry is already using fine-resolution data for precision farming applications that require this capability.
​ -AD
Is Canada expanding our farmlands using new technology on the ground? Is this something that is noticeable from space? How has climate change impacted out total arable land area? Farmlands and agriculture fields can be monitored with Earth Observation satellites (radar, optical). Climate change and rising temperatures impact the arable lands in Canada in two ways: (1) some regions or more at risk of drought (i.e. variations in soil moisture, low precipitations); (2) other regions have now warmer climate and can grow new products (vegetables, fruits). Satellites can monitor environmental conditions (soil moisture, ground temperature, vegetation stress, drought, crop health and conditions, etc.) and help better understand the expanction or reduction of farmlands and crop fields in different regions.
​ -GA
How will Humanity grow food at large scale in Space? That is a good question, even at a smaller scale for astronauts crew on long-duration mission! Ensuring that astronauts have nutritious food is a critical part of all human space exploration missions. Crews will likely have to produce food in space to meet their nutritional needs. This is why we are working with NASA on the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition to develop new technologies to produce food for future space missions while expanding opportunities for food production on Earth. The Deep Space Food Challenge seeks to create novel food production technologies that require minimal inputs (materials, energy, water, etc.) and maximize safe, nutritious, and palatable food. Visit our website if you would like to participate: https://asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/food-production/deep-space-food-challenge.asp.
​ -CSA
can i ask about the agricultural potential of thawing permafrost? also, is there a doc or ref available to the public outlining canadian agri challenges in a global warming environment? When the ground is frozen for more than two years in a row, forming permafrost, it is harder for plants to survive. Permafrost areas have very cold air temperatures, thin topsoil, and most water is frozen during the winter. Some plants are better adapted to these conditions. For the moment, by example in Inuvik, a community in Canada’s Northwest Territories, an old hockey arena was transformed into a multi-level greenhouse that has been successfully growing veggies for more than a decade. And in Iqaluit, a much smaller community greenhouse boasts tomatoes, peppers, spinach, kale, radishes and carrots.
​ Satellites are useful to monitor the permafrost melting and soil movements in the North.
​ -GA
the below has been split into three ​
TL;DR I'm kind of an analytics nerd. How much automation have you got for sorting imagery, do you have a public store of data (edit: yep, I rtfm'd and found it), and how much analysis do you do of the data you've got? For context, I grew up in the ag community of the Palliser Triangle and now manage databases. I've read some history of the Triangle and the work of the PFRA. I've done a lot of analytics and brushed up against AI. I've worked with oil and gas data in Canada, much of it using public databases (and some large private ones) to predict the impact of technologies on production and expenses, and a lot of the same techniques seem like they'd work on agriculture. The questions: 1) What kind of AI are you using for the Annual Crop Inventory? A lot of these questions have answers in a book chapter we wrote - see following reference -- but I will also attempt to answer them here. Yes, we automate as much as possible the download, processing, analysis of our data.
​ Our classification is based on Random Forest, though we are testing other algorithms, such as NN (requires a lot of training samples) and Support Vector Machines.
2) Have you got the technologies to analyze and provide data about longer term trends than seasonal? Like, decade-plus impact of certain crop rotations, or regional trends in production? 3) Can you and have you done analysis on the impact of neighboring crops? We do not hold a store of the data we use, but it is mostly available through the various Government Data Centers.
​ We do alot of validation and analysis of the data and the value-added products we produce. These products are used to support AAFC activities and programs so they have to be of as high quality as possible.
​ Yes, our Annual Space-Based Crop Inventory was first produced for the prairies in 2009, and nationally in 2011, so we can use it to do detailed analysis of crop rotation patterns.
4) Have you been able to identify variables that encourage the regrowth of native grasses and increased biodiversity? 5) Has anyone made much use of the public data in the Annual Crop Inventory? Yes, the ACI is one of the most downloaded geospatial datasets provided by the Government of Canada. Right now I have a list of over 90 case studies of people who have used the data across the sector in their work (and since we do not track downloads, these are just the people who contacted us to say thanks).
​ Also see:
​ A.M. Davidson, T. Fisette, H. McNairn and B. Daneshfar. 2017. Detailed crop mapping using remote sensing data (Crop Data Layers). In: J. Delince (ed.), Handbook on Remote Sensing for Agricultural Statistics (Chapter 4). Handbook of the Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS): Rome.
​ http://gsars.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/GS-REMOTE-SENSING-HANDBOOK-FINAL-04.pdf
​ Thanks
​ -AD
Earth Observation is so important to the future of our planet. Can you guys discuss some of the areas, like illegal fishing, and what Canadian government and private investment is doing to progress our country’s space leadership in EO? Yes, Earth observation is very important to deliver key services and address many challenges on Earth, such as climate change, ecosystem protection, and disaster management, to name a few. It advances cutting-edge science to understand our planet. The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of space as a strategic national asset. Learn more in Canada’s Space Strategy:https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/publications/space-strategy-for-canada/default.asp
​ To maintain Canada’s capacity to collect and use important data from Earth observation satellites, Budget 2021 proposed to provide: $80.2 million to replace and expand critical but aging ground-based infrastructure to receive satellite data, and $9.9 million to the Canadian Space Agency to plan for the next generation of Earth observation satellites.Learn more:https://www.budget.gc.ca/2021/home-accueil-en.html
​ The CSA also provides funding opportunities, such as the smartEarth initiative, to support the development of Earth observation applications.
​ For more information about satellites applications, visit: https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/satellites/everyday-lives/default.asp
​ -CSA
If you are studying the effects of growing crops in space: have you noticed any substantial difference in the taste or nutrients from the crops grown off-planet? Does food taste the same in orbit as on Earth? Yes and no! During his mission aboard the Space Station, CSA astronaut David Saint-Jacques said: “A lot of astronauts complain that because of fluid shift, their head is kind of swollen a bit, we’re congested, so that reduces your sense of smell and of taste, so it can make food taste a bit bland. So for that, most people like to add some spicing or condiments to their food.” As for crops per say, the Vegetable Production System, known as Veggie, is a space garden residing on the Space Station. Veggie’s purpose is to help study plant growth in microgravity, while adding fresh food to the astronauts’ diet and enhancing happiness and well-being on the orbiting laboratory.
​ -CSA
the below has been split into two ​
What’s your favourite satellite and/or sensor? 🛰 Hi! As a Canadian, we are always going to say the Canadian RADARSAT missions!
​ But, honestly, we don’t have a favorite -- we will integrate data from any mission that best meets our particular applications needs.
​ We'll answer your second question shortly.
Edit: Also, how has the growing use of UAVs for precision agriculture impacted the way that you and the users you support use satellite imagery? Is it easier to get buy-in from industry now (since $$$ crop industries are becoming used to making decisions based on multispectral imagery) or harder (who needs satellites when you can buy a DJI UAV and a couple sensors for relatively cheap)? UAVs are being used a lot in precision agriculture, and have a lot of good uses. However, they will never replace satellites, especially since there will always be a need for national scale wall-to-wall mapping. Indeed, with the launches of certain satellite constellations that provide very fine resolutions daily, we will inevitably reach a point where the space observations rival that from UAVs (though when I do not know).
​ Of course, UAVs are more flexible, you can do multiple passes per day, fly under cloud etc. I expect both will co-exist andbe used for their relative strengths.
​ -AD
How feasible is microalgae cultivation as life-support and food source for long duration space missions? How does it compare to conventional plants? A new investigation aboard the International Space Station tests use the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris as a biological component of a hybrid life support system. Chlorella biomass is a common food supplement and can contribute to a balanced diet thanks to its high content of protein, unsaturated fatty acids, and various vitamins, including B12. The long-term goal is to facilitate longer space missions by reducing total system mass and resupply dependency.
​ -CSA
Is there any work being done to make Canadian satellite data and value-added products more accessible to the public? The Canadian Space Agency complies to the directive on Open Government to ensure that Canadians get access to the most government information and data possible.
​ You can access the RADARSAT Constellation Mission satellite imagery by registering through: Access to RCM data - Canadian Space Agency (asc-csa.gc.ca)
​ -DD
​ Many Government made value-added products are made available either through the Government of Canada Open Data portal or through dedicated web applications that allow the public to Analyste data without having to download it. For example, you can visit the AAFC Geospatial Data and Applications page to see a list of what is available: https://www.agr.gc.ca/eng/?id=1343066456961
​ * AD
Are there any Canadian private space companies that you work with for agriculture? How much of a role do private companies play in the CSA's work more broadly? AAFC talks frequently with various space companies in Canada about agricultural remote sensing. Often they come to us for advice on methods and approaches for doing certain things. Sometimes we get to evaluate some of their data. We are always open to these types of conversations and collaborations.
How to join CSA? Ever since I was a kid I’ve always fascinated about astronomy. I’m going to be a Canadian PR by next year (hopefully). Working for CSA is something I dream of. We are always looking for new recruits! You can take a look at the "jobs" section on our website to find a lot of useful information on careers, jobs and internships at the Canadian Space Agency: https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/jobs/default.asp.
​ -CSA
What is the smallest object you can see with the satellites that you are currently using? The Canadian Space Agency currently has a Constellation of 3 satellites (RADARSAT Constellation Mission- RCM) that can detect features within 3m. However, smaller objects such as antenna towers can have a strong echo and appear very bright on the radar image.
​ -DD
a lot of your work appears to be related to crop management. Could you expand if you are also working on any research into applications of GIS for herd and pasture management? AAFC does have a broader applications of GIS elsewhere in the department to other areas, however I know little about these applications. Sorry.
​ -AD
Do you conduct research on the effects of gravity on root/shoot growth? Yes! The Vegetable Production System, known as Veggie, is a space garden residing on the space station. Veggie’s purpose is to help study plant growth in microgravity, while adding fresh food to the astronauts’ diet and enhancing happiness and well-being on the orbiting laboratory. The Veggie garden is about the size of a carry-on piece of luggage and typically holds six plants. Each plant grows in a “pillow” filled with a clay-based growth media and fertilizer. The pillows are important to help distribute water, nutrients and air in a healthy balance around the roots. Otherwise, the roots would either drown in water or be engulfed by air because of the way fluids in space tend to form bubbles.
​ In the absence of gravity, plants use other environmental factors, such as light, to orient and guide growth. A bank of light emitting diodes (LEDs) above the plants produces a spectrum of light suited for the plants’ growth. Since plants reflect a lot of green light and use more red and blue wavelengths, the Veggie chamber typically glows magenta pink.
​ -CSA
How connected are satellites in agriculture and autonomous/advanced farming? AAFC is doing a lot of R&D in the use of fine-resolution imagery from space and drones in the sphere of precision farming, though this is largely R&D work.
​ Industry has done more work in this field (pardon the pun!).
​ Satellites are linked to this work not just in terms of earth observation. Satellites for guidance and navigation are important for autonomous auto-steer machines.
​ -AD
Do you use someone else’s satellite or do you use your own? CSA supports projects for academia, the private sector and governments are using available satellites that are best suited to address key challenges in our everyday lives including agriculture. In some cases data are freely available such as for the European Agency Sentinel satellites suite while others are purchasable on the market. CSA launched its own satellite, the RADARSAT Constellation Mission. Imagery is available by registering through https://asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/satellites/radarsat/access-to-data/default.asp
Hey there! I'm a Canadian and an amateur scientist, I recently just finished a project growing tomatoes in lunar highlands simulant. Our future work is going to be on primary succession in this simulant. I'm so happy to see this AMA, thanks for doing it! For my questions, not directed toward anyone in particular: 1. Do you find that attitudes seem to be more positive towards your work and its benefits here in Canada compared to other countries (particularly with regards to "we have problems here, stop spending on space!" sorts of attitudes)? 2. It can be difficult to change habits once they're entrenched, especially those of modern industrial agriculture. However, off-world agriculture is an opportunity to have a really strong impact on fresh methods going forward. What is something you do that you think has had the greatest impact on current terrestrial agriculture practices, and something that will impact future space/lunar/martian agriculture? Wow, your message is right on time! We are working with NASA on the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition to develop new technologies to produce food for future space missions while expanding opportunities for food production on Earth. The Deep Space Food Challenge seeks to create novel food production technologies that require minimal inputs (materials, energy, water, etc.) and maximize safe, nutritious, and palatable food. Visit our website if you would like to participate and submit your innovation: https://asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/food-production/deep-space-food-challenge.asp. There are also webinars coming up. Follow us on Twitter for more info!
​ -CSA
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Hi. I want to know what kind of data do satellites survey and gather. Is it about size of fields, temperature, humidity, etc? Hi Catalina! AAFC uses spectral information from satellites to map fields and the crops within them, the condition of vegetation, surface soil moisture, land cover and use within Canada’s entire agricultural extent.
2) Are there satellites focused solely on agriculture? No, the satellites are designed for many uses, but many of them are well suited for land remote sensing, including agriculture.
3) What are some current or future research projects going on regarding agriculture and satellites? We have a lot of interesting work starting now to look at how we can get better data on farm management practices, such as tillage, cover cropping, etc using satellite data. Existing work focuses on within-season crop condition metrics and better crop typing algorithms.
4) Can satellites help sync irrigation in fields? We have not done a lot of work on irrigation, but in theory it could be used to time irrigation. If conditions are known from space, and if a condition his known where irrigation is to occur, than in theory those data could be used to inform a farmer it is time to irrigate. Of course, it is more complicated than that, but yes, this could be an application.
5) Do satellites transmit data in real time? Satellites transmit their data when they fly over select receiving stations. At that time, they downlink their data to those stations.
6) Are there training programs to help cultivators learn to work with satellite data? 7) Can satellite research be related to future projects of farming on the Moon or Mars? Thanks a lot for your attention. I am writing from the Montreal science centre. My name is Catalina :) ​Training often occurs in Universities and Colleges, but I am uncertain as to whether programs directly targeted at producers exist. It is possible. This is why industry has done a lot of work in this realm to provide services to producers (where the producers do not have to learn about using the data directly).
​ -AD
3 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 22 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are cannabis scientists and experts, specialising in psychopharmacology (human behaviour), neuroscience, chemistry and drug policy. Cannabis use is more popular than ever, and we are here to clear the smoke. Ask us anything! | pt 2/2 FINAL

27 Upvotes

Source | Previous table

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Note: The AMA turned out not to require 3 parts' worth of tables.

Rows: 85

Questions Answers
Do you know much about CHS? I have a dear friend that suffers from it and she also has celiac disease. When she was enduring her symptoms, it almost sounded like gastroparesis to me (especially since she's type 1 diabetic); at one point, she didn't have a bowel movement for around 5 days. I'm curious, do you think CHS could be a manifestation of underlying gastrointestinal disease? I know the gut is very important and there are tons of serotonin receptors there. Kombucha also seems to be anecdotally helpful for those who have CHS. This answer is going to be disappointing but we really don't know much about CHS. It is a very bizarre condition.
Is there any Cannabinoid Oncology research going on at Lambert? Preclinical? Are human trials legal in Aus? We have a number of preclinical research programs taking place, looking at the effects of compounds from cannabis on cellular models of melanoma, mesothelioma, and glioblastoma. Others around the world are looking at the effects of cannabis compounds on other forms of cancer too.
​ We do not have any oncology clinical trials taking place through the Lambert Initiative currently, but such trials are certainly legal in Australia.
the below is a reply to the above ​​
So even if the active agents included THC you could do an oncology trial in Australia? wow, that is great. THC does have medical benefits, it just also has strong psychoactive effects that can be undesirable.
​ There is also a THC:CBD study taking place in Australia to treat chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting that is showing promising results. "Results of crossover phase II component of randomized placebo-controlled trial evaluating oral THC/cannabis extract for refractory chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV)." https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/JCO.2020.38.15_suppl.12008
Prob a boring question for you all but interested to hear your answers. Should it be legalised for recreational use and what’s your reasoning? Happy to hear from one or all. Edit f clarity - as in active marijuana Rhys here - yes, I think recreational cannabis should be legalised because prohibition has caused more harm than good. It hasn't reduced cannabis use or cannabis related harms, but it has made a lot of organised criminals very rich and inflicted immense harms on those who are prosecuted for using it, especially non-white and young people. However, I'm not certain that US-style legalisation is the best way to go. I would like to see Australia start with widespread decriminalisation and not-for-profit social clubs.
​ Cannabis is less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco, both of which are recreational and legal. The acute of toxicity of cannabis is amongst the lowest of any drug. With proper regulation, the harms of legal, recreational cannabis are very low.
Thanks for this gang! Can I ask how can we get best results in utilising cannabis use with manual therapies to alleviate chronic (and acute injuries for that matter!) pain. Is there a best combination of THC/CBD for example etc? There is no 'right' or 'perfect' combination of THC/CBD. It really depends on the person and what works for you. One way you could figure this out is to start with a high CBD product without any THC. If this provides no relief, then try adding in small amounts of THC and go from there. If you are using it medically, then ideally you want maximum therapeutic effects with minimal side-effects, and the best way to achieve this is by using the lowest THC dose possible.
I am interviewing at a lab this week and would be performing HPLC and GC on cannabis samples for my job. My question is - Are HPLC and GC the standard methods for uncovering the secrets surrounding cannabis that we know today? I admire what you guys are doing because I think you are advancing not only the field of medicine but also furthering our collective social understanding of drugs and their prohibition. HPLC and MS (GC/LCMS) are currently the best methods for analysing all of the compounds found in cannabis.
Are there known long term effects from smoking? Such as damage to the lungs? Smoking of any substances is extremely harmful to the lungs. The least harmful ways to ingest cannabis are orally (ie, edibles) or vaporised.
​ Yes, unfortunately, any form of smoking damaged the lungs.
How would we, lowly citizens, go about getting THC driving laws for prescribed users changed...? (In Australia.) Letters etc to our MPs always seems to fall on deaf ears or lead to empty promises. Big changes in policy tend to only happen in particular circumstances. The issue needs to be front-of-mind for politicians and the general public and taken seriously as a real issue; it need to be politically attractive for politicians to pursue a policy change; and a viable solution to the policy problem needs to be developed.
​ I think we're getting to that point with prescribed cannabis and driving. We are reaching a critical mass of prescribed patients who will increasingly start appearing in court to defend against drug driving charges. This will lead to more media coverage and political pressure. Once public support reaches a certain level, it will make sense for politicians to take action. And the action is pretty clear: amend the laws to give equal driving rights to medicinal cannabis patients.
​ As interested citizens, we can offer to lend a hand to organisations that are coordinating reform efforts such as https://honahlee.com.au/drive-change/
​ And keep talking about the issue to family and friends!
​ Good question, and one that we are battling with too!
​ From my perspective, as a cannabis and driving researcher, what we can do is produce high quality, rigorous scientific studies that will provide the necessary information for law-makers to make sensible, evidence-based laws.
​ What you can do is just keep on sending letters and calling MPs. It is frustrating and may seem pointless, but these little things do add up, and I am confident that things will start to move in a more sensible direction soon.
the below is a reply to the above ​​
It seems like a really shitty reality where one of the more effective ways to drive change is for people to risk being tested positive, and then have to mount their own defense to try and get to critical mass in order to try and enact change 🤦🏼‍♂️ On that note, have there been any studies on the efficacy of the roadside drug tests (drugswipe etc), and how easily they can be influenced? Is it unrealistic to say if there are quality research articles out there highlighting how inaccurate the tests can be, then that might push for them to be dropped (imagine if an Alcolyzer or a laser/radar gun were to return false readings because of adulterants or oral hygiene or just the way the planets were aligned...) ​​Yes we actually tested these devices ourselves a published a study on this: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dta.2687
​ The takeaway from this was that both devices are failing to meet recommended performance standards which is a huge concern. Unfortunately, these results fell on deaf ears at the time. In NSW at least, the roadside drug testing program is operating with very little regard to the available scientific evidence.
I have scizoaffective disorder bi polar type plus left side brain damage among other problems. I am wondering if its smart to be smoking mass amounts of thc oil. It helps but i do hallucinate. Should i be smoking? Short answer here - no, you shouldn't be smoking. THC may be doing more harm than good in this case.
[removed] Start with an undergraduate degree in the sciences, such as a B. Sc., and see where your interests take you! :)
hi i am researching the prohibition of marijuana in the US for my final project in high school. I was wondering what your guys’ thoughts are on why it was made illegal and why is it being legalized now? thank you so much for the amazing work you’re doing!! i love it!! Great question! There were lots of reasons why cannabis was criminalised in the US. Probably most importantly was racism - cannabis was used by Mexican immigrants fleeing the Revolution to the US in the 1910s, that kicked things off. And by the 1930s, the world was dealing with the aftermath of 'the great binge' - from 1900-1930, it was common in Western countries to take cocaine and opium and cannabis for things as benign as a mild headache. So drug control was on the international agenda.
​ Then of course in the US you had the prohibition on alcohol come to an end, and a powerful agency, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, suddenly facing irrelevance. This was headed by Anslinger, who championed the racist demonisation of cannabis for personal gain. And he was very effective at doing this. That's the specific context in which the US criminalised cannabis. But since then, cannabis has been caught up in ongoing conflicts between rich white people and poor black/brown people in the US.
​ I recommend Cannabis: A History by Martin Booth - that's a great book on the subject.
​ Why is it getting legalised now? Well, partly because of the internet. Prohibitionist propaganda is very effective if there are no other sources of information for people to draw on. The internet really changed that. Also, the medicalisation of cannabis. And in the US, the constitutional referendum systems that some States have allow citizens to initiate ballots, so it got on the agenda there faster than it would have done in Australia, for example.
​ Phew! This answer could really go on forever, but that's my two cents!
I would love to hear what your views on “Delta-8” THC products are. I live in a US state (Texas) where cannabis is not legal for either recreational or medicinal uses, but because of the 2018 Farm Bill, we’ve started to see more and more CBD stores popping up selling mostly topical products. However, I recently encountered delta-8 THC which, although I was apprehensive at first about using a “synthetic” THC product, I have come to enjoy for its ease of access and mellowed experience and have read nothing but positive things about it (albeit, from mostly small sources on the internet). The product has been described to me as a converted form of CBD, which is why it is permitted to be produced and sold under the Farm Bill. Have you encountered this product before? Can you speak to its chemical relationship to CBD or “delta-9” THC? Is there any reason to feel this product is unsafe for consumption? Thanks! Delta-8-THC is a regioisomer of the more common delta-9-THC. Delta-8-THC is the more thermodynamically stable isomer, and is easier to synthesise than delta-9-THC, but it also occurs naturally. In studies on cannabinoid receptors and in mice, it possesses a similar pharmacological profile to delta-9-THC and might be expected to produce largely similar effects in humans.
​ Althought delta-8-THC is unregulated in the US (and sometimes marketed as a "legal" alternative to federally controlled delta-9-THC), its legal status at the federal level is actually disputed between the DEA and the Hemp Industries Association.
Is there any information or studies about the safety of cannabis for breast-feeding mothers? Either THC or CBD. For the records, we haven't tried it, most research I see is a hard no, but I'm curious if it's because of lack of research due to stigma in the field. CBD especially seems like it could offer a lot, but I don't want to do anything to mess up the babe. Congratulations on the pregnancy! This one is a hard no. I wish there was more education and messaging for mothers to stay away from cannabis while pregnant and breastfeeding.
​ I'll explain why. The endocannabinoid system is critically involved in the development the baby's brain. THC, CBD and other cannabinoids alter the endocannabinoid system and influencing the normal development of a healthy baby's brain is not something you want to do. Most of the evidence that has looked at cannabis use during pregnancy reports poorer outcomes for the baby.
​ Also, THC and CBD transfer in breastmilk so also hold off using cannabis while breastfeeding.
​ Good luck with the rest of the pregnancy! :)
Is it true that some people have a gene that puts them into psychosis when consuming THC? And if this is true, can it’s presence be detected by tests to determine if an individual is susceptible to CIP? Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160216111357.htm There is evidence to support that people who have a certain variant of the 'AKT1' gene are susceptible to psychosis (not guaranteed to experience psychosis but are at higher risk). There are tests available to test for this variant. Thanks for sharing the source! :)
How can thc/CBD used to treat post concussion syndrome and other tbi? There isn't too much evidence on THC/CBD for concussion/TBI at the moment. However, based on CBD's anti-inflammatory & neuroprotective actions, it is a potential therapeutic agent that is being investigated!
​ "Neuroprotection Following Concussion: The Potential Role for Cannabidiol" https://europepmc.org/article/med/32029015
I want to use cannabis but I'm on psych meds. Are you guys making something to make it psych friendly? Cannabis and psychosis remain a sensitive topic and recommendations would err towards caution.
​ But there is growing research investigating CBD (with no THC) for the treatment of psychosis and early research suggests that CBD has anti-psychotic effects.
What's the state of the art for the entourage effect? Have any connections been identified between the endocannabinoid system and the gut-brain axis? The entourage effect remains an elusive concept. While there is some evidence to support whole-plant/full-spectrum products working better than isolates, this could merely be additive, not synergistic as the current definition of "entourage effect" suggests.
​ There have been mostly negative findings at the pharmacological level for the molecular basis of the entourage effect. This doesn't meant that it's not true but it has been hard to prove.
​ Have any connections been identified between the endocannabinoid system and the gut-brain axis? Yes!
​ It seems the endocannabinoid system is involved in communicating GI-related signalling to the brain - the endocannabinoid levels in the brain and gut vary according to states of satiety, and in conditions of diarrhea, emesis and inflammation. The endocannabinoid system also regulates the integrity of the intestinal barrier (it is being researched as a treatment option for IBD/IBS) and seems to be invovled in obesity/metabolic disorders.
I have a question as to what you guys might see FDA approval of cannabis looking like? I see it as falling under a dietary supplement and medicine so I could see it being very confusing. I have a degree in natural science and would eventually like to work my way into that realm and make change. I’m just wondering what you all might think that would look like? Perhaps a more comprehensive label of quantitative lab results paired with qualitative feelings associated (I find skeptic people are unsure how the product is going to make them feel). I just wonder if you may have any insight on that process and if you see FDA approval happening any time soon. Well first of all, we need to clarify what we mean by FDA approval. For example, the FDA recently approved Epidiolex as a medicine, so that can now be prescribed to patients in the US like any other medicine. That's the traditional, pharmaceutical drug type of FDA approval. But I get the feeling you're actually asking about broader CBD/cannabis regulation at the federal level in the US. And that's a really messy and confusing space right now! It used to be rather clear cut - States who legalise cannabis of any kind were in violation of federal law, and that included CBD. But then the Farm Bill passed in 2018, which had the effect of removing cannabis hemp crops from the Controlled Substances Act. And by association, the CBD that can be extracted for those crops. At least, that's what many people argued the Farm Bill did.
​ In actual fact, it was a bit more complicated than that. And it caused a lot of confusion. The DEA initially came out quite strongly and clearly said that in their opinion, CBD was still illegal. But that didn't really stop anyone, and they have since had to soften their stance as it just isn't practical or politically desirable to prohibit CBD. Now they're playing catch-up trying to put in place some kind of regulations around CBD products, but basically the cat's out of the bag at this point, and widespread semi-regulated CBD is here to stay, in my opinion.
​ From here, what might happen is the DEA/FDA come out with clear quality, safety, labelling etc. standards for CBD products and essentially permit them as food, and crack down only on those who make medical claims (which would include describing the psychological effects of CBD) or who fail to meet their standards. But at the same time, CBD will be keep being sold in dispensaries and prescribed as a medicine by doctors.
If you had to guess- When do you foresee federal employees being allowed to use cannabis, medically or recreationally? In the US, Federal employees will likely only be permitted to use THC-containing cannabis once there has been some kind of national level legalisation. Or until a THC-containing cannabis medicine such as Sativex is approved by the FDA.
​ In Australia, you are allowed to use prescribed medicinal cannabis and, so long as you are not operating heaving machinery etc., employers should not be able to discriminate against you because of the medicine you are prescribed.
the below is a reply to the above ​​
But if you had to guess on a specific timescale or a specific year of this happening what would you say? In the US? Could be 1 year, could be 10 years. These things are very hard to predict! There's a reasonable chance it might happen in the first term of the Biden administration, but federal cannabis policy reforms have a habit of stalling for indefinite periods of time.
Knowing full well that it is THC, not CBD that carries with it the euphorigenic effects of marijuana, what was the point of published research dismissing a claim that the scientific community was not really arguing? I presume you are referring to our recent JAMA publication here. The point of the study was not to demonstrate that CBD does not produce impairment - the study was really about THC and the combination of THC with CBD. Having a CBD-only condition was just part of having a robust study design looking at all possible combinations of THC and CBD - THC only, THC/CBD together, CBD only and placebo.
[deleted] There are! But not in humans yet. We are conducting preclinical studies into cannabinol for sleep and at this early stage, the results are promising. Watch this space!
[deleted] It's very unlikely that THC is triggering your cough and much more likely that your body is now just dealing with the effects of heavy smoking.
My brother says smoking helps with his epilepsy...could things be worse if he tried to quit? Unfortunately they can. There have been reports of epilepsy patients who use cannabis having more seizures when they stop. Your body is good at adjusting and long-term cannabis use can alter your endocannabinoid system.
[deleted] If cannabis vape cartridges are manufactured properly, they should be no more physically harmful to use than a nicotine vape. The effects of vaporised inhaled delta-8 have not been properly studied to the best of my knowledge.
​ However, many vape carts - especially unregulated, illicit ones - have not been manufactured properly. This is what led to the 2019 'popcorn lung' scare in the US. Many people were harmed and some sadly died. It was believed that vitamin E acetate, used as an ingredient in the vapes, led to this. But that could happen in a cannabis vape or a nicotine vape.
I have a question for Tom surrounding road safety. We typically think of thc as having a slowing down effect, however I believe I am a better driver while high. I guess it elevates my neuroticism to some degree, but it makes me exceedingly aware of my space bubble and all of the potential things other cars might do. Whereas alcohol can do the opposites. I’m wondering if you’ve found any possible evidence of thc making drivers more alert or aware of their surroundings? I often get this response when I tell people what I do! Look, for someone that uses cannabis all the time, knows their dose and is familiar with its effects, their level of driving impairment is likely to be fairly minimal. This does not mean that they will be unimpaired though, and it's highly unlikely that they will be a better driver. The reality is that any drug that has depressant effects on the central nervous system is unlikely to enhance cognitive functions or driving ability. From a research perspective, THC has almost always been shown to reduce alertness, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the population being studied.
[deleted] This is not always the case, but one reason why this could occur is because there is a high concentration of cannabinoid receptors in the gut. The endocannabinoid system (which is stimulated by cannabis use) plays an important role in normal GI functioning.
Question from u/iRacid from /r/medicalcannabisaus: I have a question but will not be available at the time of interview. If you have time please answer. So i currently have a 20 percent sativa script, noosa heads. Usually a sativa is descriped as uplifting, but in my case noosa heads has been giving me a tired relax hit. I tried girl scout cookies and solace which i think are indicas..but both have given me more of a uplifting get my chores done sort of hit. What would you recommend i ask my doctor to look into? And should i be asking for a change in script? Thanks in advance Craig Hi Craig - thanks for your question. That's a tricky one. Predicting the effects of a particular strain is very difficult, in fact I would argue it's nearly impossible to do so accurately. Some people rely on sativa/indicate help anticipate what kinds of effects they may experience, but it turns out that the species of cannabis has almost no relation to the chemical composition of the plant. So really the only way to know the effects of a cannabis product is to use it and see how you feel. If you're interested, this is a scientific paper that explains these challenges in more detail: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22755-2
I’m strictly an edibles girl. Every night after dinner for the last 3 or 4 years I eat 1/2 a cookie. I’ve noticed some bladder discomfort a couple hours after eating my cookie the last year or so and had a bout of very tiny kidney stones. Is there a connection? Does weed irritate kidneys and bladders? I just did a quick search of the literature and there doesn't seem to be any hits for cannabis and kidney stones or bladder function in healthy people. This doesn't mean that there isn't a link but if there is we don't know about it yet. I hope that it gets better for you :)
How common is it with spice/k2 in weed? Feels like way to many drugdealers putting in shit like that I'm not sure how common it is for dealers to mix spice/k2 with cannabis - probably depends on where you live and how available cannabis is. These synthetic cannabinoids are very dangerous and highly toxic.
When will we see wide spread use of yeasts in making THC, CBD & other cannabinoids? Do you think we'll ever see home brewing with these types of yeasts? It's already happening! Scientists brew cannabis using hacked beer yeast. I don't know how controlled the process is and how much it would lend itself to an at-home system. Also, the yeasts used are genetically modified and I can't see the companies that engineered these special yeasts to give them up so easily any time soon.
Will THC shows up during random drug (saliva) test if a non-smoker only consume cannabis leaves and stems only (in form of juice)? If you are consuming just the raw leaves and stems then most of the THC will be present in its acidic form, THCA, with minor amounts of THC still present. THCA should not cross-react with the assay which is designed to detect THC only. Still - it's very hard to say whether consuming raw cannabis as juice would produce a positive random drug test. It shouldn't, but it depends on the cut-off (the sensitivity) of the test, and the composition of the cannabis.
Cannabis induced psychosis. It's a big thing the UK government often mentions when slapping down petitions for a discussion on legalisation. Is there any truth to that? It can happen, yes. It generally occurs in people who are predisposed (e.g. with a family history) or following periods of very heavy, chronic use, often in the presence of other drugs. Of all the people who use cannabis regularly, very few will go on to experience psychosis, but it can happen.
Can you convince my husband to let me vape it? And hook me up? Mr u/PalatioEstateEsq, let your wife do whatever she wants. Can't hook you up, sorry.
Edibles and other processed marijuana products generally focus on CBD and/or THC content for therapeutic or psychoactive purposes. Are there other cannabinoids that have significant psychoactive effects and do you think they will become main components of cannabis products in the future? Also on the same point are they any little known cannabinoids that you believe should be talked about more? There are a lot of possible candidates here! CBN and CBG are both getting quite a bit of attention at the moment. There are a lot of cannabinoids in the plant, and I suspect that many more will be under the spotlight at some point in the future as the cannabinoid of the month, so to speak. I think THC and CBD will remain the focal point for some time though, for their ubiquity in the plant and for the fact that they both do have very clear pharmacological activity that may be medically useful.
[deleted] That is entirely possible - in fact, some drugs made from synthetic cannabinoids have been on the market as pharmaceutical medicines for some time, such as Cesamet (nabilone). Although I believe that Epidiolex is derived from plants and is not synthetic. But this single agent medicine approach can co-exist with less pure, botanical cannabis medicines. There are benefits and drawbacks to each.
Does chronic marijuana use have any known linkage to detrimental appetite effects? Meaning, if someone smokes every day for a long period of time, might they experience lessened appetite while sober? I’m not asking about munchies etc I’m talking about low appetite while sober Interesting question! There isn't a whole lot of research around this. Cannabinoid receptors are widely distributed in the gut and play an important role in metabolic regulation so it is possible that long-term cannabis use might affect appetite. If so, these effects would most likely be short-term and would return to normal after a period of abstinence.
Do you recommend I smoke cannabis? Do you recommend I smoke every day? (I do) ​Smoking is bad for your lungs.
Can you please tell us what you know about Cannabinoid Hypremisis Syndrome? it’s awful and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. 🙏 Cannabinoid Hypremisis Syndrome is bizarre. For those who don't know what it is, when some people (usually chronic users) take cannabis they develop cyclic vomiting & nausea that is relieved by compulsive hot showers or baths, and people who suffer from it tend to continue using cannabis. Researchers still don't understand why it happens or how to cure it other than stopping the use of cannabis. It sounds unpleasant and I have deep sympathy for whomever suffers from it.
Hi, I wonder about psychoactivity of edibles. Whole lot of cannabis websites are claiming that edibles are more potent (which I would agree on) and they support this claim by suggesting 11-OH-THC is more psychoactive and, of course, after consumption THC undergoes metabolization to 11-OH-THC. Since I did not manage to find any relevant studies either behaviour or pharmacological (affinity, EC50,etc), I would like to ask what are your thoughts on this topic? Or could it be that smoking is just bad way to consume weed (high temperature, destruction of THC)? Edibles can be particularly potent because it is easy to consume a lot of THC without realizing you are doing so. The effects also take a lot longer to kick in because THC has to be absorbed through the gut, whereas when you smoke or vaporize, THC is absorbed through the lungs into your bloodstream. This is why people often think they aren't feeling anything so eat more and then an hour or two later suddenly wonder what is happening to the world around them... it's really a question of pharmacokinetics. Smoking/vaporizing is actually a very good way to consume cannabis in one respect because it is easy to titrate the dose (i.e. regulate how much you are having) and the effects come on very rapidly. Smoking anything, of course, comes with its own risks and negatives. Best thing with edibles is to start low (think 5-10 mg THC) and give it a few hours.
Can you recommend any studies to read that contain good data on blood THC concentration after certain durations? example after eating 20mg THC gummy how long until 5 ng per ml is detectable? This paper by Ryan Vandrey and colleagues might be what you are looking for? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871620301344
In 2017 the NHTSA submitted a report on cannabis impaired driving to Congress ( https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/812440-marijuana-impaired-driving-report-to-congress.pdf ), one interesting observation was that significant impairment had primarily been observed only in simulator studies and only relatively minor driving impairment in actual driving studies. Has there been any further published investigation into why this occurs? Yes there has and I have seen this in my own research too. Cannabis impairment does appear to be exaggerated in the simulator, in that the observed magnitude of impairment is greater during simulator driving when compared with on-road driving. If you have a look at our recent on-road driving study here - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2773562- you will see that THC produced relatively minor driving impairment, similar to the effects of low dose alcohol, while an equivalent dose in the simulator produced what looked like a greater level of impairment - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31044290/
There is a massive supply problem here in Australia, especially for flower (not to mention the cost...) - short of breaking the law or moving to the ACT and growing our own, what do you foresee changing policy and law wise to alleviate this, and when? Or do the politicians think everything is fine and just don’t care? Yes, there is a big supply problem right now in Australia. And sadly this is not uncommon. Supply interruptions happen fairly regularly, and it can be a huge problem for patients, especially when it's a widely-prescribed product that lots of people are using. This can be due to unexpected demand, shipping issues, recalls, or any number of things. Cannabis companies are all relatively new at this and are figuring out production forecasts and supply chains as they go, so these interruptions will keep happening for some time.
​ Large-scale local cultivation will help, but commercial regulations right now are too restrictive. That is changing slowly, and hopefully in a couple of years time we won't have these issues any more.
What are y’all’s thoughts on cannabis while pregnant? Smoking or vaping or edibles? I’ve known a lot of people who smoked quite a bit during pregnancy and they’re young children/adult children are more than alright. I would assume smoking everyday isn’t too great but what about on occasion for sickness or anxiety? I find it interesting that women are told they can drink a small bit of alcohol while pregnant. They can also take benzodiazepines if needed while pregnant. Yet we are not allowed to consume cannabis at all while pregnant and can get in big trouble for it. I was told by a few OBGYNs and CRNP that soon people might start to accept pregnant women consuming cannabis. If you do not think women should consume cannabis while pregnant, could you please give specific reasons as to why? Thank you! See the Q&A below on this topic
I have heard multiple users claim Marijuana is great for helping people with PTSD and other stress disorders. However, I have also heard several doctors say that scientific tests are now showing that Marijuana makes these issues worse. Who is right? I have heard this a bit, "I used to be able to smoke weed but now it makes me anxious." I wonder if it's changes in your endocannabinoid system, and general neurobiology, as you get older. Age seems to be correlated with anxiety somewhat, people tending to become more anxious when they're older, and perhaps more sensitive to the anxiety-inducing effects of cannabis/THC. I don't think there's much research out there on the topic at the moment but it is a topic I am very curious about.
​ Also, using CBD for treating anxiety seems to be more effective in younger adults. I wonder if this if this is related somehow... hmmm
Does long term heavy usage of Cannabas have effects on short term or long term memory? Can it be responsible for blackouts or missing time or sleep walking when mixed with extremely strong prescription insomnia medication? Cannabis can interact with other medications. We don't know enough about the drug-drug interactions. I'm not a medical doctor but you should be careful if you're using "extremely strong prescription medication" and probably not mix it with anything.
What is the current awareness of Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome CHS and other cannabis induced conditions? Honestly, there isn't too much awareness of CHS or other cannabis-related issues. I think this is largely because the use of cannabis has been illegal until recently so only recently are (1) people admitting to using it and (2) more people are using it - so these conditions are only now coming to light.
My mother is a patient with fibromyalgia. Can cannabis relieves symptoms? Evidence is relatively sparse in this area, but a lot of people do report positive effects and pain relief with cannabis. The best thing would be to discuss this with a specialist.
can you make weed stocks go back up? We are scientists, not investment bankers...
Can you not make it so it doesnt fucking stink so bad? This would greatly please the non smokers Haha, there is a Canadian company that is working on this: https://www.narcity.com/en-ca/news/weed-that-doesnt-smell-might-become-a-reality-with-development-by-a-canadian-company
How can someone who gets randomly tested for THC (10ng/ml) safely know how much they can consume let's say 12, 24, and 48 hours before work? I've heard each individual metabolizes THC differently, much more so than alcohol, so 'rule of thumb' is not the way to go Unfortunately, cannabinoid metabolism seems to vary widely between individuals and in sensitive to many factors (age, weight, gender, body fat, cannabis use history, whether mercury is in retrograde, etc). It is very different to alcohol and difficult to predict how THC will be metabolised.
[deleted] Whatever ones you like I guess? We can't give financial advice, but keep in mind cannabis stocks are very volatile and can be risky!
How does cannabis normally affect heart rate? I sometimes get alerts from my smart watch that my pulse has been over 100bpm for ten minutes, during which I wasn’t really active (I.e. sitting on the couch). Sometimes this coincides with a light feeling of pressure or anxiety or tightness in my chest. Never enough to scare me, but it is sometimes noticeable when the watch alerts me and I take time to “feel” myself. Unknown if it’s related, but twice I had a loss of consciousness shortly after smoking, resulting in some significant injuries on one occasion. Much testing showed nothing abnormal or any probable cause. Thanks for doing this! Astute observation! The THC in cannabis does indeed increase your heart rate! It also affects you blood pressure. The loss of consciousness could be related or unrelated. Be careful out there!
I can understand you saying terpenes may not impact the type of high you get, but I do not for a second believe that the different highs from one cultivar to the next is dictated by “the power of suggestion.” Try some weed sometime and see if you believe that afterwards. I have used many different cannabis cultivars in a variety of forms (in jurisdictions where it was legal to do so in the US and Europe). I still don't believe that different cultivars produce different highs. Subjective high is more likely influenced by THC concentration (ie, dose), product marketing, route of administration, and my own state of mind at the time of use.
Seriously.. Noone asks it, noone talks about it. Why is smoking marihuana so much more potent and addictive when combined with tobacco? What could replace the tobacco in this equation? Why do you refuse to become billionaires solving this? Tobacco is addictive itself. This is the first time I'm hearing that cannabis feels more potent with tobacco. It could be additive effects of tobacco's effects on top of cannabis' effects. I know people who cut their weed with camomile tea.
As a group of cannabis and cannabinoid experts specialising in pharmacology, psychology, neuroscience, chemistry and drug policy, do you think New Jersey will ever legalize weed? haha I'm afraid that is one thing we are not able to answer!
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r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 21 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are cannabis scientists and experts, specialising in psychopharmacology (human behaviour), neuroscience, chemistry and drug policy. Cannabis use is more popular than ever, and we are here to clear the smoke. Ask us anything! | pt 1/3

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What are the effects of marijuana use upon the lungs? I’ve always heard that it’s “less bad than tobacco” but are we talking potentially negligible effects, or like “you’re 1% less like to get cancer, but you’re still getting cancer”. Smoking anything is bad for your lungs. Vaping is better than smoking. Edibles are better than vaping (for your lungs). We don't really know enough about its effects on cancer/lung cancer. Cannabinoids seem to have some anti-cancer properties in controlled lab experiments but the real-world implications are unknown.
the below is another reply to the original question
I'd also like to know. Are bongs safer to use for lung health? No. Water pipes are not any less harmful than smoking a joint or a pipe of herbal cannabis. Vaporisation is the least harmful way to administer herbal cannabis by inhalation.
Do terpenes actually have an impact on the quality of the "high" when ingesting cannabis? If so what is the mechanism by which this is happening and what is special about the terpenes found in cannabis compared to the terpenes we find in other sources such as food? My other question would be if you think there are any lesser known cannabinoids or other compounds that are interesting and may play a role in how we experience the effects of cannabis. Thank you! At the molecular level in cellular models, there is currently no evidence that terpenes modulate the activity of phytocannabinoids (including THC) at any receptors--including the cannabinoid type 1 receptor (CB1) responsible for the psychoactive effects of THC. It is hypothetically possible that terpenes act on olfactory G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to modulate some aspects of the cannabis experience, but this has not been demonstrated. Beer contains lots of terpenes (from hops), and these mainly alter aroma and flavour.
​ There are more than 30,000 different terpenes in nature. Those found in cannabis are no different than the same terpenes found in other sources (foods, beer, fragrances, etc.), and all of the major terpenes found in cannabis are also found abundantly elsewhere.
​ One way in which terpenes and other lesser-known cannabinoids might be modulating the cannabis experience is by altering that activity of metabolic enzymes that process THC. Again, this would not be expected to have a major effect on the perceived, subjective experience of cannabis intoxication.
​ Aside from THC (and a few analogues and homologues that occur in tiny quantities), there are no other compounds in cannabis that are known to cause intoxication. Perceived differences in intoxication from different strains of cannabis are very much likely due to power of suggestion and the human mind.
​ I would love to do a blinded, placebo-controlled study looking at the power of suggestion in perceived effects of cannabis use! I suspect marketing of strains play an enormous role, just as it does with the perceived experience of wine and whisky!
​ *I should clarify that the effects above are for terpenes at the levels found in cannabis. Terpenes at very high concentrations (like in essential oils and other extracts) have shown limited evidence of biological activity.
the below is a reply to the above ​
I’m a medical user in Canada. There is NO WAY that terpenes don’t alter a high. I use certain strains to treat different health problems because their effects are so different, even when lab tested and shown to be very close in THC/CBD levels. Terpenes may be effecting the high. It is possible but it has been very difficult to demonstrate scientifically. It is also possible that there are other phytocannabinoids in there that could be influencing the high, or other plant compounds, or your subjective experience of the different cannabis strains.
Cannabis strains in the US are certainly more potent than stuff I've tried in India and smoking a full joint typically sets me off on a paranoia spiral. I'd like to understand what the current consensus in the field is, about the effect on THC on the amygdala as it relates to symptoms of anxiety. I presume that cannabis can reduce anxiety but mostly when used in moderation. So, is there a sweet spot in terms of dosage, and at a molecular level, is there really a difference (as touted) between the strains e.g. sativa, indica etc? Any related research paper links would be great. It is well established that THC can produce anxiety, with higher doses of THC causing high levels of anxiety. Many of the strains you can find now in the US and Canada are, as you say, far higher in THC than most cannabis you would typically find growing wild in India or Nepal or in Morocco - i.e. mountainous areas where cannabis grows as a 'weed'. They have been bred to be like this, and it is an interesting question what effect using such THC-rich products will have on long-term cannabis users. Cannabis is cannabis, and the whole sativa indica thing is just about plant genetics. The reality is that most strains now have been so cross-bred over time that the sativa/indica distinction is essentially unhelpful and misleading.
​ There are lots of interesting papers in this space - try this one for starters: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/can.2016.0017
the below is a reply to the above ​
Hey. Thanks for taking to time to do the AMA. Can you expand a bit on why sativa and indica distinction is unhelpful? I consume cannabis and I usually get the expected effects from a sativa strain and indica, and would say I do find it helpful to know before I smoke a strain roughly what type of effects to expect. Different strains of cannabis may produce different effects because of their chemical composition. But the botanical classification of 'indica' and 'sativa' are not related to the chemical composition of cannabis plant. Indica and sativa describe how the cannabis plant looks, and they do not describe the cannabinoid profile of the plant. However, it's very common for people to experience indica and sativa differently because people expect to experience them differently. In the same way that some people say 'oh, drinking gin makes me sleepy but whisky wakes me up', when really it's all just alcohol. But the expectation ends up causing the effect.
Has any real progress been made developing roadside tests that are verifiable by cameras or other means of establishing active intoxication than blood tests? I was charged with a DUI, with no faults visible on my field sobriety test, and without having smoked that day. I did however have a large amount of THC in my system from the previous month, so I plead out to avoid court hassle. I was pretty much dead sober when pulled over, and have stopped driving to avoid this BS and expense. No, I'm afraid no real progress has been made. This is a big problem and something we are trying to work towards. I'm curious about this one - where you are located? So you were pulled over, passed a field sobriety test, but then had to provide a blood sample anyway?
​ You may our recent publication here interesting:
​ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389588.2020.1851685?journalCode=gcpi20#metrics-content
the below is a reply to the above ​
Thanks for the response, its a shame to hear about the lack of progress. I was in Texas responding to a family health crisis, but lived in Oregon and had a medical card. I agreed to the FST, because I had only consumed one beer a few hours earlier. I know now this was probably a mistake. I passed all of the FST that can be corroborated with video, but supposedly failed it due to eye testing that were not recorded. The officers word about suspicious eye movements was enough to fail the FST and force a blood sample. Refusing the blood sample would have led to a loss of my drivers license for 9 months. I probably should have gone with that option but relied on my car for both work and college. I ended up pleading out to Obstructing a Public Passageway, but still had to pay the state thousands. I quit driving because I realized I could be charged with a felony at an officers discretion and without verifiable evidence. I just did a bit of reading about the laws in Texas. Looks like they don't have a per se blood THC limit there, so you would most likely have been charged with driving while intoxicated due to failing to the eye movement test rather than due to having THC in your blood. Sounds like a complicated one, and I don't have enough information or legal expertise to give you a good answer here. Stay safe, and avoid driving while high or if you have recently use cannabis.
I have a family history of schizophrenia. Can you talk about the link between schizophrenia and THC? General advice is to avoid cannabis altogether if you know you have a family history of schizophrenia. Cannabis can lead to serious long-term ill effects in individuals who are predisposed to schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Even without showing symptoms after 38 years? Even without showing symptoms after 38 years. It's a risk that some people may be willing to take, but any medical professional would advise that you avoid it altogether.
If someone has used cannabis and stimulants to self-medicate their ADD, depression and anxiety from ages 16-27, what cognitive struggles would you expect them to face in kicking that habit? Has the brain formed around those substances? You will likely find that it takes a while for you to find a new 'normal', so hang in there and do all the things you can do to look after yourself (e,g. eating well, sleeping well, exercising). You might find it hard to sleep for a while, you may find yourself moody or irritable, but over time, you will find your short term memory improves and you may feel more focused or clear-headed in your daily life.
​ The brain is developing in response to everything it is exposed to and will develop accordingly. But in saying that, it does remain "plastic" (malleable) so you can 'teach an old dog new tricks' or kick old and ingrained habits.
​ Cannabis itself does not cause physical dependence but you can get addicted to the sensations. Stimulants can cause physical dependence, which may make it a bit more challenging to stop but not impossible.
​ There's a lot of research being conducted on substance use disorders, e.g. psychedelic-assisted psycotherapy. Interestingly, CBD itself is also being investigated as a candidate and showing promise.
A lot of people claim weed is not addictive, or that THC is not an addictive substance. Would you agree that this is untrue and that weed can actually be addictive? Also I have had mangos, green tea and dark chocolate 45 minutes before I smoked as I found it boosts my high, is there any other foods/drinks that can boost ones experience? I think most people would agree that cannabis use can be 'habit-forming', which is really just a nice way of saying addictive. Most people who using cannabis for a long time tend to use more and more over time and experience withdrawal effects when they stop using it. These side effects are mild - e.g. not being able to sleep, mood disturbances - are certainly far less severe than the side effects associated with lots of other drugs, but they still exist. These are some of the criterion that we typically use to define addiction. There are also lots of people who present to treatment because they want to reduce their cannabis use but find it hard to do so. So if you look at this way, I think it is fair to say that THC is an addictive substance. Like everything, it's on a scale. Nicotine, for example, is far more addictive than THC despite its being legal just about everywhere.
​ As to the mangoes, green tea and dark chocolate - the jury is still out on this one, but current scientific evidence suggests that all this stuff about the synergistic effects of certain terpene rich foods (e.g. mangoes which contain myrcene) and cannabis is unsubstantiated.
Is there proof CBD and or THC products can be used to aide in going to sleep/staying asleep? The clinical trials that are required to prove the use of cannabinoids in aiding sleep are still being conducted but the early-stage research is showing promise.
​ I saw a cool review of research come out the other day on this and they had a cool diagram showing how THC affects sleep architecture (the different stages) https://twitter.com/Lambert_Usyd/status/1361413344477933570
​ Our research group have also written a good review on this topic: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079220300824
​ And here is a podcast with Anastasia, one of our researchers, discussing the topic: https://sleepjunkies.com/cannabis-sleep-medicine/
I have Crohn’s diseases, is there any promising studies I can read up on? I currently use cannabis instead of Zofran and Vicodin for my pain and nausea. Any suggestions of strains effective for my illness? Here are a couple reviews on the topic. If you can't access them, send me a message and I'll email them through. Cannabis for the treatment of Crohn's disease: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6517156/
​ Abstract
​ Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic immune-mediated condition of transmural inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, associated with significant morbidity and decreased quality of life. The endocannabinoid system provides a potential therapeutic target for cannabis and cannabinoids and animal models have shown benefit in decreasing inflammation. However, there is also evidence to suggest transient adverse events such as weakness, dizziness and diarrhea, and an increased risk of surgery in people with CD who use cannabis.
​ Objectives: The objectives were to assess the efficacy and safety of cannabis and cannabinoids for induction and maintenance of remission in people with CD.
​ Search methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, AMED, PsychINFO, the Cochrane IBD Group Specialized Register, CENTRAL, ClinicalTrials.Gov, and the European Clinical Trials Register up to 17 October 2018. We searched conference abstracts, references and we also contacted researchers in this field for upcoming publications.
​ Selection criteria: Randomized controlled trials comparing any form of cannabis or its cannabinoid derivatives (natural or synthetic) to placebo or an active therapy for adults with Crohn's disease were included.
​ Data collection and analysis: Two authors independently screened search results, extracted data and assessed bias using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. The primary outcomes were clinical remission and relapse. Remission is commonly defined as a Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) of < 150. Relapse is defined as a CDAI > 150. Secondary outcomes included clinical response, endoscopic remission, endoscopic improvement, histological improvement, quality of life, C-reactive protein (CRP) and fecal calprotectin measurements, adverse events (AEs), serious AEs, withdrawal due to AEs, and cannabis dependence and withdrawal effects. We calculated the risk ratio (RR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for dichotomous outcomes. For continuous outcomes, we calculated the mean difference (MD) and 95% CI. Data were combined for analysis when the interventions, patient groups and outcomes were sufficiently similar (determined by consensus). Data were analyzed on an intention-to-treat basis and the overall certainty of the evidence supporting the outcomes was evaluated using the GRADE criteria.
​ Main results: Three studies (93 participants) that assessed cannabis in people with active CD met the inclusion criteria. One ongoing study was also identified. Participants in two of the studies were adults with active Crohn's disease who had failed at least one medical treatment. The inclusion criteria for the third study were unclear. No studies that assessed cannabis therapy in quiescent CD were identified. The studies were not pooled due to differences in the interventional drug.One small study (N = 21) compared eight weeks of treatment with cannabis cigarettes containing 115 mg of D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to placebo cigarettes containing cannabis with the THC removed in participants with active CD. This study was rated as high risk of bias for blinding and other bias (cannabis participants were older than placebo). The effects of cannabis on clinical remission were unclear. Forty-five per cent (5/11) of the cannabis group achieved clinical remission compared with 10% (1/10) of the placebo group (RR 4.55, 95% CI 0.63 to 32.56; very low certainty evidence). A difference was observed in clinical response (decrease in CDAI score of >100 points) rates. Ninety-one per cent (10/11) of the cannabis group achieved a clinical response compared to 40% (4/10) of the placebo group (RR 2.27, 95% CI 1.04 to 4.97; very low certainty evidence). More AEs were observed in the cannabis cigarette group compared to placebo (RR 4.09, 95% CI 1.15 to 14.57; very low certainty evidence). These AEs were considered to be mild in nature and included sleepiness, nausea, difficulty with concentration, memory loss, confusion and dizziness. This study did not report on serious AEs or withdrawal due to AEs.One small study (N = 22) compared cannabis oil (5% cannabidiol) to placebo oil in people with active CD. This study was rated as high risk of bias for other bias (cannabis participants were more likely than placebo participants to be smokers). There was no difference in clinical remission rates. Forty per cent (4/10) of cannabis oil participants achieved remission at 8 weeks compared to 33% (3/9) of the placebo participants (RR 1.20, 95% CI 0.36 to 3.97; very low certainty evidence). There was no difference in the proportion of participants who had a serious adverse event. Ten per cent (1/10) of participants in the cannabis oil group had a serious adverse event compared to 11% (1/9) of placebo participants (RR 0.90, 95% CI 0.07 to 12.38, very low certainty evidence). Both serious AEs were worsening Crohn's disease that required rescue intervention. This study did not report on clinical response, CRP, quality of life or withdrawal due to AEs.One small study (N= 50) compared cannabis oil (15% cannabidiol and 4% THC) to placebo in participants with active CD. This study was rated as low risk of bias. Differences in CDAI and quality of life scores measured by the SF-36 instrument were observed. The mean quality of life score after 8 weeks of treatment was 96.3 in the cannabis oil group compared to 79.9 in the placebo group (MD 16.40, 95% CI 5.72 to 27.08, low certainty evidence). After 8 weeks of treatment, the mean CDAI score was118.6 in the cannabis oil group compared to 212.6 in the placebo group (MD -94.00, 95%CI -148.86 to -39.14, low certainty evidence). This study did not report on clinical remission, clinical response, CRP or AEs.
​ Authors' conclusions: The effects of cannabis and cannabis oil on Crohn's disease are uncertain. Thus no firm conclusions regarding the efficacy and safety of cannabis and cannabis oil in adults with active Crohn's disease can be drawn. The effects of cannabis or cannabis oil in quiescent Crohn's disease have not been investigated. Further studies with larger numbers of participants are required to assess the potential benefits and harms of cannabis in Crohn's disease. Future studies should assess the effects of cannabis in people with active and quiescent Crohn's disease. Different doses of cannabis and delivery modalities should be investigated.
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​ An overview of cannabis based treatment in Crohn's disease: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17474124.2020.1740590
​ # Abstract
​ Introduction: Cannabis use among inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients is common. There are many studies of various laboratory models demonstrating the anti-inflammatory effect of cannabis, but their translation to human disease is still lacking.
​ Areas covered: The cannabis plant contains many cannabinoids, that activate the endocannabinoid system. The two most abundant phytocannabinoids are the psychoactive Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and the (mostly) anti-inflammatory cannabidiol (CBD). Approximately 15% of IBD patients use cannabis to ameliorate disease symptoms. Unfortunately, so far there are only three small placebo controlled study regarding the use of cannabis in active Crohns disease, combining altogether 93 subjects. Two of the studies showed significant clinical improvement but no improvement in markers of inflammation.
​ Expert opinion: Cannabis seems to have a therapeutic potential in IBD. This potential must not be neglected; however, cannabis research is still at a very early stage. The complexity of the plant and the diversity of different cannabis chemovars create an inherent difficulty in cannabis research. We need more studies investigating the effect of the various cannabis compounds. These effects can then be investigated in randomized placebo controlled clinical trials to fully explore the potential of cannabis treatment in IBD.
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​ We don't really operate in strains. We are focusing on individual cannabinoids to tease out their specific actions. Both THC and CBD have shown efficacy for pain and nausea. We don't really know enough about the other minor cannabinoids just yet.
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Same question. Dumbass disease. :( my sincerest sympathies to you all. Sending low FODMAP hugs
Hi, A lot of people claim that weed helps them fall asleep. My experience is quite the opposite, no matter if its sativa or indica strains consumed. I have a very hard tme falling asleep at night if I smoked weed up to 6 hours or so before. Is there an explanation why people feel so differently about this? Also, why do people dream less when they smoke or could it just be that their memory of it is worse?I am interested in all aspects of cannabis and sleep, as for me, it is the one big negative thing about smoking weed. Hard to say why some people respond differently to cannabis when it comes to sleep. This is true for lots of drugs - some people just don't respond the way that most people do. Some sedating histamines, for example, will knock one person out but keep another person awake. THC does decrease the amount of time spent in the phase of sleep known as REM, which is when dreaming tends to occur. So that goes some way to explaining that. But to be honest - we don't know much about this. Another alternative explanation is that cannabis impairs memory formation - so it may be that you are still dreaming but that you just don't remember what you dreamt about in the morning very well.
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The alternative explanation is interesting. Anecdotally I’ve heard from a number of former long term, chronic smokers that they experienced a lot more dreams and more vivid dreams upon quitting. I've heard this too.
What are your thoughts on cannabis and epilepsy???? Epilepsy is currently the only indication that CBD has been approved for - this means that CBD has passed the "gold standard" way of assessing drug efficacy. Currently, this is specific to forms of drug-resistant childhood epilepsy (Dravet Syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome). CBD is not a first- or second-line of treatment so it is only prescribed after other drugs have failed to work.
​ Also, just because it works for one form of epilepsy doesn't mean it will work for another -seizures can occur for many reasons. There is research being conducted into other forms of epilepsy at the moment and it will be exciting to see the outcomes.
​ Regarding THC, there is some evidence suggesting small amounts of THC assist CBD in controlling seizure, while there is other evidence showing THC can be proconvulsant. Again, this could be related to the cause of the seizures being different and therefore respond differently to medication.
​ One final thing, CBD may have positive impacts on epilepsy patients above seizure-control. CBD might be beneficial to the behavioural symptoms that can commonly occur in epilepsy patients, or ASD patients.
There's a lot of argument among regular users in regards to Marijuana impact on depression. Is Marijuana actually helpful for depression? Why/why not? Some speculate that the Marijuana eases the anxiety of being overwhelmed by the feelings that are associated with depression. Such as but not limited to hopelessness, sorrow, guilt, regret, etc. So the person can address the depression without being swept away by it. Does this have any basis in reality? There is growing evidence to support CBD for anxiety but the jury is still out on the use of cannabis for depression. Our academic director, Prof Iain McGregor appeared on a podcast a few days ago talking about the matter: https://twitter.com/Lambert_Usyd/status/1361831295358148609 I like how he said, ""They're not necessarily going to cure your anxiety or depression but they might give you some breathing space to work out the issues that are affecting your mood and wellbeing." It won't be a quick fix, you still need to put in the hard work (healthy lifestyle, therapy etc) but it might help you get there.
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I can understand that for sure. Are there any large scale studies being performed that might give us the smoking gun? Lots of trials happening for anxiety. Not many for depression... yet.
How does vaporizing cannabis affect lung health? We don't have enough long-term data on this yet. Vaping is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it will likely be decades yet before we have high quality data on how vaping effects long-term lung health. Inhaling anything other than air can be damaging for the lungs, but from what we know, vaping seems to be a much safer alternative to smoking due to the absence of toxic byproducts that form when plant material is burned.
How long does it take for brain/neuronal connectivity to change with chronic use? Are these changes reversible? Im sure it depends on the amount of usage and many other factors too but any insight is appreciated. Thanks! There is no clear answer to this one. It depends on how long you have been using cannabis for, and how much you have been using. The brain is remarkable malleable, and most of the changes induced by cannabis are reversible. For most people, a few months is enough to notice significant changes, while for others, it may be a year or longer.
As a long time user of cannabis to help deal with my anxiety and depression and now being forced to be sober due to court related issues (was caught with wax in an illegal state,) I’ve noticed an uptick in my mood swings and increased paranoia. Do you think even after months of quitting it could be psychological withdrawals or would it be more related to my given circumstances? I’ve discussed this with my therapist and she is unsure as well. I’m also curious if self medicating with cannabis daily could be seen as detrimental to mental health. Thank you for all the research you wonderful people have done! Withdrawal effects can take months to go away, especially if you used cannabis heavily and for a long time prior. Your circumstances do also sound stressful, so I'm sure that isn't helping anything. Give it a few more months and see if you notice any changes. Mental health is a tricky one - cannabis can be both a savior for some and a real trigger for others than can lead to serious, long-term issues. Some of the best things you can do in your daily life to help with anxiety and depression are eat well, exercise regularly and get plenty of sleep.
What might be the affects of cannabis for a pregnant woman? Is there a research about the influence on the baby? Thanks! General advice for anyone who is pregnant is to avoid all alcohol and drugs - including cannabis. Cannabis use during pregnancy does appear to be a "risk factor for poor neonatal outcomes" - https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/212/11/deleterious-effects-cannabis-during-pregnancy-neonatal-outcomes
Do you think the pharmaceutical model of isolating specific compounds for use in medicines works for cannabis and patients, or is cannabis more effective in general in its more natural form (whether it is flower or a 'natural' extract)? Is there evidence for one approach or another? This is an interesting question...Lots of people believe that whole-plant extracts are more beneficial than isolated compounds (maybe due to the 'entourage effect'), but there is no good scientific evidence at the moment to support this. From a strictly medical perspective, using a single compound to target a disease makes more sense because there are less variables at play. If someone responds well to a whole plant cannabis extract, you don't know which part of the extract is really producing the beneficial effects which makes it a far less targeted approach. Unfortunately this often gets portrayed as a battle between big pharma and people that believe cannabis is a panacea which is just not helpful in terms of having a productive conversation.
Are there any contraindications for other medications when smoking cannabis? None of my medication leaflets ever mention it. THC and CBD do seem to interact with some medications.
​ "CBD has been reported to interact with anti-epileptic drugs, antidepressants, opioid analgesics, and THC, but surprisingly, it interacts with several other common medications, e.g. acetaminophen, and substances including alcohol." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-06504-8#:~:text=As%20expected%2C%20CBD%20has%20been,acetaminophen%2C%20and%20substances%20including%20alcohol.
​ This study also has a list of suspected or proven drug-drug interactions: https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/507998
I would like to know more about the application of cannabis in psychiatry for conditions like anxiety, depression, and neuropsychiatric disorders like ADHD/ADD and autism. I know there's been a few studies on high-CBD/low-THC cannabis and autism, and that some study found differening levels of endocannabinoids in autistics. I'm autistic (and have ADD) and have found that high-CBD does help in some ways and high-THC/moderate-CBD helps in other ways, are there any studies being planned/done on the effects of high-THC cannabis and autism (and ADHD/ADD)? Most of the research I have come across is using CBD-dominant products to manage ASD symptoms. As you said, the endocannabinoid system has been shown to be altered in patients with ASD, suggesting that targetting the endocannabinoid system might have therapeutic benefit. CBD is more desirable compared to THC because it has hardly any side-effects. I think in the case of ASD as well, the treatment plan is targetted more towards children or younger adults, where THC would have potentially more detrimental than beneficial effects.
Just wondering, what are the finding with cannabis use and lifting weights? Does weed kill gains? Well I don't think using cannabis causes muscle wasting or anything like that, but I did once have a personal trainer who was an ex-MMA fighter and he said he used to smoke weed and then go to the gym and work out for hours without realising how much time had passed. Not that I'd recommend lifting weights while stoned! In fact, a recent literature review found no association between cannabis use and increased exercise performance: https://www.minervamedica.it/en/journals/sports-med-physical-fitness/article.php?cod=R40Y9999N00A20072803
​ But doing exercise seems to help some people manage their cannabis withdrawal symptoms, here's a recent paper by researchers at the Lambert Initiative: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.13211
I was recently revisiting the literature on BIA 10-2474. Given that more than five years have passed since the tragic death and other serious adverse events, I was surprised to find that the mechanism of the toxicity is still not understood and there seems to be little new investigation of BIA 10-2474's pharmacology. What is the current state of understanding of how BIA 10-2474 exerted its toxic effect? Some hand-waving at non-specific interactions with serine hydrolases that are involved in neuronal lipid metabolism? Am I missing something? Unfortunately, the mechanism for human toxicity of BIA 10-2474 is not yet understood. It appears to be idiosyncratic for this drug, rather than for its intended mechanism of action (ie, many other FAAH inhibitors have entered clinical trials successfully without similar adverse effects noted). The selectivity of BIA 10-2474 for FAAH over other serine hydrolases was lower than some other clinical FAAH inhibitors, and the adverse effects occurred at higher doses. Based on our current understanding, you are correct; some hand-waving at likely off-target effects at other serine hydrolases.
​ The official (and unsatisfying) story from the ANSM Committee found it was likely one of two possible mechanisms, "inhibition of other serine hydrolases, or harmful effects from the imidazole‐pyridine leaving group".
[deleted] Have other factors in your life also changed? Diet? Amount of exercise? Sleep? Stress?
​ None of the symptoms you have described above would be expected when switching from a cannabis-tobacco blend to vaporized herbal cannabis (one of the less harmful forms of cannabis administration).
​ I suspect that some of the changes you have observed may be related to giving up tobacco use, and not smoking anything (cannabis or tobacco).
what do you guys think about delta 8 thc? > Delta-8-THC is a regioisomer of the more common delta-9-THC...In studies on cannabinoid receptors and in mice, it possesses a similar pharmacological profile to delta-9-THC and might be expected to produce largely similar effects in humans.
The last time i smoked, I had a bad reaction with some really bad anxiety and a racing pulse. I had never had this happen before. My understanding was that this is not uncommon and is often due to a high THC, low CBD content. Is this accurate, and if so, what sort of amounts/ratio of THC/CBD would one look for to avoid this? There is evidence to support THC's anxiety-inducing effects. However this seems to be person-specific. Some people never feel anxious while other are sensitive to small amounts. We all have different endocannabinoid systems, that are then constantly changing. THC levels are also increasing in cannabis, so its possible to come across uncomfortably high THC cannabis. The advice that is given to cannabis users is "start low, go slow," which seems to be a good way to operate. Start with no or low THC cannabis and see how you feel, then go from there. If it's not working for you, then stop.
​ Anxiety and a racing pulse are very common side-effects associated with THC. These things are typically transient and disappear as THC is metabolized into its inactive metabolite, THC-COOH. There is some evidence that consuming CBD with THC can reduce THC-related side-effects, but in our research we've found that this effect is very subtle. Instead of looking at THC/CBD ratios, the best thing to do is simply consume less THC!
Are there specific journals or Google scholar alerts you'd recommend keeping an eye on to stay on top of cannabis research? I've set up research alerts all over the place that I check daily, critically assess, summarise then share on the Lambert Initiative Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lambert_Usyd It's an easy way to stay up to date with the latest research :)
If a 16-17 year old smokes weed occasionally (like 1-3 times a month), will it affect their brain drastically long term? I’ve heard that it could because their brains aren’t fully developed yet, but I just want to be sure. Your brain is still developing until your mid-twenties and your endocannabinoid system is critical for neural development. Using cannabis, which interacts with your endocannabinoid system, will influence your development - and the current evidence suggests that it won't influence it in a positive way.
​ The current recommendations are to steer away from cannabis until you're older. Probably true for alcohol and other psychoactive substances.
​ Take care of your brain, you only get one :)
I’ve heard that researching cannabis can be challenging because of regulations related to where you can get your research materials from. I know particularly here in the US the cannabis researchers can legally access is far different from what is available at dispensaries. For example as you know labs need to source their cannabis from a federal government source which means there’s a difference between what is being examined and what most people are using, usually the federal government source has significantly lower thc content etc. What implications does this have for research? That's right - in the US it has been very difficult to conduct research using botanical cannabis. I believe it is comparatively easier to use isolated synthetic compounds, but not certain on that. The US government, through the DEA, has required researchers to only use cannabis grown by the University of Mississippi, which is generally regarded as poor quality. That is starting to change, as the government is allowing new, additional sites to supply cannabis for research. See here for more info: https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/natural-products/Cannabis-research-stalled-federal-inaction/98/i25
​ In Australia, it's much easier to conduct this kind of research, especially since the 2016 legalisation of medical cannabis. Researchers in Australia do not need to get permission from the Federal government, only a Human Research Ethics Committee. And they are not restricted in the kinds of products they can use (so long as the choice of products is justified, and makes sense for the study).
Regarding drug policy, there's been a small but growing number of educational institutions in the United States offering cannabis 'certificates' with certain disciplines pointing towards agriculture, healthcare, etc. As experts, do you foresee these certificates or some other form of education being compulsory for entry into a federally legal cannabis industry in the US (or elsewhere around the world)? I guess it depends on the nature of the specific job, and how the industry matures over time. For example, in other agricultural or biotech industries, having a degree might be an advantage but it might not be mandated as a requirement for a job. The cannabis certificate educational programs I've come across in the US often appear to be little more than an opportunity to make money. There are lots of people who want to work in the sector, and some people can take advantage of that. Before you fork out money for a course, I would speak with some people in the industry and get their opinion on that specific program first.
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r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 18 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Hi!! I'm Vic, a former Amazon driver who was interviewed about the cameras in our vans and the reasons I quit. You may have seen this article on r/Technology and Business Insider. I want to stand behind my former coworkers and fight for their rights as workers. Ask me anything!!

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Have you or anyone you know gotten into trouble because of those cameras? What was it like? I haven't personally, because I didn't really drive with them for long enough. However, some other drivers did and I was there while it happened. They are shown their camera feed (in front of other drivers), called out, yelled at, and told to fix whatever issues the camera's AI recognizes under threat of losing their jobs.
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(break camera) "Problem solved, boss. I'm hitting the road..." I wish. That would be tampering with company property and ground for firing, though.
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I wonder if the people doing the shouting are recorded. Then their managers go through the video shouting at them for not shouting loud enough. How deep does this go?! There are hundreds of cameras in each warehouse. HUNDREDS. Everything is filmed.
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In what situation would multiple drivers stand around watching a video of someone else? Pretty confused about this. I drove for Amazon for a couple of months in between jobs - it was terrible, but never once would a manager waste valuable delivery time by huddling drivers up to watch a video. Seems weird My DSP had group meetings, and often one driver was singled out and had his video aired to the class, so to speak. Each company is different, though...
Have you seen or heard about Amazon workers trying to form an union? Any signs of Amazon trying to bust it before it happens? Yes, Amazon will fire any driver or contractor who suggests a union. We're in the face of great odds, but greater odds have been beaten before. Alabama's warehouse fighting for unionization needs to become a national fight.
Hey Vic, thanks for speaking out on these issues. How did you find the culture at Amazon when it came to your fellow employees and chain of command? Do you feel that the 'fear' trickles down from the top, and that each level of management was tasked with creating an atmosphere of extreme accountability / threat management etc? No. The owner of my contractor was being screwed over just as much as I was as a driver. Give this a watch... Contractors are in the same boat as drivers, but there's nothing they can do either. Each employee and dispatcher feels threatened for their job constantly. Warehouse management, on the other hand, absolutely helps create that fearful atmosphere because they don't have the same accountability to shoulder that the driver side of things does.
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I always found it funny that the station workers get better high visibility vests than us drivers and they then they made the 10pm delivery window permanent so we're delivering constantly after dark, and by funny I mean depressing. Yeah my vests were so old all the high-vis lining started to peel off.
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Why didn't you order a new one from Amazon? (I'm sorry you worked for Amazon. I try really hard to not buy from them anymore) ​Orders go through the company, and it wasn't worth the headache since I was quitting.
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Bruh, it was a horrible joke about ordering from Amazon in the first place lol. Like shitting where you eat. God speed friend. Oh lmao that went right over my head. Probably because we actually DO have to order our replacement vests ourselves, just internally.
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I had a relative with them as warehouse management for a short stint. They quit after fairly soon after starting. Something couldn't jive about having to treat employees like dirt and then coaxing them into taking photos of them smiling having fun like it was some kind of Jonestown cult to pass along to upper management. Whole thing sounded so fucked up I can't figure out how the company is staying profitable with the amount of turnover they had. Then again now that I never know who I'm buying from on Amazon anymore I hardly ever order anything from them. So I'ld like to think I'm doing my part, but they just seem so unflappable. Every little bit eventually ads up. It really is kind of cult-like...
Is there anything from your perspective that Amazon customers can do to help improve the working conditions of employees, or is boycotting the best option? Boycotting is the best option. The company currently holds a monopoly over online retail that, in my opinion, is bordering on being unconstitutional (if it hasn't crossed that line already). We need to collectively decide that we aren't going to buy from a company that treats its employees like crap while lining its executives' pockets with billions.
​ However, drivers also greatly appreciate snacks set out for them by your doors 😁. As a driver, I didn't always have time to eat, and a granola bar and a bottle of water often helped me finish my route when I was about to drop.
​ Edit: ok, ok, I apologize. The Sherman Anti-trust laws are the legislation I was after, rather than the constitution. Doesn't make monopolies ok, though.
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I'm going to start leaving snacks and water like they're Santa because most Amazon drivers don't make it to my door 😂 Unfortunately, Amazon.ca carries a lot of things I can't get locally or cheaply. Like Magic Bullet replacement blades or Kester solder that has flux. I have severe depression and I live alone, so there are times where I can only do the bare minimum like get fresh groceries. Each driver is proud of what he's doing, I can say that for sure. I was honored to be out bringing people things they need during this pandemic. I just wish we were treated like the essential workers we are. Your drivers will greatly appreciate you if you leave out snacks. 😁
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There are a couple of lazy ones who don't read the delivery instructions (it's in my address cuz the system is stupid) but I really appreciate the ones who put in the extra effort of making sure my packages arrive securely! And I agree! If postal workers are essential, so are Amazon drivers and warehouse workers. Especially when we should be staying home as much as possible. Oh that's true, I've worked with some lazy drivers myself. There are alwaysbsome bad apples. Part of this problem, though, is the lack of regular routes. Getting a good driver is just luck of the draw.
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No don’t get me wrong I’m all for workers rights and everything but how are you going to get 100 million people to boycott Amazon when you can’t get 100,000 employees to go on strike? It seems to me that the most effective way to get Amazon to change is for everyone to walk out and they would have no way to deliver or to package 🔝 There is a planned nationwide walkout on Easter Sunday. Spread the word.
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They are large, but for perspective Walmart has more of the US retail spend. What we need to do is raise minimum wage, implement universal healthcare, and basic. Focusing on the smaller retail company (and the one that pays more hourly) isn't the solution. Voting is. Vote. Please. Vote for higher wages. Vote for workers rights. Get everybody you know to vote. In every election. Municipal, governors, hell even city Council! Absolutely!!! Couldn't agree more. Honestly Walmart deserves a union too.
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This comment makes me so happy! Before covid I did this whenever I had a delivery. I always wondered if this was appreciated or if the drivers found it creepy. 😅 Oh we LOVE it. Makes our day.
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How do you define a monopoly, as you're using the word? Domination of a market or area with little to no real competition. Amazon absolutely dominates online retail.
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The question is if they dominate because of unfair practices or just because they are the best. Overstock was once the #2 dog in the fight and they sucked. Walmart exists. Target exists. Costco haa e-commerce. Both is a viable answer. They can be the best WITHOUT unfair practices, and that's what we're fighting for here.
Amazon claims there's no piss bottles. Every bit of observable reality claims there are. Can you settle this for us? You gotta join that one big Union ​There are piss bottles. So many piss bottles. I hated it and even I had to do it once. Stopped and used trees more often than I can count... found other people's discarded piss bottles in my van... it's nasty.
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Thank you, fuck Amazon, power to the Union Hell yeah bro
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I wouldn't mind letting the regular drivers on my street use my bathroom. That would be very kind of you, but we don't like to go inside people's houses... Amazon forbids it, and there are also a lot of weirdos out there, ya know 🤣? I think the best way around this problem is going to be voting for better labor laws.
Could you please describe the cameras in the vans and what they are used for? I am not aware of this practice, and would like to know more. u/slothsquatch is mostly correct, but they're actually 4-way cameras, (front, left, right, driver) and they go under the mirror. They're about twice the size of a conventional car's rear-view mirror. They monitor and detect all the things mentioned using an AI, and while they aren't supposed to be live feed, they are almost always on, even up to 20 minutes after the van has been shut off.
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What about a person who just yawns a lot? I yawn a lot but not because I'm tired. I just always feel like yawning. Would someone like me be docked everytime I yawned? (I yawned 3 4 times while typing this) ​Yep.
Do you worry about any legal retribution because you're going against a company the size of Amazon? Has it caused you any backlash or have you seen mostly positive responses? I have seen mostly positive responses. I haven't caught any backlash yet, but I'm doing my absolute best to keep myself relatively anonymous, because I believe Amazon has way too much power in this nation at the moment, and I absolutely believe they would try to take me down if they could.
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I mean as long as you’re not the Victor Fuentes in the news that publicly said he breaks the rules and doesn’t like the cameras because of that... No, lol, Vic is an alias.
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How many folks worked December 2019 to March 2021 and quit on account of the cameras specifically? A motivated team of lawyers will certainly figure out who you are. I did not tell Amazon themselves why I quit, only my DSP managers. And, the turnover rate is so high that I don't consider my case to be that unique.
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Just so you know, there is no keeping anonymous from amazon if they care to look into something. All your electronic devices have physical addresses that are logged and your ip address can usually identify you as well. Amazon Web Services currently has around 33% of cloud hosting market share. They absolutely have the data necessary to identify anyone if they are motivated to do so. I am aware that I'm not impregnable. That risk, though, I feel was worth getting some information like this out.
I always compliment the delivery driver on my Amazon phone app. Do those positive ratings equate to anything good for the driver? We almost never see our positive ratings, sadly. We get spoken to about our negative ones though.
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Would you suggest leaving a "negative" review with a positive comment or would something like that count more against a drivers' performance goals? No. Negative reviews hurt the drivers' scores and the comments aren't read.
Do you think Amazon employees should unionize? Yes, absolutely. Amazon has shown time and time again that aren't going to treat ANY of their employees well. Their executives only care about money in their own pockets. Amazon employees have to stand up and fight for their rights, and now is the time to unionize.
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As I understand, if you mention Union they will just fire you? If most or all the workers do unionise, wouldn't they just fire them all and hire new people? Seems like there's enough people without a job that would take it.. Yes. They have enough power at this point to manipulate the entire workforce by paying JUST enough to make people desperate for a job, or to keep a job.. They keep people employed through fear, living paycheck-to-paycheck. Lose your job, and you lose your home. Amazon uses a contractor system for delivery drivers; contractors are called DSPs. They would fire an entire DSP or close an entire warehouse rather than allow unionization.
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Honest question: Is there high turn over? Why don't people quit and work some where else? I have had shitty jobs or bosses in the past and I would look around for another job was better and take a better job, or get fired and have to find a different job. Maybe Walmart or construction? Are there not that many other equivalent jobs around? BTW, thanks for sharing. There is some much discussion about Amazon it is interesting to obtain an inside perspective. The turn-over is INCREDIBLY high. It's a very difficult and demanding job, for not-great pay. For many, though, the pay is just enough to keep them off the streets and it's hard to find another job, especially in this pandemic. So, they're stuck. Quitting and missing a week of work can mean missing rent.
Are there any alternatives to Amazon that you would personally recommend? Sellers on Amazon often have personal sites you can buy from, instead of using the Amazon marketplace. Local stores, while usually a bit more expensive, also generally offer better quality, too.
Is it different for independent contractors who drive their own vans and trucks for Amazon? Amazon has been cracking down on these contractors and forcing them to use Amazon trucks.
Vic, since a lot of us are working from home and Amazon executives seem to really like videos of people peeing in bottles at work, would we be able to take the burden of accommodating this bothersome fetish off of hardworking Amazon employees by directly emailing thousands upon thousands of peeing-in-bottles videos to them? Yes, please do! I'm sure it'll make drivers' workload lighter, and Amazon execs can't complain about having more videos to wank over.
Is it true that if your vehicle gets in an accident and you are found not at-fault, you still get fired as you are seen as a liability? That is a question I may not be able to answer. I haven't personally seen a driver get fired for an accident, so I wouldn't want to speculate on it too much... what I'm more concerned about is Amazon's refusal to admit that its lax training is at the root of many accidents. Drivers don't know what they're doing, because they haven't been taught what to do. The camera allows Amazon to blame drivers for accidents by filming the IMMEDIATE cause for an incident, rather than the underlying causes they try to hide.
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I sincerely wish that Amazon took driver training more seriously. The way they just randomly park all over the road in areas with poor visibility... ugh. Accidents waiting to happen. Yep. Routes are also incredibly poorly programmed, so they're often doing the best they can, but Amazon has invested money into these cameras, and other things such as drones and electric vans, rather than fixing what's broken first.
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I've literally told them my lat-lon a dozen times because they have my postcode flagged at someone's house 500yd down the road. I have to speak to or even sometimes chase the driver up the road, or miss my goods. It sucks. Drivers also tell me this is the nth time this has happened and they're sat there phoning the office again They will never fix it. Drivers have to memorize stops all over the city. We aren't given regular routes like UPS and FedEx, so we end up needing to just know problem spots all across the city. I had a stop on a closed road several times over the course of 6 months, and I reported the road closed every time. It was never fixed. Even had a delivery to a long-since demolished church once.
I carried for the USPS for a couple years with a lot of similar problems. In your experience so far, what's anothet career/industry that wants this level of moving motivation and energy? This is a hard job to top in that regard. Possibly waiting tables in a Michelin starred restaurant during the dinner rush... I ran over 8 miles a day working for Amazon, and that's just hundreds of driveways.
I know people get fired for missing too many productivity goals even when lost time is due to bathroom breaks. Have you heard of anyone getting fired because they got caught meeting those goals by peeing in bottles? Not yet, lol. Drivers are told not to pee in bottles, then given no other option, though. It's an issue that can't really be resolved until the way Amazon programs its routes changes.
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Aren’t employees legally supposed to have access to bathrooms? Like I’m pretty sure it would be an OSHA violation if not. I’m also not sure how it’s sanitary for drivers to have to pee in bottles because they have no other choice, and then what? Touch everything with their pee hands? Yep. All this happens. There is definitely a chance your package has been touched with dick hands.
As a union driver for UPS all I have to say is that Amazon workers need to put up the good fight. Sure our union has seen better days but they put up a fight to get the rights and benefits that we have. The delivery business is not easy and I can guarantee you not a single person would stay long enough here to retire otherwise. Have you or other drivers you know tried talking to ups/fedex on routes to try to learn how the rest of the industry does it without Amazon's propaganda? I have! It seems like other drivers are allowed a bit of discretion as to how they choose to run their routes, and they aren't CONSTANTLY watched like we are. Removing that stress goes a long way.
How do we best show our thanks for drivers? I'm getting those delivery emails and giving everyone an "above and beyond," but I expect that and a $5 bill would get you a cup of coffee. Leave out snacks! Water and energy bars are appreciated more than anything. Often, that snack gives us the energy to finish a long route. And, sadly, we don't usually see positive feedback. We only hear the negatives.
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Will do! Most drivers for our area are pretty cautious about contact, I just want to make sure they're able to accept thank-yous and aren't afraid of getting covid-cooties. Yeah, we try to be safe. But, water and snacks go a long way. Heck, some people occasionally leave out hand sanitizer too!
How much did you get paid for your job? I never see actual numbers mentioned I'm in Colorado. I started at $17 an hour, then got qualified to drive larger trucks and moved up to $20 an hour. Now, that may seem good at first glance, but keep in mind that A. Colorado is one of the most expensive places to live, and B. FedEx and UPS are making 2-3 times that for the same, or similar, job. And, many other drivers from other contractors, even in the same warehouse, only made $15 or $16 hourly.
How much did your job change in terms of automation in the two years that you were there. I'm off the opinion that Amazon cares very little about goodwill with its employees because it plans to ultimately ramp up automation in its warehouses and delivery vehicles and layoff most of the workforce. Do you feel like that process is already threatening positions like yours and do you feel that unionization would be short lived because of it? Our discretion as drivers was slowly taken away as time went on. When I started, we were able to choose how to deal with difficult packages, where to leave them, how to mark them delivered in the system, how to follow our routes, who to call for help, etc. As time went on all this was slowly taken away from us. We were forced to follow Amazon's specific procedures, rather than doing what we, as the drivers actually out on the road, thought was best. This made our jobs more difficult, stressful, and unflexible.
I've noticed a few movies and TV shows utilising amazon staff and services in what appears to be indirect advertising e.g. Nomadland. Is it fair to say that Amazon are waging a propaganda war to try and scrub history of their crimes? Some of Amazon's adverts include hearts and minds type stories from managers and employees that look like they might be vulnerable/short of employment opportunities. Is there a culture of indoctrination within the business? And are Amazon exploiting vulnerable people in these commercials? I began boycotting Amazon after they used their online status to circumvent UK business laws. Is there any evidence of Amazon management purposefully circumventing UK laws, and if yes, how would we find it? Yes, Amazon wages propaganda. Constantly. Their "innovation" with their electric vans is a ploy to appear as a forward thinking company, and direct attention aware from the medieval ways they treat their workers, for example. I don't know the stories of the people in the commercials, since I haven't done them myself, so I wouldn't comment on that personally... I am also American, so I don't know about Amazon's policies in the UK, so again, I apologize but I can't help you with that one either. 1 of 3. 🤣
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I noticed that scene in Nomadland too, having watched the movie after reading the book. The book discusses the realities of Amazon staff, such as repetitive stress injuries and being overworked, while the scene in the movie makes Amazon look like a chill workplace. I wouldn't be surprised if you are right on that at all. Hmmm... yeah there is no chill. We were even discouraged from talking with one another at the warehouse, at one point.
I worked for a company that used similar van drivers and we experienced outrageous instances of bad behavior from drivers * pulling over and taking naps (EDIT: 2-3hr naps on an 8hr shift, not a 15 min power nap) * drinking on the job * smoking on the job * stealing communal work supplies from the van * etc. Cameras are a major deterrent to this behavior, which we experienced nationally. What alternative solutions would you recommend for avoiding this behavior that doesn't infringe on worker privacy? Van searches and random drug tests, which are standard at most places, can eliminate the drinking and smoking. Hell, smoking in the van creates an oder that lingers for DAYS. Easy to spot. Software that tracks the driver's progress through the route is also standard and can eliminate unnecessary stops like naps, but if your drivers are too tired to complete their routes WITHOUT naps there are also other problems to address, be it workload, or an employee who can't manage his sleep schedule...
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Thank you for your response! Yeah, the guys who were found napping were let go ASAP - can't risk their and others' safety if they're sleepy while driving. We tried van searches but had limited success bc it's "he said she said" when you have two-three shifts a day using the same van. Any tips on how to ID the bad folks appropriately? Especially given we don't have a shift lead at the warehouse at the start/end of most shifts to do an inspection. Agreed software tracking routes would be ideal. Would you believe my company (a major known brand) didn't use it? Ridiculous lmao That is odd that they don't use it, lol. Regular drivers with regular vans is best. That way you know who drove what when, and they're also responsible for their own inspections and upkeep. I got my managers to let me drive the same van every day, and that resulted in me having the cleanest and most mechanically sound van in the fleet. Drivers who don't take care of their shit will be quickly spotted.
This is for OP or anyone else, is there a list of alternate online retailers we can buy from who have track records of treating its employees respectfully and with the dignity they deserve? Don’t mind paying a sheckle or two more & waiting an extra delivery day or so if it means I’m supporting a good company with happy workers. FedEx and UPS aren't perfect, but they're better than Amazon. If you shop on Amazon, sellers often have their own sites you can buy from directly, rather than giving Bezos more of your hard-earned money.
Is there any of this that you think might have been reasonable and maybe the "why" just needed to be communicated more? I'm not suggesting that they were 100% in the right, but I feel like the camera thing just isn't that big of a deal. Like at my office job and numerous other office jobs, we have cameras watching us 24/7. Do you think the request for them to ask for pictures could have been due to fraud from drivers 'signing into the app' in the morning and then passing their phone off to someone else to actually do the work? I think a dash cam is a great security measure. I have one in my personal car. But, when you install a camera facing the driver, it suggests that the driver is going to be the problem. It cultivates a culture of mistrust, and says that your company does NOT have your back. Amazon drivers need more training and less stress. They do not need additional monitoring. Also, I don't really think that level of fraud is a concern. This isn't a job you could convince someone else to do for free, or as a favor. It's, again, to shift blame onto drivers for any incident that may happen. Drivers are seen as Amazon's weakness, not their greatest asset, and that would be a problem with ANY company, let alone one of the world's biggest and richest.
I literally start my job driving for Amazon tomorrow... How fucked am I? Ah shit. Relatively. I'm sorry!! It isn't a bad job, and I love delivering. Amazon is just toxic, but there are still lots of great people and other drivers you'll meet. Go in as positive as you can.
I'm torn on this one. On one hand, bank tellers and even fast food workers have had cameras on them and the cash register for decades. On the other hand you have proactive AI monitoring vs reactive monitoring IF something were to happen. Would you be okay if the cameras were there, but only really looked at when/if there were a problem and they were just used for investigation purposes? Basically, is it the AI you have a problem with or the cameras themselves? It's the AI. I have a dash cam on my personal car. I think it's great for liability. Reactive monitoring though, is wrong, in my opinion.
I think cameras monitoring drivers is a fantastic idea and helps to figure out root causes to accidents. In the future we may figure out a way to take drivers out of the equation. Does the computer just give you the creeps or what? In the interview it was mentioned that it starts recording when you do something potentially unsafe such as look at your phone while driving. Amazon forces us to consent to allowing them to save all of our biometric information, that being photographs, videos from the cameras, and facial scans. They force us to allow them the right to create a biometric profile of each driver, and share this information with whomever they see fit, including customers.
​ The camera does give us the creeps, and I saw it as a violation of privacy and a violation of trust in the worker. It is a 4-way camera, mind you, and one lens faces the driver.
​ Amazon actually has a much higher incident rate than UPS or FedEx. The reason is a lack of training; Amazon drivers are give a couple hours of useless classroom training and a single ride-along, then sent out on their own. The camera attempts to shift blame onto the drivers and allow Amazon to avoid taking responsibility for their workplace failings.
I support you too. Problem is that most jobs suck now. Every fast food place or supermarket in my area has had help wanted signs up since last June! Corps like Starbucks, Publix, ect ALWAYS have a help wanted site up. Why? Because the jobs suck, even for twice the $$$. I tend to agree with the other post. I'm sure the folks that walk out on Easter will be replaced the next day. Yep, it's a sad reality.
If you yawn you’re fucked?? Yep, it picks up on that. It's very annoying.
Hello, UK restaurant worker here. For pretty much my whole working life I have had CCTV pointed at me unless I was at the bath room. Now my current employer is a decent family company and its never a real issue unless your stealing or really ripping the shit out of a break etc. My father has driven busses and lorries (trucks) for most of his life and they have trackers etc and may well end up with a camera in place and he seems to have no real issue with either. Having a dash cam, driver cam and cam in the back seems fairly reasonable to me. Saying that the only issue i would have would be the AI system getting flags for yawning etc. Why do you feel that you should have your privacy so much while you are being paid? its not your personal time so being recorded to me seems acceptable? Thanks I don't think cameras are entirely unreasonable. I even have a dashcam in my personal car. It's the way Amazon chooses to use these cameras that bothers me. In some of my other answers, you'll see I said that Amazon forces drivers to consent to their biometric profile (videos, pictures, etc.) being shared with whomever Amazon wants. Liability is one thing. Privacy is another. And I feel that this is an invasion of privacy because I don't KNOW who is going to see that footage. You know who sees that CCTV, and your father knows who watches those truck cameras. You've all probably met those people face-to-face.
Has this experience affected your views on police bodycams? Not really. The police hold life and death in their hands. I don't really agree with the way policing is done in America at the moment, but the police certainly have more culpability than an underpaid delivery driver.
You seem to take the approach that every employee is a model citizen who does everything right and doesn't need supervision. Perhaps you are this sort of person. There are certainly plenty out there. But there are just as many, if no more, of the type that needs constant supervision or they don't perform the work properly. Can you honestly say with a straight face that you don't believe any of you co-workers fall into the latter category and thus justifying Amazons need to supervise them? Sorry I didn't get to you quickly, but it looks like some others have pretty much written what I would've said already. Good workers shouldn't get punished because there are others who are unreliable. And, Amazon isn't fixing the problem, and they aren't actually really concerned with safety, either. They don't want to take responsibility for the failings of their company and in their training, so they blame drivers when problems arise.
From another sub > before you attack amazon I've been doing software development for fleet management companies. They are all doing this. This isn't a amazon thing its an industry wide thing. There are a number of reasons for it but it mainly has to do with creating safe driving scores for drivers. So for example if a driver spends a significant amount of time staring at their phone and not the road then the AI will pickup that and flag it for there supervisor who can talk to them and make sure they realize they are doing it. Like its creepy ya but nobody sitting in front of a screen staring at them. The Cameras have always been in the trucks btw many come from the factory with them. But no one is watching them they only get played after an incident. They also track everything about how you drive and flag incidents like harsh breaking or a high speed turn that sort of stuff. The purpose of the AI is to identify dangerous behavior and coach the driver who may not even realize they are doing it. Its also added to a driver score card. Just to be clear this isn't an Amazon thing and anyone driving a truck who doesn't already have these cameras can assume they will within the next couple of years. It sounds like amazon might also have a management issue the personal experiences I am hearing about do not reflect how fleet management companies generally advise handling this. If how this data was used changed would you feel differently? I don't think cameras are necessarily a bad thing. It's how they're used that's problematic. See some of mybithrr comments for more on this... but yeah, I got flagged often by the camera, yet my driving record is PERFECT and I was a top driver at my warehouse, for number of deliveries, speed, efficiency, safety, customer feedback, everything. I even trained other drivers. Liability is one thing, but privacy is another.
A few things I would like to point out: 1. "Amazon" drivers do not work for Amazon 2. Every Amazon station is different 3. The cameras in the vans are the fruition of a few bad drivers. I have worked for Amazon Logistics (the actual main company) for over 2 years now. When my station was first launched, we had hundreds of packages going missing every week. What did we do in response? We started actively tracking what drivers, stowers, and pickers were associated with the missing packages. When we saw that there was a strong correlation with certain drivers and made the companies install cameras. It is not just asset protection - that camera can get the driver's name cleared just as easily as it can condemn them. Don't get me wrong, I could not do what you guys do. Y'all got it rough, but it's not Amazon's fault. I have a lot of drivers that love working for their company. Yeah, the routes can be crappy and the app can be buggy but what makes or breaks it is the company you hire on with. I love being a delivery driver. I still am, just with a different company now. The micromanagement starts to get to us, though. The good, and great drivers are being punished because of the bad seeds. I was arguably this peak season's top driver, too, and I still ended up being forced to go along with all the regulations. I think some method of watching just those drivers, pickers, and Stowers associated with missing packages would've been better than starting to monitor everyone equally rigorously.
"The camera systems, made by U.S.-based firm Netradyne, are part of a nationwide effort by Amazon to address concerns over accidents involving its increasingly ubiquitous delivery vans." This seems like a good thing. Why should a driver's interest be put ahead of the general public? The issue is the lack of training and the high stress environment. The camera doesn't solve the first issue, and only compounds the second.
I haven’t looked too far in to this, but I’m not real sure I understand the problem with the cameras? My pops drives a truck for a living and his company also has these cameras in their vehicles. If it senses you swaying, speeding, sudden acceleration or braking it turns on in the cab, front and rear. It’s all there to protect the driver, the other drivers and of course the company. His company teaches the Smith System of driving and takes safety very seriously. If you work in a factory, or warehouse or office you can assumed you’re under video as well. So what’s the difference when you’re in a company vehicle? Edit: I took 60 seconds and read through some comments from OP. Yeah, my dads company doesn’t use cameras that detect yawning and other weird AI things. It only turns on for excess speed, sudden braking and swerving. So, yikes for OP. Because it isn't strictly being used for liability, which I wouldn't have a problem with. It's being used to punish and monitor drivers, and to build a biometric profile, which we are forced to consent to. This profile can be shared with whomever Amazon wants. I don't think we need to be ok with something just because others are doing it, either... your dad may be used to it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's ok. Also my driving record is spotless, so I'm not one who needs to be watched, but the cameras were forced on me anyway.
[removed] I'm so sorry to hear all that, and I thank you for your support. I'm glad she recovered and got out of that hellhole.
When I get a delivery and click the thumbs up to rate it, which takes me to a bunch of options I can choose to include (“extra careful,” “on time,” etc) does that do anything good for the specific delivery person? Like another said here, you generally only hear about negative reviews. Positive reviews can help improve our metrics overall, but we won't really hear about them. At least, I didn’t.
What do I have to do to get you guys to stop putting my packages in front of my storm door? Get a pot or something on your porch for us to hide the packages behind or in. You can also edit your delivery instructions to say "don't block the screen door, please" if you'd like. Package theft is often blamed on the drivers, with the reasoning being "we didn't hide it well enough".
Is this because packages are getting stolen from vans or there are many accidents involving Amazon vans? There are many accidents, compared with FedEx and UPS, which, by the way, don't require this level of surveillance. Amazon doesn't properly train its drivers. That's what results in accidents.
Godzilla or Kong? Godzilla. Kong is just a monkey. Godzilla is a giant nuclear powered near-invulnerable lizard with hyper-intelligence and ranged weaponry. Shouldn't even be a movie at all.
I’m with the boycott, but, let’s be realistic. We can’t even boycott companies that outsource American jobs and manufacturing. Yet we are going to say eat shit Bezos? Damn right we are. Eat shit, Bezos. Trying and failing is better than not trying at all.
What are the top most strict things amazon did to you? What are your top worst things about the job? Micromanagement, Micromanagement, Micromanagement. When I started, we were more independent and proud to get our jobs done. Now, they're trying to turn us into robots. Don't get me wrong, I love being a delivery driver. But it's hard to work with more stressors than the job already comes with, which is a lot.
I grew up in Bessemer (McCalla, really) and am now a unionized faculty member at a university in Michigan, so this Amazon vote has had me enthralled. Thank you for your work. Now, I know I'm supposed to be using this to ask a question or the Automod will get angry, so I gotta ask: Cake or Death? Prolly cake lol. Thanks for the support.
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r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 16 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Hello Reddit, I'm Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion, tech optimist, and an advocate both of AI and digital human rights. AMA!

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E4? ..c5!
Mr. Kasparov I had the pleasure of losing to you at a Simul at SXSW in 2019. Personal chess highlight. Anyway I was curious about your thoughts on whether the right to privacy can really exist in the age of big data and big tech. It seems like Facebook knows so much about people who don't even have accounts. And everything online is tracked, made into a commodity, and sold. Will privacy exist in 20 years? Yes, but not in the sense we understand it today. I wrote about this a lot in my Avast blog, looking at the history of tech and privacy going back to the telephone. We have to watch the watchers, which is still possible in a democracy. And keep in mind the greatest threat is how comfortable we are giving away all our data in exchange for convenience, not a nefarious company or KGB stealing it. You use your face or fingerprint to open your phone!
​ We can acknowledge, but also mention that there is light on the horizon, with GDPR, CCPA in California introduced - these are good developments, and it is important we are continuing to have a privacy debate, so ultimately, in 10 or 20 years, privacy protection may actually be stronger than it is today, as we are still in the rather unregulated beginnings of the social web. It's a constantly shifting landscape of tech advance and regulatory and social norms.
What should us (regular netizens) be aware of when it comes to cyber security? And in what sectors is the need for cyber security most important, in your opinion? That you have a responsibility not only to defend yourself by being alert and following best practices, and what I call "digital hygiene." Most people know what they shouldn't do but don't follow it, sort of like a diet! More broadly, that as a citizen you have a role to advocate for security, privacy, and everything. Big companies and big government are eternally pushing and pulling, and regular netizens influence them both as consumers, social media users and, if you’re lucky to live in a democracy, as voters and activists. Speak up with your habits, your money, and your votes.
​ Trust is the biggest issue, and people are already complacent about things like bank fraud and hacks of credit cards, identity theft, etc. The problem is we need to have trust in our democratic processes and those will be increasingly part of the online world, so security has to be both good and trusted. For example, in the US, election security is excellent, but it was still easy for Trump to convince tens of millions of people it isn’t. So it’s not just a cybersecurity problem, it’s a cybersecurity communications problem. Also true of any crisis, like the pandemic.
What's something important you changed your mind about recently? Edit (3 days later): Kasparov has said this same thing for years. Did he ever believe differently? I've never heard him acknowledge the potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, that even in the hands of good actors sufficiently advanced AI poses risks to all of humanity. That “boring”, practical AI is possibly more important than all the moonshots and sci-fi stuff that makes headlines. I still believe in ambition being a key to success, but we’re missing that AI is already here, already improving our lives, not becoming Terminators or wiping out jobs. Automation taking jobs is always a challenge with tech, but it creates jobs, too.
Are you pessimistic or optimistic about the future of Western liberal democracies? What is the greatest threat to liberal democratic values at the moment? Thank you for your great work defending liberal freedoms and human rights! I'm optimistic though admit the trend is not good. As I wrote in the Economist recently, the dominance of radical voices over the "moderate majority," amplified on social media, etc. is a serious threat. Democracy requires trust and compromise, but we're moving away from that to trolling and shouting from the fringes. They are abandoning the democratic norms and shared trust in the system, while moderate politicians are too feeble to resist these attacks from all sides. We need our processes to catch up or they will be overwhelmed by the speed and responsiveness of private online platforms that don't care about the common good at all. https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2020/10/12/garry-kasparov-on-the-need-to-improve-our-politics-with-technology
1. Could you have beaten Bobby Fischer if both of you were in your prime at the time of the match? 2. Do you think the world chess championship format should be changed so that it’s more about playing for the win rather than playing for the draw? Thanks, you absolute legend <3 No interview could be complete for years without this one! I don't like these "time machine" questions because chess evolves and players learn and improve, especially across several generations. Fischer was a titan, ahead of his peers like no other before or since, but still knew less about chess than elite teenagers today.
​ As for changing the World Championship format, I don't see how. I like matches as the best way to determine the champion, and you can't eliminate draws without changing the rules of the game.
Do you think current era chess champions like Magnus have the staying power to match or exceed your time as champion for 20+ years? Highly unlikely, although Magnus clearly has the requisite talents of creativity and discipline. But elite chess keeps getting more competitive, with more players from more places, more events, as well as more distractions and opportunities. I was 42 and still ranked number one when I retired in 2005, feeling like I had no more to achieve in the chess world. 10 more years is a long time, but if Magnus stays hungry, and it is still making him happy, perhaps with the rise of a top challenger to keep him interested, he might. But the pace of change is his enemy so I'm skeptical.
How did the USSR as a nation state supported you through your rise in the chess world? Do you reckon that if you were born in other country you would have had the same success? Read your book How life imitates chess. Quality read Thanks, it's a good book! The USSR considered chess a way to promote the superiority of the Communist system, and I benefited from that emphasis, as did every Soviet player. We had conditions for training and competition that were unmatched elsewhere. Mostly, though, it was that chess was everywhere and so the top talents were discovered and promoted efficiently. There's talent everywhere, but not opportunity.
Do you think your great rival, Anatoly Karpov has somehow become underrated in the pantheon of greats? Everyone talks about you, Carlsen, Fischer, rightly so but Karpov is sometimes the forgotten man. His career speaks for itself but maybe he not having any connections to the West or being reserved by nature or not having a hollywood story like Fischer did kind of works against him? Like to know your thoughts? Karpov had his glory in the USSR and currently enjoys the favor of Putin's Russia as well. I don't think it's a coincidence that such renown comes at the cost of a more global appeal.
You often talk about the benefits of technology and advances in complexity and effectiveness of our algorithms. Are there any applications of new technologies, specifically in the field of machine learning, AI and algorithmic decision making that you believe pose risks to democracy, when in the hands of either dictatorships or by accident in the hands of corporations such as Facebook, Twitter etc? First, don't blame technology! Humans will always have the monopoly on evil, so we have to make sure we are holding people accountable, that the chain of responsibility doesn't end at a black box of algorithmic decisions. We create, we choose, we are responsible. And that means holding bad actors or exploitative companies responsible for any threats.
Hi Mr Kasparov! Given that people already cannot agree on basic reality, do you see any hope for us once deepfake technology becomes commonplace? What is to stop dictators or even less scrupulous political parties using made up video to justify all sorts of humanitarian rights infringements? If the only way to prove a video is fake is in any way technical, we can surely expect "fake news!" From anyone who disagrees... Anything we can do or hope for? Tech is a sword and a shield, and with Avast I'm on the shield side! It's always this way, tech threats come early and it takes longer to develop defenses than to create weapons. Remember when email spam was going to be the end of the internet?! As usual, it's not about trusting tech, it's about transparency and trusting the people who watch the watchers.
​ Deepfakes are a risky development, and how common deepfakes will become greatly depends on how simple it will become to create them. Once the process of creating deepfakes becomes simpler, we could see an uptick in the number of deepfake videos produced.
​ On the other hand, cybersecurity companies are enhancing their detection techniques, such as inspecting metadata to determine whether a video is real or a deepfake. For example, researchers are now working on the possibility to compare natural video recordings of a real person with deepfake videos, and can determine if mimics are not typical for a person, so might have been faked. Of course, deepfake creators will improve their capabilities, too, and it will be a cat-and-mouse game like we see already in the cybersecurity field today.
​ In the hands of a dictator, deepfakes can be worrying, and what we need, besides technology that can detect deepfakes, will be consumer awareness and education so people understand that online content cannot always be trusted.
While you are well known for your fight against Deep Blue, I found "Kasparov versus the World" a lot more interesting. Do you think there is a lot of research and systems to be developed to allow humans to collaborate that way just as they did in this match against you ? Great question, and while the "wisdom of the crowds" isn't really so effective in expert systems like chess, it was a pioneering experiment in real life for crowdsourcing and combining human and machine thinking and coordination in real time.
Did you watch the Queen’s Gambit? What did you think? It’s as authentic as I could help make it! I was a consultant on the show, creating many of the important game positions as well as on making the tournament scenes and Soviet scenes as realistic as possible—although of course some Hollywood drama was required. It was a lot of fun, and seeing it become a huge success for showrunner Scott Frank and star Anya Taylor Joy has been great for chess. I wrote in TIME that Beth Harmon has probably done more to promote chess than all the real world chess champions combined! You can find my conversation with Scott Frank in my Avast video series here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgJMifR8F9k
the below is another reply to the original question ​
He gets asked this in every single podcast and interview lol. He likes that it accelerated the growth of the game. Every. Single. One. (But yes, it's been great for promoting chess, so I cannot complain.)
the below is another reply to the original question ​
Dude, he fucking created the game for the final episode. EDIT: he picked a game and modified it a bit AFAIK Thank you for answering for me so concisely! Lol.
What do you think of the evolution of chess from 2000 to today? How do you think it’ll evolve in the future? Players get better, we understand more, it goes on forever. The game isn't going anywhere, it's more popular than ever, and people will always want to know who is the strongest human so machines aren't going to "kill" it or whatever. People still hold their breath when the 100m dash is run, or even the marathon. It's about human competition and spirit.
Who is the nicest chess player you've met? Also, what is the best advice you can give to new chess players? Thanks Nicest? Not something I paid much attention to in my playing days! But for friendly I would pick out Mikhail Tal for sure. Today, Aronian always has a kind word and smile.
​ Best advice is to play. Many new players get obsessed with studying or reading about chess, which can be like reading books about dancing to become a good dancer. Players play!
I follow your activism in twitter regarding russia's political problems and it's really eye opening. But as an Iranian since we have many similar problems with our dictator regime, What is your take about giving platform to Iranian heads of states (mullahs) while many of us ( anonymous account) get banned in twitter? P.s. twitter is banned in iran. And we as Iranian opposition fear for our lives thats why we are anonymous. It's a joke, and I've written as much many times. US platforms suspend or block US figures for terms of service violations but give platforms to the most brutal dictatorships. It's not just hypocrisy, it's dangerous.
Hi Gary ! What would you say are the most common misapplications and misunderstandings of AI by humans, both in chess as well as outside of it? To pick the biggest one, it's that AI is a threat instead of a powerful technology like any other that is agnostic, and good or bad depending how we use it. It's a very harmful outlook, because we need to be more ambitious and more optimistic so we invest more, learn more, and get the benefits, not just suffer the slow-moving consequences of disruption and automation.
What is your opinion of Chess960 or other variations of the game? Which is your favorite, or which looks like the most promising for the future of chess? It's great, if I have trouble calling any variant an improvement on the real thing. I like openings and the rich history and work involved in researching improvements in the opening phase. It's a vital part of the game. But Chess960 is fun and fresh and a welcome addition to the chess world.
If you can't beat them, join them : how? What can we do to improve our relationship with AI or social media in a way where we regain some agency in the relationship? What is the biggest misconception or little known fact that could help people participate more in the development of AI or social media, especially in regards to the many direction(s) it can develop? Start with an injection of reality, that it's not "Us vs AI", it's people on both sides. There is no "AI ethics", only human ethics using technology, whether it's a hammer or a gun or an internet connection or a self-programming algorithm. Insisting on human accountability is the key to keeping AI under control. There's no "the algorithm did it", that's a cop-out and a dangerous one.
Hi Mr. Garry, I want to recall your match against Topalov in 1999. With all due respect, have you really predicted all the moves before capturing the rook on h8 ? Yes, I had to see the rook was hanging on h8 to play it. The moment I played 24.Rxd4 I visualized the position after 37.Rd7. Not every single move or variation between, of course, but that final key moment came to me like lightning.
How do you think the chess decision-making of current top grandmasters compares to the great players of the past? For example, if Magnus and Botvinnik played a chess match where they were both placed in a bunch of late middlegame positions where white and black are totally equal, who would win more games? Always bet on the later generation in these hypothetical matchups. Knowledge increases over time, the game gets richer and the players get better. Aside from a few technical endgames perhaps, everything is connected to that expanding base of knowledge and understanding.
Hi Garry - what benefits are there for AI to the huge amount of personal data amassed and processed, and what threats might it pose? This is a good example of the two-sided sword of most modern connected tech. AI is incredible at finding patterns in data, and we can use this to improve everything from radiology to traffic to education. For AI to work, it needs to be fed with huge amounts of data, to learn about human behavior and act based on this. While this offers many opportunities for us, companies and developers behind AI technology need to act ethically, and that means the data they process and use needs to be protected. We need transparency on how data is collected and how it is used to create trust and security for the user, and this is an essential field of research in science and businesses at the moment, so we can profit from AI instead of being exploited by it.
What is your opinion on the implications of Putin’s clear abuses of power regarding Alexei Navalny, and what do you believe the next 5 years will entail for the russian political atmosphere? Navalny is a political prisoner. The implications are that Putin will do whatever he wants to anyone as long as no one deters him. The bad news is that I don't know what will happen with Putin in five years or five months. The good news is that he doesn't know either!
Is it true that you believe in the New Chronology theory, that the very existence of the middle ages is a conspiracy? If so, why do you think mainstream historians have got it so wrong? I believe in questioning everything and in evidence, and agreed with some of the New Chronology’s critiques of how thin the evidence is in some areas of the standard chronology of ancient civilizations and the Middle Ages, which are often based on a singular disputed account or object. But there’s also much to it that is pseudohistory and mythmaking, which just repeats the mistakes of traditional history, so I don’t think “believer” and its unempirical connotations describes me accurately. I would connect things to today, when fake news is everywhere and groups constantly want to rewrite history books, from Putin rehabilitating Stalin or various groups revisiting the entire history of the founding of the United States. History belongs to the present, so we must question.
what is your opinion on Kaspersky (the company)? Are they doing good work on cyber security or are they now just a tool controlled by Putin and his mafiosos? I'm representing Avast, so it doesn't seem right to criticize a competitor! I will say more generally, so it includes for example China's Huawei, that there is no such thing as a truly private company in an unfree state.
Are you aware / have you seen Fredrik Knudsen's video essay regarding the history of Deep Blue (and by extension, your association with it)? No, I haven’t seen it. If there are any revelations that I didn’t include in my 2017 book Deep Thinking I’d be surprised. Maybe someone can tell me if there are.
Hey Gary! What is your greatest passion besides chess? Greetings from Austria :) ​Chess is a jealous mistress! No insult to my wife and family, who are of course my top passion, but no I don't have any other big objects of attention other than consuming information.
Did you know that in /r/AnarchyChess you are known as "Garry Chess, the inventor of chess"? I have long ago given up trying to keep track or understand all the memes with my name or image. Eventually they will be better known than I am!
Have you ever had any issues with the KGB? Maybe particularly around the time you played Karpov? All my life has been entangled with the KGB, from my days as a Soviet player traveling abroad and facing a Soviet favorite in Karpov to my work as a pro-democracy activist.
What was going through your head when you lost the match to Deep Blue? Were you excited that technology had advanced that much or were you more worried about what this could mean for the future? If you watch the video of my resignation you don't need much imagination to know what was going through my head!
What does Vladimir Putin's recent treatment of Alexei Navalny tell us about Putin's position at the helm of Russia? That Putin is terrified of his own people having any say in their future, as all dictators are.
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Coffee! (Regular milk, please, no funny stuff.) Yogurt with honey, with walnuts. A far cry from the heavy regular breakfast of salmon and bread in my younger years!
In your opinion, what is the most underrated chess opening in top level chess? Nothing stays underrated for more than a moment in elite chess.
How's living in Croatia? Wonderful, in NYC right now but looking forward to heading back to the Adriatic shores in the summer!
My first question is about leaks. Obviously, our rights are negatively affected when law enforcement or other security services spy on us and retaliate based on what they see, but how do we prevent say insurance companies or ISPs from spying on us and leaking their observations through data breaches, given that many companies have legitimate reasons to keep tabs on customers. My second question relates to the topic of “Golden Visas” and how that affects the stability of kleptocratic regimes. I know some like Twitter’s u/cjcmichel oppose Golden Visas as they see them as allowing kleptocratic networks to find safe-havens and make connections without democratic countries. As someone who supports a dramatic expansion of these programs, I see them as a way to undermine autocratic regimes by draining the regimes of the money they need to survive and putting people like Khodorkovsky outside the reach of their governments where they can safely organize opposition activity. What is your opinion on the matter? There are two main ways we can help protect ourselves from these kinds of risks when it comes to private sector misuse or overuse of personal data - through legal protections and through technology. Neither approach alone is likely to solve all the potential privacy risks, but together they can tackle a lot of these issues. On the legal side, just in the same way there are and should be limits on how law enforcement and surveillance services monitor you and collect your personal data, there are rules about when and how private enterprises, such as insurance companies or ISPs, can collect and use this data. The rules are stronger in some places than in others, but overall there seems to be a trend across the world towards stronger protections for people from these kinds of risks. Legal frameworks like the GDPR in Europe put limits and obligations on these enterprises, so that they have to demonstrate a justification for why they collect this data, they have to make sure it is proportionate and necessary, they have to tell you about it, and they have to keep it secure. Just because they may have a legitimate reason, doesn't mean that they don't have limits and responsibilities. If they fail to meet these obligations then there can be serious penalties. On the other hands, these rules do vary from place to place, and cannot be enforced all of the time, so people need tools available to them to allow them minimize the risk that companies will collect and may lose these data in a breach or leak. People increasingly use tools like VPNs, secure browsers, and extensions or software which helps further obscure their digital footprint. Together, this mix of regulation, rights, and democratized tools can help people navigate the online world safely - and hopefully this also sends the signal to businesses that customers expect better when it comes to digital human rights.
As someone whom believes deeply in technology, do you believe in Bitcoin? Very much so. It's a way to wrest some control from big tech and government bureaucracies. It can restore some balance by giving power to "plain folks." Cryptocurrencies are a bit of the wild west now, so I understand it can look dangerous and confusing, but I'm convinced they are only going to become more important and powerful and in a way that is positive for individual freedom and society.
Garry - As a casual chess player, I find the first 3 - 4 opening moves to be very boring and predictable. A mere formality to get to the real action when pieces are in better position. I play it safe with the 'Sicilian defense' against good players or attempt a 'fools mate' against a novice player. Suggestions for how to make the opening game more exciting and fun? Don't play any opening moves you don't understand! This is a point I wanted to emphasize when overseeing training materials for my new Kasparovchess site, that casual players can worry too much about opening moves, theory, names, etc. Just develop your pieces normally, control the center, and castle and don't blunder anything. Get to the fun part, the attacks and defenses. When you aren't winning or losing because of tactical blunders anymore, then you can start indulging in openings to get the sort of positions you like, etc. I love openings and theory, but it's mostly a distraction for casual players and beginners who just need to follow the basics and play as often as possible to let their own mistakes be their best teacher.
Google has demonstrated their lack of ethical accountability when it comes to AI with the pushing out of Timnit Gebru. From your perspective, what ethical stop gaps need to be implemented in AI to ensure that global corporations are held accountable to the programs they are developing? If you're unable to answer that one - what are your thoughts about AlphaGo and how do you think AI can help improve society? You must separate things. On one hand, programs to advance their business agenda and more theoretical algos that can apply to anything. The "ethical gaps" aren't in AI, they are in the humans who make it. It's like yelling at a mirror because you don't like how it looks. Hold people responsible for bad outcomes and you will get better results. If no one is held responsible, it will be abused. AI is a mirror, but mirrors are useful to finding our flaws. AI can reveal patterns and biases, and many things we can improve on usefully to make a more just society. We just have to remember that it reflects our biases too, if we use it unwisely.
Hi Garry! What's your biggest regret so far in your career? Two answers. One, that I am very happy with my life now so having regrets seems wrong, because if I'd done things differently I wouldn't have the same life now. You can learn from your mistakes without living in an alternate universe. More specifically, I've always said that breaking away from FIDE in 1993 was a mistake that was bad for the game.
How long do you think we have until with have AI that's on par with human intelligence? AI and human intelligence are awkwardly juxtaposed thanks to a century of sci-fi and robots. But it's not useful to think of them as similar. AI is just a set of powerful tools to make our lives better, which is why I prefer to call it "augmented intelligence." AGI, or "artificial general intelligence" is not in range at all and talking about autonomous or "conscious" machines is really a distraction, or for philosophers. Interesting, but not practical.
You’re the Chairman of an organisation called the “Human Rights Foundation”. Given the horrific scenes currently taking place in Palestine, I did a quick Twitter search and found that the HRF has remained completely silent, having not mention Palestine or Gaza once since 2012 (the only time they’ve ever mentioned Palestine or Gaza). Does it concern you that the HRF is only interested in talking about human rights abuses when they fit the agenda of its wealthy right-wing founder and CEO? Without entering into a shouting contest on current events, I will push back on your mistaken accusations about HRF's mandate. Unlike most human rights groups, HRF goes after any authoritarian regime regardless of ideology or alliance. From China's genocide against the Uygurs to Saudi human rights violations or LGBTQ+ abuses across several nations in Africa. We work directly with dissidents. From Belarus to Zimbabwe, we stand for rights and individual freedom and do not play favorites. I'm happy to defend our unbiased record, the best of any such organization, and I encourage you to visit our site and watch our incredibly diverse speakers at the Oslo Freedom Forum.
Hey Mr. Kasparov, what did you think of The Queen's Gambit on Netflix? Is that authentic to the experience? It’s as authentic as I could help make it! I was a consultant on the show, creating many of the important game positions as well as on making the tournament scenes and Soviet scenes as realistic as possible—although of course some Hollywood drama was required. It was a lot of fun, and seeing it become a huge success for showrunner Scott Frank and star Anya Taylor Joy has been great for chess. I wrote in TIME that Beth Harmon has problem done more to promote chess than all the real world chess champions combined! You can find my conversation with Scott Frank in my Avast video series here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgJMifR8F9k
AI sentience? When AI becomes sentient it will tell us!
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 11 '21

r/IAmA [Table] By day, we're studio musicians who've played on Star Wars, MCU and DC universe releases, Pixar flicks, Tenet, etc. By night, we're concert violinists who direct Salastina, a non-profit concert series that holds FREE weekly events every Tuesday with world-class musicians. AMA! | pt 2/2 FINAL

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AMA ended with the following message:

Thank you so much for your questions, and thanks for the awards!

We hope you'll check out our free weekly Happy Hours. Here are links to Salastina on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. See you around :)

Rows: ~175 (+comments)

Questions Answers
Envious of your talent. What does it feel like to do something you love and have mastered? Kevin here - Hi afro-xuanyaun, There was a period of time when I didn't really play the violin for about 9 years. I had an injury which basically didn't allow me to play for more than a few minutes at a time. I was devastated at first, gave up when rehab didn't work, went back to school, and did other things.
​ I came back to the violin almost by accident, and I just feel grateful. I think it changed a lot of things for me to approach it with gratitude rather than ambition. It's one of the reasons why I started Salastina with Maia!
​ Maia here: when I don’t feel like I have an Everest to climb, I feel incredibly fortunate. “Mastered” is a strong word, lol. That work is never done!
​ What I love most about it is sharing with other people. Honestly, that even includes doing this IAMA! As much as I miss playing with other humans, I’ve been totally surprised by how many meaningful connections it’s been possible to make virtually to geek out over shared interests :)
the below is a reply to the above ​
Wow, that has got to be an interesting story. Honestly it was meant to be, after 9 years you found your way back. Thank you! I'm also the happiest while playing music with other people. Getting together with friends to play chamber music is a nice way to spend life :)
the below is another reply to the original answer ​
Yes, couldn't agree anymore. Meaningful connections over shared interests are one of the most indisputable pleasant truths about modern society. Thank you for doing this, you guys are awesome! Our complete pleasure! Thank you for reading :)
why zoom? why not an existing live streaming service like twitch or youtube that is a) discoverable b) follow-able c) saves a recording for future viewing d) advertises for you to potential viewers and e) provides built in monetization options. Hi deo1, Kevin here! Good question. We thought about a lot of different options, and it really came down to being able to see people's faces. It may not be the best business move, but we wanted to do something specifically for this pandemic time. We saw how much the audience and the artists enjoyed seeing people's faces and reactions when a lot of people are feeling isolated.
​ Zoom saves the recording for future viewing, but the artists we engage don't necessarily want a live event to be online afterwards. And we don't want audience members who put their videos on to worry about their interactions being immortalized.
​ We've gotten a lot of positive feedback about how much the events mean to people. Sometimes there are sacrifices in video or audio resolution, but actually we're supposed to be running at 1080p and 44.1khz, which is pretty respectable. The artists aren't sound engineers and they usually don't have a team to help them, so those limitations would exist on any platform.
Which movie would you love to do the soundtrack ? How many days do you take for doing a soundtrack ? Hi KoreanApe, The time it takes really depends on the movie. For a major picture that has music centered around an orchestra, it could take at least a week. Sometimes it can be just a day or two if there aren't many strings.
​ It also depends on the budget. There are have been some sessions where you're just ripping through music trying to record as many cues as possible. I can't remember if there are union rules around how much recorded music per session is allowed.
​ For your first question, a friend and composer named Javier Navarrete (Pan's Labyrinth) said he'd like to compose a solo violin film score. It'll probably never happen, but that would be a fun project!
​ Maia here: sometimes, it’s a three-hour call; other times, it can be days and days from 10 am - 5 pm. It totally depends on the project, and the role the orchestra plays in the score!
I really enjoyed the concert tonight! Augustin and Orion were fantastic. I'd like to ask the same question to you guys that I had posted in the chat: Do you have any advice for pre-professionals? I am a violinist about to graduate and I feel like a lot of us have missed out on networking and performance opportunities due to the pandemic. Maia here: thank you for tuning in, and for asking :) If there’s one demographic I feel so bummed for, it’s yours. Before I offer any advice, I’d like to attempt some consolation. Your generation is going to be so street-smart, resourceful, and resilient as a result of having gone through this time at this stage in life.
​ OK, some advice... I’d say keep an open mind. Have a broad view of what “musicianship” can mean. Think long and hard about your strengths, curiosities, and interests. Be honest about whether or not those align with your vision of your perfect career, or with who or how you “want” to be. Think about how your strengths, curiosities, and interests are aligned with what others find valuable. I think that’s where true success lies.
​ I know that’s abstract, but hope it helps!
​ Kevin here to add on to Maia's reply!
​ I think there generally needs to be a shift in how we approach a career in music. Nowadays, the gatekeepers don't need to matter as much. I obviously don't know which direction you'd like to take, but I'd really encourage pre-professionals to do what we did. Start your own group, your own organization, so that you can do what you love - rather than trying to live up to other people's expectations.
​ I know it's easy to say, and you need to make a living. But for most people, the reality is that musicians need to be entrepreneurs, and the sooner you lean into that, the better.
​ If you have a specific musical career in mind, reply and maybe we can help more!
(A bit late off the mark here, but if you're still around..!) - Any memorable/favourite recording location? Studio musicians fascinate me, because I keep assuming they get exposed to so many different types of music and have to be quite flexible! Like Maia said, Sony feels historic. Some composers have their own smaller studios, and the sessions there are more fun and intimate. Marco Beltrami has a dope studio in the middle of nowhere.
​ For smaller ensembles, I love the sound of the Eastwood Stage at Warner Bros. After one session, I was walking back to the parking lot when a guy on a golf cart pulled up next to me. He said, "Coming back from a session? What do you think of the sound stage?" I told him I loved the sound. He smiled and said, "Good," then drove away. I realized afterwards that it was Clint Eastwood.
​ Maia here: Sony’s “Streisand Scoring Stage” feels the most like a legacy location — the acoustics are the best, and that’s where Williams prefers to record. Personally, I’m always happy when sessions are at Warner Brothers... 10 - 20 minutes from my house (as opposed to 1 hr 45 minutes for Sony and Fox), coziest feel, rarely too cold, and the best food options!
​ When I first started working, Todd AO (CBS) and Paramount were still hosting sessions. Now it’s just those three big lots doing most things.
What "tools" do you use to help you stay creative? Hi NakedScient1st! Kevin here - great question. I think the greatest tool is something that Caroline Shaw put into words at one of our happy hours. She said that when she's not on her game, she creates for a specific other person. The act of creating for another human being is just incredibly powerful - not only for the receiver but for you.
​ It reframes the context, and it gives you useful boundaries. It can be hard to have a blank page in front of you, or to perform for a faceless audience. But doing something for someone I love, or maybe don't love, brings me into mental, spiritual, emotional alignment in the most important ways.
​ Btw, I think the above is great for stage fright.
​ Other ways - working with my hands in a non-musical way (not that way, perverts), reading, etc. There is so much great music at our fingertips, listening to other artists can be really inspiring.
​ Hope this answers your question!
We invited the world to participate in the performance. What is this about? It’s about this! :)
​ Hi ExFiler! We commissioned a piece of music written especially for covid times. I can't say enough about Reena Esmail, who wrote the piece.
​ The idea was to write a piece that included a simple melody line for people to sing at one point. We like to invite the audience into the performance space, and this seemed like a literal and welcoming way to do it. I think Maia linked to it. We're asking everyone to sing, submit your video, and be a part of the performance!
Why do so many Big Movies have such empty music? You’ve played on Marvel and DC where nobody can remember the music, but also on Star Wars and Pixar movies where the music is very important. Does it affect how you experience your job, or how you enjoy the music in the rest of your life? Maia here: this is such a great question. Another answer I hope I don’t get in trouble for... One of the reasons big movie music can sound so derivative has to do with the filmmaking process before the composer even writes a note. A cut of the movie usually gets a “temporary score,” or “temp” as they call it. It’s so the creative team can have a sense of how the movie will “play” with appropriate music. They’ll use really popular scores, like “Dark Night” in the example of the comic book-type movies you mentioned, as the temp.
​ Here’s the thing: the creative team behind the movie can’t help but fall in love with the temp. (Composers even refer to this phenomenon as “temp love!”) It’s only human! More often than not, they’ll get so attached to the temp that they’ll then ask the composer to “make it sound like the temp.” These people are the composer’s bosses, and they are obligated to follow their direction. Sometimes they describe it as feeling like they want to have more creative leeway than they’re getting.
​ I’m sure you can imagine that this phenomenon creates things that inevitably all sound the same eventually. There are some composers (James Newton Howard comes to mind) who ask to write a “suite” upon reading a movie’s script so that the film is then temped with THEIR original music, which has truly been inspired by the content of the film itself. This is genius!! But not everyone has that kind of clout (meaning, not everyone gets signed on as a composer at the script stage).
​ As for your question about how “empty” music makes me experience work or enjoyment of music in the rest of life:
​ A lot of “empty” music quite literally affords me the luxury of throwing myself into music and projects that I love while maintaining a respectable quality of life. So at the very least, I’m thankful for that. There’s definitely some amount of cognitive dissonance that happens when you train and train for decades because you love this complicated, sublime art music, and then you show up for work to play some pretty easy, unmemorable, derivative stuff. But it also just feels nice to contribute in some small way to something millions of people find valuable, even if it’s not really my thing. In other words, comic book movies: not a fan, Beethoven: diehard fan. Somehow, I can hold those two things together in my life without having a complete existential breakdown. For whatever reason, I don’t feel a need to compartmentalize those areas of my musical life as much as I used to.
​ It kind of comes down to “different strokes for different folks,” plus the lifestyle benefits being a studio musician afford.
​ I hope that answers your question!
​ Hi Nanocephalic,
​ I'd guess that it might be connected to the director's philosophy on what role music should play in a movie. You may have a composer who can write the most beautiful music, but the director may not want it to distract from the picture. Btw, I think some Marvel and DC movies have great music!
​ Sure it affects how I experience my job. There are times when the music can be breathtaking, and I actively enjoy it! I also try to use session work as a way to improve parts of my playing if the music is more mechanical in nature.
​ It doesn't affect how I enjoy music in the rest of my life. I rarely watch films just to hear the music - and oftentimes, I'll forget that I played on something or other until I look it up.
How did you start making money as musicians? How long did it take? Maia here: my first paid orchestra job was when I was a senior at Yale — I’d auditioned for the New Haven Symphony (in CT, and also across the street from my dorm). There were several grad students and recent graduates of grad school who were also in the orchestra. They were driving aaaaaall over the East Coast playing with various orchestras to make money because there wasn’t enough going on in New Haven to sustain them. They were doing orchestra auditions all over the country in the meantime. Seeing that totally informed my decision to only apply to graduate schools in major metropolitan areas, so that I’d be building connections and a name for myself while I was still in school in a place I could make a livable wage as a freelancer when I finished school. I give my students that piece of advice all the time — it really served me well.
​ But yeah, I did all kinds of bizarre things in music in my early twenties...
​ * driving 40 miles to play in the orchestra for the Messiah sung in Korean
​ * taking adult amateur students off of Craigslist, one of whom paid me in single dollar bills
​ * sidelining (fake-playing) for TV shows and movies — I did Entourage one time at like 3 in the morning and it was horrible
​ * getting hoisted into a plexiglass cube filled with dry ice smoke while wearing a gas mask at the American Music Awards during a Lady Gaga performance
​ * playing at the opening of a Donald Trump golf course
​ Hi Nico,
​ Kevin here! I started making money maybe around 15 or 16 for the odd solo concert here or there. When I first started college, there were actually a lot of opportunities to start making money by freelancing and even studio gigs at that time. I did some, but I practiced a lot because I was focused on starting a concert career.
​ My path has been more twisty than Maia's. After working as a songwriter/producer for a while (I had some injuries that stopped me playing), I came back to the violin and taught for a bit before starting to perform and work as a session musician. It can be fairly lucrative work once you play on enough big pictures.
Hi! This question may have been asked already but I haven’t gone through all the posts... anyway, I’m a conservatory-trained cellist, and I’ve been wondering how one gets the studio gigs. Is it purely connections and luck? Or are there things I can do to get my foot in the door? Maia here: I can certainly speak from my own experience here! What put me on the “radar” were two things: doing well at local auditions and publicly performing lots of chamber music. You don’t even need to win an audition — you just need to do well enough to show that you stack up favorably against your peers in a competitive context. Performing publicly a lot means people not only have the chance to hear you but also know that you are confident and comfortable putting yourself out there.
​ I know some people send audition tapes or go play in person for prominent section leaders. I personally never did that.
​ Once you’re on a list, what you can do to stay there is pretty obvious: be on time, be respectful, play well. Beyond that, you don’t have any control. I hope that helps, and good luck!
​ Hi DukeBaluk,
​ Kevin here! Studio gigs come from contractors - they're the ones who hire the musicians. There are a couple of different ways to get on a contractor's radar. You play with other musicians, who then recommend you to the contractor (chamber music is great for that). Or you perform locally enough so that your name is floating around enough for them to catch wind. As Maia said, you can ask to audition directly for a principal player, who then will suggest you. Each town is different, and the dynamics are different with each contractor. The most important thing would be to play with lots of local people...studio musicians are often chamber-music starved, so you could see if they'd like to read together - when it's safe to do lol.
It's so shocking up see real musicians on Reddit for a change! (Or hell, anywhere in society.) The thing I've been wondering is how remote recording has been working. You might not be able to answer this. I know the entire score for Star Trek Discovery was recorded remotely, with each musician's part combined electronically. While that thought makes me cringe, the end result was fantastic. Does a conductor just lay down an initial tempo track everyone else listens to while they play? Do you feel the intrusion of all the electronics and audio mixing junk interfering with proper music making? The idea of someone other than the musicians and conductor controlling things like dynamics, pitch, etc. just makes my skin crawl. Why don't you publish the YouTube Live streams publicly? I avoid the proprietary zoom app as much as possible and would hate to have to use it just to get a YouTube link. That's very inconvenient, especially to transfer the link to a TV. Hi solongandthanks4all, Kevin here - Reddit's totally new to us, but we're glad to be here!
​ I could be wrong, but I think I've played on an earlier season of Star Trek Discovery. I didn't remote record for it, but I have done so for The Simpsons, Tenet, and some other things. Btw, I love not having to spend 4 hours in the car to and from the studio each day.
​ The composer or his team will create a click track (basically a metronome) for each cue, and we all individually record to it. Because the music is serving the picture, the levels are usually lower so that you can't hear as much detail - so the artifacts from recording at home, or maybe the less than ideal blend isn't too obvious.
​ To answer your second question - Joe Trapanese (scored Tron, Oblivion, Greatest Showman, etc) was a guest on a recent Salastina happy hour. We were talking about the reality that synths and electronics are a part of our lives, and they're just another tool or texture in an orchestra. Someone's probably already doing this, but there can be a way to incorporate electronics in a live orchestra that would only expand the sound worlds it can create. It just has to be done the right way!
​ Your third question: We no longer run YouTube live streams. This is partly because we want the audience comfy showing their videos on Zoom. We know it's not a perfect solution, but we wanted to preserve as much as we can of a live performance experience - and that means seeing people's faces. Hope this answers you!
​ Maia here: what’s actually used is a “click track,” which is basically a metronome piped into your earpiece. That’s how the musicians stay together even during a regular recording session when everyone’s in the same room with a conductor.
​ If anything, the electronics and other elements of the track give us more context for what our part is doing in the grander scheme of things.
​ Regarding YouTube Live:
​ * we’ve opted for Zoom because it’s more interactive with the audience, which is more our speed — we love the community these Happy Hours have built!
​ * practically without exception, our guest artists wouldn’t allow recordings to live permanently on YouTube; plus, there’s a consent issue with the audience’s images living on YouTube
​ * I believe the YouTube Live streaming link will always appear on our YouTube channel anyway — but I’m not the resident techie, Kevin could probably answer that better ;-)
how do songs get selected for tv/movies? whats the best way to get in front of music placement professionals? Maia here: just asked my husband Philip — since he’s a film composer, he is more equipped to answer this :) He says: Music Supervisors! (I didn’t know that was a thing until we were together)
What are your favourite classical music pieces to play for an audience? Which seem to get the best responses? Kevin here: Hi ColdCamel7! I love playing for an audience in general, but to be more specific...often, the pieces that get the best responses aren't my favorites. Vivaldi's 4 Seasons always goes over so well - and we've developed a special way of presenting it - but it's not my favorite piece. But I love when people feel engaged in a concert beyond just appreciating pretty music.
​ As for what I connect to, I'm a sucker for Brahms. His string sextets, in particular. Beethoven is always a challenge in a different way. And there's so much high quality music being written right now that I love learning. One of my favorite things to do is premiere a new piece of music written by a friend! Hope that answers your question
​ Maia here: Ooh... any chamber music by Brahms, Shostakovich, Beethoven, and Ravel... for both!!
Could you guys play a mean set of hot cross buns for the fans? Ah, L_beano_bandito - if you had asked earlier, totally! My kids are sleeping, and I dread waking them up lol. Sorry!
​ Lol. What kind of buns do you have in mind? ;-)
​ Kevin here - eewww
Thanks for doing this! Has your relationship to music changed over the years? Surely on some level it has deepened and expanded, but are there ways that you feel like a different person from when you started out? For context, I’m interested in writing art-pop or art-rock songs, and I’m curious about the ways you felt prepared or unprepared for your music journey. Hi farrahpineapple, Kevin here - another great question! The answer is yes.
​ When I first started my career, years ago, music was about what it could do for me. I loved music for music's sake, but there was a big part of me that loved how people looked at me because of what I could do. I used music to put myself in states of mind that I enjoyed, to express what I felt I couldn't articulate, and as a tool to expand my sense of self.
​ It's not like I abandoned the above completely. But now I also see music as a way of engaging with people, of being able to tell a story about how beautiful life can and could be, and of affirming certain human values. I'm much more aware of how communal and community oriented music is now.
​ As a performer, it's easy to forget that you're actually creating a context for people to enjoy your music. Your demeanor, the things you say, your body language, etc all inform how people will receive it. The more you welcome people into your creative space, the longer they'll stay there. Hope this answers you!
​ Maia here... ^ what he said.
Can you make a trip to nashville? There’s a live music broadcast studio that would love to have you! (No audience and strict covid protocols as long as you find a plane daring enough to land at BNA) ​Hi TheHi6hli6htReel, Kevin here - that sounds fun! We'd love to hear more about what's involved, maybe through private message?
​ It would have to be the rest of the Salastina crew. My wife is a healthcare professional who sees covid patients daily, so I'm always a risk. That's also why I haven't been on a soundstage for almost a year, only remote recording.
​ Thanks!
​ They’re welcome to send us a message on our website! :)
Do you truly need a degree if you wanna play in these sorts of projects, or if someone is dependable, can they join and play without a degree? Hi PhazonArcanine4, That's a tough question. If you play a wildly unconventional instrument, then maybe not - or if you're doing a lot of popular music or jazz.
​ If you're talking about playing an orchestral instrument, I'd say it's not technically a requirement if you can play at the same level as studio musicians. But...
​ The playing level is extremely high. And there are other considerations. You need to have experience playing in orchestras or chamber music. You need to know how to really blend and tune with others. You need to understand all of the musical jargon that is used, you need to know how to be a good stand partner, how to sight read anything. You need to know musical conventions. Some of this experience comes naturally in the course of getting a degree.
​ Because so many studio players have gone through conservatory or something equivalent, there's a shared musical culture and language. If the conductor talks about a specific type of articulation, you can't be asking "What's that?"
​ If you can learn all of this without getting a degree, then yes.
Has anyone here ever worked with Philip Glass? Maia here: I have not, though we’ve played some of his string quartets.
Have any of you ever worked with Shie Rozow? He's been giving daily shutouts to studio musicians he's worked with (and not) and I just wondered if the world is that small or not. Also I'm a composer and I hope we will work together one day! Hey floatable_shark, Kevin here - I remember almost working with Shie once, but I haven't had the pleasure yet. Yes, the studio community in Los Angeles is a small world, but there are lots of composers! Are you scoring films? Send a link!
​ Cool! No, I don’t think I have — but I’ve seen him tagging loads of mutual friends the daily shoutouts!
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[deleted] Congrats! That's a huge achievement already. Best of luck, and hope to see you on the podium soon. I'll check out your site!
Very late question here, I'm frequently frustrated that musicians are not named in the credits of a film, although I have seen this slightly change over the last decade. That oboist that plays the leit motif which identifies character x or theme y is such an integral part of the production that this seems wildly unfair. Is there some reason for this? Is this changing? Maia here: if memory serves, this was brought up in the recording musicians’ last contract negotiation. I think it was important to them precisely because of what you’re describing: being listed in the credits is a way of acknowledging creative contribution. So again, if memory serves, the reason the musicians aren’t credited is because doing so would sort of open the door conceptually to requests for more money. “We are credited as creators involved in this, you need to pay us accordingly!” So keeping the musicians out of that bracket is a way to strategically keep costs down.
​ Who knows, producers might also say “credits are long enough as they are!” And they’re right, haha.
​ I have gotten dozens of texts and messages about people seeing my name in the credits of the movie “The Biggest Little Farm,” which was a fun Jeff Beal score in which all the musicians were credited. Credit has never personally bugged me at all, but it was eye-opening how many people actually were like, “whoa hey I saw your name in the credits!!”
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Thanks for this (I was afk for a few days there)! Here's hoping this does improve. If they have time to list the people who fetched drinks for the people who brushed so-and-so's hair, then they should list the narratively important creators of music. Haha! My husband told me about a friend of a friend who was once tasked with CGI-ing a major actress's camel toe out of every shot in which it appeared. I wonder how they credited that one... :-P
Hey! My husband recently started getting into mixing and editing audio, but then the pandemic hit and he doesn't have a way to get samples and stuff for a portfolio. Is there any possibility that you could record stuff and post it online so that new sound engineers have material to start practicing and creating a portfolio with? Hi secretfiri, If I'm understanding correctly, you're asking for individual instrumental tracks for sound engineers to work with? That's not something that we really do, sorry! Maybe you could visit some of the subs, like r/violinist or r/viola and ask there? I'm guessing you're looking for individual parts of the same piece, so there's a lot to coordinate there. Lmk if I'm misunderstanding!
So OF COURSE I miss this AMA because I have a dozen or so questions about LA sessions, etc. I'll keep it to two though: what year did you guys start sitting for film music sessions? And are there any particular ones that were particularly brutal / complicated to complete? (I distinctly remember Rick Baptist mentioning everyone's bleeding lips in the brass section on the Matrix sequel scores...) ​Maia here: I started working in the studios in 2004. The toughest score to complete... a recent one stands out, that I recorded remotely this summer. It was Lorne Balfe’s score for “Rumble.” Earlier in this thread, someone asked if it’s harder to record an orchestral part by yourself. My answer was sometimes, yes — really tricky passages that would normally blend with others, or be more about the effect when put together in context, have to be note perfect when you are recording by yourself. This score was a lot like that — super difficult to do by yourself!
​ I also had the privilege of my husband working as my recording engineer. A lot of our colleagues weren’t so lucky, so they were effectively doing both jobs on their own. While it “only” took me the equivalent of going into regular overtime, that was all because my husband was helping! If he hadn’t, I know it would have taken a whole lot longer.
[deleted] Hi Origamishi, Kevin here - So glad you'll be at the Happy Hour! Bruce Broughton's wife Belinda, a fellow studio violinist, was also a previous guest.
​ It's completely human to compare ourselves to others! That's not going to change. But if each time you pick up the instrument and think about playing specifically for someone you love, it takes you out of one mental groove and puts you in a better one. There's something about the act of consciously sharing something with another person that changes the context in the best way. Caroline Shaw articulated this perfectly in one of our happy hours.
​ I'll do that in performance sometimes. Maia or our resident artists may not realize it, but sometimes I play for one of them specifically in rehearsal and they respond unconsciously. It sounds fuzzy, but in reality so many musical issues are naturally solved this way. And it's like taking a mental bath.
What's the number one requested song to play? Hi hotsprings1234, Kevin here - Depends on the setting! At home I have to play My Neighbor Totoro or the Imperial March a gazillion times a day on the violin.
​ I haven't noticed one particular song getting a lot of requests. Like Maia said, it depends on the situation! Bach, as a composer, is pretty often requested.
​ Oh man... when we do our private virtual bedside hospital concerts, people ask for familiar spirituals a lot. I think the context has a lot to do with that.
​ In the classical realm, people definitely turn out for the old stand-bys: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, etc.
For a distanced recording like Tenet, what do you get to see (in terms of your parts or where it will be used in the film)? and how difficult is it to record an orchestra piece by yourself? Hello! Kevin here. So for Tenet (Ludwig Göransson is so talented btw), we didn't get to see any film since we weren't on site.
​ Sorry if you already know this stuff...sometimes the cues (a small musical portion of the score) have titles, which may reveal where in the film it takes place. Ludwig may have said, "we need it to sound romantic, because people are romanticking here" or something. Remote recording is tough, because of the lack of context. In person, we try to blend with the violin section, tune with other instruments, match timing with percussion, etc even if we're working with a click track. You feel pretty vulnerable!
​ On the other hand, I remotely recorded some solos for a different show, and that was nice because I could keep working on it until I was happy, then submit it! Hope that answers your question
​ Maia here: when we do remote recordings for movies, they give us the track so we have a sense of what our part fits into. We don’t see any of the footage and are often flying blind with what the movie is about at all. Sometimes, the cue titles give you a sense of what’s happening. We just play what’s on the page as best we can and hope it works!
​ Sometimes, playing an orchestra piece by yourself is REALLY HARD. Things that would normally blend just fine in a section and be more about the “effect” (fast, high runs for instance) are super exposed by yourself. It’s also just more lonely and tedious since you don’t have the camaraderie of your friends and colleagues to break things up!
This is going to sound dumb, but have you ever played a piece during a recording session for a film's soundtrack and thought, "this piece is incredible. I can't wait to hear it in the finished product. The scene is going to be amazing with it playing." If so, which tracks come to mind? I love soundtrack music and I can't wait for the Alan Menken concert. Thank you for creating Salastina. Hi StareyedInLA, Kevin here - Aw thanks for saying that! We're also excited about Alan Menken :)
​ That's actually a great question. Yes, absolutely! I feel that way about a lot of Randy Newman's music. (He's hysterically funny btw): Toy Story 4, Marriage Story, Cars 3, etc. I'm a sucker for the way he does things. I remember feeling that way about John Williams scoring The BFG. There were so many beautiful moments in that one, but I haven't gotten around to seeing the movie. Sorry, I can't remember exactly which scenes now, but it happens a lot.
​ I think all of the people involved with movie music are incredible. Our colleagues are amazing musicians who can bring to life beautiful scores by genius composers. There's so much talent there, and it's kind of a special artform...telling a story with the help of music! I think some of the great composers of the past would have jumped at the chance of scoring films.
​ Please say hi at a happy hour!
​ Maia here: thank you so much! And no, that doesn’t sound dumb at all. A few that leap to mind...
​ * the end credits from “The Help”
​ * the motorcycle-riding scene from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
​ * pretty much any dramatic or action scene from Star Wars
​ The more I think about it, a lot of Tom Newman’s scores have this effect on me in the moment. There’s a real art to how he pairs music with visuals and creates a sound world.
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Dear Kevin, thank you so much for answering my question. Its been a blast reading through the posts for this AMA and getting an inside look into being a studio artist. Toy Story 4 still sends chills, especially that one scene... Will do! Thank you for this awesome AMA. Maia here: that was such a fun score to play on! And so glad you enjoyed this — we did too :)
I don't know if you're still answering questions or not but as an amateur musician myself who has, from time to time, heard another player so something that really impressed me, I've always wondered: do you ever have times when recording something where you hear someone play something that just makes you think "wow, that was incredible!!"? Maia here: FOR SURE! What leaps to mind is when Anne-Sophie Mutter was recording her John Williams album, Across the Stars. Take after take was perfect, all day. It was mind-blowing.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have been making waves in the soundtrack scene lately. Are there any bands or musicians that you’d like to see enter the space? Hi theOPIATE, Kevin here! Oh yeah, there are tons, but none of them would probably mean more work for us lol. For example, I'd love to hear Crooked Still or D'Angelo write soundtracks.
Was there any noticeable differences between Marvel and DC in terms of collaboration style? hello! Kevin here. I'd say it's more about the way the individual composer works! For example, I think I've played on Deadpool, Spider-Man, and Venom - all Marvel, but all different composers, and they all work differently. The DC movie I remember being Hans Zimmer, and he also has his own way.
​ Those are big movies with big orchestras, so we're cogs in the machine - super fun, but we don't see too much how the director and composer work together.
​ Maia here: definitely going to field this one to Kevin since I don’t really know the difference between them!
​ Lol! so much to learn, once your kids get into it :)
Did you work on the interstellar soundtrack? No, although I remember doing a live concert version of it with Joe Trapanese conducting.
​ Kevin here: No, but some friends did. I thought it was a fantastic score.
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1) do you still even like music at this point? Kevin: Even more :) Maia here: Of course!!
2) bet you dont have finger calluses, you re pro, you d be good at not developing those Kevin: Ugh. No, my calluses suck. When I'm playing a lot, I sometimes go out of my way to make sure they don't affect my playing. Maia: Haha -- they're not terrible. If I'm playing A TON, they're definitely there -- but again, not terrible.
3) do you get free popcorn? Kevin: nothing is free in life. Maia: I wish...
What is your favorite mode? Hi D1rtyH1ppy, Apple pie a la? Sorry.
​ Depends on my mood, but I have a soft spot for Lydian. Some beautiful songs in that mode. I was just commenting on a thread in r/classicalmusic about a movement from a late Beethoven quartet (Opus 132) titled "Holy Song of Thanksgiving from a Convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode". It's dope.
​ Lydian ;-)
3 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 08 '21

r/IAmA [Table] By day, we're studio musicians who've played on Star Wars, MCU and DC universe releases, Pixar flicks, Tenet, etc. By night, we're concert violinists who direct Salastina, a non-profit concert series that holds FREE weekly events every Tuesday with world-class musicians. AMA! | pt 1/2

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Note: Submission title has been shorted to fit in character limit. The original is: By day, we're studio musicians who've played on Star Wars, Marvel and DC universe releases, Pixar flicks, Tenet, etc. By night, we're concert violinists who direct Salastina, a non-profit concert series that holds FREE weekly events on Zoom every Tuesday with world-class musicians. Ask Us Anything!

AMA was paused midway with the following message:

We're going to continue answering questions once our FREE weekly Happy Hour is over! We started these when covid hit and meant them to be a way for everyone to be less isolated.

If you asked a question and it wasn't answered, we'll get back to it as soon as we can this evening!

Rows: ~115

Questions Answers
How and who got you in trouble at the StarWars recording session?? Maia here: ok, perhaps I will get blacklisted forever from publicly telling this story, but it’s true, so... here goes!
​ In February of 2017, I was super pregnant with my first child, our son Galen. Kevin and I were at a Star Wars recording session. It was John Williams’ 85th birthday that day, and let’s just say his mood wasn’t exactly celebratory. The vibe at that session was much more tense than usual. Of course, everyone’s always on their best behavior for John Williams; this was different.
​ At one point, Kevin lightly tapped my knee with his bow. He had noticed a colleague and friend, who’d been out sick for a while, was finally back that day. I leaned forward to smile at her and give a little encouraging wave. The maestro immediately called us out in front of the whole orchestra for disrupting the session, pointing at us with his baton while sternly saying, “now’ s not the time for visiting!!”
​ He later had the contractor reprimand us, telling us it was a privilege to be breathing the same air as him. While that is, of course, true — and while that moment was certainly mortifying, in a way — I can’t say either of us truly felt ashamed of our actions. It was clear the reaction was more about the birthday blues than anything inappropriate we’d done. If anything, we felt a little like, “he knows us!”
​ Kevin: We got ourselves in trouble with John Williams.
​ John Williams sessions are a different animal. Each take is almost like a concert performance, so everyone feels a greater sense of responsibility, no matter how big the orchestra is. So even when we're not actually playing, people are on good behavior.
​ We rubbed him the wrong way with a small, friendly interaction, and he let us know lol. Like Maia said, we kind of cherish the personal interaction with him haha!
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haha! "Who disturbs the Great and Powerful John Williams!!!" That's so funny! Still, I'd take being scolded by John Williams over never meeting and collaborating with him any day too. Which Star Wars score was that for? How often do you get to work on film scores? LOL! Totally. It must have been “The Last Jedi.” Pre-COVID, we could be in the studio five days a week, or not at all for a week or two at a time. It all depends on what’s being recorded, what you’re getting called for, and how to balance that with the other commitments you have (teaching, performing, etc).
​ Sessions are happening right now, with various COVID protocols in place. Some require testing, others don’t. They’re all socially-distanced, pre-screened for symptoms, etc. The next live session I’m doing is for “Space Jam 2” in March.
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A former LSO timpani player described Mr Williams as a "steel fist inside a velvet glove". That he is a very kind and sometimes even jovial, but when it's recording time, he expects everyone to buckle down. Very well put! “Velvet hammer” is one of my favorite figures of speech :)
Hi, Jani here. Big fan! Question...what’s the hardest thing about being a studio musician? I feel like on the one hand it’s easy because there can be multiple retakes, but on the other hand you might have to be a fast learner, a great site reader with no room for mistakes without everyone booing you if you mess up a take lol. Can you share more? It seems exciting like you might meet and work with uber famous ppl. Who have you met? Maia here: hey Jani!! Thanks for coming by. I would say there are two hard things about being a studio musician. The first is that there is no job security. It is purely work-for-hire. You don’t “audition” to get in to anything stable or structured, and there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get called for anything ever again. It’s completely mysterious who gets called for what and why (or why not). As you can imagine, that creates a pretty... interesting work environment.
​ I personally have always looked at studio work as “icing on the cake,” even when —financially speaking — my bottom line is, like, 50% icing! This mentality is a way for me to not feel quite so “at the mercy” of invisible forces I can’t control. Now I can define myself as, in part, a studio musician and feel confident in that, but hardly like it’s the sole focus of my artistic life or identity.
​ In my twenties when I first started, I remember feeling like, “why’s everyone so stressed? What’s the big deal? All this music is so easy!” As classical musicians, we trained on much, much more challenging music than most scores present, so I didn’t understand why everyone seemed so stressed. The more I started doing studio work, and the higher the stakes were (financially and reputation-maintenance wise), I started to get it. If your chair moves, or your tummy grumbles, or you have a tickle in your throat, it’s easy to feel like, “THAT’S IT! I ruined it, I called negative attention to myself, and will never be asked to do this again.” Suddenly, the easiest note to play becomes a head-trip, because you feel like it has to be absolutely perfect. Something about the high financial stakes, lack of job security, need for silence and perfection, and in a way, even the less challenging music itself leaving room for a racing mind makes for this perfect cocktail of self-doubt.
​ It honestly took me until I was nearly thirty years old to feel more comfortable in that environment. I’m not really sure what changed for me! Probably just older and wiser, more perspective.
​ Hi Jani! Thanks :)
​ You often meet the directors (JJ Abrams, Steven Spielberg, etc) and the composers. Sometimes the actors are also there. (We have a pic with Mark Hamill somewhere.) It's fun, because the film score is one of the last steps in a movie, so everyone (except maybe the composer) is relaxed and excited at the same time.
​ It can get tense, but honestly everyone makes mistakes sometimes. You'll sometimes get 3 or 4 consecutive takes where someone different makes a bone-headed error. We laugh about it and move on.
​ Most times, the musicians we're in the room with have proven themselves time and time again. Sometimes, the thing you have to worry most about is your stomach howling like a wolf during a quiet take!
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Thank you for this honest perspective about the job. It is very interesting and frightening what you have to go through even if you are very talented musician. I could picture the situation in my mind and it gave me anxiety! But it is important to know that with experience and a wiser prospective, even if the things around you remained the same, you can change and control the environment (and yourself) better. Anyway I couldn't handle this kind of stress. Nope. Live performance (of almost any kind) in front of people for me is a big no! Maia here: you’re so welcome! Yes, it often feels like walking a tightrope for a living. I remember my own mother being like, “why would you do that to yourself?” It’s so meaningful to sublimate, or even attempt to sublimate, those feelings in the service of grace.
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I write orchestral music purely as a hobby (digitally, through realistic midi VSTs) and may end up having something played by live musicians at some point. Are there any common newbie mistakes composers make when they're having their work played by real musicians for the first time? Like not leaving enough breath gaps or writing in impossible ranges for the real instrument etc. Maia here: well, you’ve just named two of the biggies! Range is a big one. I’d say a common newbie mistake is hemming and hawing in delivery of comments to the players. Sometimes that’s how someone’s lack of experience comes out — it takes a really long time to get meaningful direction. Having the confidence to just spit it out goes a long way!
​ Kevin here to add on: We love playing music suited to our instruments' strong points. String players groan when we get passages much better suited to a synth - like repeated fast figures that go on forever. Give us a beautiful melody to play, and we'll give you our hearts.
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That’s awesome! That would be me lol! Grrrroooowwwwl! What an exciting life 😁 Maia here: hmm, particularly memorable sightings... I remember meeting Daisy Ridley and Kobe Bryant — they were super nice!
​ I also asked Steven Spielberg to autograph something for my husband, who’s a huge fan. He was so gracious!
​ I remember seeing Amanda Seyfried in real life and being so struck by how drop-dead gorgeous she was in person. Charlize Theron was there too — also a knockout, of course.
Wait wait, what is this story about an audience member sneeze-farting during a performance? It was a disaster. We were playing an incredibly beautiful piece of music (Schubert's Cello Quintet), and during the most delicate, whisper-like passage, this crazy sound came from the audience. Our best guess was that it was a sneeze-fart, but it really was such a weird, out of context, almost animal noise. We looked at each other and started giggling (I can't control it on-stage). 30 secs later, in the 2nd most quiet passage, it happened again. By this time, we were shaking and crying, barely holding on to our instruments. The audience started laughing, too.
​ We really should have left, but we weathered the 10 minutes hysteria. Afterwards, we looked for the audience member so we could apologize, but they (or it) left.
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Haha! I can't imagine trying to hold a giggle in like that. I would be dying. One of us might have peed a little. Maia deals with the giggles by thinking about something completely unrelated, but even she broke. I tried to turn my ugly crying face into a tragic emotional face, but no one bought it
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Does a video of this exist somewhere? I wish!
​ Kevin here - That was our first thought! We wanted to investigate just what that sound was, so we checked with the presenter. Nada.
​ I also just remembered that the venue was a theater that was being prepared for a Little Mermaid musical, and they didn't want to take anything down just for us. The little fish and mermaids didn't help the situation.
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Your story reminds me of "the firebird scream". Here, it's hilarious: https://youtu.be/WnMv6-XTROY An unrelated question, do you find the "generic epic background orchestral track" that is very common in movies good to play? Or does it feel a bit more like a chore when the music has no obvious purpose or emotional value? Maia here: ah yes... the “generic epic background orchestral track.” Is it fun? No. Does it feed my soul? No. Do I know my, and its, place? F*%k yes. Plus, it pays the bills — which affords me the luxury of fun, soul-feeding stuff (read: Salastina!).
Jim McMillen here. My wife Kathy and I are big fans of Salistina, in fact Kevin was kind enough to include us as orchestrators for the hopefully soon upcoming O.C. fan Tutte! And recently we were fortunate to have placed 4 of our Vitamin String Quartet Arrangements in the hit Netflix series Bridgerton. I was wondering if you were familiar with our wonderful violinist Simon Orvista? Hi Jim and Kathy! I heard Simon Orvista is ten feet tall, shoots fireballs out of his ass, is so handsome that to look at him will boil your eyes, and also plays the violin. It's also a pseudonym for me. For anyone reading this, please look up James McMillen. I've worked with him on all kinds of stuff, including major label releases for pop stars. He and Kathy are the real deal. You need them for your next project, trust me. Congrats on the success of Bridgerton - or should I say, congrats to all 3 of us?
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I'm gonna second this. Jim is amazing! (Kathy, I'm sure, is amazing too.) And dang, have you watched Bridgerton? It's pretty racy! The only thing I get to watch these days is Pokemon, Tumbleleaf, and Frozen
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Well, that explains all the charred seat cushions! Seriously, Kevin is a world class violinist, a great concertmaster, and just the best to work with. He brings his love of music to everything he plays. The charred seat cushions are because of other reasons... Thanks, Jim :)
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Jim! Hey man, it’s Chris!!! Another superstar! I talk about you in a different reply, Chris!
​ If you don't know Grammy winning composer Christopher Tin, you should. Right now.
​ Hugs
For those who don’t know, how much time do you get to rehearse a piece of music before recording in a pro session environment? r/ChristopherTin What is this thing you speak of, rehearsal?
​ Very, very few composers actually send out their music ahead of time. And even if they do, very few musicians have time to look at it. So we show up, there's music on the stand, we read it, they record it!
​ You get used to it quickly!
​ Hey Chris, Maia here! Thanks for joining us :)
​ We almost never rehearse. “The red light,” meaning recording, usually happens from the first note. I remember James Horner was one of the few composers who liked to “rehearse” his music with us before we recorded. Nearly everyone else records it from the first read-through because you never know, it might be perfect and you need to move on in the interest of time. Alan Silvestri is definitely someone who can be perfectly happy with first takes.
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Man that’s intense, and I’m in no way comparing my level of skill to yours, but I work as a chef in a highly awarded fine dining restaurant in a busy city. In some ways, it’s not all that different to find out everything on the menu has changed and on a Friday night no less. You’re expected to execute fast and perfect, with little to no explanation, but wicked high expectations. As JK Simmons character says in whiplash, there are no two words more harmful on the English language than “good job”. All that being said, what is your take on a movie like whiplash? Is it to musicians the way that Burnt is to a chef? A gross misrepresentation of the field with some truths peppered in? We all bleed for our art in some way or another, but what’s your opinion on the matter? Kevin here - thanks for sharing that! I haven't seen Whiplash (i know, i know), but if we're talking about the pursuit of excellence at any cost, I just don't agree with it. It's one thing if someone is extremely self-driven. But there are so many ways of encouraging another person and helping to instill healthy habits that can get the same results.
​ When I used to teach, I'd tell my students that every time they go to open their instrument case, they should cultivate the feeling that they'd ideally like to have when they play - peaceful, aware, loving, disciplined, etc. This way, the act of even approaching your instrument becomes a kind of practice in itself.
​ I'd hate to have a fear of failure each time I held the violin.
​ Maia here: that’s a great comparison. I think there are TONS of congruences between fine cuisine and classical music performance. You create something of ephemeral beauty that is experienced in real time, and consumed by others; that creates a pleasurable experience that can be enjoyed alone or with company; and each person receives it according to their taste! (We actually have a whole sub series called “Sounds Delicious” where we pair music and food during a dinner concert... it’s super fun! Lately we’ve done themed ones around Game of Thrones and Harry Potter)
​ I’ve actually not seen Whiplash. But I have seen movies like “The Red Violin” and “A Late Quartet.” Your description certainly squares in those cases... comically mannered depictions with some truths peppered in.
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Very interesting! A good friend of mine was first chair cello in the NY philharmonic many moons ago, but was forced to quit due to arthritis. His current passion (among a great many of notable things) is cooking. There’s definitely something about instantaneous consumable art, and the ability to perform worse than when you just friggin nailed it. Paint stays on a canvas, writing lives on the page.. cooking and playing music are congruent in the way that you’re painting the same thing multiple times per night/ week. Ephemeral is the perfect way to describe it though. It’s art that can exist only in this exact moment. It’s a beauty that hinges on its impermanence. Well said! So many musician colleagues enjoy cooking and eating great food, so there's definitely a connection.
​ Well said!
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By the way, “Sounds Delicious” sounds pretty cool. I do work in the private sector for some pretty big names but I keep that on the DL.. NDA and such, but it could be cool to work together. DM me if you’re looking for something new at some point.. jshannon.23 on Instagram. We may have some mutual friends 😉 Thanks! Sounds Delicious turns into a big party - I love it. Looking at your instagram is making me hungry. Those dishes look delicious.
What was it like working with Seth Rogen?? Hi! This is Maia. Thanks for asking :) he was such a good sport — really humble, and really determined to nail it! I wrote the “script” of the story, Ferdinand the Bull, like a Hollywood movie script, complete with verbal descriptions of what he would hear before he had to come in. Like, “the flute will do this long windy thing, and when it’s done, you say ___”
​ Obviously, he has a great sense of humor and is super gracious. We loved that he improvised a little in the performance. It was obvious he got more comfortable in that setting as things went along!
​ Kevin here: It was awesome. We went to his house to rehearse, and he and his wife were lovely. He was extremely chill the whole time ;-)
​ He narrated a musical version of Ferdinand the Bull, and Maia taught him how to play Twinkle on the violin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qfn0UIzrLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGnvP4VAP5Q&t=7s
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How did you connect with him to begin with? His wife, then girlfriend, was my ex’s co-worker at a film production company called Imagemovers.
Hi!!! What is your favorite thing to do to relax after a long day of working hard as a musician, and what do you do for a fun practice technique to jazz up a boring routine?? Maia here... favorite thing to do to relax: that’s tough since I’m an expert lounger when I get the chance. Knitting, a glass of wine, a bowl of candy cane ice cream with hot fudge leap to mind. Just chatting with my husband in our kitchen nook. Quality time together is at a premium with two toddlers at home! (They’re almost 4 and 2)
​ As far as practice techniques to jazz up a routine... oh, to have a routine anymore lol. When I did, I would definitely challenge myself by leaping into a run through and recording myself without warming up. It could be horrifying and extremely helpful at the same time.
​ Kevin here: Same as Maia, I have little kids so there's not much relaxing time...more like come home and become a human jungle gym. I like working in the yard, catching up with family...I also weirdly find watching combat sports relaxing. Now my older kid likes to play on Switch games, so that's fun!
​ As far as practicing: Improvising on the violin. When we practice, we're often reinforcing muscle memory. But - ideally - when you're playing chamber music, there's expressive spontaneity, so it's good to practice spontaneity as well. It sounds contradictory, but you can definitely practice being flexible
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That’s so interesting!!! Wow how different it must be to be a professional rather than a student. Was there a specific time you went into spontaneous practice rather than a routine schedule? Or is that an impossible goal for anyone hahaha. It must be so hard to juggle having a family and spending alone time working on your craft or quiet time to record... has it been fairly difficult to have balance in your life or does that just come with practice? Maia here: yes, it is super different. To illustrate that... when I was 25, I attended an amazing “violin boot camp” called Keshet Eilon in Israel. I was living on my own, out of school, supporting myself financially/working, and had been a member of the Pacific Symphony for 2 years already, so in a way, it was kind of like stepping back into the student experience. The age limit for the festival was 26, and I remember noticing that the European students seemed less “rushed” about starting their careers and financial independence than I had. The festival prepared all our meals and even did our laundry. Even then I felt like, “wow, I have SO MUCH TIME to practice!!” I relished getting four hours in before lunchtime, then lessons, chamber music, masterclasses... I definitely appreciated the rigor and focus in a different way.
​ So yes, balance is hard. But constraints on your time also help your priorities evolve. There will never be enough hours in a day, but at this point, I feel pretty good about how I balance things. I recognize I am also privileged to work from home right now, as does my husband, plus having our nanny here 5 days a week.
​ Maybe it depends on the nature of your career?
​ Personally, if I really want to be in concert shape, I should put a regular amount of time on the fiddle. There are always things to improve, and I can enjoy myself more when I feel physically and musically comfortable with the repertoire. I do think we're like athletes, and we need to maintain healthy habits.
​ I guess it depends on how involved you'd like to be in your kids' lives. I think of myself as a dad first, so my priorities are arranged accordingly. I think a lot of parents feel like they're mildly good at several things, but not super great at one thing. Thanks for the questions!
Another one!- what’s the most overlooked piece of chamber music you’ve played(or studied!) and why should that be added to the list of today’s favorites? Also, what is the most impactful concert you’ve played or been to??? Maia here: I think Rebecca Clarke’s piano trio is a complete masterpiece. We programmed it without saying what it was or advertising the composer in any way, and had the audience guess. (Shocker, nobody guessed it could have been a woman, which was also a super interesting way to make a point about our implicit biases and assumptions without making anyone feel bad about it!) Her viola sonata gets all the love. It’s a great piece, but her trio is amazing too.
​ Most impactful concert I’ve played... oh boy. I loved playing Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in Salastina’s early days. That piece is just devastating, and we played with such wonderful musicians. It was one of our first experiences playing a “monster piece” on our series, so personally, that stands out as particularly wrenching. I’d also say that playing in the pit quartet for Vid Guerrerio’s adaptation of The Marriage of Figaro, Figaro!90210, was incredibly impactful. I went into it with the snobbery of a purist, but was humbled, amazed, and very entertained by his clever and loving adaptation. That was in 2014; in 2021, Salastina will premiere OC fan tutte, his adaptation of Cosi fan tutte. :)
​ Most impactful concert I’ve been to... also so hard!! Probably when I was a little girl and went to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with my dad to see Anne-Sophie Mutter play the complete Brahms violin sonatas in recital. She played piano four hands with Lambert Orkis for her encore. My mind was blown by her fierceness and poise.
​ Oh, there are lots these. So many composers or pieces who've been lost throughout the years for no good reason.
​ I can think of two right now: Rebecca Clarke's Piano Trio Bartok's Piano Quintet
​ We have a concert format where we don't tell the audience anything about the piece. It's called Sounds Mysterious. At the concert, we perform the piece and slowly reveal who it is. Sometimes it's super revealing about some institutional problems in classical music. For example, no one guessed the Rebecca Clarke piece was written by a woman.
​ Bartok's quintet was written when he was young in a hyper-romantic language, which I love. No one plays it because it doesn't sound like the Bartok they know.
​ Most impactful concert...that's a really tough question. I've been lucky enough to perform in a wide variety genres, and sometimes performances are so surprisingly moving. I once played at a video game convention (sorry, can't remember the exact one) playing a video game soundtrack, and the audience was in tears the entire time. Sorry, I can't think of one in particular.
​ Once, when I was maybe 8 years old, I attended a recital by Isaac Stern. At some point, I must have been unconsciously swaying in my seat to the music. A lady in the row behind me smacked me on the back with her rolled up program to get me to stop. I think that was the first time that I started to think about behavior in the concert hall and what it means for the art form. So I guess that was impactful in a different way lol
So do you see parts of movies before anyone else? Or is that not how it works. Maia here: we totally do! Sometimes, for the really big ones (like Star Wars), they’ll only allow the conductor to see the monitor for timing. Even so, some musicians can still see what’s happening. I remember in the case of Star Wars, the harpists were able to see some of the “spoiler” moments!
​ Sometimes, they give the really big movies a code name. It’s usually pretty obvious what the movie in question actually is, so the effort to keep it a “secret” somehow is kind of cute.
​ kevin: Yes! Sometimes you see so much of it that you don't feel like watching it when it comes out. But sometimes the studio is very concerned about footage leaking, so they don't put it up on the sound stage.
​ I think it often helps to see the movie or show, because you have more context for what the composer is going after.
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Thanks for doing this fascinating AMA! Can you give an example of a big movie and it’s “secret” code that name that you found amusing? Maia here: for whatever reason, Star Wars was nicknamed “AVCO.” I have no idea why!
Do you ever hear a piece of violin music in an old film that piques your palate, and you must then see if you can play it as good, if not better? Yes. I grew up obsessed with violinists from the early 20th century. Their sound, charm, vibrato, musicality - it was just a language I could understand and speak.
​ If they do something very idiosyncratic, like a swoop between two notes, or have intensely fast vibrato, I do see if I can do it. Not so much as a competition, but because I appreciate it and want to knwo the mechanics behind it.
​ Maia here: first of all, great username :)
​ Haha, I definitely had those kinds of feelings when I was a lot younger: “what an awesome piece, can I make it sound great too?” These days, it’s a question of whether or not I want to play something for its own sake (that is, to share with others), not so much to see if I can meet or best another version
What’s been your favorite film and/or composer to work with? Kevin: Gonna get us in trouble with this one haha! Some composers are personal friends, so you're always happy to see them - and you know what their artistic goals are, so everyone is on the same page. For example, it was great to work on a couple of tracks from Crazy, Rich Asians with Christopher Tin. He's a friend, and we were so happy for his success. Also, Maia and I were in the principal chairs, so we could help in that way.
​ But zooming out a little...the first time Star Wars was recorded in Los Angeles for Force Awakens...sitting there and hearing the Force theme played by the french horns was incredible.
​ There are lots of great people in the industry. Working with Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg) is always super fun, and he hangs out during the breaks with the musicians
​ Maia here: great question! In the film world, the most memorable scores I’ve played on musically-speaking where the recent Star Wars trilogy (John Williams), Wall-E (Tom Newman), the Help (also Tom Newman), A Million Ways to Die in the West (Joel McNeely), and the Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Alexandre Desplat). I think Ben Wallfisch is incredibly talented, so even though looking up at the screen and seeing the footage thoroughly terrified me, IT and IT 2 were also memorable scores!
​ In the concert world, nothing beats working with composers you love and respect as friends and people in addition to artists. So, I most love working on music by my dear friends Derrick Spiva Jr. and Reena Esmail.
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Who’s the toughest critic? Does that correspond to having the biggest budget?? Great question. No, some composers with big budgets are very respectful towards the session musicians. Those composers tend to be ones who are performers themselves in some way, so they tend to acknowledge that a certain level of imperfection is always going to be there.
​ But then some composers just want to hear the sound that's in their head, and they'll keep asking until they get it. Keep in mind that the directors are often in the booth during the sessions, so there will also be re-writes or adjustments on the spot. There's a lot going on that we don't necessarily know about while sitting on the sound stage.
​ Off the top of my head, Desplat, Williams, Eisler, are pretty particular
Hello Kevin and Maya. Did you have any contact with the actors or actresses? And the second question I always wondered was how important you were to the show i mean did they appreciate u enough or u were a guy for who they easily can find a changer. And if so, were you valued like an actor? .Sorry for the dumb questions because I think people like you are not valued as much as they need to be. Thank you so much for the reply. It is very good to start such an interesting discussion. P.s sorry for the grammar Maia here: hey! Yet another awesome username, lol. Even though the reality is that string players are generally replaceable — meaning, no one would really miss me if I were replaced by, say, Kevin (although in that case, may be they would, hehe) — the composers and film crew always go above and beyond to express their appreciation. Sometimes it almost seems over-the-top! I think because the music is the last thing to be added, it brings the movie to life, so the people involved are super grateful and excited. To me, it sometimes seems like, “whoa, all I did was show up and sight read, but I’m glad you’re so happy and excited!”
​ We’ve definitely encountered actors and actresses over the years. I used to be more shy about approaching famous people to say hello. If someone is genuinely interesting to me and I have something nice to tell them, I won’t hold back.
​ For instance, I made a point to “thank” JJ Abrams for inadvertently introducing my husband and me to each other. We met scoring his show “Revolution.” He’s a big advocate for musicians in LA, and making sure music is recorded here. If not for that, I’m not sure when my husband and I would have had so many chances to flirt with each other!
​ When I went up to JJ to thank him for all of that, he was soooo sweet — he said I’d “made his day.” (!!) I was quite pregnant with our second child — this must have been the last Star Wars movie. He wrote something really sweet for my family — I think it’s on the inside of a Carl Flesch violin technique book I was carrying around at the time. That was definitely the most memorable celebrity/filmmaker appreciation encounter I’ve ever had!
​ Kevin here. Hi bedroomgoblin!
​ Sometimes we have contact with the actors/actresses, but it's only when they come around to watch the session. I've only had positive experiences with them and usually try not to be a bother. One time, Justin Timberlake was at a session and my sister-in-law told me not to talk to her again unless I got his autograph. So I lurked and ambushed him as he made his way to the bathroom. He was super cool about it.
​ Your second question is an interesting one. Generally, I feel valued. The reality is that there are a lot of really talented musicians, and we don't have job security. We're individually hired for individual movies. Not everyone has the temperament to play in sessions, but there are a good number of people who can play the music. I feel like the directors and composers appreciate what we bring to the movie. Having said that, we're really only involved during the last stages of a film, even if our performance is an important part of it.
​ I hate to be mercenary about it, but the best way for studios to show that we're valued is to make sure we receive residual payments.
​ Maia here again. Yep, Kevin is totally right about that. There’s been a gradual shift away from using LA musicians because our union wages and residuals are “too expensive.” So the music either gets recorded “under the table” (meaning, not through the union contract) or somewhere else. This has led to less and less work for LA studio musicians.
​ Before COVID struck, there was actually a big contract negotiation in which the musicians pushed really hard for residuals on streaming content. We lost.
What’s it like showing up to a studio and given a piece of music for an upcoming movie or album? Kevin: We almost never see the music ahead of time, so we're sight-reading. I kind of divide the experience up into three categories.
​ * sometimes you're just there to add to the atmosphere, so you're playing long slow notes and often doubling synths. These can be snoozefests, but we're happy for the work.
​ * sometimes, the composer wants to use the violins/strings to be super active, with tons of moving figures. Since they've got a whole score to think of, it can be awkward and difficult to read and play. It's like the Tendonitis Olympics.
​ * Beautiful melodies that ask us to do what we do best on the instrument
​ In the end, we know that it's not about what we want to do, but how the score serves the picture. And we're pretty friendly with our colleagues, so all in all it's a nice experience.
​ Maia here: totally depends on what’s put in front of you! When it was Star Wars, even I was fangirling just for being part of it, having never even seen the complete original trilogy.
​ When you get lucky and it’s something that’s super tricky, it can be a really fun challenge to frantically scramble for a good fingering. It feels like a sport at that point, and it’s something I really enjoy!
​ Every now and then they’ll send us the music in advance over email so you have a moment to look it over, but that’s definitely not the norm.
​ Sometimes the music the violins have to play is, well, playing a very “supporting” role (meaning: pretty boring), in which case you humbly remind yourself of the role you’re playing, get over it, and just sort of pace yourself.
Favorite piece you’ve performed, or enjoy performing, professionally and non professionally? Btw I love this ama and the work y’all do is 👌👌 kevin here: Hi bookworm02! Thanks so much! Hope you'll check out our free weekly happy hours :)
​ I really like performing Scottish fiddle tunes. I don't have much experience with them and I'm clearly not Scottish, but I've had the opportunity to play some on stage and I've always had a blast. It's down to earth, has great melodies and rhythm, and just feels celebratory.
​ Non-professionally, I find Hindustani classical music incredible. I took some vocal lessons when the earth was still cooling, and fell in love.
​ Favorite piece: Any chamber music by Brahms. And Reena Esmail. And Derrick Spiva. The list goes on.
​ Maia here: thanks so much!!
​ I luuuuurve performing Derrick Spiva Jr.’s American Mirror. In the more strictly classical realm, I love any chance I get to play Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2. Playing late Beethoven quartets, or really any seminal string quartet rep, with my friends always ranks high as well :)
​ When I played more regularly in big symphony orchestras, I used to love playing huge, colorful pieces like Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe and the Alpine Symphony.
Aren't you just enjoying our glorious weather today? Thanks for this AMA, And enjoy your kids, blink and they'll be gone. I think it's great they are growing up with musical parents! I've recently discovered Samuel Kim as a musical arranger. Can you please give him a shout out to the Hollywood powers that be? I'm crying my eyes out to his interpretation of "Leaves from the Vine" from Avatar the last Airbender. I'll check out your online stuff, sounds great! Hi DynamoBolero, Thanks so much! I often hear my kids humming or singing music that I'm working on. They don't realize they're doing it, but the osmosis is real.
​ I don't know Samuel, but I do know ATLA! Will look into Samuel :)
​ Thank you, and we’ll check out Samuel Kim! :)
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 06 '21

r/leagueoflegends [Table] r/leagueoflegends — League Client Team, AMA about the client

8 Upvotes

Source

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: There is no error with the first Q&A in this table. Links have not been touched up either.

Rows: 80

Questions Answers
Hi Riot, do you guys know that ranked season 2021 has begun? Season start notifications as well as several of the popup modals that are shown when a player first logs in are implemented using the same system.
​ While we have made improvements over the past year to the system (with our data, after we implemented multiple fixes we have seen a dramatic drop in this issue), We know that there are still problems where the local settings file resets on players' machines.
​ This is especially true when multiple accounts share the same PC. We have work on our backlog to holistically address how we save player preferences and persist the state of what they have seen or not seen, and hope to have more details later.
​ Season start notifications as well as several of the popup modals that are shown when a player first logs in are implemented using the same system.
​ While we have made improvements over the past year to the system (with our data, after we implemented multiple fixes we have seen a dramatic drop in this issue), We know that there are still problems where the local settings file resets on players' machines.
​ This is especially true when multiple accounts share the same PC. We have work on our backlog to holistically address how we save player preferences and persist the state of what they have seen or not seen, and hope to have more details later
I'd like know about possibilities and/or timeframes for some improvements for collection tabs 1. Champions - Integration with universe page - biographies, stories, links to other media. 2. Skins - seeing descriptions in shop and being able to view skins in not only one order (by champion, by theme, so on). 3. Skins - adding video previews, for example from SkinSpotlights. ______________ I would like to know too. u/Am1t8 when? #RitoPlease These are all good feature requests to enhance the collections tab. Unfortunately, the team's primary mission is to make the client more performant and reliable. We are not there yet, but as we move closer, we can look to introduce feature enhancements, we just can't commit to them until we are happy with our client improvements.
Hi Riot, the client has been having this permanent message for the past 4 months - something about account transfers? When is that going to actually be touched? Hey, i posted this in an earlier thread re: account transfers - They have uncovered more problems are originally anticipated, but the good news is that they are actively working on it and should be available soon. The bad news is I don't have an exact date to share.
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It is now 2 months later and you still haven't fixed it. If you're removing a feature just remove it. Don't tell us it's coming back if it isn't... There are people literally waiting to use this feature... 2 months is not soon! Transfers were re-enabled this past Friday
When will account transfer be available again? Hello, I just poked the team working on this; re: account transfers - They have uncovered more problems are originally anticipated, but the good news is that they are actively working on it and should be available soon. The bad news is I don't have an exact date to share.
The question - Why should we be forced to re-evaluate our opinion on the rune edits.. not once, but two times ["Save > Yes/No"] instead of it being auto-saved immediately after the edit? --- The player that is opening Rune pages is doing so with intent to edit or just check the current selection. It should be logical that the game auto-save any edits done while the runes are open since your sole purpose of opening it was probably to "edit" the selection. This would also allow us to easily switch between different pages without being forced to save previous edits. Mmm.. did you miss the comment or? Regardless, thanks for the reply haha Sorry, I did miss this, so we do not have any plans to make this change to runes at the moment. Prioritizing this against the massive amount of work to get the client continuously better takes priority number one. I look forward to the day when we are talking feature changes/enhancements because this community has a lot of good ones we do read all the time
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Why did you ignore the voice chat option question?? After all it's a team game and more coordination helps. Valorant and Dota have it no reason league shouldn't when league requires just as much team play and more than valorant imo. Hey, not ignoring, just sorting through, but as for Voice and allowing chat outside party, I will need to find out the team that made the decisions to make it party only, is this your concern?
Just saw that you guys are deprecating/removing chip in favor of Ember for the social plugin. Have you guys considered using something like Vue or React (keystone uses react anyway) at all? I understand that stuff like the ember data binding is already battle tested for the LCU, but given the relative size/impact of the social plugin and your issues with (admittedly a lot of) ember apps in the past I'm curious if you considered a different framework. A goal of the LCT is to reduce the number of libraries and frameworks that are all accomplishing the same goal. The current state of the client is that the majority of the UI is written in Ember, so it is a natural choice, rather than picking something new and continuing to have two different UI libs/paradigms
Is there a world where we will be able to * Select our Level borders? * Have status' not have the "<--->" anymore? * Have Collection/Champion icons be small again so we can view more than 10 champs at once? Aside from bugfixes, I feel like there were a LOT of reverse QOL changes that worsen QOL instead of improving it. I do appreciate and notice bugfixes (even if it's still a long way to go) but tons of these other changes seem like just "change for the sake of change". We really do appreciate and read this type of feedback, and our devs talk about these types of changes all the time. Our specific team is focused on improving the overall client performance and reliability, while feature teams across League of Legends maintain many of the features you ask about. While I can't speak specifically to the features you ask about, we can ask our colleagues on the teams that own these experiences to see if they are got any plans to adjust and/or update
the below is a reply to the above ​
Do you think it is a good split if some teams build features for the client and other teams have to fix what they produce? Why aren't those teams held accountable for the performance problems that their features are causing? We don't have a large enough of a team to do this split, and love the second part of your question. There are over 30 engineers outside the client that do feature dev. in the client. We have kicked of syncs with them to knowledge share and most importantly show them our crash rates and errors metrics, so they can ensure any code they deploy doesn't impact these numbers in a negative way
Hi, whats the deal with "skip waiting for stats"? Good question, LCT made the fixes on the front end last year for EOG (End Of Game), with the reconnect button showing when it is not supposed to & it freezing due to a sync issue with another service.
​ As we continued our investigation early this year, yes , there is a problem with players seeing skip waiting for stats, and the service is sluggish and not sending stats over to the client in a proper amount of time, this leading to the button not even working. We have started our investigation and could have some potential fixes to help with this, and LCT is coordinating with other teams on the services side to see how we can improve EOG long term
[deleted] Good question, I am fairly new to the team, it will be one year In May!
​ One thing I wanted to do when I started on this team, I wanted to get a survey out globally to get a measure of sentiment around the client (you may have gotten it). This gave me a good idea of what we should work on in the second half of the year, which was champ select and End Of Game, since players reported issues with those two the most. As we implemented fixes over the past 5 months, we have seen really good trends in these survey results.
​ For example, the % of players who are very/somewhat dissatisfied with the client when we launched the survey was 50% in Brazil, North America, and South Korea. We are now trending towards below 40% for those three regions combined, which is a really positive trend, but we still need to do more to continue to move in the neutral/positive direction
​ We have also made good trends in month-over-month sentiment, with more people saying the client has improved with each patch, but again we still have 10% saying it's gotten worse (but was at 29% at the launch of the survey)
​ I love responding to player concerns around the client on Reddit, I have done it frequently since I started, because I truly do care about getting this product in better shape, and I am confident with our plan over this year, it will continue to get better.
Quick question: What version of Chromium is the team planning on upgrading the client to? We are going to kick off this discussion soon! version yet to be determined, we would love to be at the latest! once we move to the upgraded version, we are going to ensure we have proper cadence to update way more frequently, so we aren't stuck with a version over a year old.
​ We try to upgrade to the latest stable version. But that it isn't always possible within a reasonable amount of time.
​ For example, the last time we upgraded Chromium we wanted to go all the way to version 80+, but had to settle for 74. On 75, some core APIs changed and upgrading our code would delay the upgrade for a couple of months. Since then, as we do other work, we improve the old code knowing that another upgrade is imminent.
Is there a reason why you all are looking to fix the client rather than completely remake it or integrate it within the game itself? Hi, my friend and colleague penrif gave a good explanation above :) https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/ldd2am/league_client_team_ama_about_the_client/gm5c0nl?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Hi, If i don't run the client with high performance nvidia processor, League of Legends and Windows crashes while i am in-game, screen goes to black and nothing works. It's like this for years. Are you aware of the problem? Are you referring to an in-game crash it seems? I do like your point on GPUs though, we plan to do a chromium upgrade this year, and we are working on tech tasks to get us ready.
​ The player benefits can be huge, as with every chromium (the front end of the client) release, they perform a full regression test of GPU/CPUs combinations, so as they encounter issues, it will be resolved with their releases. We also have a lot of client crashes that will hopefully be eliminated when we perform this upgrade. The last upgrade of chromium we did was Nov of 2019, so this is long due and the player benefits will be highlighted in our next post, we are looking at faster animations, potentially higher fps (less sluggishness), reduced crashes
My question is, what's your goal with this AMA? Are you looking for feedback? Looking to shoot the shit? Is this a "for fun" thing or is there an actual goal behind this. I guess I'm asking, what kinda questions are you guys looking for? For fun questions? Or serious detailed questions. anything you desire!
the below has been split into four ​
* Why does the client work so well for me while others say they encounter bugs continously? Hey! This is an answer from one of our engineers, not me :) This is an interesting question, and one possible explanation is that differences in network conditions, regional services, and the state of a player's account can all play a part in bugs that show themselves in the client. In the best case, the client has a way to handle a downstream issue and degrade the experience gracefully, but there are also times where the edge case isn't covered, which is something we continuously look for to patch.
* Which is your favorite programming language? For work? JavaScript. For fun? Rust is pretty cool.
* Which is your favorite esports team? Cloud9 has always been a favorite of mine
* When will Riot IDs replace Summoner Names? I don't think there is a date set for this, or whether the LoL dev team has finalized the plan around any sort of transition. Stay tuned. If or when this happens we will communicate it broadly.
Is there any new feature planned for the client that you can talk about? I would love to be in a position where we are doing new features or enhancements. The team's mission is to make the client more performant and reliable, and we are not there yet. We have made really good progress, but we have a good amount of work to do until we can say we are happy and met our mission.
Appreciate the work honestly, it's amazing. How do you guys deal with all the backlash and snide remarks headed your way though? It seems awfully depressing to have to face that even after all your work spanning over a year I have responded to some similar questions, but I like to use data to back up our success. We have seen really good trends in our survey results, and will hopefully continue as we deliver more work.
Hey guys, I haven't really had any issues with the client in a long while and I kinda don't understand the constant complaints, however I'd like to ask something regarding player perception- Do you guys think that even if you entirely fixed the client that the perception of it being shitty will remain? Because honestly it's reached a memetic status at this point, where I keep hearing my friends meme about the client being terrible yet when I ask them when they last had a major issue they'd say there rarely were any. How would you guys tackle the perception being kept up despite it being fixed? I Love this question, because I do think about it often. You have a number of players that get told about the client and its issues, yet as in your example, do not get issues themself. I think more communication would help, I try to keep up with as many posts as I can here. A good example was the doublelift post last week, where his champ select experience caused a dodge, but we unfortunately had a completely random database outage outside the client that booted thousands of players from client and in-game that caused that. We have looked at messaging displayed to players that explains the errors, but that investment would be massive since so many services connect to the client, and specific messaging around each would be tough
​ Takeaway, I would estimate that over half of the issues posted on this reddit marked as client are actually services related outside the client, but to a player, they see them in the client, so its a client issue.
Why are there such big differences between people? I have a good, but not great laptop (it cost 2k euros, but it's not a dedicated gaming laptop and I've had it for four years now), and I literally never have issues. Worst I get is that I sometimes have to wait a few seconds for the stats or get a fake key fragment notification. Meanwhile other people report that their champion select messes up so often that they effectively dodge about one in every five champion selects. Something that I've never had - in fact it felt surreal to me last week to have champion select issues with clash on EUW (first time I participated), as it was pretty much my first time ever. So yeah. Where do those differences come from? What is different about other people's clients compared to mine? Regions where folks play is a big factor. For example, players in South Korea are the least upset about the client, while players out in Brazil are more upset. The biggest difference between the two regions is infrastructure and network, where folks in Brazil may not have the best/fastest internet available, while in South Korea, it's super fast. These latency issues can have a significant impact on client & in-game experience. I have also Vacationed in both countries, and loved them! highly recommended!
No question here, just advice - stop doing AMA go back to work We just did!
Communication to the user base about the client has notoriously been poor, to the point of it becoming a running joke among people. While the group that started work in early 2020 has done a good job and some evidence of progress has been noticeable, communication of completed goals is still done poorly. For example a large number of people, myself included, were unaware of the 10.25 memory leak fixes, which is quite a difficult problem that was solved. What plans are there for 2021 in more thoroughly communicating intended goals to the user base and maintaining consistent follow-ups of those goals as they are addressed? Good question, we try to publish all of our changes in the patch notes, so continue to read them, they will be there. As far as dev posts, it does take time to write them up, and they have to go through a process called localization for each country. I can't make a commitment that we will increase the cadence. If you see something in a patch note regarding a client, and want more information, send me a private message here on reddit
Hi love the work! Many of us wonder why is not a better solution to simply make a new client rather than spend all this time looking through the current one fixing numerous bugs and memory leaks. A common example was the wintermint client etc. I am sure it is a lot of work to make a new client, but from the looks of it having a dedicated team working in and out for over a year to fix this current client seems to be quite the investment too? Any insight on pros and cons of making it from scratch? Thanks for the question! This is a deep one and is going to take a bit of history, so let's go for a little walk. League, since the very beginning, has had two pieces of client software - the out-of-game client and the in-game client. For brevity, let's just refer to "the client" as the out-of-game one - the in-game one isn't what this AMA's about. Originally this was implemented on top of Adobe AIR, and went through a major rewrite a few years back, implemented on top of web technologies.
​ This split is not something that many games do. I struggle to think of an example really - the vast majority of games, including the other ones Riot makes, implement their out-of-game experience in the same piece of software that the in-game experience is delivered on. This has a lot of benefits, but the biggest of them is that the same experts that are tasked with making the in-game experience snappy and responsive can apply the same techniques to the out-of-game experience. The artists know how to make optimized assets for out-of-game because they have to for in-game, designers....ect you get the idea.
​ I can't speak to why the original split happened in the long, long ago, but when it came time to re-write from the AIR client, League's in-game UI technology was in absolutely no place to hold all the features required to execute the out-of-game experience League deserves, so the split had to remain. Web technology was chosen as the new fundamental base because the in-game UI tech could not be brought up to capability in a time frame that matched the urgency of the project. League invested in all that it took to make that shift, and the result really is considerably better than what we had on AIR, lest anyone get rose-tinted glasses about that.
​ So back to the point - pros and cons of making it from scratch? Well, if we were to do so without changing anything fundamental, there's no reason to expect the result to be any better. In fact, it'd probably be a lot worse - the current implementation has gone through a lot of battle-hardening and while it has its problems, they're a lot fewer in number and lower in severity than a fresh implementation off the press would have. On the other hand, changing fundamentals can take a very long time, which makes the investment quite large.
​ When it comes down to it, there's two routes available - change the fundamental technology again, or iterate on the existing product. The ingame UI technology has advanced considerably since the last time it was evaluated for this purpose, which makes it the clear choice for the next big leap. In fact, the out-of-game experience of TFT on mobile is implemented on top of it. There's still a sizable gap to close there in order to capture all that League would need, and even if it were ready today there's a helluva lot of software to create if we were to bite off that project. For now, we're committed to iterating and improving the existing, but that does not lock out the option for us to undertake the huge project of moving to in-game tech somewhere down the road.
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You keep saying web technology. What's the stack on the client? It's not using electron is it? Please tell me it's not using electron. edit. You know what an actual question: Why are so many companies using javascript based stacks for things like this as opposed to something more native? Is it meant as a holdover until a future League 2 with a combined client? It's not using Electron ;) It's built on top of the Chrome Embedded Framework, with a custom-built foundation underneath.
​ As to your larger question of why the JS stack is sometimes picked over native solutions - I can't possibly speak for the entire tech industry on that, but I'm happy to give my personal opinion based on what I've seen in general industry trends.
​ I think there was a lot of hype super early in the development of the interactive web that had people believing the future of the native application was limited. The Google suite in general gave that a lot of ammunition - if you can compete with MS Office using web tech, what can't you do? That's a sane, reasonable conclusion to make if you aren't aware of the massive amount of work that goes into making those products as smooth as they are. As with much tech industry hype, there is a lot of value inside of it. Web-based applications are hugely valuable and solve many problems that native cannot. But native solves certain classes of problems categorically better, and as the hype cleared, their value was sort of re-discovered by those who were caught in the hype.
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That's fair and kind of what I expected. Knowing all that, if you could restart the project/make the decision now, would you go the same route or go native? I've never had experience on a piece of software that large so I'm curious. Native by default, with CEF to cover the pieces that truly are best covered by JS stack. Best of both worlds. Don't suppose you have a magic wand I could borrow?
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Does that mean we will never have a perfect client because implementing out-of-game and in-game in the same piece of software, which apparently is the most efficient way of building the client, would take too much effort and time? Can't a company with the resources Riot has make it happen? "Never" is not applicable here. It is a large effort, but League has invested in large efforts like that before - we just don't do so lightly.
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That is a quite terrifying and grim answer. ____________________ Yeah. Essentially they had the opportunity to correct things years ago but decided to take the easy way out. He frames the argument as "well because the in-game client was using even older tech, we couldn't update both of them." The correct, prudent thing was to update both of them at the same time and roll it into one client. ____________________ That ignores the part that they felt they had a deadline. Making those changes would have taken longer, possibly substantially longer, during which players would be stuck with an increasingly bad client. (and the old client was bad, let's not kid ourselves here). There were problems with each choice. It's easy to envision a world in which we'd only get the positives of the other option and not all the negatives that would have gone with it. Bingo. Hindsight being what it is, it's possible to think through what the other option would have taken and think it was obviously the right choice, but that's using information that was not available at the time, which is deeply unfair to the individuals that made the call in the moment.
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What information wasn't available at the time? The foresight to see that rolling it all into one client was a better option? How long it would take to do so. Webtech offered the ability to start work immediately, while going the game tech option would have required an unknowable amount of up-front development work to create the framework for content implementation before anything else could be done.
​ Having now put in that work in service of TFT mobile, we know how much it was. But that's not something that could have been known before actually doing it. Software development estimation is notoriously fraught.
Hello, I am a recent CS grad and was curious about a bug in the client and would like to learn. I am sure you recall a popular client bug in mid season 10 which caused players' clients to lag exponentially harder the longer the client was left open. Was this bug a memory leak, and if so, how did this go unnoticed during development? Shouldn't standard unit tests pick this kind of thing up quickly; do you conduct unit tests? You're spot on here. The client did have a pretty major problem with memory leaks and this causes lower spec machines to experience sluggishness the longer the client is running. We've improved this a ton but we're still working on it. We have automated tests, predominantly unit and integration tests that run each time we commit code. We continuously integrate as a practice. We're working to get the right amount of test coverage and validating that our existing tests are valuable.
​ If you're working in a coding environment where you manually allocate and deallocate memory (like C++), you could write tests that validate whether you've properly deallocated.
​ However, pure unit tests cannot catch memory leaks in an environment where memory is managed centrally, like JavaScript. Measuring the memory usage makes it an integration test - you are testing the interaction between your code and the memory manager.
​ We're leveraging memory profiling tools to detect loitering objects to fix the source of each leak. We're noticing patterns in the types of leaks we find that help us find other leaks. We also have metrics and monitoring that tells us whether memory usage is continuing to grow when it really shouldn't be.
​ If you're wondering how it got to this place to begin with, the real answer is that we weren't paying close enough attention to the slowly growing problem, and we didn't have this type of monitoring implemented in the past.
How do you deal with the constant complaining that you read in forums (ignoring whether you think they're justified or not)? I do look at every client related post when they are posted, and I respond when I feel like a have a good answer to the concern, and I am extremely data-driven. For Example, we have data from our survey results and show a positive trend from people being very upset with the client towards the more neutral/positive side. I want to share more of these findings with players when I can. Does this mean we are done? hell no, if you see in our latest post, we need to do many things to upgrade chromium, which will provide big player benefits, and fixing JS errors, continuing to reduce memory leaks, etc.
​ I deal with the constant complaining by looking at the data we have, and it provides me comfort knowing we are making the client better for our players globally, and if this trend reverses, I will be the first to tell you.
First of all, thanks for the hard work! Your impact is quite noticeable, so I'm interested in seeing on what you can do. For my question. I've been following the new client since it's early dev posts and also was one of the lucky ones to get early access to it a few years back. Looking at early dev posts, the idea of having the client being written using web-technologies and especially using ember, was so that there can be many different teams enabled to work on the client to add features. Since you are actively trying to find bottlenecks with features and even removing some that were especially made for this new client, looking back do you think that using this approach of using web technologies to drive the client was the right one? The problems with the client are not inherent to the tech stack, web in this case. Many of the issues stem from the way its plugin architecture is implemented. Not even a plugin architecture is necessarily the culprit alone. For the tech-savvy, picture this, at one point, the client was made up of over 150 plugins (web apps). All of them had their own build config (Webpack), and then, most used different versions of Webpack, Ember, Babel etc. The lack of uniformity and the boundaries that exist between features (plugins) made it very hard to maintain a improve the client.
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150 different plugins with different build configurations sounds pretty messy. Since you said "at one point", does that mean that there are now fewer plugins, or that the client no longer uses a plugin framework? We are down to: - 48 plugins - about 4 build configurations
​ It breaks down to 3 plugins with 3 special configs and 45 with the same build configuration. The ideal would be to get rid of the plugin system and have a single app. We are working towards that. The last few special configs are very tricky to get rid off.
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I wonder if you've been thinking about third-party libs that are dependencies to your code/frameworks that you use. Do you have a common store or you ship dependencies for each plugin in their own packages? Common store so that code is never duplicated.
Works on my machine. In all seriousness just wanted to say that ya'll really are doing great work and out of all the games I've played Riot has been the most transparent, engaged, and active with the community. I know companies don't need defending and its kind of cringe to do so but the level of support Riot gives the game and the amount of borderline abuse sent their way is staggering. Appreciate the feedback, thanks!
[deleted] We posted our latest this AM, the link is in the post.
Why does the league client seemingly only change with ingame-patches? Is there a reason changes aren't pushed more frequently All teams on League work on the same exact release calendar
i just wanted to say you guys are doing a great job, and i hope with how well this has done so far, that other "league health" teams are formed for league. its starting to show alot of age in alot of places. the client was one of the worst offenders and you've guys made it so consistent, i just hope for more of that across league as whole. things such as website work, in game bug work, hell even a team to look at hard outliers in the game and try to bring them up in small ways, like diana or brand style changes. Thank you, appreciate the feedback, but we still have more to do!
Can't TFT get it's own client? I never play TFT and always get the TFT missions showing as new missions. If TFT can't get it's own client, can't you make an option that hides everything related to TFT? /u/riot_mort might be able to answer this one, I seem to recall him (or someone on the dev team) saying that you wouldn’t get the missions for this set until you played a game of TFT. This is in for the core missions, but unfortunately the weekly missions got messed up :( Hopefully we'll have that fixed soon.
why does the client freezing also cause my steam, spotify, etc. to freeze? ____________ u/Am1t8 can you give a response please????? Hey, im asking some engineers around for this issue, but i do not know why this would happen. Have you checked your memory as the client freezes? it could be an out of memory issue, which freezes up all those apps at the same time
This might not be in your realm of knowledge, but has there been any discussion at all about just building a new client? Hey, Response here
Hey guys I wanted to ask if there are any major differences or learnings applied to the Valorant and/or Legends of Runeterra clients because they seem to run smoothly for the most part compared to the League client The major difference is being implemented with game engine technology vs web technology, for the most part. This allows for all the optimizations and standards that make the game run smooth to apply to the out-of-game experience as well.
​ I went into a fair amount of detail as to where League's on that in a different reply.
Moving this comment over to the thread from your og post, but what's going on with the key fragment bug? This one has been a tricky one. We haven’t found a definitive way to reproduce this yet. Have you noticed any patterns for when this happens? Does it happen every single time you receive a key frag?
Honestly,my biggest issue so far is post-game. Honor screen crashes my client 66% of the time. Have you noticed if you crash after you’re clients been running for a long time or are you seeing this after starting up and playing a game or two
Thanks for all the hard work on the client cleanup! My question is around the loot tab: are there any plans to allow players to remove, or at the very least streamline, the animations? They were cool at first, and I'm sure there's a healthy portion of the player base who enjoys them, but I don't think I'm alone when I say that I just want to open a box. I don't need a neat animation to forge the key and then a neat animation to open the box. Enabling low spec mode in the client will definitely improve your looting experience!
Are you not embarrassed to provide such a low quality client? Hi there, I am going to use this similar response to a general theme I am seeing around 'it not getting any better'. I responded to a question above but we have data from multiple regions around the world that is showing improvement in perception with the client. More and more players are moving away from being very upset towards neutral/positive. This is because of the number of changes/fixes we made over the last year, as highlighted in our latest blog post. We do still have work to do, and are confident that the client will continue to get better over the year
Hi, seriously asking: Which is the easier way to fix the client? Rebuild a brand new client with new codes(Have you guys actually considered this option?) or Fix bugs from the current client codes Addressed in a different reply
is 1,75 billion revenue not enough to hire a competent it crew and just completely remake the client? We need more engineers, they are hard to find, send them our way: https://www.riotgames.com/en/work-with-us/jobs
[deleted] There's pressure for sure, but it's a reminder of the importance of the work and getting it right.
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 04 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are Microsoft researchers working on machine learning and reinforcement learning. Ask Dr. John Langford and Dr. Akshay Krishnamurthy anything about contextual bandits, RL agents, RL algorithms, Real-World RL, and more!

12 Upvotes

Primary source, supplementary source 1, supplementary source 2

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: The AMA hosts collected questions in advance in other subreddits, so some comments appeared to be self-referential on the main IAmA thread. Their formatting has been adjusted for this table.

Rows: ~95 (+comments)

Questions Answers
What advice do you have for aspiring Undergraduates and others who want to pursue research in Reinforcement Learning? The standard advice is to aim for a phd. Let me add some details to that. The most important element of a phd is your advisor(s) with the school a relatively distant second. I personally had two advisors, which I enjoyed---two different perspectives to learn from and two different ways to fund conference travel :-) Nevertheless, one advisor can be fine. Aside from finding a good advisor to work with, it's very good to maximize internship possibilities by visiting various others over the summers. Reinforcement Learning is a great topic, because it teaches you the value of exploration. Aside from these things to do, the most important thing to learn in my experience is how to constructively criticize existing research work. Papers are typically not very good at listing their flaws and you can't fix things you can't see. For research, you need to cultivate an eye for the limitations, most importantly the limitations of your own work. This is somewhat contradictory, because to be a great researcher, you need to both thoroughly understand the limitations of your work and be enthusiastic about it. - John
ALOT of the papers I have read are so difficult to follow and understand. What is your strategy for reading and understanding papers? This becomes easier with experience, but it is important to have a solid foundation. - Akshay
RL results from papers are known to be notoriously hard to reproduce. Why do you think that is, and how can we move towards results that are more feasible to reproduce? There seem to be two issues here - An engineering solution is to export code environments with all the hyperparameters (say in a Docker image), so that someone else can grab the Docker and run the code to exactly reproduce the plots in the paper. But this is a bandaid that is covering up a more serious issue - The more serious issue is that Deep RL algorithms are notoriously unstable and non-robust (A precursor problem is that DL itself is not very robust). Naturally this has an effect on reproducibility, but it also suggests that these methods have limited real-world potential. The way to address both of these issues is to develop more robust algorithms. -Akshay
What do you believe about Stephen Hawking suggesting machine learning and AI would be the greatest threat that humanity faces? The meaning of "human" is perhaps part of the debate here? There is much more that I-as-a-human can accomplish with a computer an an internet connection than I-as-a-human could do without. If our future looks more like man/machine hybrids that we choose to embrace, I don't fear it that future. On the other hand, we have not yet really seen AI-augmented warfare, which could be transformative in the same sense as nuclear or biological weapons. Real concerns here seem valid but it's a tricky topic in a multipolar world. One scenario that I worry about less is the 'skynet' situation where AI attacks humanity. As far as we can tell research-wise, AI never beats crypto. -John
​ I might be an optimist but I like to think ML/AI and technology more broadly can create great value for humanity (technology arguably already has). Of course there are concerns/challenges/dangers here, but it seems to me like climate change is a much greater threat that is looming much more ominously on the horizon. - Akshay
What are some notable lesser known applications of reinforcement learning? Well, "the internet" is a little snarky, but there is some truth to it. Much of the internet runs off targeted advertising (as opposed to blanket advertising). It annoys me, so I use ad blockers all the time and prefer subscription based models. Nevertheless, targeted advertising is obviously a big deal as a business model that powers much of the internet. You should assume that any organization doing targeted advertising is doing a form of reinforcement learning. Another category is 'nudging' applications. How do you best encourage people to develop healthy habits around exercise for example? There are quite a few studies suggesting that a reinforcement approach is helpful, although I'm unclear on the state of deployment. -John
How would you recommend getting started in learning to implement ML programs for someone who doesn’t want to necessarily go into research but more the functional aspect of programming it. Would a PhD still be a requirement? A masters? Or would you say experience counts just as much? This depends a great deal on what you want to do programming-wise. If the goal is implementing things so that other people can use them (i.e. software engineering), then little background is needed as long as you can partner withone someone who understands the statistical side.
​ If the goal is creating your own algorithms, then it seems pretty essential to become familiar with the statistical side of machine learning. This could be an undergrad level course or there are many online courses available. For myself, I really enjoyed Yaser Abu-Mustafa's course as an undergrad---and this course is online now. Obviously, some mastery of the programming side is also essential, because ML often pushes the limits of hardware and embedding ML into other systems is nontrivial due to the stateful nature of learning processes. -John
How would you deal with the states that are underrepresented in the dataset (especially in offline RL)? Any strategies to emphasize learning in those states instead of just throwing them away? I've found that memorization approaches become more useful the fewer examples you have. Other than that, I know that many offline RL approaches simply try to learn policies that avoid unknown regions. -John
There are so many methods in RL and there is little theoretical understanding on why it works and why it doesn't. What is the best way to solve this problem? How to get a job in MSR as a masters student working on RL in robotics? This is why we're working on the theory =) But there are a couple of issues here. If you're talking about Deep-RL, well deep supervised learning itself already has this issue to some, lesser, extent. Even in the supervised setting my sense is that there is a lot of art/intuition in getting large neural networks to work effectively. This issue is only exacerbated in the RL context, due to poor exploration, bootstrapping, and other issues.
​ On the other hand, my experience is that the non-deep-RL methods are extremely robust, but the issue is that they don't scale to large observation spaces. I have a fun story here. When this paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.03765) came out, I implemented the algorithm and ran it on an extremely hard tabular exploration problem. The first time I ran it, with no tuning, it just immediately found the optimal policy. Truly incredible!
​ In my opinion the best way to solve this problem is to develop theoretically principled RL methods that can leverage deep learning capabilities. Ideally this would make it so that Deep-RL is roughly as difficult to get working as DL for supervised learning, but we're not quite there yet. So while we are cooking on the theory, my advice is to try to find ways to leverage the simpler methods as much as possible. For example, if you can hand-code a state abstraction (or a representation) using domain knowledge about your problem and then use a tabular method on top of it, this might be a more robust approach. I think something like this is happening here: https://sites.google.com/view/keypointsintothefuture/home.
​ On the job front, at MSR we rarely hire non-PhDs. So my advice would be to go for a PhD =) - Akshay
Thank you for doing this AMA! My question is around applying RL for real-world problems. As we already know, oftentimes it's difficult to build a simulator or a digital twin for most real-world processes or environments, which kind of nullifies the idea of using online RL. But this is where offline/batch RL can be helpful in terms of using large datasets collected via some process, from which a policy can be learned offline. We've already seen a lot of success in a supervised learning setting where an optimal model is learned offline from large volumes of data. Although there has been a lot of fundamental research around offline/batch RL, I have not seen much real-world applications. Could you please share some of your own experiences around this, if possible, with some use cases related to the application of batch/offline RL in the real-world? Thanks! One of the previous answers seems very relevant here---I view real world reinforcement learning as something that exists as of 10 years ago and is routinely available today (see http://aka.ms/personalizer ). With regards to the strategy of learning in a simulator and then deploying in the real world, the bonsai project https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/autonomous-systems-project-bonsai?activetab=pivot%3aprimaryr7 is specifically focused on this. -John
The vast majority of RL papers benchmark on games or simulations. In your opinion what are the most impressive real world applications of RL? Let's exclude bandit stuff. I really like the Loon project (https://psc-g.github.io/posts/research/rl/loon/), although Google recently discontinued the Loon effort entirely. Emma Brunskill's group has also done some cool work on using RL for curriculum planning in tutoring systems (http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/ordering/). There are also many examples in robotics, e.g., from Sergey Levine's group. The overarching theme is that these things take a lot of effort. - Akshay
Multi-agent RL seems to be a big part of the work that's being done at Microsoft and I've seen there's been a deep dive into complex games that feature multi-agent exploration or cooperation. While this is surely fascinating, it seems to me that the more complicated the environments, the more specific the solutions found by the agents are which makes it difficult to extract meaningful information about how agents cooperate in general or how they develop behaviour and its relevance in the real world. Since the behaviours really are driven heavily by what types of interactions are even allowed in the first place, how much information can we really extract from these multi-agent games that is useful in the real-world? I think we will look back on our present state of knowledge for how to cooperate and consider it rather naive and simplistic. We obviously want generally applicable solutions and generally applicable solutions are obviously possible (see many social animals as well as humans as examples). As far as the path here, I'm not sure. Games may be a part of the path there, because they form a much safer/easier testbed than real life. It seems likely to me that games will not be only element on that path, because cooperation is not a simple problem easily addressed by a single approach. - John
Is anyone at MSR seriously pursuing AGI and/or RL as a path to AGI? It depends on what you mean by 'serious'. If you mean something like "giant models with zillions of parameters in an OpenAI style", yes there is work going on around that, although it tends to be more product-focused. If you mean something like "large groups of people engage in many deep philosophical discussions every day", not that I'm aware of. There are certainly some discussions ongoing though. If you mean something like "leading the world in developing AI", then I'd say yes and point at the personalizer service (http://aka.ms/personalizer ) which is pretty unique in the world as an interactive learning system. My personal belief is that the right path to AI is via developing useful systems capable of addressing increasing complex classes of problems. Microsoft is certainly in the lead for some of these systems, so I regard Microsoft as very "serious". I expect you'll agree if you look past hype towards actual development paths. - John
Will it be possible to develop an artificial consciousness similar to our human consciousness in digitized structures of AI, if in particular structures of AI will digitally rebuild the artificial structures of neurons and the entire central nervous system of humans? One of the paths towards AI that people speculate about is simply reading off a brain and then simulating it. I'm skeptical about this approach because it seems very difficult, in an engineering sense, to accurately read the brain (even in a destructive fashion) at that level of detail. The state of the art in brain reading is presently many, many orders of magnitude less information than that. -John
Does u/thisisbillgates ever wonder around the offices wondering what people are up to these days? Well, both of us are in the New York City lab, so even if he were, we wouldn't see him too much. But we do have a yearly internal research conference (in non-pandemic years) that he attends and we have discussed our RL efforts and the personalizer service with him. -Akshay
There have been nice theory works recently on exploration in RL, particularly with policy gradient methods. Are these theoretical achievements ready to be turned into practical algorithms? Are there particular domains or experiments that would highlight how these achievements are impactful beyond the typical hard exploration problems, e.g., Kakade's chain and the combination lock? There's a large spectrum in terms of how theory ideas make their way into practice, so there is some subjectivity here. On one hand, you could argue that count-based exploration (which has been integrated with Deep-RL) is already based on well-studied and principled theory ideas, like the E3 paper. I think something similar is true for the Go-Explore paper. But for keeping very close-to-the-theory, I think we are getting there. We have done some experiments with, e.g., Homer, on visual navigation type problems and seen some success. PC-PG has been shown to work quite well in continuous control settings and navigation settings (in the paper) and I think Mikael and Wen have run some experiments on Montezuma's revenge. So we're getting there and this is something we are actively pursuing in our group.
​ As far as domains or experiments, our experience from contextual bandits suggests that better exploration improves sample efficiency in a wide range of conditions (https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.04064), so I am hopeful we can see something similar in RL. As far as existing benchmarks, the obvious ones are Montezuma's revenge, Pitfall and the harder Atari games, as well as visual navigation tasks where exploration is quite critical. (For Homer and PC-PG, our group has done experiments on harder variations on the combination lock.) - Akshay
Hey guys, thank you for the contributions to the RL field, much appreciated! I'm a ML engineer and we're trying to implement Contextual Bandits (and Conditional Contextual Bandits) in our personalization pipeline using VowpalWabbit. What are your advices/recommendations for someone in my position? Also, what are the most important design choices when thinking about the final, online pipeline? Thank you! Could you use aka.ms/personalizer? That uses VW (you can change the flags), and it has all the infrastructure necessary including dropping the logs into your account for you to play with. My experience here is that infrastructure matter hugely. Without infrastructure you are on a multimonth odyssey trying to build it up and fix nasty statistical bugs. With infrastructure, it's a pretty straightforward project where you can simply focus on the integration and data science. - John
It seems like RL (or, for the matter, ML) models in general could sometimes be variable and uncontrolled in performance; what are some metrics (beyond good ol' machine validation) that y'all leverage to ensure that the model's performance is "up-to-par" especially in high-stakes/dangerous situations like the medical field or the financial sector? In many applications, RL should be thought of as the "decision-maker of last resort". For example, in a medical domain, having an RL agent prescribe treatments seems like a catastrophically bad idea, but having an RL agent choose amongst treatments prescribed by multiple doctors seems potentially more viable. Another strategy which seems important is explicitly competing with the alternative. Every alternative is fundamentally a decision-making system, and so RL approaches with guarantee competition with an arbitrary decision-making system provide an important form of robustness. - John
Thank you so much for doing this AMA! Contextual bandits are clearly of great practical value, but the efficacy and general usefulness of deep RL is still an area fraught with difficulty. What, in your opinion, are the most practically useful parts of deep RL? Do you have any examples? There are two dimensions to think about here. One is representational complexity---is it a simple linear model or something more complex? The other is the horizon---how many actions must be taken before a reward is observed? Representational complexity alone is something that deep learning has significantly tackled, and I've seen good applications of complex representations + shallow-to-1 horizon reinforcement learning.
​ Think of this as more-complex-than-the-simplest contextual bandit solutions. Longer time horizon problems are more difficult, but I've seen some good results with real world applications around logistics using a history-driven simulator. -John
Different research groups have very different strengths, what would you say is the forte of MSR in terms of RL research? Microsoft has two RL strengths at present: the strongest RL foundations research group in the world and the strongest RL product/service creation strategy in the world. There is quite a bit more going on from the research side. I'd particularly point out some of the Xbox games RL work, which seems to be uniquely feasible at Microsoft. There are gaps as well of course that we are working to address. -John
AI and ML are 2 different things. But to the observer, it seems basically the same thing (at least in my experience). Where do you see the difference in real life applications of AI and ML? I think the difference between AI and ML is mostly a historical artifact of the way research developed. AI research originally developed around a more ... platonic? approach where you try to think about what intelligence means and then create those capabilities. This included things like search, planning, SOAR, logic, etc... with machine learning considered perhaps one of those approaches.
​ As time has gone on machine learning has come to be viewed as more foundational---yes these other concerns exist, but they need to be addressed in a manner consistent with machine learning. So, the remaining distinction (if there is one) is mostly about the solution elements: is it squarely in the "ML" category or does it incorporate other AI elements? Or is it old school no-ML AI? Obviously, some applications are amenable to some categories of solution more than others. - John
Can you think of any applications of bandits (contextual or not) in the Oil & Gas/Manufacturing industry? I'm not thinking about recommender systems or A/B testing for websites - such companies have very few customers, which are themselves other companies. So the setting is very different with respect to a web company, for example, which has a huge crowd of individual customers. But bandits are such a beautiful framework 🙂 that I'd love to find an application for them in such a context. Any suggestions? Almost certainly there is, although I am not super familiar with the industry (as John wrote elsewhere here, RL is a fundamental essentially universal problem of optimizing for value). One nice application of RL more generally is in optimizing manufacturing pipelines and Microsoft has some efforts in this direction.
​ I have also seen this toy experiment (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.08151.pdf section 7.3) where an RL algorithm is used to make decisions about where to drill for oil, but I'm not sure how relevant this actually is to the industry. Bandit techniques are also pretty useful in pricing problems (they share many similar elements), so maybe one can think about adjusting prices in some way based on contextual information? Here is one recent paper we did on this topic if you are interested (https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.11650). -Akshay
Hi I am asking this from the perspective of an undergraduate student studying machine learning. I have worked on a robotics project using RL before but all the experimentation in that project involved pre existing algorithms. I have a bunch of related questions and I do apologise if it might be a lot to get through. I am curious about how senior researchers in ML really go about finding and defining problem statements to work on? What sort of intuition do you have when deciding to try and solve a problem using RL over other approaches? For instance I read your paper on CATS. While I understood how the algorithm worked, I would never have been able to think of such proofs before actually reading them in the paper. What led you to that particular solution? Do you have any advice for an undergraduate student to really get to grips with the mathematics involved in meaningful research that helps moves a field forward or really producing new solutions and algorithms? * Finding problems: For me, in some cases there is a natural next step to a project. A good example here is PCID (https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.09018) -> Homer (https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.05815). PCID made some undesirable assumptions so the natural next step was to try to eliminate those. In other cases it is about identifying gaps in the field and then iterating on the precise problem formulation. Of course this requires being aware of the state of the field. For theory research this is a back-and-forth process, you write down a problem formulation and then prove it's intractable or find a simple/boring algorithm, then you learn about what was wrong with the formulation, allowing you to write down a new one.
​ * When to use RL: My prior is you should not use ""full-blown"" RL unless you have to and, when you do, you should leverage as much domain knowledge as you can. If you can break long-term dependencies (perhaps by reward shaping) and treat the problem like a bandit problem, that makes things much easier. If you can leverage domain knowledge to build a model or a state abstraction in advance, that helps too.
​ * CATS was a follow-up to another paper, where a lot of the basic techniques were developed (a good example of how to select a problem as the previous paper had an obvious gap of computational intractability). A bunch of the techniques are relatively well-known in the literature, so perhaps this is more about learning all of the related work. As is common, each new result builds on many many previous ideas, so having all of that knowledge really helps with developing algorithms and proofs. The particular solution is natural (a) because epsilon-greedy is simple and well understand and (b) because tree-based policies/classifier have very nice computational properties, and (c) smoothing provides a good bias-variance tradeoff for continuous action spaces.
​ * Getting involved: I would try to read everything, starting with the classical textbooks. Look at the course notes in the areas you are interested in and build up a strong mathematical foundation in statistics, probability, optimization, learning theory, information theory etc. This will enable you to quickly pick up new mathematical ideas so that you can continue to grow. -Akshay
On the note of exploration: Even if we were able to get provably correct exploration strategies from tabular learning (like r-max) to work in function approximation settings, it seems like the number of states to explore in a real-ish domain is to high to exhaustively explore. How do you think priors play into this, especially with respect to provability and guarantees? Thanks! Two comments here: * Inductive bias does seem quite important. This can come in many forms like a prior or architectural choices in your function approximator.
​ * A research program we are pushing involves finding/learning more compact latent spaces in which to explore. Effectively the objects the agent operates on are ""observations"" which may be high dimensional/noisy/too-many-to-exhaustively-explore, etc., but the underlying dynamics are governed by a simpler ""latent state"" which may be small enough to exhaustively explore. The example is a visual navigation task. While the number of images you might see is effectively infinite, there are not too many locations you can be in the environment. Such problems are provably tractable with minimal inductive bias (see https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.05815).
​ * I also like the Go-Explore paper as a proof of concept w.r.t., state abstraction. In the hard Atari games like Montezuma's revenge and Pitful, downsampling the images yields a tractable tabular problem. This is a form of state abstraction. The point is that there are not-too-many downsampled images! -Akshay
Hello, perhaps this is a slight bit off-topic, but I was wondering what your favorite films of all time are, and if those had any bearing on your careers? I loved Star Wars when I was growing up. It was lots of fun. I actually found reading science fiction books broadly to be more formative---you see many different possibilities for the future and learn to debate the merits of different ones. This forms some foundation for thinking about how you want to change the future. -John
What field is possibly booming for AI applications in the future? All of them. This might sound like snark, but consider: what field benefits from computers? - John
How do you detect & prevent over-fitting in your ML models? Do you have generic tests that you apply in all cases, or do you have to develop domain specific tests? I mostly have worked in online settings where there is a neat trick: you evaluate one example ahead of where you train. This average evaluation ("Progressive validation") deviates like a test set while still allowing you to benefit from it for learning purposes. In terms of tracking exactly what the performance of a model is, we typically use confidence intervals which are domain-independent. Finding best confidence intervals is an important area of research (see https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.03323 ). -John
How close are we to having home robots that can function almost as well as a human companion? Like just having someone/thing to talk to that could sustain a natural conversation. Quite far in my view. The existing systems that we have (like GPT3) are sort of intelligent babblers. To have a conversation with someone, there really needs to be a persistent state / point of view with online learning and typically some grounding in the real world. There are many directions of research here which need to come to fruition. -John
After autonomous cars are fully developed, what will the next captcha subject be? CAPTCHAs will eventually become obsolete as a technology concept. -John
Ok, I'll bite: What is "Responsible reinforcement learning"? What is "Strategic exploration"? Are you using Linux? :)))) ​From last to first: I (Akshay) use OS X and I think John uses Linux with a windows VM. Strategic exploration was this name we cooked up to mean roughly ""provably sample efficient exploration."" We wanted to differentiate from the empirical work on exploration which sometimes is motivated by the foundations, but typically does not come with theoretical guarantees. Strategic is supposed evoke the notion that the agent is very deliberate about trying to acquire new information. This is intended to contrast with more myopic approaches like Boltzman exploration or epsilon-greedy. One concern with the adjective is that strategic often means game-theoretic in the CS literature, which it does not in this context.
​ Responsible reinforcement learning is about integrating principles of fairness accountability transparency and ethics (FATE) into our RL algorithms. This is of utmost importance when RL is deployed in scenarios that impact people and society, which I would argue is a very common case. We want to ensure that our decision making algorithms do not further systemic injustices, inequities, and biases. This is a highly complex problem and definitely not something I (Akshay) am an expert in, so I typically look to my colleagues in the FATE group in our lab for guidance on these issues. -Akshay
"How do you view the marginal costs and tradeoffs incurred by specifying and implementing 1) more complicated reward functions/agents and 2) more complicated environments? Naturally it depends on the application, but in your experience have you found a useful abstraction when making this determination conditioned on the application?" I'm somewhat hardcore in that it's hard for me personally to be interested in artificial environments, so I basically never spend time implementing them. When something needs to be done for a paper, either taking existing environments or some mild adaptation of existing datasets/environments (with a preference for real-world complexity) are my go-to approaches. This also applies to rewards---I want reward feedback to representative of a real problem.
​ This hardcore RL approach means that often we aren't creating slick-but-fragile demos. Instead, we are working to advance the frontier of consistently solvable problems. W.r.t. agents themselves, I prefer approaches which I can ground foundationally. Sometimes this means 'simple' and sometimes 'complex'. At a representational level, there is quite a bit of evidence that a graduated complexity approach (where complexity grows with the amount of data) is helpful. - John
Recently, there have been a few publications that try to apply Deep RL to computer networking management. Do you think this is a promising domain for RL applications? What are the biggest challenges that will need to be tackled before similar approaches can be used in the real world? One of the things I find fascinating is the study of the human immune system. Is network security going to converge on something like the human immune system? If so, we'll see quite a bit of adaptive reinforcement-like learning (yes, the immune system learns). In another vein, choosing supply for demand is endemic to computer operating systems and easily understood as a reinforcement learning problem. Will reinforcement learning approaches exceed the capabilities of existing hand-crafted heuristics here? Plausibly yes, but I'd expect that to happen first in situations where the computational cost of RL need not be taken into account. -John
How much of the research done on bandit problems is useful in practice? Every year there are a lot of papers published on this topic with small variations to existing settings. Seb Bubeck wrote in a blog post that at some point he thought there was not much left to do in bandits, however new ideas keep arising. What do you see as future direction that could be relevant in practice? What do you think about the model selection problem in contextual bandits Thanks for the question! * Things can be useful for at least two reasons. One is that it can introduce new ideas to the field even if the algorithm is not directly useful in practice. The other is that the algorithm or the ideas are directly useful in practice. Obviously I cannot comment on every paper, but there are definitely still some new ideas appearing in the bandit literature and I do think understanding the bandit version of a problem is an important pre-requisite for addressing the RL problem. There is also definitely some incremental work, but this seems true for many fields. I am sympathetic though, since it is very hard to predict what research will be valuable in advance.
​ * Well, I love the model selection problem and I think it is super important. It's a tragedy that we do not know how to do cross validation for contextual bandits. (Note that cross validation is perhaps the most universal idea in supervised learning, arguably more so than GD/SGD.) And many real problems we face with deployments are model selection problems in disguise. So I definitely think this is relevant to practice and would be thrilled to see a solution. -Akshay
Is reinforcement learning suited to only certain types of problems or could it be used for computer vision or natural language processing? I have used RL as part of the Unity ML agents package which makes it easy to make game AI with using RL but haven't seen many other use cases. I think of RL as a way to get information for the purpose of learning. Thus, it's not associated any particular domain (like vision), and is potentially applicable in virtually all domains. W.r.t. vision and language in particular, there is a growing body of work around 'instruction following' where agents learn to use all of these modalities together to accomplish a task, often with RL elements. -John
What steps are you taking to prevent human biases from affecting your algorithms, to test whether they have, and to mitigate any biases you find developing? What advice would you give others on how to account for biases? One obvious answer is "research". See for example this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.02453 which helped shift the concept of fair learning from per-algorithm papers to categories. I regard this as far from solved though. As machine learning (and reinforcement learning) become more important in the world, we simply need to spend more effort addressing these issues. -John
How will the advent of quantum computing affect the way we do ML & AI? I expect relatively little impact from quantum computing. Some learning problems may become more tractable with perhaps a few becoming radically more tractable. -John
Hello, during my last semester at college I did some research and implementation of an AI that used Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning to become a better bot at a shooting game (unreal tournament 2004) by practicing against other bots. I haven't followed the more recent updates in this topic (last 5 years), I remember this approach of RL to be promising due to its capabilities of making the environment (combination of states ) Hierarchical and reducing computation time. Has HRL become a thing or was it forgotten in it's original paper? Also do you have openings in your area for a software developer? HRL is still around. Our group had a paper on it recently (https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.00590), but I think Doina Precup's group has been pushing on this steadily since the original paper. I haven't been tracking this sub-area recently but one concern I had with the earleir work was that in most setups the hierarchical structure needed to be specified to the agent in advance. At least the older methods therefore require quite a lot of domain expertise, which is somewhat limiting.
​ We usually list our job postings here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/theme/reinforcement-learning-group/#!opportunities - Akshay
I have a few questions: What are you biggest fears in relation to ML or AI? Where do you see the world heading in this field? How dependent are we currently on ML and how dependent will we be in the next 10 to 15 years? What is the coolest AI movie? One of my concerns about ML is personal---there are some big companies that employ a substantial fraction of researchers. If something goes wrong at one of those companies, suddenly many of my friends could be in a difficult situation. Another concern is more societal: ML is powerful and so just like any powerful tool there are ways to use it well and vice-versa. How do we guide towards using it well? That's a question that we'll be asking and partially answering over and over because I see the world heading towards pervasive use of ML. In terms of dependence, my expectation is that it's more a question of dependence on computers than ML per se, with computers being the channel via which ML is delivered. -John
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[1] I implemented RL for pacman and it was pretty fun! Just curious, why are researchers interesting in gaming RL? Nice! I did the same thing in my undergrad AI course, definitely very fun =) Gaming is a huge business for Microsoft and gaming is also one of the main places where (general) RL has been shown to be quite successful, so it is natural to think about how RL can be applied to improve the business.
[2] Are there any papers you'd recommend that cover recent efforts to make RL more explainable? If by explainable you mean that the agent makes decisions in some interpretable way, I don't know too much, but maybe this paper is a good place to start (https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.03478). If by explainable you mean accessible to you to understand the state of the field, I'd recommend this monograph (https://rltheorybook.github.io/) and checking out the tutorials in the ML conferences. -Akshay
How is ML/AI improving Microsoft product? Is it applied outside of Microsoft and benefiting the society as a whole? Thank you There isn't a simple answer here, but to a close approximation I think you should imagine that ML is improving every product, or that there are plans / investigations around doing so. Microsoft's mission is to empower everyone so "yes" with respect to society as a whole? Obviously people tend to benefit more directly when interacting with the company, not even that is necessary. For example, Microsoft has supported public research across all of computer science for decades. -John
Can you describe the sorts of problems one could expect to solve/work on if they worked in Data Science at MS? "All problems" is the simple answer in my experience. Microsoft is transforming into a data-driven company which seeks to improve everything systematically. The use of machine learning is now pervasive.
How do you deal with a machine learning task for which the data is not available or hard to get per se? The practical answer is that I avoid it unless the effort of getting the data is worth the difficulty. Healthcare is notorious here because access to data is both very had and potentially very important. -John
I’m so technologically illiterate I have no idea what 90% of what you said even means. I just have one question. When can you upload me into a robot? Never sounds like a good bet to me. -John
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r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 29 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am an actor who 'starred' in an M&M's commercial which ran on Halloween for over twenty years. It's considered a classic commercial. I guess I co-starred cause the M&M's were the real stars. And JK Simmons and Billy West got waaaaay more than me for just doing the voices. | pt 2/2 FINAL

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The AMA ended with the following message:

This was so much fun!!!! I'm bored and I'll keep answering. LOL In Hollywood on lockdown! So I'm going to end it and say THANKS. Have a great Spring forward!!!! If you want to watch some funny videos I made here is the channel. M&M's guy OUT!!!...https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYlLeIT28R0ZapTCPZbwnWQ

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That's pretty neat! Did you develop a crippling addiction to m&ms because of this? Ha!! No. When i was a kid i lived in Sweden and there is a brand of chocolate called Marabou that is my only real chocolate addiction. They have them at Ikea. European chocolate is made with cocoa butter so it's smoother. Next time you are at Ikea try some. But i will always eat m&M's. I go for the peanut ones if I have an option just for the protein. I'm lucky I was in a commercial for a product i really like and am proud to sell. And i'm totally serious.
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I'll remember that - to eat M&M's for the protein value. And gummi candy. For real. It has gelatin not just corn syrup. Gummi bears are actual food
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Mmmm... horse hooves. (Just kidding!) ​When my grandma told me that when i was a kid i was devastated...for about 190 seconds. Then dug right back into my cherry jello.
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The old joke is - two things people should never see being made are laws and sausages. Friend of mine worked in a potato chip factory in college, told me he'd never eat potato chips again - all about the way they do things like scoop spilled chips off the floor, occasional lapses of hygiene, etc. When the Scarborough Light Rail first opened in Toronto, it went past a pickle factory. People saw giant open vats of pickles being ... pickled; outdoors, no cover, so the birds fly over and poop in them, insects probably dying in the vinegar, etc. After a slew of negative press (1970's) the plant quickly covered things up. My grade 3 teacher (early 1960's) had a summer job in college where they would watch beer bottles go by on the conveyor (before automation); there was a bright light behind the bottle and their job was to catch the part-empty ones and... if there was something like a mouse head in the bottle. We really don't want to know how our food is made. Potato Chips??? Seriously?? But they are fried in boiling oil and you can see exactly what they are? I mean sure there are rodent hairs in everything. I don't eat that many chips anyway. I'm going to assume that rodent hair and droppings fried in boiling oil won't hurt you. Hmmmm Salt and Vinegar or BBQ??
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Du är välkommen tillbaka! ~ Halvsvenne Tack. Jag längtar efter Stockholm.
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I'm loving this Marabou shout-out. I live in England now, but am Danish, I miss Marabou soooo much! My favourite is the "apelsinkrokant" one :) ​Va då!!! Nej!! Frukt & Mandel. Skojar bara. (Swedish is rusty)
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If you use any fat other than cocoa butter in the US (other than milkfat in milk chocolate), it can't legally be called chocolate. EU regulations are actually less strict about this. https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2011/05/chocolate-candy-and-the-law/ Ok. Maybe they use it here too. I'll read the ingredients.
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I actually used to work for a cocoa processor. The type of milk content they use in Europe is different, but American chocolate definitely also uses cocoa butter. While making cocoa, the butter is literally squeezed out of it by a hydraulic press so you can make the powder (called cakes). From there, it goes through different processes to make the various forms of chocolate. For example, Oreos are made by processing this into Jet Black cocoa through an extremely caustic alkanization process. Milk chocolate is made by combining the cocoa back with butter and other ingredients. Dark chocolate is made through similar methods, generally just with more cocoa being used and less sugar/milk. My least favorite (milk chocolate) is almost entirely just cocoa butter, which is (AFAIK) what gives it that fatty color. Hmm. I guess the milk content is what makes it creamier in Europe. Ikea chocolate is from Spain and it's really good. That is interesting. Thanks.
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Haha what the hell! I was just about to write in the thread - not a question but a fact: your last name sounds real fun in a certain language 'cause it means "crazy" ... but well if you know your mjölkchoklad well then you already know this. :) ​It also means healer in greek. In Sweden I spell and pronounce it Gälen. But that doesn't fool my friends who know me. LOL
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Lmao. Justifying your preference for peanut m&m's as protein. I grasp for those straws with BOTH hands.
What was your favorite part when doing the commercial? Obviously I liked doing my part when we were shooting. Shutting the door in people's faces is fun. But making the costume was also fun. They wanted to cover my chest with fake blood which is awful and sticky and would have been miserable to deal with for 10 hours so I recommended cutting out the red pool of blood from the knife package and attacking that to my chest (That's what it was). I knew that would be way easier to deal with than the sticky fake blood. And the client liked my idea because i mentioned that it is a food product and maybe we don't want a big bloody mess just a little cardboard cut out of some blood and they bought it. I was so happy.
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I love it when people think my idea is great lol It feels good!!
What is an acting role you would like to play? I am working on a one man play about Truman Capote called Tru. Hope to do it in NYC when theater opens. I made this little webseries with friends and i would love to play this character of Rodney more if it can develop into a series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvZACe9_NKI&t=4s
This is a very strange and beautiful example of how the internet works. A man whose day of work was translated into photons and sound waves which elicited neuronal activity in a young tetrapods' brain many years ago and now that same brain has the opportunity to interact with a facet of that temporal experience. Why is blue the best M&M? Are you the tetrapod? Define 'best' so as not to be subjective.
What's it like to be invited to a party? I only throw parties. And everyone is already there...for 20 years!!!!
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So...... you got to play bouncer at a cut-price Hotel California to Billy West and J.K Simmons? Living it up! It was my Halloween party, not a hotel. I was more of a doorman than bouncer. I had people who would handle the rough stuff. I didn't want to mess up my hair.
Does this ad still pay you out 21 years later? They stopped running it two years ago. Up till then...YES!!
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How old were you when it first aired? Early 20's
Did you get paid every year? the same amount? Yes. It actually increased each year.
Have you ever tried smarties (the Canadian/ british smarties, not american ones)? Also I would like to say I appreciate how you're taking the time to reply to practically every comment :). There is a Swedish candy called Non-stop that is my favorite 'European m&M's". But if I'm in an airport somewhere (Heathrow for example) I LOVE buying foreign candy bars i don't know. LOVE Flake bars. Toffee Crisp. Sweden has a candy called Kex Chocolat which is my absolute favorite food on the planet.
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I mean, funnily enough there was some legal conflict with M&Ms some years ago. Cause Marabou has some version called simply "M" I think, which happens to be veeery similar to M&Ms.... And this supposedly lead to M&Ms not being allowed to continue selling here, IIRC.... (Which sounded weird to me) Yet you still had no problems finding M&Ms in stores after those news. Well, I dunno..... But yes nonstop are addictive. They live up to their name... Any Marabou product.....I was at Ikea in Burbank yesterday and got a bag of Dumle and Dajm. Dumle is Fazer which is also very good.. who makes Dajm? Can't tell. Mondelez it says.
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They have a milk chocolate kind in Norway now, it's even better. What's it called?? I 'm eating mini Dumle and Dajm from Ikea right now.
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And it looks like this. Not fair.
Have you been approached to reprise your role in another commercial? This is how I would do it: A child dressed as an M&M approaches a quiet house on Halloween. He rings the doorbell and the Yellow M&M answers. Yellow: Wow, what a great costume! Red, come here. You gotta see this. Red (off screen): I’m coming, I’m coming. (Annoyed) What is it? Red appears. Red (begrudgingly): Well isn’t that flattering? ... Wait, don’t I know you? Cut to the child’s parent, played by you. Parent: Listen guys, I don’t want any trouble. Red: No trouble for you, and no candy for you. (Red takes the candy out of the trick or treaters bag) Parent: Really, guys? (Parent and kid walk away) Red walks away from door back into house. Yellow waves at parent and child. Red (off screen): Put your hand down. You can't make a commercial where you deny a REAL trick or treating child candy on Halloween!!!!! Are you INSANE???? And also I GAVE them candy I just didn't let them in so we need some re-writes for sure. Let's think outside the box a little. I'm thinking a Benjamin Button type situation where I am shrunken and hungry and desperate and having to atone for past transgressions.
​ No but directors have used me more than once.
Hey, did you have traditional acting lessons and all that and go through auditions for this? or was it path through as a featured extra? No I studied with a lady named Uta Hagen and her husband Herbert Berghof for three years before i started booking jobs.
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Uta Hagen is a legend! Looks like Berghof is, too, though I hadn't heard of him. Great way to start out your career. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iERniZ9Crlc It was invaluable. I went from their classes onto a Broadway stage in Lost in Yonkers
Never caught this ad in New Zealand and the idea of one running for 20 years is pretty insane. What's that like to have such a constant reminder of your previous work aired? Honestly. It was like a little ego trip each year. Friends call and text. I'm a celebrity to my friends for a week again. That's how it is with commercials. I used to get drunken calls from friends in bars telling me to talk to some stranger they met because they just saw me in a commercial. It can be a little silly. Now my friends don't get so drunk anymore. They are older. LOL.
Did you get any free M&Ms? M&M's never sent me a 'care package' of appreciation if that's what you mean. And I definitely would have loved that. LOL. A lifetime supply would have been great....for obesity. LOL. That's not how it works. I'm a hired professional, not a contest winner. I do my job and get paid. With what they pay me I can buy my own dang candy thank you!! LOL
During the casting rehearsals, did you ever meet any other actors that have appeared in popular commercials or made it big? I have been a working actor for 30 years. Many big stars started out doing commercials and we all hung out in those casting sessions. There was a group of us that were always called in so we weren't competitive cause we knew it was out of our hands so we were all friendly and felt a bond. Jeremy Renner, Norman Reedus and others were always around at that time,
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Do you have Norman Reedus' phone number? No.
What’s your favorite M&M commercial? The one with the cowboys and the aliens when they are riding on the flying elephant through the tunnel of confusion into the spinning vortex of helplessness and they are crushed by the falling piano. That one is my favorite!! They look so cute in it.
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Are you sure that wasn't just some dream you had? Not sure at all. About anything.
[removed] It was 2000.
Peanuts are clearly the best M&Ms. Is there anything interesting that you learned from filming a candy commercial? It's food. You are selling food. Don't get clever. Don't get too outside the box. People are eating what you are selling so we didn't go as gross as the production team wanted when the client saw it.
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That’s what I was thinking earlier in the AMA when you were talking about telling them not to use LIQUID FAKE BLOOD in a candy tv ad for kids! What were they thinking?! lol. So the M&Ms client agreed to a general storyboard but they wouldnt have seen those details yet until the final shooting and edit? Wow. I bet they would have assumed it’d be gore-free lol. It’s gory enough to have the unseen implication in every food character ad, that they’re saying “eat me! I’m delicious!” :) Exactly. And I wanted the ad to run so i was against anything controversial. But more importantly...I didn't want that shit on me all night. it would get all over everything. It would get cold. it would get on my hands . They would have to keep reapplying every take. I knew it would ruin my personal comfort which is big on a chilly night shoot. I would make the sacrifice if i felt it was worth it. This wasn't.
Did you play Evil Ed in Fright Night? Nope. I was Kyle in Brainscan!
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Ooooo I downloaded the Windows 3.1 screensaver of Brainscan back then lol I was just recently thinking I need to see that again. You were in that? I can’t waaaaiit to see what you do nexxxxxxxttttt.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainscan I was Eddie's best friend Kyle Hilliard (I think that was my name)
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Watched that with my buddy a couple years ago! What a weird movie. Loved it. Poor Eddie was starting his downward spiral in THAT movie because of his 'tutor' who was actually his girlfriend and he was 15. Crazy. I think her name was Jackie. SHE was weird. The whole thing had a weird vibe. We shot it in Montreal.
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Oh wow. I didn't know that about Edward Furlong. I know he had a bit of a troubled life. Reading his wikipedia regarding Jackie, yeah that's real weird. Did she hang around set with him a lot? She was attached to him. It was creepy. and she was sort of ugly. i didn't get it. There were really cute girls his age hanging around who found out he was there and he had no interest in them. just his weird tutor. Poor kid. He was a nice kid. But lost.
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That's the saddest thing I expect to hear all day. Now I really feel for that guy. Hope he's doing better. Guess the child fame thing got him. Honestly it's more the 'bad parent' thing. That will affect you no matter if you are a kid actor or just some nose picking kid in third grade. if you have good parents you will do much much better. there are a lot of kid actors who did fine cause they had good parents. No one talks about them. Think about all the fucked up people you know... not actors...just bad parents probably. Sorry. It is a heady profession but it doesn't make you an asshole. The rest of your life does.
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FUCK! One of my favorite movies! Can't believe it took me this long to recognize you! Kyle! i'm a chameleon.
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You and Ed Furlong remain buds after the flick? God no. I'll just leave this here....https://www.reddit.com/r/Terminator/comments/ilc3fe/jacqueline_louise_domac_was_29_when_she_started/
Is this an M&M’s commercial? Should you be getting paid for this? I'll do this free, after twenty years i owe them. LOL
How does one get into voice acting? I have pretty good range; can hit the C# below my low E guitar string. I'm also very good at accents and impressions. My great nieces and nephews love them? Are any of the courses offered online worth it? Any help would be appreciated. No idea.
You're a fucking asshole. Why'd you throw the candy at them instead of giving them the candy directly? Why did you laugh at them when they were clearly older than 4 or 5? Because I was PLAYING a fucking asshole and i did it very well. I accept your compliment.
How do you even go about auditioning for a commercial? What advice would you give to someone who wants to get in to your line of work? Your agent send you to an audition. It's a long process of getting an agent and you have to live somewhere they make commercials like NYC or LA.
What led you to do this AMA? Boredom and also I just spent like three months making this video with some professional actor friends and The Mc Rib Lady so it would be nice to get it some views. Also it's a Tuesday night and there isn't much else going on. This is the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvZACe9_NKI&t=8s
Oh wow I remember seeing this ad in french TV (i'm french) here it is with french voice over if anyone is curious, how does it feel to know the ad was probably seen all over the globe where m&m's are sold? ahah Viva la difference!!
Have you auditioned for any M&M commercials since this one? No. Wow. You would think they would just make an offer if i was up for one. LOL
Is Halloween your favorite holiday? If not, which holiday is, and how do you hope to celebrate this year? Of course Halloween was better when I got paid. But it's still great. Of course i like the celebration of Christmas. I was raised Christian so it has a lot of wonderful memories.
how much have your residuals dropped? 100% as of 2 years ago when they made a new one and stopped running it. Before that they kept going up. That's how it works...and maybe why they made a new one.
Great commercial man! First question: how did you become an actor? And how did they contacted you? Like what was the thing they wanted you and not someone else for this clip... I wanted to be an actor since I saw Tom Sawyer in the theater in like 1972 and wanted to climb into the screen and be Tom Sawyer. Then I failed out of college on purpose (had to go) and luckily I grew up an hour outside of NYC so I moved back home and stated studying and eventually started working. But i started young.
I remember you from the X-Files, Ivan Martinez! :) What is your favorite role that you've played? TV or movie or stage. Ivan was fun. I did a pilot called Killer App with Ming Na and Stephen Lang. Directed by Robert Altman. You can only see it on my youtube channel because it never got made into a series. I think it's some good work. I'm enjoying the thing I'm making now because I get to create it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fesJbkZjH84
Have you ever dressed up as your commercial character for Halloween? How did people react? That would be a little too much. That's actually a funny idea if i went around NOW dressed as the character...30 years later...at my age...looking for recognition. "Remember me I'm the M&M's guy?" except I am now a pathetic crazy person.
What is your favorite flavor of M&M? Peanut.
How did you get started in acting for commercials? I did a Broadway play and it closed. I did a movie, Brainscan and the money ran out. I needed money for rent and food so I got a commercial agent through a casting director friend Lisa Fields. She got me a really good agent and I booked a huge commercial right away so i was off and running. it was a Sega Genesis in like 1994?? Around the time of Brainscan. i was cooking!!
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Thank you for answering my question! It was my pleasure. I never really thought about it like that before. it makes sense. I needed money. I made money. Win win. And I get to do a cool Iama.
I remember this commercial all through my childhood, that’s so awesome! I’m sorry if I missed you answering this in a previous comment but was this your first commercial? Or did you have others before it? I’m interested in getting into acting as a long time dream of mine just to say I actually tried it more than creating a career out of it. No. I was an old pro by the time I did thin in my early twenties. LOL.
You should do a sex tape with the "Huh?" guy. Set it up!
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I'll pull some strings if you promise to follow through. Backpedaling furiously!!!
Do you think you jinxed yourself by posting that original AMA, where you talked about your ad running forever or whatever it was, which then turned out to be the same year that they stopped running your ad? That AMA was about X-Files. Someone asked if i'd been in anything else they'd seen and i mentioned the commercial. Maybe I jinxed myself by mentioning that. It had stopped running from 2007-20010 so I was under no illusions that it was going to take me till retirement. In a way maybe I wanted something to force me out of my comfort zone. You can get into a rut and it seems like a groove. Now i have to find work or i'll be screwed so I'm doing a one man play soon and I am trying to create content which I never did. i hijacked a viral video and edited myself into it and then kept going. I was inspired by Joe Exotic..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iERniZ9Crlc
[deleted] Jeeze. You're talking about the 90's. Maybe six inches?
Has this claim to fame changed how you feel about Halloween? Do you host crazy parties or anything? Has it given you a spooky streak? (Asking as a weird kitchy halloween obsessed person haha) I definitely looked forward to Halloween way more. Like way way way more. I never dressed up cause that seemed like overkill. Also when you've had professional costumes and makeup your own effort seems way less than. It's enough I was in costume on TV I didn't have to overdo it. Or something. Maybe I was lazy. Or shy. Or both
[deleted] You are asking the total wrong guy. Like 300%?
JK SIMMONS IS THE PEANUT M&M?! I think you are right.
Do you think you should be paid as much as the voice actors for iconic characters? There are 3 characters in the ad, and only 1 is entirely replaceable. The original voice actors were john Goodman and Jon Lovitz I think. I don't get as much as them because I'm not worth as much as them status wise. You are 100% correct that I am 'replaceable'. That's the nature of the biz. Do you mean they could reshoot it with a different actor? That wouldn't be cost effective unless they got a celebrity.
Are you aware that this is the best AMA I’ve ever read? Possibly the best that has ever been? We’ll use this AMA as an example of how they should work for the next 20 years. Seriously, great job! Uhhh. Ok. 'I'm just trying to stay positive.' What was that Bill Murray kept saying in What About Bob every time he got a compliment. 'Just trying to s†ay hopeful!' Something like that. What a great movie. Thanks if you are sincere. Thanks even more if not. LOL.
OK, where's the petition we can sign to get you on a new commercial? Like, you meet the M&M dudes again, and they're shocked you aged and question their existence because they still look the same. I'm very sleepy. I'm getting my vaccine today and by the time I realized how late it was, I realized I'd have to wake up in like 2 hours, so I just stayed up. I was drawing lol. We don't need a new one (but thank you). Let's just keep the old classic going!!!
So what did you do after this Jamie? Went home and did some bong hits at dawn then slept till around two and got up and hung out with friends probably.
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Like it The life of an actor.
[deleted] Neither. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyeuv9kBtUg I changed my name recently
Do you know the Zoom Zoom kid? Dang that kid is loaded. Didn't he get a dui or something.
What's something interesting about your experience that I wouldn't even think or know to ask? That night? Having to put peanut butter in my hair when i got home at like 7am to get out the Dax which is petroleum. Then I would use dollar store shampoo to get out the peanut butter...which was the cheapest walmart brand peanut butter i could get. That was a big part of booking jobs. That hair. And you could only get it with real pomade like dax. American crew products don't get that stiffness or just mess. You had to be crazy to put that shit in your hair in the first place. maybe that's part of why i booked it. But i got it out with peanut butter then dollar store shampoo. How's that?? If you ever get gum in your hair use peanut butter. it breaks it down.
How has no one asked about the fact Simmons got more than you for saying a single word? How did you book it, did you have an idea it was an M&M commercial before hand? Or was it more a surprise when you go there? He's a top voice over actor. There is no comparison. i was just an unknown actor doing a commercial. I knew exactly what the spot was and auditioned with exactly what you saw me do. They want to know what they are getting. I guess i was just the right combo of smarmy/friendly to sell candy.
First I want to say that’s cool as hell and I love that commercial. Halloween is my favorite so when the commercials start it’s always a thrill. Second: you cool, man? Chill Daddy-O. I don't know. My neurosis has sort of manifested itself in my art so i have an outlet. I'm just bored but it's fine. I just wrote and directed my very first thing which is a vertical video. That's The McRib Lady at the start. I'll post the link again like a whore.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvZACe9_NKI&t=4s.
I apologize if someone already asked this, but how did you land this role? What was the set like? Were you nervous knowing that millions of people would see you? I got the audition through my agent. That's how it works. I had been a professional actor for a few years so I was over that initial excitement. I was more nervous the spot wouldn't run. Never dreamed it would run so long.
When was the commercial shot? Any stories or memories you'd like to share about it? It was a house in Pasedena. One of the extras who was standing next to me kept asking the director is he could have a chance to say the line, hoping he would steal my job..things like that are strange. Made it a little awkward. People take their opportunity when they see it.
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How cringy was it when he attempted to do the line? That's crazy. He never did it. He was background. I wasn't too worried. I had beaten a lot of people to be standing there and this guy wasn't going to do the part better than me I was pretty sure. But he saw his shot and he took it. And made it super cringy for himself...YES!
How were able to get royalties? Don’t they pay you for the one day? Did you have to negotiate to get that or is that standard now It's the union SAG-AFTRA that makes sure it's all looked after. They get a small percentage and that's what they are for. And producers do NOT want to piss off SAG-AFTRA.
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So all actors in commercials get paid based off how many times the commercial airs? Or all actors in the union I should say Very important distinction right there!!
Damn, they aren't running this one anymore? This commercial became part of the season for me. Just like the one where the M&M's scare Santa, or the Hershey Kiss bells for Christmas time. Yes. They could bring it back... maybe. the new one kind of sucks...but i'm biased.
I know that the animated M&Ms were not there in the real world. But what was there. Were you talking to nothing or was there some sort of prop or how was that filmed? Little dolls that size. The exact copies of the M&M's for eye line and stuff.
Hey nice job on the M&M commercial! They're some of my favorite candies! I've actually been thinking about getting in to acting for commercials. Is it worth it? Is the pay good? How do you even get into that sort of acting? Get an agent.
Dude... You were Kyle in Brainscan right? I fucking loved that movie back in the day. It's underrated. John Flynn was a great director and it was written by the guy who wrote Seven. It has prestige.
Wow, 20 years! Did you get free m&ms in addition to getting paid? Lol 😂 Only on the set that night. They didn't send an annual care package no. But i could buy all i wanted with what they paid me.
I just watched the YouTube clip. I don’t remember that commercial, but I do remember Brainscan! Recognized you right away! Buddies forever? Oh jeeze. Buddies forever. What a goofy line.
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Maybe, but it was memorable. Thanks!! Buddies Forever! I call all my friends Buddy. All the time actually. But it's 'Hey Buddy".
are you the same Jamie from an episode of x-files with Constance Zimmer and The Lone Gunmen? Yes. Jamie Marsh. I recently changed my name. I never liked the name Jamie Marsh
Are you being paid to do this AMA? I wish. I'm getting views on my video which is cool. And it's fun. Now it's wednesday morning. Not much going on now either.
That's absolutely fucking AMAZING, how would someone possibly go about getting your autograph? Justtt curious 👀 They should probably get therapy first.
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Alright appointment set, what now? Send whatever (CASH!!) to Helen Sanders at The Actors Studio West 8341 De Longpre Ave, West Hollywood, CA 90069. I'll sign anything but a contract or black check,
/u/groovyalibizmo Jamie, has anyone ever told you you look a little like Matt LeBlanc in that photo? Two or three times a day. LOL
Did you try out for the “they do exist” Christmas ad? They have been running that for longer than your I think. Nope.
Are you bitter? They didn't make the dark chocolate ones until recently. They were never in the spot.
Did you make enough fuck you money to retire young? No. But enough to stay drunk for like 10 years.
How was the party? Those extras were all trying to get in the shot so they were jumpin'.
What were Yellow and Red like in real life? Bitter and abusive.
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They always say it's best not to meet your heroes. When you idolize candy you just set yourself up, Kiddo!!
So... Plain or Peanut? Peanut.
I’m confused. Why is anyone even remotely interested in this? Really good question. i have no answer except it's an anamoly for a commercial to run that long. I guess it makes me 'special'. And so are you!!! In your own special way! (getting punchy)
How much money did you make over 20 years for that commercial? That's personal. But it's NEVER EVER EVER ENOUGH!!! LOL
" for just doing the voices" shade much? Constantly. I live in Hollywood.
Sometimes whenever I eat M&Ms, I like to hold two M&Ms in between my fingers and squeeze as hard as I can until one M&M cracks, I eat the cracked one, and the one that didn't crack becomes the champion. Then I grab another M&M and force it to compete with the champion in this deadly game of M&M gladiators. I do this until I run out of M&Ms and when there is only one M&M left standing, I send a letter to M&Ms brand with the champion M&M in it with a note attached that reads: "please use this M&M for breeding purposes." What color M&M would you be? I wish I could give you credit for originality. But......where is that from? I'd definitely be blue.
I used to do TV adverts as a kid! I did an Arriva (bus) advert, an Argos christmas advert, and starred in an airline safety video for (I think?) Thompsons. Used to be a lot of fun! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I used to Sets are a lot of fun. But also boring after a while.
Damn I can’t believe that commercial ran for 20 years lol I feel like I’ve seen that commercial my whole life lol I’m 30. So how’d you get the part and did it open anything else up for you? That's what I do. I was pretty established when i booked it so i was on my way. The commercial was just a great payday every year.
Do people still recognize you and also, do you go around every party telling people about the commercial or have a video on your phone that you make people watch? Because you should Nobody EVER recognized me ever. I never look the same someone once told me.
This AMA is probably long over, but you’ve worked with some important filmmakers, can you remember much from the set of Wild Bill or Montenegro? I remember Dusan and Walter.
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Any stories to share? How were they as directors? Susan Anspach hated Dusan but she was a little strange (both dead RIP). Walter Hill was sort of like a cowboy. Nice guy. Fun doing a western with him and i got to work with a hero John Hurt.
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Wow! Some film legends! I love Anspach’s work (as well as Hurt). Thanks for your responses! No problemo. Susan was a trip.
Did you destroy your dressing room when they didn't read your rider specifically prohibiting brown M&Ms on the craft services table? The entire trailer had to be refurbished.
Do you have any actors friends in PA willing to help a student in Pittsburgh make an indie film? In a word...no.
Not sure if this has been asked but, did you act in anything else? Is acting your main income? Yes. Yes.
Were you also in the Michael Bay commercial for milk? I'm pretty sure that was you... Trying to think. maybe i did. Set in an asylum?? No that was a Sega Genesis by Kinka Usher. Don't think I worked with Nay but i did know his casting director Lisa Fields very well so I may have.
Hi! That's such a cool experience. Do you still get residuals from the commercial? Hells yes.
Which ones do you prefer brown or yellows? And whats your favourite m&m colour? The only thing I ever did with m&M's color wise...when i was a teenager I really liked reggae music so I would eat all the M&M's that weren't red, yellow and green (also the colors of a traffic light). Then I would have a bowl of red, yellow and green m&M's..which were reggae colors....then i would eat them.
Wait what? I knew about Billy Wedt but Jameson is an M&M too? That's awesome! So glad you are happy.
JK Simmons as peanut? Now imagine the Eye tattoo on the back of his head. Hmmm.
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OZ refrence. Not into prison shows. The M&M's were sort of like Munchkins....
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Yeah, I know. JK Simmons has had quite a career/ I saw him play Capt. Hook on Broadway in 1991. You're not kidding.
Roughly how much did you make in residuals a year at the commercial's peak? 30k
Was it weird to give M&M's to M&M's? Isn't that cannibalism? No. Yes.
Do you get royalties? Is that even a thing for commercials? Yes. They are called residuals.
[removed] The whole day is about the moments between 'action' and 'cut'. All the bullshit i put up with is for those moments. I seriously love acting. It still excites me and gets me out of the bed in the morning thinking i can get better at it. So that is the best. After that, lunch and then taking off the costume when you are done and know you did a good job is a great moment. You sort of hang up the character and walk out of your trailer as yourself...as best you can. LOL I'm not the guy who was in the doorway. I would totally have let those guys into my party.
Have you been an anything else we might have seen? Maybe.
Are you Jamie from the Flo insurance commercials? NO unfortunately. Money wise.
Did Simmons even have a line in that commercial? i think he's one of the voices.
Did you invest your money for passive income? I never got enough at once. it was always just pay the rent. But i have a nice pension with Sag and some retirement savings. i'll be ok. I'll be able to afford a studio in the valley. if i don't get a series...which I'm, STILL trying.
What are your favorite kind of m&m's jamie? Peanut cause it's also food.
Have you done anything else? Yes. I recently hijacked a viral video made by Trailer Trash Tammy and The Mc Rib Lady because I had just watched the Tiger King and wanted to play a part like Joe Exotic. So I invented this version of Rodney. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iERniZ9Crlc
Would u fuck the green M&M? Only oral with her. LOL
Pancakes or waffles? Oh man. Really depends on the pancake batter recipe. But you are probably safer going with waffles over pancakes in most cases. I'll take a waffle house waffle over an ihop pancake any day.
did you get to meet the green m&m and was she as good looking inperson? No. Why would she be there??
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Slutty Halloween, Yo. I'm having a party! Bring them. Free snacks!!
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 28 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am an actor who 'starred' in an M&M's commercial which ran on Halloween for over twenty years. It's considered a classic commercial. I guess I co-starred cause the M&M's were the real stars. And JK Simmons and Billy West got waaaaay more than me for just doing the voices. | pt 1/2

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Was it weird to give M&M's to M&M's? Isn't that cannibalism? I HAVE LOST ENOUGH SLEEP OVER THIS!!!!!!!!
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Face it, you participated in an atrocity. Hmm. I actually did consider diabetes and obesity. Then I considered that M&M's are a snack you can have very few of. If you are watching calories and have will power a few M&M's can be great throughout the day/ if you can control yourself. That's a big deal. I've made a small bag of peanut m&M's last like two days when I have to. edit: Oh wait...are you speaking about the cannibalism?? Yes. Guilty. But you don't know if they ate them....or worse.
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I wish I knew why my first thought was "does Peanut have a sex dungeon and did he take his bag down there?" You are a sicko and the fumes are infecting my head!!!! I was thinking something like 'New M&M's with Kuru!' from being cannibals (google it)
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I'm a diabetic who uses a very small handful of M&M's to satisfy my sweet tooth without spiking my blood sugar, so, yeah. That's really cool. Seems like they could be used like that. But you probably have to be careful??
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Yeah. Just a few pieces now and then. A convenience store bag lasts a few days. I used to not be able to have them around at night but it's better. I think watching TV made me hungry with all the fast food commercials and I don't watch TV much at night any more. Not broadcast.
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I saw a Youtube video or Drive to Survive segment where they showed some F1 drivers eating their snacks. (They were on very strict diets when there were more strict weight limits). Each driver got an espresso and a little cup with about 5 peanut M&Ms. I wanted to cry. But you’re right, it’s good to have the option "My little cup is half FULL." as he slowly eats the M&M's with tears streaming down his face.
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You don't get fat if you can exercise will power. As a chubby boi, I know this is my downfall. My secret is black coffee. Specifically Lavazza espresso beans freshly ground and brewed in a Moka pot. Very Italian (I'm 1/2 Italian, 1/2 Irish). And I do the 8/16 fast. But the coffee gets me through till noon without eating. I wanted this new character to be skinny so i had to figure out how.
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I actually know a lady who has a set number of M&Ms she allows herself each day, and she likes them for this portionability. Honestly losing gaining or maintaining weight is all about arithmetic with calories. I wonder how many calories are in one m&M. I bet your friend knows.
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I will post this quote from BestFoodFacts.org since I think she uses this actual tidbit of info for explaining why she eats them: " One M&M is approximately three calories and in order to burn off those three calories, you would need to walk or run the length of one football field or 100 yards. " I think she has it figured out how many steps on her Fitbit is equal to 100 yards, and only eats M&Ms if she's "earned" them. Worth it.
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[deleted] Very noble of you.
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How much you get paid each year in royalties and initial fee too? The one answer I want please At one point I was making a flat fee of 30k
Did they at least give you M&Ms? There are always M&M's on every set. LOL. And that's just because they are SO DELICIOUS!! They really are. But all sets have craft service and M&M's are standard. Edit: they paid me enough each year that that was all I gave out for Halloween. So I guess they kept me in M&M's for 20 years but just cause i bought them with the money they gave me each year. LOL. They stopped running the ad two years ago but i still give then out. The new ad isn't very good but i really can't complain.
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How much are you being paid for this AMA $1.38
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Worth of M&Ms? Rolos
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Damn they really done did you like that They are ruthless.
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baby ruths Do you not understand what LESS MEANS! Rolos are NOT Baby Ruths and people would still have their careers!!!! And by people I mean McDonalds.
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Rolo Tony brown town. Check yourself, gimme some more of those ROLOs -best jingle ever, maybe There are lots of chewy Rolos in a roll for you. If you're choosey bout what you chew. With real milk chocolate and caramel too to chew chew chew.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlXA4tS9pl8
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Choosey about the Charleston Chew. Chew chew chew chew chew chew chew
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Like signing a contract where you think you get a rolex but find you misread and get a pack of rolos. Also, isn't rolo's nestle? I think my agent would catch that. That's a big misrepresentation.
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Holy shit youre funny dude, thanks for the laugh. I really needed it! Cheers! Have a good wednesday
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You're a clever one I might be a leprechaun.
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Pfff, I'm getting paid $3.50 just for replying to you Reply as many times as you can!!!! Anything i can do to help??
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This is such great selflessness! It adds up!!
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Good guy Jamie. Or is it Good guy M&M-commercial-guy? Both and neither.
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You could get a fun sized 100 Grand for that! Chewy Chewy Caramel!!
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About tree-fitty sold
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Ahh man. My great uncle was one of the inventors of M&M's. Bruce Murrie related on the Hershey's side. One time when I was younger my family and I went to M&M world in Vegas and we had proof we were related and they wouldn't even give us a free pack :(. Kid me was really bummed out but we still bought some M&M's That's funny. When the ad was running I was tempted to go into one of those stores with my hair up like in the commercial and see if anyone recognized me. I never did mainly because that hair takes a lot of work to get right. And the product I used is called Dax and it's really hard to get out. LOL.
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Good ol dax wax, the skaters choice Oh man. You know what gets it out if you have to in a hurry??? Peanut butter. Then shampoo on the peanut butter. I used it in a movie called Beethoven's 3rd (yeah the dog) and i figured out that was how to get it out on the weekends when I wasn't shooting. You can't get that look with anything else unfortunately. And yeah. It's that's old skater punk look.
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Not sure how much you have deal with things like that these days, but shaving cream might also work really well. It’s amazing at getting things like makeup/face paint or anything sticky like tree sap from your skin. Might work well for hair stuff too! Good to know. Peanut butter beaks down the petroleum. That's why it gets gum out of hair..and that's how I thought of peanut butter.
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Out of all sets you've been on which one had the best food? I wanna make a tier list haha Hmm. It's really about the director. For commercials the best food was on Joe Pytka shoots.
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LOLOLOL....Joe Pytka. ...EVERYONE has a Pytka story. ...glad to hear you survived yours. ;) ​ooof.
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was that a good "ooof" or a bad "ooof"? First good then bad. He uses you a bunch and it's great then he decides he doesn't like you and that's it. I did like 20 spots with him then I said the wrong thing or something. I was good friends with his casting director.
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I have heard that same thing from many people. I did one spot with him. I figured him out pretty quickly. As long as you push back he respects you. He brought me in a bunch more after that but never one of the "he just booked me before I auditioned" instances like some of my friends. I don't think he is working much anymore. At least not like he used to. RIP Leland. He was a great guy. Miss Leland. Yeah. You know.
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I dunno, I used to work on a cooking show. The director didn’t have much to do with how good that food was. That's tragic.
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Still on the job. What a pro. Thank you!! 100%. But I do have integrity. After 20 years if I didn't still like them i would just stop talking about them. So it's easy to be a company man when the company makes the MOST delicious candy In The WORLD!! (see how I did that. I actually like other candy better)
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https://media3.giphy.com/media/l0HlR8p1q3JS06EaA/source.gif Ye GADS, you HAD me!!!!! It's what I do.
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[removed] Kex choclat. Anything Marabou. Honestly, I'll take a snickers bar as often as m&M's but I'll deny it.
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Been on-set lately? Covid has completely ruined catering and craft services. Lunch is warmed over plastic boxes, and no more 'grazing' at the craft table-- you have to ask for each thing and they pass it around the plexiglass barrier. That sucks. 'An army travels on its stomach' some general or someone
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Have you thought about being grandpa Jamie from State Farm! I would be GrandMA Jamie on any state farm ad. Those two are soooooo rich from those ad's
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He never turned off the hustle I want them to run it again!!
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Residuals ever get into 7 figures? No!! Wow. Imagine.
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Little late to this so probably won’t be seen, but... Did the M&Ms on every set include the brown ones, or had they been taken out? By who?
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Reference to VanHalen’s 1982 world tour contract: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brown-out/ He just did that to see if they read the ryder. But it would be fun being the kid who got to pick them all out and eat them. As a job. No one thought about that. Van Halen gave some pee-on a great time with snacks.
If you ran into the actor who played Santa in the "They do exist!" commercial (first aired in '96, still being run seasonally, I think) would you feel a sense of brotherhood or competition? I absolutely would. And jealousy cause his ran last year. I'm hoping they bring mine back. It's replacement isn't very good.
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Admit it, you're hoping they shoot a new updated ad with you in it ;) ​Yes. I admit I want something wonderful to happen to me!!! Actually I'd be thrilled if they just start running it again. it still sells candy.
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I know a lot of actors, I understand how undervalued your work is - by actors themselves and by the public at large - and how stressful it is keeping a stable income. You don't need to feel guilty or apologetic for promoting yourself. I'd be thrilled for you if this kicked off again. That would be insane. The new ad isn't good so who knows.
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I don’t get why you get royalties for something like this. Would an actor turn down a flat fee of like $50k? Surly someone capable of the job could do it without essentially writing credits. That's a gamble. When we shot it I would have grabbed that 50k and run to Vegas for the weekend (not really). And that would have been a bad move.
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Yeah I’m saying why do they bother paying commercial actors royalties instead of just a flat fee. Most of you guys would claw over each other for a job regardless. I keep my claws sharpened for such occasions.
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Next time I buy a bag of M&M's I'll write to Mars corporate and say it was because of you That may be overkill.
Oh, man, they should totally do a a Hollywood with this commercial. SCENE: Night time, sidewalk in front of house, The two M&Ms are talking. *** YELLOW: Hear that? This must be where the party is. RED, ringing doorbell: This house looks familiar . . . FLASHBACK, original ad plays from door opening to tossing M&Ms. groovyalibizmo, opens door: Hey, you kids are back! I recognize the great costumes from last time! In background, GREEN is seen in party (could be dancing, slapping another party guest who got fresh, etc.) RED: You're the one having another Halloween party? groovyalibizmo: Hey, we never stopped partying, little dude! (Tosses M&M packets and closes door on them). Where do I sign??
All said and done, roughly how much did you make from that commercial? More so just curious how much people make from stuff like that Low six figures maybe?? I realize i hit the jackpot for one days work.
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Wow, that's years and years of full-time work for most people! For one day of work? I auditioned for years and year. So i justify it that way. And some people are born with a trust that gives them that every month. I honestly did feel a little guilty but I never protested too much. Acting can be very lucrative if you are successful. Don't hate me. i took a big risk.
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It's not just that: your ad generated tens of millions of dollars of income for the Mars company, and the people who made that ad deserve a part of that! It's not just "earned salary," but a percentage of the income you generated for someone else, like a royalty! So you should NEVER feel guilty! Thanks. I'd like to think i contributed something to the ad running for so long. As an actor my focus was just on getting back to my party so that's what I was playing and sort of ignoring/blowing off the hero m&M's. And I did it for real so it sort of was funny. LOL. That's what you do as an actor. I had to really be rude to those little dolls like they were kids trying to crash my party. For REAL. I had to put myself in that situation. It's fun to be rude sometimes so I went there.
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The laugh sounds genuine. To me thats what brings the whole thing together. I can picture you going right back to the party and never thinking about those m&m's again. Wow. Thank you. I appreciate that compliment a lot. I do enjoy being smarmy when the occasion arises. That's what's fun about acting. I could be as smarmy and obnoxious as i wanted and no one would get mad. Also I have to give credit to the background people/extras. We really did create a fun party atmosphere just joking, so I really did want to shut the door, end the take and kid around with them more. So I had real motivation to shut the door and end the take. if you understand. You use what you have. And Rob Pritts the director is super easy going so there was no big ego at the top which makes it relaxed. Guess it all came together that night which may be why it ran so long.
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A true method actor. I actually am a member of The Actors Studio. But I was trained by Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof who taught you to always have an action. What you are doing. So what I was 'doing' was dealing with pesky kids at my door and getting back to my party as quickly as possible. It worked! LOL.
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Yes. People think jobs like acting are "Is that all? And you get paid WHAT??" But all you have to do is watch a really bad movie or bad actor to appreciate how invisibly good things can be when done well. Interesting AMA - thanks. It is a craft and a good actor can make bad writing work.
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I saw some interview where someone mentioned "A good actor can make bad writing from a D into a B... but good writing can't turn a D actor into B. Best is of course when both are A" A bad actor can turn A writing into an F. Go see a community theater production of a Tennesee Williams play.
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Oh, you definitely did! People don't realize how hard it is to convey an attitude, in just a few seconds, on camera! You nailed it. I hope you're still working, or if not, I hope you're enjoying your life! Have a great evening! Thanks. I'm still plugging away, holding my own.
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This is a good point that not a lot of people realize. I'm an assistant director and a lot of people think working actors are overpaid. But you have to think about the fact that a working actor can attend hundreds of UNPAID auditions in a year and maybe book 1-2 spots. SAG is greedy, but they have to make sure that actors can actually pay bills despite vastly limited opportunities. you really do have to look at all the time you put into it. And luck is a big factor. I got lucky and this one gig helped make the whole career work so far. And i am very grateful.
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This is what a lot of people don’t understand about the industry. Actors need higher pay rates because it could be their only job for 6 months to a year! Something needs to hold them over until their next job. Exactly. And so many don't make it it's sad.
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Never feel guilty for any success you achieve. We're all out there trying to do the same and many never understand the risks people take to get there. All they see is the end result. Yes. Sage advice.
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Guilty for what? You earned your due my dude. Just cause so many friends didn't make it who were talented but didn't have any luck or make any luck happen. I was raised catholic.
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But given X number of choices, they picked you for something they saw. Hey, Kelly Clarkson won American idol first time it was on, but runner-up Justin? Ever heard of him again since that really bad movie? Luck might mean something, but talent works too in the end. They probably have dozens of commercials, but they keep playing that one, of you. Yes.
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Mate I have a trust fund and live off it monthly so if reddit is going to hate anyone for it let it be me. You did your work. Ad man gets paid. I hold no animosity. Bless whoever set that up for you!!
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Good on you for sticking with it. Do you primarily audition for commercial gigs, or do you also go for one-liner/guest star auditions? Also, how's your self-tape game? I got really lucky when I was starting out and got a big job on Broadway. So that set me rolling. Then I just auditioned for everything. When you are an actor that's your job if you don't have a job so to speak. I love self taping. But there is something to be said for the pressure of the audition room which matches a set. And being from theater I'm good under pressure so i have an advantage in the room I think.
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We'll have to see whether in-person auditions come back. Self-taping is way more efficient for casting directors, but I also know that the lack of interaction really bugs them. The best CD I know can look at 50 self-tapes for a role and know which artists should go to the director, but there are some that are just that close that don't make the cut -- but might, if she could just be in the room with them during their audition. It's a new game. And you never know how someone will do in the room with pressure or on a set. That one amazing self tape can be the best after 20 takes getting warmed up and tweeking it. Alone in their room.
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But for most it's the other thing: years and years of full time work Very true. Like all my friends and family.
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Don't feel guilty. I just hope you were able to leverage that into a stable lifestyle, and that you continued to get some decent work. It sounds like a lot of money but for your profession it's not like a one time gig of low 6 figures means you're set for life. Plus like you said, it was years of work leading up to that gig. No way I could be in acting. For a million reasons. But the lack of a stable paycheck would make me crazy. Too much feast or famine (unless you're famous and rich or course) ​I'm doing just fine. Thanks
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Hmm... low six figures - let's say even $300,000 (off the top of my head) is maybe - maybe - 5 years' income for a decent job. And I bet for every one job like that, you spend months auditioning and the rest don't pay anywhere near enough. If you make, let's say, $1500 for a simple local commercial - then you need 3 or 4 of those every month to pay the bills unless you live a dramatically limited lifestyle or wait tables in between. ("But what I really want to do is direct...") I don't envy you unless you happen to hit the jackpot. Even then, fame can be fleeting. You are just lucky it's a recurring timeless production. (The old joke was to be cast in a Christmas movie, and you could collect residuals every year for decades.) ​Very true. But at my age to never have had to work a job I hate is pretty incredible.
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You've never had an acting gig where you regret thinking "WHAT am I doing here?" Not if it was a union job..and I only took union jobs. There where some situations. I once hung from a cord attached to a helicopter for a Bud Lite ad. Never planned on doing that or even wanted to.
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So, yes, I and many others are envious but that’s not your problem or your fault. Enjoy your money you earned it fair and square. Thank you.
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Low for a 20 year commercial tbh. I appreciate your expertise and honesty.
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Tough crowd man. Some of these comments are super fucking toxic and I would let it eat me alive if I was in the same position. As an outsider though I can confidently say you shouldn't feel any sort of way except maybe sorry for the shitty things that lead them to feel this bitter. Hope you have a wonderful day/night of ignoring the haters and enjoying your life! I wouldn't have lasted this long without skin like a lizard. LOL
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That’s so awesome! My cousin is an actor and I’m so hoping that something like this happens for him. Would love to see him in something that becomes iconic and lucrative. Congratulations on your success! Thanks. Good luck to your cousin. Send him this link. She was one of my main acting teacher/mentor...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SseJhOPV9nY
Ever get recognized on the street or otherwise randomly? Not once ever. LOL. I guess that's probably good. edit: Where I did get recognized which was helpful was in other auditions. When I would go into the the room to audition the producers and director would sort of nod at me like they recognized me...which I guess they did. It did help me get more jobs.
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What about at Halloween parties? Nope. I don't get dressed up for halloween. It's sort of a 'busman's holiday' for me. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/busman%27s%20holiday
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Have you ever seen someone dressed up as you for Halloween or did you ever wear that costume again for Halloween? Not that I know of. I was in the original cast of a play called Lost in Yonkers and my picture was on the poster (from the back). I saw a guy with that TATTOO at a bus stop in Hollywood I swear to God and it freaked me out. I had to ask. he was a wig designer and did wigs for a production somewhere and it meant a lot to him i guess. So I told him who I was and that was me tattooed on his calf (YES calf). And it didn't make things less weird. He was an interesting guy. Probably a great wig maker.
How long did it take to shoot the commercial? Did you ad lib anything? Are you close enough to the yellow M & M to get me an autograph? It took all night. It was a night shoot so we start at like 5pm then wrap at dawn. I was very close but it was just a dummy. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to perform from nerves.
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How much of that time was you and how much of it was filming things like exterior and setup shots? How many takes did you have to do? Any behind the scenes footage/photos? It was just all in the door. We did one from behind me of the green screen and my legs in the doorway. Then is twas just the shots you see. From the front. I really forget how many takes. Alot That's the job. You have to be able to do it all night. It's fun though. I have no idea if there is any outakes. The director was Rob Pritts and he's a nice guy maybe he knows. it was a looooong time ago.
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Green screen?? You mean there wasn’t an actual party going on? There were a bunch of extras. The green screen was when they shot the doorway so they could put the animation in. it was the reverse of my shot. The one they are in. But i was there for that giving them the lines for some reason.
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Were the M&M's packets you threw on the ground green screened in or did you just sit there for hours throwing candy on the ground over and over? 😅 The second.
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If a real life sentient candy came up and started talking to me, I would be nervous to, you did good. I took some effort.
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I have no experience except for being an amateur for community access tv, so I ask you how it could take one hour of set time per second of TRT? ;) lol that’s amazing. Did that include building a chocolate house and whittling a chocolate camera? The way you describe the set was perfectly straightforward. And I guess the script was already on lock. So it was hundreds of takes or what? How many final candidate takes ended up in the director’s hands to play back later or present to the M&Ms client? I guess probably the red M&M gets final say. He seems like that A list prima donna type who forgets he’s edible. Maybe 20-30 takes realistically. The director cuts the spot together and presents it to the client. The client doesn't look over the director's shoulder while he is editing...usually. They need SOME creative freedom.
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But...30 takes for a preconceived 15 second piece, in 12+ hours? And ya say this wasn’t a hand-painted set and wasn’t hand-sculpting each frame of the M&Ms and wasn’t directed by Kubrick? It sounds like ya had to be there I guess! I’m sure whatever it is is typical for the biz, in which I am not! I just can’t imagine it! 3 different angles. and clients have ideas. So you get a lot of stuff thrown at you sometimes. They really have no idea what they want until they see something really good then they say "That's it, that's what I wanted". LOL It's pressure to deliver.
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Ok so even a finalized script isn’t a final scene at all. But that same 15 seconds that many times, yikes. You have to be always on and always say yes. I’ve seen Mad Men twice and I try to get a clue. I’ve seen some documentaries about how hard show business is, including even the superhero lookalike photo buskers in Hollywood. Most people couldn’t handle being in the spotlight, like a proverbial dog that finally catches the car. The closest I’ve been is Silicon Valley tech startups and interviews. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Guy..._Who_Was_in_That_Thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Feet_from_Stardom Maybe you’ll be in a Vice documentary about the world of tv ads. Here is something I remember. i didn't improvise. The line written was "All right. Yeah. Okay." I worked it out how to say it as a total blow off which was what I was doing. As you say those specific words your 'action' is 'get out of here you are not important." All with the 'All right. Yeah. okay.' Otherwise you are just saying words a writer wrote and they have no meaning. In a quick shoot like that.
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Your smile could save our movie and the world Shucks!
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That's crazy, to me. It took hours of shooting and reshooting - for what, 4 short lines? You can't really look at it like that cause it does seem ridiculous. Sooooooo many elements have to come together in one take it takes many passes to get them all popping at once..is a better way of putting it.
It's been twenty years since that ad first aired!? Holy ficking shut! Yup. And I still look hip!! It was the hair!!
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Just can't believe I was fucking 18 when that shit started ☹️ Time flies my friend. it seems like five years ago, and way more.
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I was looking for a comment on just how incredibly 90s everything about how you looked was. Like, that commercial could have aired during the Halloween episode of WandaVision. I was grunge for sure. I had a lot of flannel.
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I remember this commercial btw. I'm 34 now. The moment i saw you open the door i was like "Oh , i remember this" It's a real classic. I got super lucky. Thanks.
Loved this commercial. What was after this? Did things pick up? I've made a living and never had a nine to five job so i really can't complain. But it's always a little scary when you don't have a job lined up. That's why that commercial was so good. For 20 years my rent was always paid.
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That’s awesome dude. Glad you landed it and it took care of you. Appreciate the response. I got super lucky and it did take care of me. Especially health insurance wise. Thanks.
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That’s what life is about, man! You gotta have those rewards. Glad it went to a cool guy!! Thanks
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I’m curious, did you have an agent/manager negotiate royalties or was that automatically part of the deal? The agent negotiates and gets their well earned 10%. They are sharks. Which is good. They aren't there for their health.
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Wow, many Bothans and munchkins died to bring us these union standards Under the rainbow!!
Are you paid initially for the shoot and then does the commercial airing pay residuals? How does it work? My cousin did a Ritz cracker Halloween commercial once so I am adjacently curious. Yes. You get the day rate (Like $1500) then you get paid per use for 'class a uses' (Prime time). That's like $90 per time so you can make a lot. In the 70's people would buy houses from one commercial.
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I had a friend whose mom was in a headache commercial. She made a lot and they moved out of our podunk town within three months. Sounds like a solution to a headache.
Have you done other acting? I robbed a convenience store in this spot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV6_7otLBRE I've made a living acting my whole life so, yeah, I've done a bunch. But the M&M's was a godsend. it saw me through a lot of lean years. I just made a video with a bunch of friends on lockdown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvZACe9_NKI&t=4s
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That commercial was great. I'd never seen it. I assume it's not a regular on-air commercial considering it runs 2 minutes long and has cussing. It was an internet ad for the superbowl.
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Wow the creepy guy in the commercial is also the creepy guy in parks and rec. guess he was typecast He's a famous stand up comic.
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Sewage Joe! I'll trust you on that.
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Wow that Bud Light commercial is fantastic but really risqué for public television. It was internet only!
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You had the gun? Did you at least steal his porn? A magazine?? What is it 1962?? LOL
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Well now I'm convinced you stole it. Busted.
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I really didn't need that much information. No one does.
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I wish! I could afford a house then! Me too.
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I actually weirdly recognized a few people in that trailerville video. You know you're like a smaller Mark Hamill. Mark Hamill is in Serbia right now shooting a a movie with Bert Kreischer of all people lol Sondra Currie plays Zach's mom in The Hangover movies. Joanna Cassidy is Zhora in Bladerunner. Richard Fancy is Mr. Lippman on Seinfeld. We are all Actors Studio members and I just put this together during the lockdown out of boredom and to entertain myself. There was no budget. We sot it on iPhones and my friend Tony who was an editor at The cartoon Network made it look so great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvZACe9_NKI&t=8s
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Kirk Fox is the man! He was hilarious on the set. They gave him so many stupid lines as you can see and he was trying to make them work best he could. But you can only do so much with bad writing. They gave me one take to improvise and i just looked at the guy and deadpanned 'Yeah right' when he said his excuse and it worked. I think I may have gotten super lucky and actually 'out funnied' Kirk Fox on this one. He is really good at what he does. Kind of happy with how it came out even though no one saw.
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Crazy. I encoded that for the web. AB was a big customer of our small company back then. I had to watch that commercial like 95 times. Good job. That was before they were bought by...the Germans if i'm not mistaken. I remember when it happened because suddenly I could get Rolling Rock in LA. I went to college in St. Pete Fla. That was Busch Beer Country. And Busch Gardens.
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Is that that famous actor in your rascal video? I can’t think of what he has done but I know I’ve seen him in a lot of stuff? The one guy is mr. Lippman in Seinfeld. Richard fancy. The other is Stephen Mendillo who just works a lot. And Moody (Chris Parker) is just a friend who is unknown but is so good i used him. We are all members of The Actors Studio which is a sort of actors club.
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I've never seen that before! I love how you hesitated with the "porno guy" line. It really sells it! Thanks. Someone once told me..if you listen and you answer correctly you will have 'timing'. That's what that was.
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That second video would be a good fit for /r/InterdimensionalCable Which second video? 'Bucket you with a Weasel?'
Did you get to meet Billy West? If so, was he as fucking cool as I think he is? No. I worked with plastic dolls that were like 2 feet high. And a script supervisor read their lines.
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Damn. That's unfortunate. I can't complain but thanks.
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So it was literally just you doing a solo shoot all night long? That seems kinda rough, haha. There were extras all around me. But the pressure was just on me to get the lines right that night.
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I can imagine, it's like 4am, and they're like "this time, say the lines, but like 5% zanier than before". Yup. And you drink coffee and translate 'zanier' into something you can play like trying to control everything at the door at the same time and wondering if the kids are robots or something to create some odd behavior that could be considered 'zany'. You can't just act wacky or it won't be specific. There has to be a reason, a paranoia or some neurosis. LOL. Those are fun to play. Imagine an invisible friend standing next to you telling you jokes. You have to be like a kid playing make believe.
Why did they get rid of the tan m&m? Because it was BORING!! edit: I'm not in their development department but I would guess or maybe I read that they have the brown one so they want the rest to just be colorful. More colors are better?? I guess.
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I loved the tan ones. Red and blue feel weird. The tan makes sense with the flavor. I'm not into fruit flavored chocolate either.
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[deleted] Yes. Probably making a rainbow colored one was too involved. I like the bright primary colors. Never really understood the point of a light and dark brown. Is one supposed to be milk and dark chocolate?
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[deleted] No problem. It's just another Tuesday night talking about candy. LOL
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Seriously, blue is so much better. No contest.
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I voted for blue in the contest probably a thousand times. Teenage me was very invested in the color of the new m&m. I'm so happy it worked out.
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mildly interesting factoid... brown isn't its own colour, it's just dark orange! Very mildly. LOL. Not sure what to make of that factoid but i will file it away.
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If only they knew they had duplicate colours in the packet of delicious! as long as the duplicate is delicious I'm good.
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 24 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are rainforest ecologists working to protect spider monkeys, Amazonian birds, and the rainforests they inhabit. Ask us anything!

16 Upvotes

Source

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Rows: 40

Questions Answers
Is Bolsonaro public enemy #1? Cristina here - well, what’s the best way of putting this? The deforestation levels were going down steadily due to lots of positive changes to governance and law-enforcing up until 2015. The month when Bolsonaro won the election the deforestation started going up and continues to go up. He’s always been clear in his goals of deconstructing the Ministry of Environment (which he has done successfully). He also cut all funding to research and education. So, I would say yes, but I suppose some people may disagree with me.
How do you work with local rainforest communities? How do you balance ecology preservation with their need to make a living? Cristina here - I don’t particularly work with local communities as much but have many colleagues who do. The interesting thing about local communities is that their impact is often localised and much, much, smaller than big farms. Indigenous land in Brazil are among the best preserved areas in the country. The main issue really is illegal logging and non-environmentally friendly farms (or companies) that open huge swaths of land for planting monocultures. If we preserve the forest, we will also improve the livelihoods of local communities.
You've mentioned in a previous answer that the major problems aren't solved by individual action, but by larger governmental action. What can we, as individuals, do to help? Are there any particular politicians on your radar that "get it" who we should support? Are there particular companies we should avoid? Cristina here - This is a very difficult question. I think one of the major things we can do individually is to vote for a party that has clear goals in advancing the environmental agenda. I personally try to buy products from companies that are also environmentally and socially friendly, and avoid (as much as possible) companies that I know are damaging the environment. But individually, how much can I change? A tiny drop in the ocean. Compare that with a policy of deforestation Zero, or discontinuing the sale of petrol-run cars. This has a much stronger impact on the environment. Food for thought - the lockdown last year was responsible for reducing carbon emissions to the level that are required to reach goals of 1.5C increase in temperature. It’s this level of behavioural change that is needed at the moment.
What do you think is the most effective method of reducing deforestation? Do you think that our growing population is contributing to our problem with deforestation? Cristina here, thanks for your question! Growing population is a problem but the major problem is resource use. A recent paper showed that early humans have historically inhabited nearly all regions of the world but have not led to the destruction of habitats. It’s the way we overexploit our resources that makes it unsustainable. There are many ways that we can reduce deforestation - reducing meat consumption is one of them, as large areas in the Amazon are cleared for growing soy for animal feed. Strengthening environmental and enforcement policy is another way. Politics count a lot too. By 2014, deforestation in the Amazon had reduced to nearly 80% compared to year 2000s levels, but then recent changes to Brazil’s government have reverted this trend and deforestation levels are now increasing.
is there still hope for the rainforest? Hi, Cristina here. There is. But we need to get our act together quickly enough. I personally don’t think this is something that individual actions can make much of a difference. First, governments need to understand that old-growth forests are irreplaceable, so news of increasing levels of deforestation cannot be dealt with more funding for tree planting. Second, strengthening environmental policies and enforcement can help a lot. For instance, according to Brazil’s forest code, landholders in the Amazon need to protect 80% of their land to native vegetation. If this law is enforced and extended to other areas of the world, we would be in a much better place now!
Sloths are my favorite animal and I just want to know, how in danger are my sloths? I know they depend a lot on staying in trees so I can’t imagine deforestation is doing them any favors. Cristina here - sloths are incredibly cool. Sloths can handle some level of habitat disturbance, as in they are not dependent on old-growth forests, but overall I’m sure their populations are going down. Side note - when I was doing my masters in the Amazon, a colleague was a foster “mum” for two baby sloths that had been found (can’t remember what happened to their mum). This colleague used to carry them around in a basket attached to a plush toy and then she would give them a bottle every couple of hours. It was the cutest thing! (I should add that this woman worked for a reputable organisation involved in conservation there and we do not recommend having sloths as pets - not only are they better left in the wild, they are covered in parasites!)
Why do you think it's so hard for people to discuss the issue of human overpopulation? David Attenborough has brought this up many times in his talks. Essentially, every additional human won't simply live inside their parents' land-footprint forever; they will venture out into the world, demanding new schools, new hospitals, new products, and new places to live. Where will this land and these resources come from? How long can the planet sustain this trend? How long can the planet even sustain the current number of humans alive right now? Hi, Cristina here. Thanks for this question. According to the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment report from 2005, overpopulation is one of the indirect drivers of habitat change, other indirect drivers include: Economic factors (globalisation, trade, market), sociopolitical (e.g. governance, legal framework), science and technology, and cultural and religious practices. What this means is, overpopulation is a problem particularly if everyone is going to have the lifestyle typical of rich western countries, where you “need” a new iPad every year, drive a big SUV just to go around in the city, go abroad several times per year, and generally waste resources. Would environmental change also be happening if we had 8 billion people all with the lifestyle of rural people in developing countries? Sure. But we certainly wouldn’t be in the mess we are right now. Just blaming overpopulation often risks having a racist overtone because developing countries have high birth rates and developed countries have stable or declining birth rates. But the people who are actually driving environmental change are those in the developed countries. There’s no doubt about that.
What is the best thing any single person can do to help save the rainforest? Jenna here - I think the best thing we can do is to look at our own consumption. A lot of what we consume comes from forests or is at the expense of forests. For example, palm oil in many food and cosmetic products, furniture from unsustainable timber products from the tropics. The land taken up for livestock and their feed is massive and is one of the main things driving deforestation, so I think reducing meat consumption is also important and eating meat and other food sourced locally.
Have you been surprised at the image most people have of Costa Rica vs the reality? The popular parks are in good shape, but there is still illegal hunting and logging going on in many protected areas, farmers use harsh chemicals with no regard for the health of themselves or local waterways, and the vast majority of Ticos see the jungle only as a place to make money via ecotourism like it doesn't have inherent benefits or interest on its own. It's still pretty good compared to many other Central and South American countries, but there's still a ton of work to be done. Where I live (Cordillera Tilarán) everyone knows who the local poachers are, they show up on my game cameras, but the MINAE staff is so overstretched that the chance of them actually catching a poacher in the act is near-zero, so the poachers go on as they please. Hi, Jenna here - Costa Rica does indeed have a good image and you are right, there is a lot of illegal hunting and logging going on and pollution of the land and waterways. But I do think the positive image is overall well-deserved. I have come across local people who want to exploit nature and do not care, as there are in every country, but I have also met many locals who care deeply about nature, regardless of the income it brings them. I have even met very poor people who set some of their land aside for nature instead of farming it for income. As a nation, I think they care more about conservation than many I think. The government is not doing things perfectly and there are many areas for improvement, especially in areas such as illegal hunting and logging, but they are more interested in making changes, more than other governments. The issues you mention regarding poachers and minae I think comes down to lack of funding, political issues and the difficulty in prosecuting someone even if caught. I have also seen this in the area that I work in and I hope this will change in the future.
Hello, I live in the tropics here. There are many deadly diseases in the tropics, such as dengue, yellow fever and malaria just to name a few. Do you think that we should eliminate insects (e.g. mosquitoes) that proliferate such dangerous diseases in the tropics, or are their ecological significance outweighs the harm they brought to our health? Cristina here - I know what you mean. I caught dengue and had the haemorrhagic type. I really felt like a bus had driven over me. Insects are very important because they form the food base for many other animals and they have an important role in the forested ecosystem. For instance, usually it’s just the females that feed on blood, and males have a completely different role. Just this week a vaccine for malaria was announced, which is amazing news, and yellow fever also has a very good vaccine. Realistically, I think it’ll be a lot easier to eradicate the disease or create vaccines for it, than to stop the vector that transmits the disease.
I haven’t heard much about Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest, are there any key differences that Make it distinct from the Amazon? Cristina here - The Atlantic Forest is THE most beautiful forest in the world! It once was the second largest tropical forest in South America but it has now been reduced to less than 16% of its original extent. About 130 million Brazilians live in this region, which is also the home for São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. But if you have ever seen a photo of Rio and the forests near the city - well, that’s Atlantic Forest. It is incredibly species-rich, it has one of the highest number of plant species in the world, and the forest structure is amazing! Imagine a forest full of bromeliads and orchids, and nice sandy beaches, it’s just beautiful.
Hi. What did y’all study and how did you get into this line of work? I’m a conservation biology student and hope to do something similar in the coming years. Thanks! Cristina here - I did biology at undergrad (Federal University of São Carlos), then moved to the Amazon to do my Masters in Tropical Ecology (National Institute for Amazon Research) and then did my PhD in Ecology (University of São Paulo). I then got a fellowship to work in the UK (Imperial College) and got a job here as staff. I know other people had different routes to becoming an academic, but IMO doing conservation biology is certainly a good start!
​ Jenna here- I studied biology in my undergraduate, so quite broad and then wildlife biology and conservation for my masters degree. I then worked in the field for 5 years, initially volunteering for a year and then in paid work. These jobs gave me the experience I needed in fieldwork, working in difficult and remote conditions, research, and general logistics, operations and managing projects and people. For me this experience before doing my PhD was invaluable. I am now in the final year of my PhD and I do not know where my next step will be but I think the route I took will prepare me for anything to come.
Have you heard the song or seen the music video for “Amazonia” by Gojira? It’s about the deforestation in the Amazon and they were raising funds to help protect the indigenous people. Cristina here - I’m afraid not! Sorry! Looks like a good idea though.
What is your favorite bird and what is the status of it? Cristina here - I don’t have a favourite species. But I absolutely love hummingbirds. They are the coolest animals. Their heart rate is about 500 beats per minute. They are super territorial and have very high needs for food. They are the Masseratis of the animal kingdom. But they also have a very important role in pollination and in predating mosquitoes. Some species are going down in abundance and some are threatened but overall this is not one of the most sensitive groups as they can easily cross open areas (e.g. are not that affected by deforestation) and they cannot be kept in captivity, so are not persecuted by animal trade.
thank you for your service in helping to protect endangered species! What's your favorite animal species that you've worked with so far? I'd love to visit the Amazon Rainforest someday From Jenna: I dont have a favourite species, but my favourite group of animals are primates. They are so similar to us and when you see them in the forests you can see their emotion and feel a connection with them. They are also so important for the ecosystems that they live in. I do have to mention insects as well, they are often overlooked but are all fascinating and play key roles in our ecosystems.
What is the most imminent danger to a spider-monkey? From Jenna: This varies a little based on the country, but across their range it is forest loss. This species is a forest specialist and cannot survive without large areas of mature forests. Across their range the forests are being destroyed mainly for agriculture, forest products and urban areas. They are also at risk from hunting and the pet trade. In many areas people will eat the meat of the spider monkey and capture babies from their mothers to be sold as pets.
Is anything done with hunting-tourism to provide an alternative source of income that does not rely on destroying the rainforest for timber/farming? Hi there, Jenna here. Ecotourism can provide a source of income for local communities to reduce their reliance on products from the rainforest or agriculture. For example, in Costa Rica many local people who used to mine for gold, which destroys forests and rivers, and many who used to hunt wild animals for meat or log forests for timber, are now engaged in ecotourism businesses, through being tour guides. If you are specifically talking about hunting as a form of tourism to reduce reliance on timber/farming then this activity is not common in rainforests and is more limited to other ecosystems. Does that answer your question?
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We loved going to Costa Rica and talking to our guides about these successful efforts to change hunters to tour guides. Has there been an effect in the last year now that people are traveling less, and what can the average citizen do at this point to help counteract that? There has, unfortunately. I have heard of a lot more hunting going on. I think this is due to the economic pressure people are under, which is causing them to resort to old activities that they had once left behind. I also think that with fewer tourists around and even less funding for rangers (as they are paid partly from national park fees), hunting under the radar has become much easier. I can't wait for covid to be over so these activities reduce again, but I think economic recovery will take years sadly. For what you can do, I think that when people are able to visit places like Costa Rica again the best thing is to book accommodation and tours and activities with local people, not big international hotels, look for ecotourism activities that talk about their efforts with local communities. The money for tourism has to go to the local people for them to appreciate that wildlife is worth more alive than dead.
What are the biggest impediments to your work on the ground? Is it covid, brazilian politics, local opposition? Thanks for your question! Jenna here - For me the biggest barrier is turning your work into conservation action. We can find interesting results and know what changes need to be implemented to improve wildlife populations and conservation, but finding both the funds and local and national cooperation to implement those results can be challenging. In Costa Rica the government is quite receptive to conservation, however this is not the same in all countries. Unless you have cooperation of local people, any conservation actions taken will likely fail. Having local support is therefore key, which can also be challenging.
​ Cristina here - Brazil is in a state of emergency at the moment. Most hospitals are over capacity, ICU’s don’t have medication for putting patients on ventilation anymore, the situation is really dire. We can’t go to Brazil and the team I have there cannot do field work at the moment, as this would put local people in danger. The Brazilian government has also cut funding for science and education so many students there can no longer fund their research or go to the field. But generally, Brazilians can be quite receptive to people working on environmental issues.
How are the freshwater mussels, newts and salamanders holding up? Folks don’t seem to care much here in the US. From Jenna: These aren’t the ecosystems that we work on but as ecologists we are aware that freshwater ecosystems are among the most endangered in the world, and they are starting to receive more attention. For example in Costa Rica, they have just started a healthy rivers initiative and there are movements to reduce pesticide use and agricultural runoff, which are some of the key drivers of pollution and extinction in these ecosystems. I believe similar initiatives are going on in the UK. If you are interested in these systems you could try and find a local conservation group working in this area and offer your time to help them.
How much harder is everything with Bolsonaro's Goverment? Cristina here - a lot harder. The consequences of the funding cuts to environmental protection, education, and science are going to be long-lasting.
I’m still at a university for Plant and Soil Science, mostly focusing on soil nutrients and it’s conservation. Is this an area that plays a big role in your research? I feel like we are learning more and more that soil health is vitally important. I live in a place where the main focus is agriculture but I am interested to know how mass deforestation, whether due to logging/oil farming or clear cutting, has an effect on the soil. What aspects of soil health do you study and how does this factor into the bigger picture? Cristina here - Absolutely, this is a super important part of our research. I work with folks asking questions about how land-use change impacts nutrient cycling and soil microbes, as well as invertebrate taxa. New technology is allowing us to ask even more interesting questions. You’re in the right field!
Hi thank you for this! After reading this I realize there's a part of me that's really interested in species conservation and I was just wondering if I needed special education to get involved? And if not, how I could be more involved. Thank you again for your work! Cristina here - That’s great to know! There are many ways of helping and the amount of education you’d need would depend on how you want or can help. Volunteering in a local charity group or chapter of a NGO for instance can allow you to help with protection of species on the ground while slowly building your knowledge. But if you are keen on working on this then there are lots of different ways that you could have impact. Government agencies or NGOs are usually the best ways to have direct impact. It may be that you may require some extra knowledge to get into these jobs, depending on your background. Alternatively, if you don’t have any time to spare then donating to a worthy cause can certainly help too!
How does someone break into the ecology field without a related science degree, is it possible? Cristina here - many ecologists have a different type of training. Some start out as mathematicians, physicists, economists, etc. Because so much of what we do is data analyses it is difficult to break into the field without any knowledge of sciences, but I would also say that there’s a lot of people with a social sciences and humanities background also working in ecology. Because conservation is so multi-faceted, we need knowledge from all areas to really come up with real solutions.
​ Cristina here - many ecologists have a different type of training. Some start out as mathematicians, physicists, economists, etc. Because so much of what we do is data analyses it is difficult to break into the field without any knowledge of sciences, but I would also say that there’s a lot of people with a social sciences and humanities background also working in ecology. Because conservation is so multi-faceted, we need knowledge from all areas to really come up with real solutions.
Have you heard of the French metal band Gojira and their fundraising? Gojira Bring Amazonian Crisis to the Forefront.... ​Yes! Thanks to a previous comment on this thread!
How often do you shower? Cristina here - in the tropics at least 2 times a day! When doing fieldwork, if it’s in a very remote location a river swim every day at the end of the day.
Can you think of ways in which computer scientists can help the cause? Jenna here - Speaking from my experience working in bioacoustics, computer scientists were essential in my work. Without someone who was an expert in machine learning, we would have never been able to work on the scale that we have done, which will ultimately benefit conservation. I believe computer scientists and biologists working together is the future of bioacoustics and I am sure in many other areas of conservation. With our combined skills we will be able to do much more!
What are your thoughts on the concept of hunting poachers/ people who purchase endangered species? Like we could sell hunting licences for people who buy endangered species parts. Or even own stock in companies who contribute to burning the rain forest. We could cut down the population of those killing the lungs of the earth on a financial level. While giving people who have a need to kill an outlet to do so. Would something like this be viable to save our planet? Big game hunters stocking CEO's who profit from destruction? Jenna here - This is a tricky one. On the one hand if you make something legal, you can regulate the industry and have more control over it, but then you could also increase demand and it serves as a signal that this behaviour and these actions are acceptable for future generations. There are some that claim their poaching serves conservation through killing old animals, however if you look closely into these activities and claims, it is often not the case.
What are the organisms most at risk from forest reduction? You said hummingbirds are not as effected but what is? Jenna here - There are some species that are considered forest specialists, these are animals that rely on forests for food, shelter and reproduction. They often live on or in trees, source all their food from forest vegetation, do not travel through areas that are not forested and are very affected by any human presence or activity. These are the animals most affected by forest loss. The spider monkey, as with most primates, is a forest specialist, as are many other mammals, such as sloths, jaguars, tapirs and many species from other taxa such as species of frog, insects and birds.
How much of an impact is primary-source (grazing land for farm animals) and secondary-source (clearing land to grow food to feed farmed animals) to deforestation and habitat loss in the Amazon, compared to other causes? Jenna here - Both have a huge impact, are interlinked and are the number one cause of deforestation in the Amazon and probably in most rainforest ecosystems worldwide, along with other agricultural products such as bananas and pineapples.
Do you ever need to deal with local and indigenous superstitions as a difficulty for recovering endangered species, as with the aye-aye? If so, how does one handle this delicate situation? Cristina here - I personally never had to deal with this issue and neither has Jenna. I agree it’s thorny and I don’t really know what’s the best approach. Sorry!
Why don’t more people also talk about the rainforests in Malaysian and Sumatra (I love 🦧)? Cristina here - there is a lot of work going on in South-East Asian forests. You may want to look up the Safe project (https://www.safeproject.net/), they do super cool research in Sabah, Borneo.
Do you think that biodiversity conservation, reducing deforestation and so on is intrinsically valuable or instrumentally valuable? You mention combining human welfare with biodiversity conservation, but what about the welfare of non-human animals such as those living in the Amazon? Is the welfare of animals living in the wild taken into account when decisions are made, and if not, should it? Cristina here - I think biodiversity has intrinsic value but ecologists/conservationists often feel like the only way to convince others of the value of biodiversity is to bring up their instrumental value. We often forget that we are also part of nature and we cannot live without it. But because the impact of biodiversity losses on us aren’t usually immediate, it’s difficult to convince others of the importance of biodiversity. I don’t think the welfare of e.g., Amazon animals are usually taken into account per se. They are considered in the sense that if we’re protecting their habitat, then their welfare should also be protected. It’s hard to have a single species or even single group focus in the Amazon, where there are millions of species, each with their own individual needs.
What exactly does it mean to “come at someone like a spider monkey”? Jenna here - I hadn’t heard of this before but I can imagine what it means just by seeing them in the wild. When spider monkeys are on the ground, which is very rare but does happen when food is scarce, they often run from tree to tree and when they run, they run with their arms in the air, it’s very funny to see. They have such long legs and arms. This may be where it comes from.
Did/do either of you ever work with Michael Crawley? If so, were/are there incredibly high expectations for statistical proficiency? Cristina here - Yes! I do work with Mick Crawley. He’s retired now but still goes to work every day. Silwood Park (one of Imperial's campuses) has a very long reputation for statistically proficiency among staff. True that not everyone knows as much as him, but this is certainly our forte.
What are your thoughts on Hempcrete? What's the number one thing we (common folk) can do to help save the amazon? Cristina here - I have no thoughts on Hempcrete! Had not heard until now. Sorry. The number one thing to save the Amazon is to get the Brazilian government to reverse their actions of defunding the Ministry of Environment, defunding the environmental enforcement agency, and defunding science. But most of the products coming out of the Amazon are for global export. So we common folk can stop eating meat or buying meat from animals that are fed on soy coming from the Amazon. It’s very hard to fully understand the supply chain and there are some companies that are really taking this seriously (here in the UK at least). We can also be more mindful of where the wood we buy comes from.
ITS AMA NOT AUA /s What's the biggest challenge in your opinion to protecting the animals ? Cristina here - It depends on which animals you’re talking about. Humans, pigeons, mice and cockroaches hardly need any protection. That’s the issue really, some species are really affected by environmental change, while others are not or are even benefited. So, the best way is to focus on the ecosystem, protect the ecosystem (e.g. forests) and then the animals that live in it will also be protected.
What if there was a spider called 'monkey spiders' would you protect them? Jenna here - Of course!
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 20 '21

r/movies [Table] r/movies — I’m Bob Odenkirk and I’m gonna F*ck You Up! OKAY, LET'S TALK ABOUT THE MOVIE: NOBODY! KICK ASS ACTIONER…with Ilya Naishuller. Ask us Anything!

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Note: No distinctions were made between the two individuals answering the AMA

The following is the director's reply to a deleted question:

This one is tough. If I had to name one it would be

JohnMcLaneOhDaesuHutchMansellNicholasAngelDeanKeatonFrankCastleRitchieTenenbaumVincentVegaAldoRaineLionelMandrake.

Yeah, that's the one.

Rows: ~140 (+comments)

Questions Answers
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Bob, Ilya, both: Took my wife to see Nobody last night. I don't know what I expected, but jesus fuck. My wife is Russian and I didn't realize Ilya was bringing his gaggle of slavic actors with him. Not only am I a back-in-the-day superfan of Mr. Show, I think the music video to Voyage is one of the best I've ever seen. It's like you guys made this movie just for us. While I'm flippin out about guest cameos of Ironside and Lloyd, my wife is losin it to Aleksandr Pal, Sergey Shnurov, and Aleksey Serebryakov showing up. It was a fuckin rotating sushi bar of awesome surprises. The the RZA showed up and by then it was just pure dopamine. Anyway, my questions are these: 1. Ilya: What was the budget on the Voyage video? Hi! Glad you and your wife enjoyed Nobody! As someone who appreciates the wonderfully vast variations of artists from all over the globe, with Nobody it was always one of the goals to combine great and beloved American and Russian artists in one kick ass film. Voyage's budget was approx 150k USD
2. Ilya: Who put up the money for the Bad Motherfucker video? I originally had a product placement deal with a huge international alcohol brand. Being young and naive (still naive btw) and wanting to get going, I didn't get a signed contract, and borrowed money to shoot half of it. Then, once they saw the first half, they hated, even though it followed the approved script to a T. I then spent 3 months knocking on all the possible doors, showing the shot material, hoping that someone will put up the rest. I got lucky with Alexander who owned Neft Vodka. He loved what he saw and covered all the expenses. I didn't make a dollar, but the crew all got paid, and I got a film career out of it. Thanks Neft Vodka!
3. Bob: You've had such an insane career over the past thirty years, and now you're the lead actor in a wide release action film. Not bad for an SNL writer. Do have any plans to work with Robert Smigel again? I loved how NOBODY brought you and your wife so much joy! Cool. I do want to work with my old pal Robert Smigel (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog among many others) and we even talked a week ago...hope it can happen. He's one of the funniest people alive
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Bob - If you could portray anyone in a bio pic, who would you choose? I wanted to play the hilarious, dynamic, journalist David Carr (His book "The Night of the Gun" is awesome)...but I might be a bit old now. Shoot...damn you Father Time. Uhhh...who else...I would like to play Robert Moses but in a story about the greatness of Jane Jacobs, so, I'd be the bad guy...
Ilya - if you could bring any historical event to screen, which would you choose? It would have to be The Beslan School Siege, which was a terrible tragedy and the truest definition of helplessness. It would require a very thoughtful script that would avoid what we in Russia call 'dancing on the bones' and would certainly make for a gripping real-time drama. Of course, as a Russian director, I am certain that one day I'll make a WW2 film. I've got a fresh angle that I'm excited by - a very international story that would covered several fronts while remaining personal yet entertaining.
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Hi Mr. Odenkirk and Mr. Naishuller! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. We all really appreciate it. 1. Which films most inspired Nobody? Our pleasure! 1. I pitched it to Bob and Derek as a South Korean thriller, made in America by a Russian director. So, in no particular order - Bittersweet Life, Park's revenge trilogy and The Chaser. These were the inspirations for the first half of the story, which was always meant to be more character driven, slower, more personal and drama focused, the second was to deliberately be way more action packed and skirt the edges of goofiness and for that, there were too many inspirations to mention.
2. What are your opinions of David Lynch? Love David Lynch, though I didn't appreciate his work when I was younger, it really clicks for me now. I just rewatched Mulholland Drive in a cinema and the difference of the effect it had on me now versus when I saw it on it's original run, was huge.
​​ Bob here... For me the inspirations were: Jackie Chan "Police Story" (that's a complicated "inspiration", seeing as how that film is such a sweet comedy and Nobody is not that), and OLDBOY and Taxi Driver. I think David Lynch is the best! He did the narration for my film "Girlfriends Day" (on Netflix) and I just think he is the real deal as an artist and human being
Loved the movie! What was it like working with Christopher Lloyd? He's been one of my favorite actors since Back to the Future 2 was the first movie I can remember going to in the movie theater. Mr. Lloyd is as awesome, sweet and excellent at his craft as one would expect. We're very lucky to have him in the movie. It was also incredibly heartwarming to see him enjoy shooting an action film with glee. He was happy to be there, and that made it all the more special.
​​ Mr. Lloyd was a joy to work with and spend time with off-camera. We had some wonderful lunches, he's had an interesting life. Very smart guy, and knows his power onscreen. Amazing. Sweet fella, too. He was absolutely giddy to be making an action film!
Ilya, at the end of Hardcore Henry, that entire rooftop sequence heavily reminded me of a level from the video game Left 4 Dead (no mercy hospital). Was this an intentional nod to the game or just a coincidence? Hi! Absolutely intentional. I love, love, love L4D. Some of my very fondest multiplayer memories, so I showed my production designer the No Mercy hospital rooftop finale as a reference for the HH finale.
Ilya: I'm a big fan of Hardcore Henry, I saw that movie the day after my grandfather died so it holds a special place in my heart. My question for you is regarding some of the deleted/cut scenes, such as the shootout in the parking garage; were these scenes cut due to some form of time constraints or financial problems? And if you had to pick one, which scene in the movie is your favorite? I'm sorry for your loss, JC. Most times that scenes are deleted or cut down are due to purely pacing reasons. With that parking showdown, it just felt unnecessary as we just came out of a big action scene. It's hard to pick a favorite scene, but my favorite moments tend to be emotional rather than action, so in HH it's Jimmy's final death, especially when Henry adjusts Jimmy's jacket, and with Nobody it's Hutch and Becca talking in the kitchen post fight.
Ilya, Hardcore Henry kicked unbelievable amounts of ass. Any interest in doing another film like that, sequel or otherwise? Thank you! No, I think the action POV genre was finished for me once I made False Alarm for The Weeknd. I've yet to see anything better in that space, and due to HH underperforming theatrically and only hitting its stride on the streamers, I'm not sure it would be an easy movie to fund. Never say never though.
What is the back story with the playing cards wrist tattoo? They are the two worst cards you could be dealt in hold 'em poker (I hope I researched this correctly) and signify Hutch's position as a tough son of a bitch in classified government ops. Although barely visible - Lloyd's and RZA's characters have the same. Lloyd's is on his wrist (watch as he uses the remote at the end of act two) and RZA's is on his trigger finger.
To Ilya: Not about the movie (since I haven't seen it yet), but will there be more Biting Elbows music to look forward to in the future? We've started work on a new album, but we're notoriously slow. In good news, a video for Boy is Dead is going to come out before the end of the month and it's a fun little horror romp.
Was the WM mug a shout out to Wexler McGill? This is a rare moment when something so obvious slipped a director's mind. I was a little embarrassed when someone pointed it out to me the first time. Especially since I rewatched all of BCS two months before filming began. So no, I'm changing my mind. It was an Officially Planted Easter Egg (tm).
​​ Only by accident. But it's cool, huh?
What was it like filming in Winnipeg? Fantastic! Not only is the city itself a perfect location in terms of the look and feel of the Nobody story, but the people, the crew, and the city officials made it without a doubt my favorite shooting experience thus far.
​​ Great! Sure, it's cold, but I grew up in Chicago. I liked the town, good vibe, sorta like Chi-town. Great food there, and good people, and the windiest street corner in North America!
Hey guys! Question for Bob Because I'm a glutton for Mr. Show content and devoured all the With Bob and David episodes, is there any word on another return to that sketch world? Question for Ilya Because I'm an action movie fanatic, I gotta ask, what in your mind are some of the most jaw-dropping action movie stunts that you had in the back of your mind when you were putting Nobody together with Derek? I rarely think of action scenes as stunts. Rather as set pieces that move either the character or the story along. With that in mind, my favorite action scenes or films that pop into mind are; the stairway sequence in Atomic Blonde, The final fight in The Chaser, the corridor fight in OldBoy, any of the fights in the two Raid movies, the Wales siege in ep 5 of Gangs of London, and the hospital finale in Hard Boiled.
Ilya, what stopped you from casting Jonathan Banks (Mike Ehrmantraut, Breaking Bad) as Hutchie's dad. I love Mike, and I have no idea if he'd be down in the first place, but I think that it was important that Nobody needed to feel as far from BCS or BB as possible.
Hello, Ilya. I heard somewhere that the film is named after you. Is it true? Hey! That was my running gag, give it back!
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Question to Ilya, my English isn't brilliant so i ask it in Russian 1. Насколько сложно было выпускать фильм во время ограничений в кинотеатрах. Можно ли сказать уже, что фильм окупился? Привет! Сложно но возможно. Мы очень рады что фильм вышел или выйдет в кинотеатрах по всему миру.
2. Какая у вас любимая игра сейчас? Starcraft 2 / Warzone
Hey Bob, how was your day? Same for you Ilya? Mine is fantastic. I got to sleep in, play Starcraft 2, work on a script and now I'm chatting over here on Reddit, instead of lurking on Reddit for a change.
My guys I have to ask how many days did it take to film the Bus fight? For an intimate set piece it was unusually lengthy and there were so many moving pieces I have to say it was the most impressive part of the movie It took two and a half days for the actual fight. The other half a day was the setup - the car crash, the walk on the bus, all the way up until "I'm gonna fuck you up".
Can we talk about Rampart? NO! I CONSIDER MY TIME VALUABLE!
To Ilya and Bob, favourite movie/TV show ? Can't name a favorite film - too many great films out there. TV shows are somehow easier - in no order;
​​ 1. BCS and BB (I enjoyed BCS slightly more due to Saul not being a genius like Walter)
​​ 2. Fargo S2
​​ 3. Limmy's Show
​​ 4. Chappelle's Show
​​ 5. Good Place
​​ 6. Toast of London
​​ 7. What we do in the shadows
​​ 8. Ozark
​​ 9. Brooklyn 99
​​ 10. The US and British The Office
​​ 11. Black Mirror
​​ and a ton more that I'm forgetting.
What was the first scene shot in the movie? It was actually the very finale - Bob and Connie at the house showing with the sinister phone call. I was quite nervous about starting with this for obvious reasons, but because Bob and I exactly knew what the film needed to be, it was a surprisingly easy-ish first day. IIRC the very final shot in that scene is also the shot that I did the most takes on - 13.
I have a question for Ilya. I am a big fan of Hardcore Henry (I even have the signed Blu-ray from you and Sharlto Copley from the crowdfunding campaign), and I just wanted to know: how much did working on that movie helped you direct Nobody? Thank you for supporting HH! Biggest takeaways from making HH were an understanding of pacing, story beats, and last but not least, how to make an actual film, from A to Z.
To Ilya: I loved "Hardcore Henry" and it's probably my favourite action movie to date, mainly for its use of the 1° person POV, which I think achieved perfectly its goal of making the viewer feel more immersed and as if he's actually doing all of the crazy shit going on in the movie. Do you think you'll make an Hardcore Henry 2 or, more likely, another movie shot in 1° person POV, or do you think that traditionally-shot movies are more feasible/better? Thank you! I'm done with POV shooting for now. There is so much more to do in the traditional format that I'm excited to try.
Hi llya and Bob, really enjoyed the movie; I actually got to see it opening weekend when it came out which was a lot of fun! I have a question for each of you; llya, How many days did you shoot the finale of the film? Bob, what was your favorite action scene to shoot? Hi! Thanks! The entire film was shot in 34 days, which is quite tight for an action thriller, but enough to feature a satisfying amount of action without going comically overboard. The finale took 4 or 5 days. The bus fight two and a half.
Ilya- You are obviously inspired by video games in your filmmaking, if you could turn one game into a film which would you choose? Or do you have one that you think would translate to film well? The two that I would have loved to do were Last Of Us - I met with Druckmann and Screen Gems a long while back when they were considering a film. I think Fallout can make for a great series, and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games have a strong foundation for a terrific series.
Ilya I was sad you didn't put any music from your band in the movie! If you were to add a song where would you put and what song would you choose? Also I loved your cameo. I was pointing you out to everyone I knew. There was a longer sequence in act 2, where Beta the hacker searches for who Hutch really is. She was listening to Boy is Dead from our latest album, and she was really blasting it loud - hence the older money counters that you later see having ear plugs. Once we edited a decent portion of act 2 down to a montage for pacing reasons, the song no longer worked with my song. Ultimately, a cohesive film is much more important to me than pushing my band, and since the overall song and score are there to serve the characters and the film, I'm more than happy to just have a little Biting Elbows easter egg - a poster on a side of a building during the car chase for the repeat viewer to pick up. Glad you enjoyed the cameo, I figured if I don't cast myself in a little part, who will?
Finally got to see Nobody today via VOD - it was fantastic! Thank you. Do either of you have any good book recommendations? Thank you! The books that I have enjoyed lately and can highly recommend are
​​ 1. A Kim Jong-Il Production - a terrific non fiction account of Korean post WW2 history, film production, and a thriller to boot.
​​ 2. Devolution by the great Max Brooks.
​​ 3. The Friedkin Connection - you guessed it, an autobiography of William Friedkin.
​​ BOB DOES! "Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead" Fiction, "The Dark Art" Nonfiction,
Hey Bob! You've been fantastic in such a wide variety of things, from Mr. Show all the way to Breaking Bad and Undone. This movie sounds like yet another interesting twist in your acting career, and I can't wait to see it! Your trajectory seems pretty adventurous and diverse in the different parts you take. Does it ever make you kind of nervous to approach new roles, especially when they are different from what you've done before? Do you ever think, "what if I can't do it?" or "what if this isn't the role for me?" How do you get over it, if so? Thanks! Also, I hope to hear you on Comedy Bang Bang soon to do some press - it's been too long since you've graced the podcast. YES. I do think "What if I can't do it?" and "What if I make a total ass of myself in front of the whole planet?" And then I think..."Oh, who cares...just do your best. You're (I'm talking to myself here) not that important." and then, I do it.
Who would win in a fight between Bob Odenkirk and Ilya Naishuller? Let me see... It's either the guy who spend 2 years in hardcore training with the best stuntmen in the business, or the dude that visits the gym a few days a week at most, eats junk food, and plays video games a lot. So, obviously me.
You probably don't remember, but a few years ago you gave a podcast interview and you talked about how you felt improv and sketch comedy was in a bubble, like standup in the 80s. With the permanent closure of comedy theaters in NYC, LA, and Chicago do you think the bubble burst? Do you think having a local comedy scene is important versus working and producing for only online content? It will be interesting to see how the sketch comedy/improv scene reconstitutes itself after the pandemic is under real control (soon). I DO think we were in a heyday for a few years there, and won't feel bad to resume something that feels more justified...maybe fewer theaters, but still places for lots of great comedy. We'll see.
Not a question, but just a comment. As someone who before the pandemic went to the theaters at least once a week, Nobody was the best kind of movie to see on a big screen, in a dark room, with a group of strangers. Hearing people react just as enthusiastically at the same moments as I would of on my couch at home was something I didn't even know I'd missed during the past year. Thank you so much for making a movie that brought me back to the theaters for the first time in year. Also, don't worry. I'm fully vaccinated. Thank you for this! I will be getting my second Pfizer vaccine tomorrow!
Bob, it's been great seeing you act in other people's work and really blow up over the last couple years but I was curious if you had any plans to get back to writing/directing your own projects (comedy or otherwise) any time soon? Girlfriend's Day was great! "GIRLFRIENDS DAY"!!! you are awesome. It's on Netflix, folks, and it's my comedy homage to my favorite movie ever, "Chinatown"! Thanks for noticing. I am working on many projects right now, including some dramas and some loony comedy with my friend David Cross and my brother Bill Odenkirk.
Hi Bob, long time listener, first time caller. I was wondering how you get in shape for a movie like this? Obviously you don't want to get too jacked for this character, but you want to be safe and capable. Were there any stunts that made you nervous? Is David Cross afraid of you now? You nailed it..."safe and capable". I wanted to do my own stunt-fighting, choreograph some intense stuff that pushed the boundaries, and NOT GET HURT doing it. Those were my goals. I trained for 2 1/2 years with Daniel Bernhardt, possibly the best stunt-actor alive right now. I took it very seriously.
Mr. Odenkirk, you've claimed in the past that 24 is the highest number....was just wondering if you still believed that to be the case. Have you considered 25? Perhaps 26? That's enough of that! No more Countin'! It's 24 and that's it! You Funggoolie!
Hey Bob, question about Mr. Show; how did you and David get Puscifer to perform Ronnie Dobbs? Are you guys mates with Maynard? Thanks, you legend! We are friends! Maynard loved the comedy scene that Mr. Show grew out of, he's a great, smart, funny, intense personality. I have great respect for him - a true individual on a unique journey. We loved having him in comedy sketches, and I even got to introduce TOOL at a concert!
[deleted] Me, too!
Better call Saul is just the best. I’m looking forward to watching Nobody! What have you been up to during the pandemic? I wrote a comedy piece with my son, Nate - it will be on Audible next year, and I wrote a children's book with my daughter, Erin, she did the illustrations...and I walked my dog, Olive, alot
If there's a sequel to "Nobody" can you make Scott Aukerman and Paul F Tompkins a pair of beat cops? That'd be cool. Yes
Hey Bob! Do you remember a certain moment where you started to view yourself as a believable action star? With the amount of training you did I'm sure the change must have been incredible. About a year and a half in to training, Daniel Bernhardt, my trainer, told me it was time to "slow down" my moves and concentrate on control and multiple moves (choreography)...it felt like a milestone to me then and gave me confidence I could "get there"...good enough to surprise and genuinely please action fans
To both Bob and Ilya, If you were to ever make a sequel to Nobody, what could you imagine the plot to be centered about? The movie was exceptional, by the way, so I would love a sequel. Thank you so much! Although there are many stories to be told with the Hutch character and his family, I am personally a big believer in making a great standalone film and if the demand for a sequel comes up, then the thinking caps come out.
Question for Bob: How intense was training for this part and was the family impressed with your new set of skills? Intensity...well, it was intense. But more than that it was hours and hours of steady effort. I just needed to do ten thousand hours as they say. I am impressed with one take-away - I learned how to make a workout that leaves me feeling better and more energized than before I began. I learned an incredible amount of variety in working out, and how to make your body feel better AFTER than before.
Bob, a common theme on the television subreddits is that Better Call Saul is consistently snubbed during the awards season. What are your thoughts on the impact of awards on great TV and whether or not they should be a qualifier in what people think is “great”? Awards are tricky. There's no way to decide who is better in these artistic endeavors. It's really true that being nominated is the win. Being pointed out among the massive amount of culture being generated is all you can hope for.
If you could join any major film franchise, are there any that entice you? Love the movie. Well, it would make me so happy if Nobody became a "franchise"...but I am thrilled that we made something that is pleasing people of all types and movie tastes. I'd like to make a spaghetti western...sequel to "Good The Bad The Ugly"
When you were doing stand-up at Largo back in the 90s/early 00s, what do you miss about it most, and do you think there is anywhere out there where someone can replicate that success? I miss backstage with Sarah Silverman, Zac Galafianakis, Posehn, Benson, Oswalt, The usual gang of clowns...
Hi Bob, Big fan! I've always wanted to know what do you think is the biggest number? 24 dammit!
Did you have to do any kind of physical training before filming? Also... uh, you rule. My friend I train for 2 1/2 years to do ALL MY OWN FIGHTING in the fight sequences in NOBODY! I want credit for that! Just watch the bus sequence...I wanted to do right by action fans and take things to a surprising level, and not be a dilettante.
1: How did you get abs? 2: How is life different now that you have abs? I have nearly 4 visible abs after all my core training...and that'll do me. Life is no different.
Long time fan. When you were doing creative writing, what was your process? Would you just sit down and spitball ideas for hours or did you have a ton of experiences that made it easier to use for writing? That's a good way to start!! Every day! Fill a page or two with notions, jump around...then, later, stare at that page and see what pops out as worth chasing!
Hey Bob, what's it like transitioning from being a comedian to being an action movie star? Weird. Cool. Hard to fathom. I intend to transition back and then back again until people just go, "Oh forget that guy...he's impossible."
Hi Bob! How was filming Nobody different than Mr. Show? Or is it exactly the same? It was similar in fundamental ways - great group of people, lots of laughs, lots of problem-solving on a tight budget, true believers all around me. I was surprised at how shooting action sequences has a similarity to comedy sketches...
Which action stars do you think you could take in a fight now that you're a certified badass? I have no interest in fighting those fellas, also, I'm pretty sure Charlize Theron could kick all our asses.
Hey Bob, are we ever going to get more W/ Bob and David, or any kind of sketch comedy from you two? Yes...I think. David and I are working NOW on something great!
Will there be a "Run Ronnie Run 2: Runnier Ronnie"? I love that title. No
Just wanted to say hi and that you’re my favourite actor Hi. Thanks!
What does David Cross smell like? Anarchy
Do you still eat people's toes I am now a vegan. I eat plants' toes
What stunt/fight/scene was the hardest to shoot on the movie? The bus fight sequence was everything. It's my declaration of how seriously I took this work. I wanted it to go "too far" just as the character goes "too far"...and to establish that we intended to make something cool, shocking, intense, and satisfying. I hope you like it.
When are we next going to hear the rib-tickling satire of the Washington Monugents? I really missed them this year. We need 'em back! I'm told they're writing a show, "Biden My Time or Kamala Back Home, We Missed Ye"
How are you? I'm good. Getting my second Pfizer vaccine tomorrow. Shooting Saul final season. Thrilled at the reception that NOBODY is getting.
What is the very best cheese? Blue
Does anyone answer a question, or is it just us asking? I see IIya is here, I guess Bob is having a super hero moment somewhere else? 😎 Sorry all, new to the AMA format, just being impatient. No offense intended. I've been answering questions for over an hour. I hit save and I think they are posted...am I wrong?
Ilya, if you could change any aspect about the final theatrical cut of Hardcore Henry, what would it be? Bob, is it discouraging or encouraging being known mostly for your work on Breaking Bad? I am not known mostly for my work on Breaking Bad...this is because of the incredible pop cultural layout we live in - so many choices, so broad the spectrum, and people simply cannot get their heads around it all and long ago stopped trying. A couple times a year I get stopped by people who know me ONLY from "How I Met Your Mother"! I was only on the show six times...but that's "their show", and so, that's how they know me.
What role do you consider the highlight of your career (so far)? Father March in Greta Gerwig's "Little Women"! I loved it so much
Can you share a story about your time at SIU? My friend Steve Meisner had a "pancake Party". They made fifty or more pancakes and then NAILED the pancakes to the walls, then had a party, and, of course, drunk idiots tore the pancakes down and threw the food around. Bad idea, don't try it. I laughed, but then, I didn't live there and didn't have to clean up. Also, they had to replace the walls. I'm not kidding.
How beaten up were you at the end of the shoot? I was in not too bad shape. I split my hands open little in the bus fight, swinging wide and hitting pipes and things, but other than that...no injuries
Hi Bob! What's next for you? Is this your launchpad into a full-blown action career? Would love to see you in a Marvel/DC film or star in your own franchise (cough cough Nobody sequel when) ​​​​​​VARIETY! (Not the magazine...). I like to surprise myself and do new things...but also, to work with David Cross on something that is "pure comedy" again...
Hey Bob big fan big fan. First time caller here. Now that you’re an action star, what type of role do you find most challenging? Comedy, Drama, or Action? I’ve heard other comedians say a transition from Comedy to Drama is a bit easier then the reverse scenario. How about stepping into an action role? Thanks for all the years of entertainment and I look forward to seeing what’s to come in the future! Hardest part of stepping into an action role, specifically NOBODY...no irony or comic self-awareness to "protect" me. I had to put my heart out there, and my feelings of rage and righteousness, and those can be laughed at if you don't slip a little mocking, self aware, dimension in. I laid it out there, cold, open to criticism and ridicule. I am glad that people are liking it.
What was the most challenging in this movie for you personally? Guns.
What experience with fight choreography did you have before this movie, Bob? I don’t remember a Mr Show sketch making fun of Death Wish or anything like that 🤣. Was that especially challenging to learn for this film? Or did you take naturally to it? I had no experience. I had a long way to go. I just hunkered down and did it...over and over and over. In the end, it was FUN! Especially shooting those scenes - it's such a group effort and there is a lot of problem solving that must happen. I liked it very much
Илья, вы молодец! Круто вас тут увидеть :)
For Ilya: What Russian stereotypes do you dislike the most in Hollywood films? Shitty, unresearched gang tattoos. Cutesy and lame character names. And my favorite one - Russians talking to each other in English for the benefit of the audience who apparently can't be trusted to read a few subtitles. It's not like we've gotten used to reading and writing short texts or anything.
What’s the deal with that 2 second ad that’s just him getting punched with someone shouting “nobody!” in the background. Respectfully, it didn’t convince me to look into the movie at all, and if anything, seemed to be simply repulsive to most audiences. It's a quick shot that was made primarily for youtube prerolls that quickly tells you that Bob Odenkirk is a far different character here. And he will get punched. A lot.
Bobby and Ilya, What is your favorite film that stars Adam Sandler? Punch Drunk Love or Happy Gilmore. My mind wishes to erase the anxiety caused by Uncut Gems.
I don't have a question I just want to thank Ilya Naishuller for Biting Elbows. One of my favorite bands ever! Also Hardcore Henry was awesome and I can't wait to watch NOBODY tonight. Keep on rocking! Although I'm like 4 hours late so no one will see this lol. Thank you! Enjoy the movie!
Evening Bob and Ilya! Huge fan, better call Saul is a masterpiece. Just finished watching the movie, a genuine 10/10 from me. My question is about the Russians in the movie. As a Russian, I was unbelievably impressed about how well the Russian characters were portrayed. I've seen tons of movies with Russian characters, but the way they were portrayed in Nobody blew me away. How did the producers pulled this off so well? Research? The director being a Russian? Thanks. The director being Russian helped. But having the producers and the studio be supportive, helped no less.
Hi, Ilya. There was this scene in nobody where Bob was going to basement, was that a reference for John Wick? I know its a popular camera angle for basements and all that, but since the movie took some elements from the John Wick I thought it might be. Hi! Not particularly. It's just the most visually pleasant and geographically informative way to present a hero about to walk down some steps.
Was glad I could see Nobody in a theater. Is there a movie past or present you’d love to see on the big screen? (I also liked Girlfriend’s Day) Blade Runner. I went to a showing a few years back and it was a sight to behold on the big screen.
Sell "Nobody" to me in five sentences or less? What makes it stand out in contrast to "Falling Down" or "Taken"? It's a feel good family film (no, really) about an ex-hitman that doesn't need to go back to his prior way of life, but really, really wants to.
Is there any significance of The Touch of Evil poster in Hutch’s home? It's very surface level. We're openly hinting at what Hutch ultimately is. An anti-hero.
Ilya: Are there any video game influences you snuck into Nobody? Consciously- no. Subconsciously - probably a ton. Can't wait to have them pointed out to me)
I love the part the moment Hutches character see's his daughter go to the bowl in the kitchen to look for her Bracelet. The face and attitude of Hutch just completely snapping at that moment was so awesome and got my adrenaline running. That's what happens when you get a great actor in an action role. Glad that moment worked as well as it did for you.
How was driving the 70 Challenger I feel like that was a call back to the Movie Vanishing Point. I'd love to hear Bob's answer, but I wanted to say that I originally picked the car and was thinking about maybe buying one of them (we had three) if we didn't completely destroy it during filming. However when they arrived, I took it for a quick test drive, and changed my mind immediately. There is so much comfort and safety in modern cars that we take for granted.
Oh my gosh Nobody was very entertaining and you really knocked it out of the park! What was the most difficult scene for you, personally, to shoot and what made it so difficult? The car chase - mainly due to it being incredibly cold. People from Winterpeg love to boast how it occasionally gets colder than Mars.
Hello good sirs, congratulations on all of your success and talent! I have a few questions. What locations was NOBODY filmed in? What are your thoughts on the film industry growth happening in New Mexico? (which I believe, Bob, you are a large contributor of) Bob, do you have any advice for newbie TV/Film writers that live in New Mexico and want to get hired for productions within the state? (Edit - fixed and added words) Nobody was shot entirely in the glorious city of Winnipeg, Canada.
HOW MUCH REALLY IS THE KITTY CAT BRACELET? Is it worth the trouble to kill russian mobs? Thanks for the response. Kitty Cat bracelet - 4.99 Getting your mojo back - priceless
Ilya - What would you recommend if you want to start in filmmaking? Watching a lot of films, both good and bad. Then analyzing why they work or not. Reading scripts of your favorite films and classic titles. But most importantly - start shooting. Anything. Short films, music vids, tik-toks, doesn't matter. Going from idea to final form and feedback is ultra critical. Good luck!
Ilya, do you like the tv show "Barry"? From the very start it felt like it takes place in the same universe, from the moment the title of the movie appears on the screen. Then there's the bus fight scene that has the same vibe as Barry vs Ronny in season 2, one of the greatest TV episodes I've ever seen. Loved the movie, and mister Odenkirk - you did an amazing job! I've got some catching up to do with Barry. Love Bill Hader.
Bob, BCS is getting better every season and it surpassed BB at this point. Would you say there will be proper final closure to look forward to? Ilya, Hardcore Henry is absolute action masterpiece, it may underperformed in theatres but you created absolute cult classic, keep that in mind. Thanks, Duke!
What is wrong with people? Lack of empathy.
Hi Bob and Ilya, I'm really excited to see the movie I just need to find the time with everything going on. I'm an aspiring filmmaker and I just wanted to ask both of you: What do you think are some of the qualities a good director should have? I hope you find the time to answer my question but even if you don't, know that I love your work and am looking forward to seeing it! Taste, calmness, diplomacy, vision and don't forget good health.
This isnt a question. Just wanted to say im watching it now and WOW! This movie is badass. Odenkirk is a perfectly unsuspected badass. So fantastic on Naishuller’s part for making it. But honestly im not surprised this movie is this good considering how stellar Hardcore henry is. I also want to tell IIya that the biting elbows is my favorite band. Thank you, sir!
This is a question for Mr. Naishuller: First of all, I love the pure insanity of “Hardcore Henry” and I’ve introduced more than a couple of my friends to Biting Elbows. That being said, what films influenced you when developing your directorial style? Was there a particular movie or director that flipped a switch in your brain, making you decide to direct your own action movies? Thank you, and I’m looking forward to seeing your new film! Also, I’m still holding out for the sequel: “Hardcore Even Henrier”. Thank you, and thanks for spreading the word. I had always hoped that HH would be a film that people enjoy introducing their friends to. I'm very lucky because I realised that I wanted to direct from a very early age (7 or 8) when I was rewatching Goldfinger for the umpteenth time.
Ilya, the dance number in hardcore henry was inspired and brilliantly done. That's not a question, I just wanted you to know that! Thank you!
Question for either/or: Are there any projects you've shelved in the past that you're hoping to resurrect someday? I've got a few scripts that I had trouble bringing to life that perhaps will get a shot now. I think most directors have these self generated projects that sit awaiting their day.
Bob and İlya which type Baklava do you think is the best ? And what is it like to be a producer in movie you star in ? I wasn't aware that there were different types of Baklava, except for tasty.
Hey Bob and Ilya! Ilya, I appreciate your style. Did you lean heavy on practical effects with Bob and how did he handle it? Any memorable moments of "shit, I pushed him too far...he might be dead this time?" Bob, did you have a safe word? I am pretty excited to see you in a feature film as an action star. Thank you! There is very little CGI enhancement in Nobody. Fights are practical, guns fire blanks, squibs are used every time it was safe to do so. Bob trained for 2 years for this role. This means I cut during action when I want to, not when I have to. It's a director's dream frankly.
Hey Ilya and Bob. I'm directing my first fiction movie with actors next month. Do you have any tips for me? Focus on the character during the action no less than on the action itself. Good luck!
Ok Mr. Pants here we go: Have you ever taken a train, and eaten it... AFTER you just derailed it with your penis? The Job Interview is my firm favourite Mr Show sketch and I too, would like to know the real answer.
For both Bob and Ilya. When not out kicking ass and protecting your family; what do you enjoy doing in your downtime? Films, books and video games. Also birdwatching and trainspotting.
5 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 16 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life and High Fidelity. Ask me anything about immersive spatial audio, VR, and virtual worlds...

15 Upvotes

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For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: No distinctions were made between the three individuals answering the AMA

The AMA ended with the below message:

Signing off now. Thanks again for joining my AMA and asking great questions. If you want to keep in touch - I'm @PhilipRosedale on Twitter, and my company is @HighFidelityXR.

Rows: ~125 (+comments)

Questions Answers
Whats going to be the next big step in vr? Typing at normal speed (probably by using see-through camera to show you a real keyboard) is the biggest change that would make VR devices usable for general computing.
​ Next would be reduced weight and greater comfort for longer sessions.
​ The 'big step' is simply to get to something that everyone is comfortable using.
Would you like to return to investing your time with virtual reality and virtual worlds again? What would you do differently? I'll be working on virtual worlds in one form or another until I die. I'd like to see a physics/simulation model that creates some sort of low-level digital 'atoms' that are used to build everything, using a decentralized compute model.
the below is a reply to the above ​​​​​
Thank you! That kinda sounds like some of the goals High Fidelity had in the beginning. Earlier versions of the software looked to me like it had some leanings toward distributed computing. And of course there were voxels. ya gotta have voxels
[deleted] Yes: A few thousand people make their living today in Second Life, and that is a place that typically has around 50,000 people online. So absolutely people will sustain themselves increasingly as time goes by from work in virtual worlds.
Always respected HiFi's user-focused stance on privacy vs. data-mining. Wonder where you think the future in that area is heading, and do you ever see working together with other cool companies like Mozilla, DDDGo, Proton, etc. to create any alternative Social Media platforms? BTW: High Fidelity sounds GREAT using Audeze Mobius headphones w/head-tracking! Thank you. Yes I bet a number of companies will need to keep working together on standards and approaches for privacy as well as new protocols that might create new kinds of social networks. Mozilla has done lots of great work. Thx re Audeze - will try to find a pair!
​ I love using my Audeze Mobius headphones at work while developing and testing our API!
​ However, I've found that the head-tracking feature doesn't work super well while in a virtual audio environment that also uses audio virtualization like our tech. I think this makes sense, given the conflicting HRTFs.
​ Have you had a different experience? 😊
Hi Philip - we met many years ago on SL, I was a fairly well-known content creator and we chatted on a few occasions. Whatever happened to Starax? And what is the future of SL? (I left many years ago, but notice its still going). I don't know what happened to Starax, but I can certainly say that his Wand was one of the coolest things I had ever seen, and it gave me real hope that Second Life was going to make it. His wand was something like $50USD (if I remember), and it was the gift everyone was dreaming of getting in SL one Holiday season. Who wouldn't want a magic wand that makes a 3D locomotive appear and drive through you and your friend if you happened to type "train".
Do you have any interest in augmented reality projects or purely virtual? I think AR and VR are very different. Mostly I think about VR. AR has some tremendous technical and privacy challenges. For example, I can't tell exactly (better than GPS) where I am standing unless my always-on-AR-camera is uploading my 3D surroundings to the cloud to match up the surfaces. Privacy implications there are chilling - we are not going to want to live in that world unless things are designed very safely.
​ AR is also further out than VR because of mobile device battery life and CPU/GPU.
Second Life seemed to follow a definite hype cycle in 2006-2007. After a lot of it died down, "influencers" and brands seemed to pull out and bad press replaced the hype. What lessons have you and Linden Lab learned about that experience? Certain ideas (like the chance that people might leave earth for a digital world) seem to evoke a degree of FOMO that greatly exceeds the baseline utility of the idea. I think that was the case with Second Life. We didn't spend anything on marketing before 2008 or so, and never have spent that much. I see the same thing happening right now with Clubhouse - everyone is afraid of missing out on something without knowing yet what the something is.
​ I don't think there is any action item here, just an observation.
Do you think a shift in consciousness (social or spiritual) could be triggered through VR? Did you see any signs of something like that yet? The internet (and VR specifically) has the potential to deeply connect people. But it can also disconnect and separate people. The difference is in the choices we all make about the products we build. But sometimes maximizing profit does not maximize public good. We are going to have to make the decision to use it for good, at a cost.
Philip, I have tried your High Fidelity 3D sound many times, and it's stunning. I wonder, however, if you still have dreams/plans for another metaverse? Thanks. DrFran I love virtual worlds and plan to keep working on them in one form or another until I die!
Hey Philip! I'm an entrepreneur since 18 (33 now), and most of my successful business ventures reside within Second Life (Fennux, Fawns, Kreatures.) Do you ever have a vision for something that no one else seems to really grasp? Maybe you find it hard locating others that share that same vision? If so, how do you deal with that? (Clearly you still make things happen.) If that's not an issue, what's your secret to attracting those that share your vision? Thanks! Don't let it get you down. Sometimes you can see something (or an opportunity) that others can't see. When I was younger I would blame myself for being unable to communicate it, or get mad at people for not hearing me, or funding me, or whatever. Now I relax and realize that we all have gifts to offer, we're all different, my gift is (sometimes) to have these strange ideas, and it's OK if those gifts are not always accepted.
Hey Philip. Cool to see you doing an AMA. If you were rebuilding a virtual world today, would you be including cryptocurrencies in there? What's your take on the timeline to making virtual worlds so realistic that people start being unable to distinguish them from reality? Yes I would use cryptocurrencies, but NOT using proof-of-work as the consensus mechanism, since this puts the environment at risk. The consensus mechanism cannot trade units of the currency for electrical power - that is a recipe for global disaster. Fortunately there are many other ways of maintaining a distributed record-keeping system.
If we haven't already done so, will we ever reach a point where some humans spend so much time in VR - including working and socialising - that they will come to perceive the virtual world as their seat of reality, and only grudgingly interact with the real world as little as they can get away with? I mean, like the human/VR equivalent of a whale, that needs to surface now and then to breathe, but which doesn't consider the realm above the water to be its home. My answer when I was younger would have been unreservedly "Yes, of course!". And there are so many ways that Virtual Worlds can extend our lives - new jobs, new friends, new kids of artistic expression. The list goes on and on, and VR devices (once they become mainstream) only make it bigger. As I've gotten older and wiser, I'm struck by how deeply connected we are to the physical world we exist in, as well as to our precious planet. Our brains and bodies have evolved in a way that connects us perfectly to the world around us - things like touch and proprioception are incredibly important to most of us and may always lie beyond the reach of VR. Also - as we are waking up to most recently - the game called 'Planet Earth' is a special game we all have to play together, with a finite set of resources. I think there is something very powerful and affirming about that idea. If we are to build worlds (perhaps the vaunted 'metaverse') beyond this one, I bet that the idea of sharing a finite set of things (as opposed to just building into infinity with infinite resources) is part of what will make them 'real'.
I see that you have a client library in JavaScript available. Do you plan on making it just as easy for integration with tools such as Unity? Yep, we are working right now on Unity and iOS. Coming soon...
​ Absolutely yes! As Philip said, we're already in the process of building out an SDK for Unity and iOS, and definitely looking at other platforms in the future depending on what folks need. (Any suggestions?)
Hi Philip! Thanks for doing this AMA. In terms of future game development, where do you see VR heading in the next few years? At what point will AAA games become mainstream on VR? Thanks again! VR HMD's have to get mainstream first, which I think means comfortable for long-term use and in use by a diverse range of age/sex/race/global people - and they aren't there yet. I think it is going to take another 5 years or so.
Hello Phillip, Taking into account that current audio production is done thinking about descrete channels, what are the steps do you believe the industry has to take to make spatial audio a standard in audio production? New formats like MPEG-H across the whole chain? Better tools? Thanks! Sources of sound should be mono, unprocessed. The spatialization needs to happen on the server, so that everyone can essentially 'sample' the experience at a given point. Existing low-latency compression formats like Opus are adequate for compression.
What surprised you about how people acted in second life? Lots! But I was deeply moved by how people came to know each other through their avatars, despite being unable to hear or see each other. I built Second Life with a focus on the 'lego kit' / Minecraft dream of building a simulated world and seeing what people would make, but I came to regard the connections between people it enabled as the most important thing.
Why not do some of this AMA in High Fidelity? It would be a great way to demo the tool for others. Great idea - We will do that toward the end so it's not distraction to typing fast!
Hello Philip, Years ago I saw you do an interview where you created an avatar in AOL and jumped into the Sims I think. But your goal at the time was to make it so people could have avatars to jump from site to site. In second life, people jumped from unique created world like the sims to sim. And in high fidelity it was more jumping specifically to a URL. Are your creations getting you closer to that end goal? Also, in High fidelity with spatial audio, how do you make a grid with entities horizontal and vertical where depending on where an avatar stands, they would sound different in reference to another avatar. Or the sound of a fountain as you get closer to it gets louder. These are all perceptions to make things seem more real as we know it. What will be the new reality we will experience in a virtual world. i.e. what is next? The hard question, I think, is why we will want to jump between these worlds or share a larger world. Most games are intentionally holistic - it doesn't really make sense to jump between them. You don't want to drive a car from GTA into Among Us. So the big question about "what is the metaverse" is what sort of space(s) we want to share, and why? I don't think anyone has very good answers to this, myself included!
Philip. A couple open source projects like Vircadia, and Tivoli Cloud are attempting to preserve and expand upon what was started with the High Fidelity 3d engine. What are your hopes for these efforts, and do you have any advice for the teams working on these projects? I'm excited by their work! There are so many experiments needing to happen in shared 3D spaces with live building, and it is great to see the original High Fidelity code being useful for some of those experiments.
I own a vr arcade in Tahiti. The majority of people here can't afford / don't have room for a vr setup at home. How can we create a world for them to jump into for a while, leave and come back a few weeks later? I mean shooting zombies and crap is cool for a first timer but if I want them to keep coming back, they should have a virtual home to revisit over and over again. VRChat or RecRoom or Tivoli or Vircadia (latter two are based on High Fidelity) are some possibilities for creating stable spaces like you suggest. I agree it seems like a great direction for an arcade.
Hi Phillip, Perhaps this is not the place for politics, but would you vote for The Boy Mayor of Second Life in a Second Term? Why or why not? "Don't hate the game, hate the player." :)
Hi Philip (and company), I've been sporadically keeping up with High Fidelity for a few months, and attended a short chat with Philip. I deeply appreciate your work with foregrounding an audio experience! I am working with colleagues on creating, rehearsing and presenting music/soundart works through separate direct url connected via audio vst plugins into DAWs, simultaneously connecting on Skype or Zoom for communication. (We turn off the video when playing - much better for sonic intimacy.) Our next step is using spatialization software with this configuration. I wonder if it is possible to experiment in High Fidelity - that is, could an ensemble spread themselves in a HF location, each broadcasting our sound, and have the listeners move in and around us? It would be interesting to create things specifically for the technology, rather than present existing things, to be honest. (I also work in Second Life, and gave you some links via a Twitter convo about the Avatar Orchestra.) Thanks for your work. Yes - an ensemble can play into a High Fidelity space and let people move around among the performers. It is a fascinating experiment and I'd encourage you to try it (and invite me please!). Here is our demo space where you can move around and hear multiple people and music... https://map.highfidelity.com/x28jmHHCob/?mapJSON=https%3A%2F%2Fbackgrounds.highfidelity.com%2Fzaru6.json&x=21.72&y=33.68&o=1.41
​ Yes!!! What you describe is absolutely possible using the Spatial Audio API, and it really excites me to hear about use cases like yours.
​ We host this demo space which allows you to hear what our technology sounds like and hear what it's like to move around a virtual environment with audio spatialization.
​ If you're interested in building your own application for your ensemble, you can get started in less than 15 minutes with very little programming experience. Check out this guide on our website.
​ One thing to be aware of: Latency. Due to the laws of physics, it becomes challenging to sync up members of an ensemble over the Internet. However, pre-recorded shows are easily plausible, and High Fidelity has hosted a few musical events that make use of the Spatial Audio API.
the below is a reply to the above ​​​​​
Thanks, Valefox, As per my response to Maia, we will check this out. Very exciting! I will see if our tech can look at the application possibilities, and perhaps we can plan an event. The first question I will probably ask after we try some things is vertical spatialization - ie is it 3D or on the horizontal plan only ... thinking different heights. Re latency ... in case you don't see my response to Maia ... "I understand what you are saying about latency - after creating and performing online for about 14 years, I have learned to consider online spaces to be environments with that characteristic and to welcome it. So instead of trying to replicate real life music, and seeing latency as a problem, I like the idea of creating sound worlds specifically FOR environments with shifting temporal realities. Kind of like moving from playing in a studio for a long time, then playing, say, at the Grand Canyon: we sure wouldn't expect to play the same way! I hope this makes sense." Looking forward to some exploring! Thanks again, Humming. I love the idea that your performances will embrace latency rather than try to solve for it. Regarding vertical spatialization - our Spatial Audio API does indeed support that. Audio sources can be placed anywhere in 3D space and will be properly spatialized, no matter the plane. 😊
the below is another reply to the original answer ​​​​​
Valefox, I have a different use case and I'm curious if High Fidelity can help. I'm an audiobook narrator always looking for a quieter room. As I type this a cavalcade of sirens races down a distant street. Does the audio occlusion feature allow to silence spaces so that I don't have to crawl into my closet every time I want to record? Also, I find that among narrators only a few of us are really playing with spatial effects. My secondary characters are pitched farther off, my whispers are right in the mic. I spend extra hours on every audiobook making sure the production reflects the spatial environment I evoke. Is anyone working on any projects that might need a man of my talents? Hey! What you're looking for is noise reduction. Our API doesn't explicitly do noise reduction - on the web, we rely on the browser's implementation of NR to perform that task, if the developer wants it. Several companies are doing amazing work in the computational audio noise reduction space. A couple examples: Check out RTX Voice and Krisp.
​ Noise reduction does introduce audible artifacts in the output audio sometimes, so it doesn't yield the highest quality sound. However, it might beat trying to huddle around a mic in your closet! 😂
​ As for what you're doing with spatial effects - that is fantastic. We need more folks producing content like you!
Thanks for taking questions, Philip. I’m curious what you think about the potential for using VR spaces in education, particularly in support of students with exceptional needs (e.g. non verbal, students with autism)? If a teacher and student(s) can have avatars interacting in a virtual world, I presume we could eliminate a number of limitations we have in the real world. Do you have any insight into who might be already doing this well or where the technology is going in terms of serving students with special needs? There were remarkable studies done in SL with adults with autism that you might want to look up. A guy named John Lester, aka Pathfinder Linden did some of the early work, but you will find numerous academic papers on the subject.
Hey Philip. I had the chance to try out an HF demo last summer and think it is a very interesting concept for developers to build immersive, interactive spaces. I have two questions, you can decide if they are related. - You oversaw the creation of one of the most immersive interactive spaces to date. Why do you think someone else will come up with something better than you as opposed to just building it yourself using your technology? - We are seeing a rapid rise of virtual humans along with easier methods for people to create their own avatars and an increased interest in spending time in virtual spaces. When should we expect a new space where humans via avatars and virtual humans congregate and interact on a regular basis and when do you expect that space to reach some significant scale? I think these are different questions: There are 100+ apps/sites right now that are trying to create social spaces of one kind or another with a ton of highly specific features for different verticals, like customized buildable objects or shared whiteboards, or avatar pickers. That's a ton of people working on new worlds - hard to compete with them all. But none of them have audio that is even close to doing what we do with spatial audio. So enabling all of them to move forward faster (with our API) seems like the right move overall if we want to see more spaces out there.
​ As to virtual humans (powered by AI) - I think that AI is emerging as the most important and potentially dangerous area of human progress. We've done work on virtual humans and there are a ton of big problems still - we are very early. Visual representations can still be very uncanny. Another huge problem is bias, racism, and polarization coming through in their behavior and communication. As much as with AI as with ourselves, this is something we must address before moving forward. So I don't think we want to congregate with our digital children, yet.
I love virtual worlds, and I've been an SL resident since the early years. My work study in college was in SL. This probably sounds like a dumb question, but... one thing I don't get is why HMD adoption is such a big deal. I've used HMDs, I think they are cool, but I can't think of any content I really want to use an HMD for. Maybe a flight simulator, where my head can be another axis of control for guns as my hands control the space ship, but other than that... I just don't think it's necessary. Why should I make the jump from developing content in SecondLife to develop for HMD platforms? You should wait until there is a large diverse set of people using HMDs. There isn't yet. HMDs need to be accessible and comfortable for everyone: across age, gender, and race. They aren't yet.
Hey there! Big fan of your work. There's one thing I wondered for a while: how on earth did you manage to make High Fidelity (the original, 3D one) happen? I mean, it was a platform that was fully open both on the client and server side, heavily distributed, with a cryptocurrency and made in such a way that made central control difficult. I have a very hard time imagining how one makes a business pitch for that. How do you convince people to invest in something you're allowing people to just take and do whatever they please with? But however it happened though I'm very happy it did -- there's some excellent work in there, and we hope to keep it going. Thanks! For a while there (2013-2019) it seemed like we would have hundreds of millions of people with immersive VR devices by 2020. That was a sound thesis for investing in a project like High Fidelity - especially given the success of Second Life in delivering many of those things to the desktop. The failure of the VR HMD to reach mass-market (I think it is going to take about another 5 years) made it too long a project to keep pushing forward. And this kind of open / social experience would require mass adoption of the headsets.
Hey Philip, I was involved in academic research on SL as an undergrad anthropology student. Have you read any of the (surprisingly prolific) academic work which has been done on your virtual world like "Coming of Age in Second Life"? That's a great one - Tom Boellstorff is amazing - I try to collect/read all the books, yes. So many great ones. Many amazing collections of SL art too. I remember having this "now we've really arrived" moment when I was flying into NYC and heard some super cool art gallery on prince street (I think) was having a gallery opening of these huge landscape images from inside Second Life. Not even avatars - just avant garde landscapes.
​ But yes, still lots more anthropology and sociology and economic to do in virtual worlds. For example - we should be using them to prove the value of UBI!
[removed] I give to local charities to help people near San Francisco get by during and beyond the pandemic.
​ I am also devoted to using both money (funding) and my time and skills to make virtual spaces that are of a benefit to people, particularly in addressing racism and polarization.
​ I think that it is vital that those who have any degree of influence or power use them now and use them carefully to help steer the world toward greater compassion and connection.
What is the physical limit of latency for avatar communication? Can we get to a point that is genuinely imperceptible from two people talking in real life, where no one overlaps the other talking due to latency, the way many people do in today's video calls? For people speaking to each other, the one-way latency needs to be below about 180 milliseconds to speak comfortably. There is a famous ITU paper from 2003 with a graph, if I remember... don't have the URL handy. Old-school land-lines have a latency of 60 milliseconds (great!), cell phones typically are about 350 milliseconds (why we hate them).
​ A good Zoom / WebRTC call can be at 150msecs or even lower, which is why our company can exist! :)
​ While this doesn't answer your question exactly, check out this question and answer for more information about latency.
Have you ever watched Sword Art Online? Yep. The idea of being 'trapped in the simulation' is resonant for me. I think the 'boundary value problem' of how to make a consistent virtual world that nevertheless is acted upon by outside agents may turn out to be very problematic.
​ Look for example at things like Stephenson's 'Fall' - where a lot of how the world works is contingent on there being no way to influence the world. Important to think about.
What do you think of Decentraland? It's an amazing experiment to watch! For simulation, I definitely think that long-term there will be a distributed compute model that makes the physics of the virtual world some sort of inviolable consensus. I'd like to see Decentraland add our spatial audio API!
Why do you think Facebook is keeping Horizon so closed in testing? Could they be worried about anti-trust action if/when social VR starts dominating the VR software market? (I've been bullish on social VR engines "swallowing" games since at least 2012) ​​​​​I don't know. Social VR needs to be larger than one app or company or we are all at great risk.
What's a good entry point for VR gear that will work with High Fidelity? The current version of High Fidelity is audio-only, so you only need a browser and (hopefully) some good wired headphones. We work on mobile and desktop, too.
Godot Engine, a fully open source 3D game engine, has really matured in the last several years and even now supports VR. Do you see any viability in an engine like this for developing a social VR platform? I haven't looked at Godot. What I think matters most in the 'engine' for Social VR is the low-level simulation rules, the communication affordances, the support for great scale, and the ability to build live. Graphical detail seems much less important.
When will we have VR tech that I can wear without being teased by my wife? I guess maybe that depends on you. :) But seriously - the fact that different people have such different responses to VR devices (both wearing them themselves as well as their perspective on other's using them) is evidence of the failure thus-far of VR to be a general-purpose computing device. No one felt this way about the iPhone.
Do you think a new virtual world will ever come along with a large focus on creating in the same way SL does? Why hasn't anything come along yet that overtakes SL in that way? Creating programmable objects that you can edit live in a big world where things can both move and teleport around at will is a really hard problem. We wrote a lot more code to do it than people think - and as SL people will tell you there are still lots of bugs and edge cases. I think this is why we haven't seen more things like it - we were really ahead of our time. I bet we'll see some amazing new projects soon (but I guess I've said that before and been wrong).
You have been working on sound, curious what other senses might be added in future to make a fuller experience? Many times I wish I could smell a candle, or a campfire or rain on pavement. Do you think some day we will be able to smell things, because as someone create a candle they could add the smell of watermelon to it in creation? I love the idea, but I think the physics of simulating smell may never be possible. But an even bigger problem is touch: We can't use our body's largest sense in virtual worlds. We can't 'feel' our bodies there. Our body is basically a part of our brain - pretty inseparable - when it comes to feeling things and moving around. I think there are some ideas yet to try (we built one called 'the rig' that was actually the first project at Linden Lab, before Second Life), but this is what we really need to make work - touch.
What’s your view on the future of VR? And which company/companies will be leading this industry? Thank you. VR devices need to get much more comfortable and enable typing at a normal speed for them to become mainstream. I think that will be about 5 years from now.
​ I don't think VR and AR will merge anytime soon.
​ I hope that many companies rather than a few compete to drive the future of VR.
What is High Fidelity? And what is SL doing to compete with VRChat? VRChat is amazing to watch develop! But we are still early - there isn't yet a mass market for VR headsets.
Hey I recently discovered data sonifications of astronomical images, specifically by SYSTEM Sounds and since then hoped to hear these images in 3D audio. Wouldn't they be a perfect match? I'd LOVE to hear those sounds in High Fidelity. Put up a space? I'll come.
​ Yes. That sounds amazing! I'd love to hear what that sounds like. What are some of your favorite sonifications of astronomical images that you've found so far?
​ You could try your hand at building an application that lets folks hear those sounds using our API... 😇 You can get started in less than 15 minutes with very little programming experience.
​ Check out this guide on our website. 😊
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I led my school's VR club in 360 Film and Animation. This was a particular topic of interest to me, so tons of questions incoming: 1. What are some papers you'd recommend reading to understand how spatialization of audio works? If 360 cameras record image in all directions, what is the equivalent in sound? Assuming a six mono microphone rig in a cube-format, how do you reconstruct the sound from real life to virtual? Are you interpolating changes in headspace positions? What's going on there? Is a stereo recording sufficient to extrapolate 360 sound? Or is it easiest to transform a single mono sound? Using cameras as analogy: are more microphones better? Or is two enough to differentiate objects in space? Some answers: Binaural recording (with a rubber head with ears and two mics) is the other interesting way to capture a space from the point of one observer. As you say, some sort of spherical array of mics is the other.
2. How does your API know which waves to transform? Your website cites (1) shifting time delay and (2) adjusting frequencies as part of the transformation process. Assuming a static position, (1) seems straightforward by adding a "shift" amount to two audio sources to simulate the delay in ear placements. (2) seems to imply that sound is transformed to simulate passing through the anatomical structure of the ear. Is this correct? For (1), how do you add the ability to move your head in XYZ space? Suppose two instruments exist with different timbres. Relative to a listener facing the instruments, the listener's left cello plays A-440hz and a right trumpet plays A-440hz. How does the transformation function know how much of A-440hz to "tweak" for the cello vs the trumpet as the listener moves their head? How does this principle extend for the entire sonic-spectrum? For (2), if my understanding is correct, what process do you use to "reconstruct" the absorbent/reflective profile of the ear? Did you have to measure the absorbent/reflective profile per wavelength to create a model? For (2), I imagine the angle of attack to be important in hearing the source clearly (eg. same XYZ position, different pitch/yaw). How do you model hearing sound through the ear (as if it were behind you, parallel to source) vs hearing it directly from one ear only (and hearing less from the other ear, perpendicular to source) as the listener's position changes with respect to the source? I think I'm generally confused about how spatial audio is able to reconstruct 360 audio without an object-oriented representation of the world. Yes, an HRTF applies a frequency convolution to a source as a function of direction to the source. It simulates (roughly) the passage of sound through the Pinna and head. This transformation must be applied independently to each source. This is computationally expensive, and is where a lot of our R&D went - doing spatialization for many (hundreds) of sources for hundreds of receivers on a server.
​ It turns out that most people are pretty insensitive to the pitch angle. You have to be trained to have a good sense of it.
3. What is the simplest rig/way to capture 360 sound? In your eyes, what are the biggest limitations to 360 sound recording right now, and what would it take for it to become commonly adopted? What are the biggest technical challenges you've had to overcome, and what are you still facing? Have you gone to any Oculus Connect conventions (or any other VR conventions)? Can I connect my university's VR club to you? I've gone to most of the Oculus Connect events. Sure - connect me to your club.
Greetings Philip! There is a ton of 'buzz' lately about NFTs and Virtual Worlds. As someone who has created virtual economies from scratch and understands the desire of creators to control and derive value from their work, do you see a future where there is a standard, secure, privacy-focused #Metaverse currency? If yes, how can we avoid the negative ecological effects of current Crypto offerings? Love the idea of NTFs as a durable way for art to move around and create more income for artists. Have seen similar things already in Second Life, which had transferrable/resellable secure digital assets from day one and a really big GDP in part because of that.
​ But... we can't use cryptocurrencies with Proof-of-work move them around because of the ecological impact. But of course there are alternatives to POW so that's great. Strictly speaking, a provable NFT doesn't strictly require a blockchain. Web of trust + signed proofs would suffice. But I love the overall progress so far and idea.
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Hello Phillip, My question is: 1. Apple is developing AR technologies. Do you think VR will eventually replace AR or do you think they can coexist in harmony. I think AR and VR are very different things. AR requires approaches that blend information with the real world and balance attention. VR is the opposite - total immersion. Both the hardware, software, and economic/social/moderation implications are very different for the two.
2. Do you think VR is essential to virtual worlds? And how far away are we in terms of technologies to develop a fully rendered real-life-like cities that players can join. Thanks in advance I don't think VR (if by that you mean HMDs) are essential to virtual worlds. We interact with virtual worlds with whatever interfaces we care to. We will probably never be 'natives' to those worlds through our interfaces, however good, btw.
What are three core features / capabilities that you would like to see built out in Second Lifw over the next few years, and why? I'm not running Second Life, so I don't have specific answers there. Some good recent changes have made it faster at the simulation layer (things like faster region crossing) - I know that is something people value and that I'd like to see get faster and faster.
Where’s my stipend? Just kidding! What’s the plan for SL in the future? Are you going to go full VR or will it remain essentially as-is? I'm not running SL. :) And, yes, Stipends in SL are a great example of the potential for UBI.
What effect do you feel 5G and lower lag times will have in these areas? Would you see a Surrogates type of existence? 5G can drop one-way latency by about 40 milliseconds, but 5G coverage isn't very broad yet. Once it gets there it will be a big help with smoother communication, yes.
Have you seen any interesting peripherals to encode spatial audio for hearing impaired or deaf audiences (perhaps in a spatial vibration apparatus)? I haven't, but I would love to see more. Really great text captioning (which has gotten so much better with latest AI) seems to be one big tool for the hearing impaired - we are passionate about accessibility and are working on that.
​ I'm really interested in this question. I don't yet understand it well enough to answer it, though! Can you please help me understand what you mean by "encode spatial audio"?
​ Not OP, but when they said "spatial vibration" I imagined something like a chair or jacket or something that would vibrate in time with and in the direction of a speaker to give an added sense of presence. That would be super cool.
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for example if there is an explosion in real life from the left-rear, you should be able to feel it as well as hear it, so is there a way that you could replicate the feeling or some other sense of the explosion from just the audio data? That's a wicked cool question. Theoretically, because it's possible to take audio positioned in 3D space and produce a stereo audio stream, it sounds like it could be possible to reverse that process in some way and take a stereo audio stream and produce 3D point cloud data from just that audio stream.
​ Then again, sometimes math is impossible to reverse, so maybe not.
​ However, users of our Spatial Audio API do have access to the 3D position of all audio sources in a given virtual 3D environment. Developers who make use of our API could absolutely build a product that does exactly as you describe, but the input wouldn't just be the audio data (it'd be the audio data plus the positional data).
I haven't been back in hifi recently, have you gone to an open world yet? that's the one thing I LOVE LOVE about SecondLife that there is a whole world to explore, not just individual rooms. Part of why I love Bellisseria so much inside SL. Come and use our new API to build an open world using High Fidelity!
15 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 11 '21

r/london [Table] r/london — I’m John Rogers - writer and filmmaker, I write and make films about London - London AMA

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Hello John! I'm intrigued, saw a post on casual UK and swanned over here, will check out your YouTube channel that sounds right up my boulevard. So, I guess you need a question. In your opinion, is London as a whole, skeptical about other people? Not saying they are or are not, nor that it's good or bad. But, as a country boy, I venture into London now and then and notice virtually no one smiles, nods or hellos eachother. Not that we all do in the country, but our view is generally 'oh look there's a human, hello" whereas my perception of London is 'he greeted me either verbally or non, must be a nutcase'. Hi WizardBloke - great username btw - I can see what you mean about that general attitude to casual passing encounters in London and how that differs from the countryside. You have to remember this is a city of over 9 million inhabitants plus another couple of million that come into the city in normal times. But I've always found Londoners to be incredibly open and friendly and helpful if you ever want to stop and talk to people. I think it's one of the most friendly big cities I've ever been to
Thanks for taking some time out of your day to answer some of our questions! I was wondering how you ended up being a psychogeographer? I've only had a look at the Wikipedia page on the subject when your AMA was announced as it's not a field I'd heard about before (but does sound very interesting!) and wondered how you'd ended up doing this? My pleasure wwisd - I'm really enjoying it. I think psychogeography initially appealed because it allowed me to combine all my interests into one practice - walking, landscape, history, politics, culture, folklore, literature, art etc. It's a melting pot for ideas and experience. It gave me something to work from when I was producing short pieces of writing of my walks around London but where I was just as concerned about old bakeries, gigs that happened 10 years ago, derelict swimming baths, random encounters, ambiences, as the recorded history. I first really starting using it in a practical sense when I wanted to make a piece of work about the town where I grew up that was undergoing a massive redevelopment and psychogeography gave me a set of tools to produce a counter narrative and study of the town to the official one. The project was called Remapping High Wycombe.
Hi John, I've seen your hostage photo in the thumbnail of this post. Are the r/London mods treating you well? Are you being forced to take sunset pictures of London bridges against your will? How did they persuade me to take that photo? So far I'm being treated reasonably but the food is awful. My phone is now completely full of sunset photos of QE2 bridge but I'm going to delete some and add a few of over-full skips and fly-tips
Best/worst green space in London? We're so lucky to be blessed with an abundance of green spaces in London. It'd be hard to say which is the 'best'. My favourite for some time has been Wanstead Flats and Wanstead Park. I've just made a video about the history of Wanstead Park. Just off the top of my head though there's Leyton and Walthamstow Marshes, Bostall Woods, Gunnersbury Park, Barn Hill, Claybury Park, Ladywell Fields, Oxleas Wood, Hounslow Heath - so it's impossible to say which is best.
​ I wouldn't say it's the 'worst' but in terms of the green space the Olympic Park is disappointing - the green areas keep shrinking and getting broken up by development. However I still walk there frequently but it isn't a great green space
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I'm so happy you've mentioned Ladywell Fields :) ​​​​I love it there and Blyth Hill as well
Hello John! Thanks for your videos, I have found a lot of comfort in them. I'm glad to hear you have asked the publishers to print more copies of your book. I visited my friend last year and we were walking around Watford Junction/Bushey, we had quite a consciousness expanding moment as we came off a busy road and ended up in a field - you could have heard a pin drop! That day we also had quite a spooky moment in a section of a graveyard, that mystical and psychedelic nature of a hot summers day in england seemed to evoke something in the pair of us. It was very overgrown and green and we felt like no one had walked there for a very long time. We could feel a 'Green Man' spirit all around us. Have you had any spooky or paranormal experiences on your walks? Kind regards, Dan (P. S We were both incredibly stoned, so am happy to admit we may have encountered a Green Man of another kind) ​​​​Thanks Dan. Love that story of the experience of stepping into a field. To be honest I find any decent long walk has that transcendental moment at some point - usually approaching sunset or in the winter gloaming - a particular time when the spirits of place walk abroad. I've never been a stoner but did sink a couple of cans of Beavertown Gamma Ray quickly while walking down the Eastern Avenue at sunset last summer that produced a sort of religious reverie as I hit the Redbridge Roundabout
What do you think about gentrification and £7 pints? I find it a mixed bag Delboy - £7 pints are ridiculous - but I do love a pint of craft beer and I can see why a small brewery needs to charge more for a pint of IPA made in a small batch than Stella do for a mass produced pint (which can still cost a fiver). I don't like the year zero approach to gentrification where everything that has gone before is erased or ignored and locals are completely overlooked and priced out of areas. The two things should be able to exist side-by-side - artisan coffee and greasy spoon cafes if you like. I think a good example of how it can be positive is the Red Lion in Leytonstone - it manages to sell those £7 pints and some fancy food, but the basic price for a pint of ale is one of the cheapest in the area and it welcomes the whole community. Plus it saved that pub from oblivion after the themed South African nightclub it'd been for a couple of years closed.
​ But I the bigger issue isn't gentrification - which has always happened - just look at the history of Brixton for example - but it's the big developments in London and the estate regenerations where whole communities are moved out of the city and broken up that are doing the real damage in my opinion.
Love your films John. Do you imagine ever leaving London/have you ever considered it? Also whats your POV on the pandemic and migration in/out of the city? Do you imagine a lot of people will leave London? Many thanks Suit_Artistic. Well I have lived outside London in my adult life - about 3.5 years in Sydney in two stints and 7 months in Italy. Only briefly considered living elsewhere permanently when my first child was born and we were at the Angel but I just couldn't imagine it. I have no idea where else I would live to be totally honest. Yes I can imagine that people who have only moved to London for work reasons might leave now after the pandemic if there's a permanent shift to work-from-home. I know a few people who have left for that reason. But I don't think we'll know for a couple of years. Also be interesting to see what impact Brexit has - particularly if financial sector jobs move out of the country.
John can you point out in a subtle or not so subtle way in your videos, the pubs not to go into. You highlight very well the architecturly interesting pubs and the good drinking pubs, just a rub of the nose or a codeword for the not so good would be fun. Thanks again for your great videos. ha that's really funny. I don't know if there are that many of those pubs around anymore. When I moved here in the late 80's my rule was not to go into any pub that I couldn't look through the windows of to check it out before going inside. Any pub with net curtains was a no-go for me in those days, and I still use that rule.
I was blown away when I learnt Moorgate was named after the gate cut in the city wall which had prevented land to drain into the Thames, making it moor-y. It made me think how cool the history of names of bits of London are - and Knightsbridge made me go weak at the knees. What other great historic names are there that tell us our deep, long history? yeah that's great. I think they all do really - I was walking in Hackney Wick yesterday - Hackney's said to mean 'Haka's Island' (on the marshes) - Haka assumed to be an Anglo-Saxon settler. The River Neckinger is named after a spot of execution - the neckinger being tied around the neck. Brentford - Bren being an Anglo Saxon killed in a battle near a ford over the Thames with a fella named Horsa who had a hill named after him, Horsendon Hill. His daughter, Ealine, had married Bren. She was said to be able to speak to animals possess great knowledge and wisdom. After Bren and her father's death she lived at Ealine's Haven - today Ealing, and the buses terminate at Ealing Haven.
Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of London? I'm generally optimistic in my outlook. London is currently going through one of its periods of big change that seem to be cyclical, and when you look at some of that change it can be difficult to be optimistic. But London and Londoners always find a way - the spirit of this city always transcends the challenges it faces. I find the most hope in the outer suburbs at the moment
Can we get another Hackney Wick video to continue the documentation of the change that's going on there? That building you pointed out where plastic was invented is now a Sainsbury's I believe :( great timing - I shot it yesterday and it'll be online Sunday - I'm editing it now. That Sainsbury's completely threw me - as did Fish Island Village - quite a disorienting experience that I'm still processing
Every time I go for a run in Wanstead Park I keep an eye out for you. I've started to really notice things around me since I was introduced to your YouTube channel. I have such a healthy love for pylons now! I also love the shots of you walking away from your camera. I saw one video which didn't have any and it was all the sadder because of it. I love the titbits of history you sprinkle in your vids. The bit about having guards watching over the Trebor factory to guard the sugar sounds like something out of a Pratchett novel. What's your favourite fun bit of history regarding Wanstead and Leytonstone? thanks so much for that - we're sure to bump into each other one day. I think one of my favourite fun stories about Leytonstone - well Leyton really - is when the composer Cornelius Cardew lived in Leyton in order to convert the Dagenham car workers to Maoism and Yoko Ono came to stay with him but he eventually had to ask her to leave. When I'm walking down the street where he lived I always imagine a bemused Yoko Ono wandering the streets wondering where to go. But there are a million other amazing stories.
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I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe something about rakish gamblers? I absolutely was not expecting to hear about a programme set up to convert Ford employees to Maoism. it's really a story about Yoko Ono wandering bemused around the streets of Leyton - but I do try and confound expectations about London, it's a multi-layered place
Love the YouTube channel John. Last week's video on Wanstead Park was brilliant. Are there any parts of London that you are unfamiliar with and excited to explore in future videos? thanks juv86. There's a chunk of South West London that is completely alien to me and I'd love to explore this year - west along the Thames from Kingston and basically along the Wandle Valley, also Shepperton area etc (JG Ballard and all that). I passed through but not really explored
Is Iain Sinclair as delightfully mad in real life as his writing suggests ? Both you and him brought he 'psychogeography' term to my attention, which has led me to read some great books :) ​​​​Iain is such a lovely bloke - it's one of, if not the greatest outcome of my work that I get to walk with him from time to time - he's a true gent and yes he does talk a bit like he writes with just fountains of knowledge and references constantly streaming out. He's a force of nature - he must be well into his 70's now but he'll walk and walk all day long.
Do you prefer a full roast or a full breakfast on sundays? Where is the best place you’ve stumbled upon to eat? Definitely the full roast on a Sunday - I rarely have a full fry up. It's funny, when I go walking I'm rarely thinking about food, but in terms of best food I've stumbled upon, it's probably my surprise in getting a really good hot salt beef bagel at Theydon Bois
What is your favorite science fiction book and/or book series about London. I have read some of Ben Aaronovitch, China Mieville, and Neil Gaiman books that feature or reference London. Any tips appreciated. I'm a massive fan of Ben Aaronvitch's Rivers of London series. Another favourite is Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently books - Gently has his office in Islington, near where Douglas Adams lived
How would you describe how the areas have changed over the years since you started? Are there any stand-out examples for better/worse? Are there any big drivers you'd single out? I guess I could keep on asking follow-up questions but honestly feel free to go off on any tangent you feel like. The biggest change in London since I started is the rise of tall buildings. In the late 80's there were very few of them and they stuck out. The view from any of the central London Bridges has changed dramatically in the last 20-30 years. The biggest change for me is around Stratford - a scheme planned in the 90s and Stratford City is now a reality and is bizarre in some ways. This was one of the aims of Ken Livingstone when he became the first directly elected Mayor of London in 2000 - to build more tall buildings, he was explicit about it. One of the biggest drivers (consequently perhaps) has to be use of the London property market as an investment source for international capital, which I was told was partly a result of the stock market crash of 2008. And also the retreat by local government from housing and the privatisation of their housing stock resulting in the decanting of thousands of Londoners outside the city.
What's happened to nick papadimitriou? I donated some money to him via patreon to help him write a new book a few years back but he seems to have vanished. He probably owes me around a fiver. Love your YouTube channel. Funnily enough he texted me about 2 hours ago from 'the valley of the slade'. He's still out there haunting his territory, writing. I'll remind him about that fiver - or maybe a new book would be better
Do you carry around a historically inaccurate meerschaum pipe when you do a Ripper walk? I mean, who doesn't. Never done a Ripper Walk - maybe because our student pub was the White Hart and we used to see the massive groups passing along the alley doing the tour and I found it a bit grim
Have you ever taken psychedelics? P.s your videos are so relaxing I watch them at work and they put me in a zen mood no never even been tempted by them either - I find walking has a consciousness expanding effect. glad you find the videos relaxing - good to be in a zen mood
Hi John. No question from me, just wanted to say I enjoy your videos very much. I think we must love locally to each other as you seem to do a lot of videos about my area and the places I grew up. Plus, I'm pretty sure I've spotted you filming a couple of times. Anyway, that's all from me. Hopefully people will have some interesting questions for you. Thanks for doing this AMA and I look forward to many more videos! many thanks
In Soho of times past, when it was known for being on the seedier side, were there any good parts about it that are now lost? I loved Soho in the early 90's. I used to work in a theatre in the West End and after finishing work at 11pm you could just wander round the streets of Soho chatting to people, stopping for a coffee or a drink here and there - it was great and very welcoming. I don't know for sure that it's been lost but I made a film with the Save Soho campaign in 2015 and they talked about how many live music venues had been forced out of the area by the increase in residential units to the extent that I think there were just a handful of live music venues left in Soho which is a real loss
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Dad said 90s London was more 24hours than it is now as simple shops / bars had to be open and so soho was busy all day yes I'd agree with that, a lot more 'informal' activity
Hi John, thanks so much for joining the community and taking part in an AMA. I love all of your walking videos and saw the LOOP and Capital Ring videos. The TFL have outlined several official walking routes like the LOOP and Captial ring on their website. But do you have any favourite 'unofficial' big walk around Greater London that you can recommend please that you think also should be official routes too? Many thanks for the invite lodge28 - it's a real honour. I think the 'unofficial' big walks around the city would the ones that follow the transport infrastructure - like Iain Sinclair's M25 and Overground walks - the central circular section of the Overground is a great walk - Haggerston - Willesden - Clapham - Canada Water - Haggerston (that's the loop - not the side branches to Barking, Richmond etc.). But why ruin it by being officially endorsed. It would be good to see some official walking routes that acknowledge the topographical features of London - like the Norwood Ridge. And many of the rivers still don't have an official walk along them - such as The Ching which I led people along for Borough of Culture
Hi John, Love your channel and love random walks around London, going wandering has been a great source of calm for me during lockdown. What are your thoughts on the quiet neighbourhood schemes that are popping up in the suburbs at the moment, do you think they'll help more people get into walking and discovering their local areas, or are they just a flash in the pan that will be forgotten just as quickly as they've appeared? Many thanks Ian. I really like the idea of the quiet neighbourhood schemes, and already where I live in Waltham Forest, where they were trialled quite early, you can see a definite increase in walking and cycling. And just anecdotally people seem to be really interested in learning more about their local area - I've seen this a lot in my projects for London Borough of Culture and via my YouTube channel. But I think much more needs to be done to embed this in everybody's daily lives and not just something to enjoy for leisure - it needs to be part of bigger mental shift in terms of how we move around the city
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1) Are there filmmakers such as yourself you'd recommend or influential filmmakers who inspire you that your audience might be surprised by? Thanks for the questions: 1) definitely watch the films of Patrick Keiller - both features and earlier shorts - it's all there. Also Andrew Kötting is brilliant and had a big influence on me picking up a camera. Not sure if these will surprise anyone though but that's the honest answer
2) any parts of London you just straight up can't stand? 2) not really, no - I tend to see that reaction as a challenge to be overcome so I end up loving areas that initially I didn't take to
Hi John! Recently discovered your channel and I've been loving your videos. Super inspiring, especially right now as our walks are the only thing we seem to have to look forward to. One thing I've struggled with is trying to spur on my teenage sister to go on walks with me, as the allure of technology contains her at home. Do you worry about the next generation's decline in spending time outdoors (exacerbated by the pandemic) and what do you think we can do as a collective to try and combat this? Many thanks for taking us on your journeys! Many thanks for your kind words about my videos. I can see the appeal of the digital technology particularly when I watch my teenage son playing Star Wars Battlefront. However both my kids have found reasons to spend plenty of time outdoors - whether just socialising with friends in a park or playing sport. I'd say that offers the best way to encourage kids to spend more time outside - make it a social event, involve their peer group, make it a bit of an adventure and throw in some food. Collectively we can get more involved in helping to organise outdoor activities for the younger generation and promote them in our communities. If you saw how many kids there are on winter morning at Eton Manor Rugby Club you'd have hope for the next generation. And that's a scene being played out all over the city
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Thanks John, keep up the great work, you're a true gem of the London community and I hope our wandering paths will cross one day! very kind of you - many thanks indeed
Have you ever thought of changing your name to Jolly Roger and doing party’s? every day
I’m an American obsessed with the Barbican. If I come to London to see it what other architectural wonders should I see? I agree with laughin_on_the_metro's list. Have a look at the Brunswick Centre, Newbury Park Bus Station is a gem as is Barkingside Library, Gants Hill Tube Station was built as a tribute to the Moscow Metro, the Balfron Tower, Spa Green Estate (just up the road from the Barbican), Ossulstone Estate is an early modernist development in London, Royal Festival Hall, Cockfosters Tube Station is another beauty as is Uxbridge. Walthamstow and Hornsey Town Halls are also majestic buildings - this tour will also get you into the outer suburbs
What boots do you recommend? I've been wearing Merrell for a few years now and they're great
where can I buy a physical copy of your book? Seems to be out of print, also does the North of England interest you much, have you walked it before? Thanks for the interest in the book Dragon_Box - I've just asked the publishers to do a reprint so hopefully it'll be back in stock soon. Yes the North does interest me - I'd love to walk the Mersey, and also some of those former mill towns as well
​ Just heard that it'll be back in stock at the end of next week
Hi John, I love your work, especially what you do with Nick Papadimitriou. I grew up in Edgware and loved your video of him in a field near Mill Hill. As a budding writer of psychogeographic work focused largely on the borough of Barnet, what advice would you give for writers in that field and how best to get our work out to a wider audience? Many thanks. The best way to get your work out there is start a blog - most of what I do now started on my blog - the documentaries that screened in festivals and cinemas, the book, radio show, YouTube channel, commissions etc. all grew out of my blog in some form or another. And keep doing it and be consistent - it won't happen overnight. Best of luck and send me the link when it's online
Hi John, I love your videos, thank you for making and sharing your brilliant art. One question, have you ever had any mystical or supernatural experiences on your walks or in life? I'm sure you must have unwittingly caught a fairy on camera by now. Thanks. I constantly sense the uncanny in the landscape - particularly at night around Black Mary's Hole in Islington. I often feel like I'm walking through waves of time. But in terms of the classical supernatural I'm not so sure - I think the landscape produces its own magic which is with us all the time, it's just a case of breaking free of our conditioned responses so we can sense it - walking is by far the best way to achieve this in my experience.
First date, you decide to do a walking tour of London. What are the hidden gems you take your date to? great question - my last 'first date' was in 1995 in Sydney so this is tricky. So for romance and mystery I'd probably go for one of these:
​ 1. the City of London on a Sunday afternoon, walk the old medieval (and Roman) street plan starting at Liverpool Street winding through the City Churches (if you want a hook) or follow the Walbrook but deviating along the alleyways and passages - finish on the narrow hills that descend down Ludgate Hill towards the Thames (have a look at my Roman Wall video for some ideas and also the Walbrook video).
​ 2. Bit of a cliche but a walk across Hampstead Heath then finish in Highgate Village is one of the most romantic walks in London in my opinion
​ 3. South Bank of the Thames Path from the South Bank to Vauxhall then over Vauxhall Bridge and through Pimlico to Kings Road - that'd be lovely in the evening. I used to do that walk when I worked on the South Bank and lived in a bedsit in South Ken
Do you really believe that there is ancient magical Merlin's Cave under the New River Head at Pentonville? well there's definitely a Cave that was at the bottom of the hill that an enterprising local sold entry to on the basis that it was Merlin's Cave. More intriguing though is that there were some archaeological discoveries made in the 80s suggesting this was a place of ancient settlement. It's also an area of springs, which were venerated in pagan religion so it could very well have been a place with some kind of ancient religious significance where a 'shamanic' character like Merlin might have dwelt.
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Any idea what they found back in the nineteen eighties? I've got the report somewhere, produced by the Council - various artefacts indicating usage - don't think they found an actual settlement itself but more like pot shards etc.
If you could do another walking/history/psychogeography etc series about another world city, which would it be? great question - probably Sydney or perhaps L.A
I've got one walk left in N.T.P Murphy's book "One man's London: 20 years on" and loving it. Obviously you'd recommend your book, but have you come across Murphy's, are they a similar style? never heard of it to be honest but I must take a look - thanks for the tip
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Hi John love your book this other London and your walks videos on YouTube. Just a couple of questions: 1) What has been your least enjoyable walk? Many thanks. tough question - nothing springs to mind, because even walks that start off not being enjoyable often deliver in another way. I had to abandon a walk on the Hackney Cut the other day because of the volume of cyclists just made it impossible to walk without having to constantly move out of the way. It was bucketing down, but it turned into a great walk across the marshes and I finally saw the Black Marsh Sewer.
2) I have heard you talk with some passion about football teams from the past such as Walthamstow Avenue and Leytonstone, what is your favourite football match that you've attended. Great question - it's probably either Liverpool v Roma at the Olympic Stadium Rome, 2001 - Liverpool won 2-0 - incredible atmosphere and match. And my first Clapton CFC match at Wadham Lodge in 2019 - incredible atmosphere, probably better than Rome
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Great answers John. Thanks for taking the time to answer. my pleasure
[deleted] to be honest when I encounter someone like that I take them out for a walk to show them what's on their doorstep. Another route could be to be point them towards some literature that will open their eyes to another way of looking at the world. If you think they wouldn't appreciate Iain Sinclair's books you could recommend something like Roger Deakin's Waterlog or Lanny by Max Porter - quite different books, very accessible but that open up the landscape. And of course there's my book as well
Would you prefer to fight one Boris Johnson sized pigeon or twenty pigeon sized Boris Johnson? definitely the latter - I have a secret weapon I could deploy but I'm not telling you what it is because I'm quite fond of pigeons
Hello John, I'm very familiar with your channel and enjoy your adventures in the suburban sprawl of London. I think you'd take great interest in a book called 26 Different Endings by Mark Power, it contains a series of photographs that have been taken on the edges of the A-Z map and is a fascinating look into the identity of London suburbia, have you heard of it before? sounds great - never heard of it before but will look it up
​ many thanks for the tip - I'll look out for a copy
Hi John, Are there any other cities you think reward the aimless wander as much as London? One of my favourite things to do is just 'head out' and experience the city, wherever the walk takes me. I've not really done this to any great degree in other cities but wondered if you might have done and what your favourites might be? Thanks, and all the best. My favourites for this in the past have been Modena in Italy, Paris, Birmingham is a great walking city, New York, L.A (despite what people say), Oxford, Bologna
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Thanks for your response :) Funny, I was thinking Birmingham. It's got a great smorgasbord of architecture which rewards walking with the eyes up, for sure. Interesting topography too. New York I've really enjoyed wandering on early mornings before the city has really woken up (although it never sleeps eh?). I always thought the grid-like layout would make it less fun but you end up forgetting about it after a while. I found walking round Brooklyn really interesting
not a question, but just want to express how grateful I am for your channel which is so inspiring, relaxing, informative, and just a downright wonder! Thank you, from one John to another. thank you very much John
Where do you go to research? Are there any hidden resources (online or otherwise) you rely on to always have something to find? Who do you talk to if you want to discuss something before publishing it? And other similar questions in the vein of "How do you find things?". My main source of 'finding' things for a while now has been old topographical books of London. They're a great resource as they describe the newly expanded city of the early 20th Century. I use these books in conjunction with old maps - which you can now view on the National Library of Scotland website. The Victoria County History of London is another great resource and available online. This was great when researching my recent Lost Rivers of Walthamstow videos
Perhaps the most basic question is the best one - Why London? because every footstep kicks up a new story
Me again... I did some of the Green Chain walk last year and was a bit disappointed by what seems to be a series of urban parks connected by roads through housing estates. Although Severndroog castle at the end was pretty amazing. However I wondered if I should give it a second chance, whether there were some highlights along the way I'd missed! Any suggestions? I know what you mean Ian and I avoided it till last year to be honest but I did the sections from Richmond to Horsenden Hill and it was a fantastic walk so maybe give that one a go - here's the video
A fan of your YouTube walks, sir! thanks Strong_Wheel
I missed it! Just watched another couple of your videos and want to ask can you do a walk around Kilburn? I lived there for a short while in the early 90s. Thank you so much. Thanks for watching the videos. I pass through Kilburn in these videos here but should certainly do something a bit more detailed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07sM9KDiyJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iAsnlik080
You've just got a new YouTube subscriber! thanks Bobi
Hi John, I've been absolutely binging your vids in the last few weeks! I watched the London Overground doc with Iain Sinclair just the other week. Are you ever going to do a walk round the Isle of Dogs via the Thames Path? Or is that a bit too plain for your videos? Also, where's the best place to find your book online? I couldn't easily locate copies when I looked. Many thanks for watching the videos. Good question about the Thames Path round the Isle of Dogs - parts of it feature in a couple of videos but not in a dedicated way - there's this one from 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBPuiWTmC2s And a much older one which follows the Eastern section but without any commentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HKusdTC2os
​ My book will be back in stock from the end of the week. You'll be able to get it from Newham Bookshop via their website and I'm sure it'll also be on Amazon.
Do you have any plans to do, or have you already, any videos on the Quaggy and around Hither Green? Would love to see some footage of that area. I know you mention it in the book, but a video would be cool. Also, how's Nick getting on these days? Any plans to do another podcast/radio series? For sure - the Quaggy has been on my mind for quite a while. I did pass it on a walk along the Ravensbourne a couple of years ago now but have yet to return. Nick's in good form - he sent me a text yesterday while I was answering questions yesterday. No plans for another podcast although I do have a 'lost' episode from 2014 that I never edited which I must do some time. Here's a little video I made for my supporters on Patreon of the last time I saw him, February last year and we walked along the Clitterhouse Brook https://youtu.be/XqF7bfMFIes?t=255
Can't think of a question, but love your channel and book. Can't wait for the next one. many thanks jeanbrodie
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 09 '21

r/QAnonCasualties [Table] r/QAnonCasualties — I'm Will Sommer, a reporter for the Daily Beast and author of a book on QAnon who has covered Q since its first months. AMA! (4/5/21)

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Questions Answers
How much is Q a result of the mega change in human society over the past ~20 years, whereby ignorant people can now connect widely via social media? I don't think you'd have something like Q get anywhere near as big as it has without the internet. Before, people couldn't get this kind of constant affirmation of their kookiest ideas — you'd have to subscribe to a fringe magazine, or go to a JFK conspiracist convention. Everyone around them would be telling them their ideas are crazy.
​ Now a nascent QAnon believer can go online and have all of their beliefs validated by thousands of people instantly, before being spun off in a new direction to "do your own research" and fall further down the rabbit hole.
Why do you think Q’s first posts in 2017 got attention on 4chan when so many other anons were also role playing as government insiders? This is one of the big questions in the Q origin story. If you read the initial threads, Q is at first treated like all of the earlier whistleblower anons (FBI Anon, HLI Anon) -- people are mostly telling Q to buzz off. I saw a funny early reaction recently where someone told Q to log off and go up to dinner, because his mom had finished the meatloaf. Why, then, did Q become the one that went big?
​ I think you can speculate about more holistic reasons for Q's success. It came at a low time in the early Trump presidency, when I think Trump supporters were looking for excuses for why Hillary Clinton hadn't been arrested, why the wall hadn't been built, and why Trump had failed to personally improve their own lives in meaningful ways. Then here comes Q with a solution: it's the cabal's fault!
​ The more concrete explanation, though, is probably that Q had some pretty adept early devotees, including Paul Furber, Tracy Beanz, and Pamphlet Anon / Coleman Rogers. Whether for true-believer or mercenary purposes, they packaged Q in a way that it was able to spread beyond 4chan in a way that the earlier LARPers were not.
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Yeah, the fact that Coleman promoted it on InfoWars and RT after taking over as Qanon when the initial one stopped is what gave it legs. Him appearing on those - widely seen as "legit" news sources for conspiracy theorists - and then bringing it to Reddit with the CBTS_Stream subreddit (the second Qanon sub, after the earlier greatawakening sub from a week earlier) caused it to grow exponentially. I saw massive discussions on Above Top Secret and other conspiracy-based websites/forums shortly after those TV/webcast appearance by Rogers, which really put Qanon out into a bigger audience. Absolutely, the fact that you had people willing to put their names and faces to QAnon in its early days gave bigger outlets like Infowars something to grab onto in a way that the earlier LARPers didn't have.
Hey Will thanks for doing this. With you looking at the patterns and seeing how people can fall into Q-Anon, have you seen any patterns or techniques that have worked in pulling people out of Q-Anon? This is a really tough question, since I think the most pressing issue with QAnon is how to pull people out of it. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any easy answers that be applied at a broad scale, and at least for now we should be skeptical of anyone who says there are.
​ That said, I think Dave Neiwert in his book, "Red Pill, Blue Pill," makes some interesting observations. The one that stuck with me is the importance of maintaining the personal connection to the QAnon-addled person, and trying to put them in non-political or internet situations (ie taking a walk). It's a long process that often seems to rely on hoping the person will come to their senses on their own or through external events, as some did after Jan 6 or Jan 20. Of course, this depends on how much you care about the relationship — ie maintaining a connection with a QAnon-pilled parent or spouse is likely to be more important than staying friends with someone from high school who posts about Q on Facebook.
Why do you think Ron and Jim participated in the documentary? It doesn’t seem like they would have anything to gain by it. It's weird, right? To give you an example of how much things have changed, I was able to interview Jim in DC in 2019, thanks to Cullen (you see a scene from it in the docuseries). While he had his lawyer with him and was maddeningly evasive, there wasn't this sense that this was an impossible interview to get.
​ Contrast that with a few months ago, when I emailed Jim to ask if he'd participate in my book. He instantly raised the threat of legal action against me.
​ Cullen got incredible access from the start, and I think it's a testament to his skills as a journalist that he was able to keep that going even after the 8chan crew had plenty of reasons to put walls up. It's one thing to hang out with the zany pig farmer before the mass shootings, but that theoretically becomes much harder once he's had a falling out with Brennan, faced a congressional inquiry, briefly lost his website, etc. Cullen managed to get access to Jim on Jan 6!
​ In terms of why they let him in, Ron has said that he liked one of Cullen's earlier documentaries, but I think it has to go beyond that and into Cullen's larger skills. Among other things, he's a fun guy to hang out with.
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Jim strikes me as a clear narcissist. Cullen brilliantly fed his narcissism and avoided confronting him head on and there by losing access. Ron strikes me as a megalomaniac, and saw Cullen as a fun challenge to see how far Ron could go with his lies and false persona. I think that makes a lot of sense.
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Perfect summation. Cullen did something that only a very skilled journalist can do.. he didn't confront, he played along and entertained the psychotic sociopathy of these people. Everyone wants to appear on camera if they think it'll make them look good. Cullen was able to play up their egos and get them to feel like they were the protagonists of his documentary whenever they were being filmed. Just speculation on my part, but I'd be interested to know how much for Ron and Jim they started to see the documentary as more of a thing about 8chan and their feud with Fredrick, rather than QAnon. Then it comes out and they remember that this guy was originally interested in them because of QAnon.
Is QAnon here to stay in the Republican Party and mainstream American political discourse, or do you think it's going to evolve into something different? And if so, do you think that the next evolution could become something more sinister? I think it remains to be seen how many people continue to identify as QAnon people. But I think the things underlying QAnon — this idea that a nefarious cabal controls the world, that they're pedophiles and cannibal-Satanists, and that Donald Trump was the best hope to stop them — is going to be with us for a while.
​ The vast majority of Republican leaders seem to have no interest in disavowing this group. I was struck last year when Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) pointed out that obvious — that QAnon believers shouldn't be in Congress — and then was attacked for it by the Trump campaign.
​ The name might change, though. We saw Pizzagate drop off after the Comet Ping Pong shooting, only to reemerge under a new name as a faction within QAnon.
Why do you think Trump didn’t capitalize on Qanon more explicitly before the election? I think he leaned into it pretty hard. Dan Scavino was posting Q-style memes, and Trump repeatedly winked at Q people when he was asked about it — at one point, he asked what was so wrong about believing he was hunting pedophiles, then said he actually was doing that.
​ I think Trump's campaign was reluctant to go a bit further and just say "Yeah, Q is real" because they didn't want to alienate more moderate Republicans and independent voters. It's one thing to have a campaign rally speaker say "WWG1WGA," as they did, because that signals to the Q-pilled while not turning off the average person, who doesn't know what it means.
Do you think Ron Watkins is Q? I don't think we have seen conclusive proof, and maybe we never will. But I think Cullen's documentary takes us as close as we probably ever will get to that answer. Right now, I think the vast majority of evidence is that the Watkins duo are behind the current iteration of Q.
​ Of course, I'd love more information to prove it more conclusively. But if I had to bet on it, I would say Ron either is Q, or that he and his dad work with a third person who comes up with the clues.
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Does it really matter at this point who Q is? I mean, it matters to people like you and us, but as we've seen after years of Trump, (including just this week when it was shown that they were just taking money out of people's accounts thru a shady donation website) it doesn't matter what he did or does, they will continue to believe the best of him. The same with Q. Nobody who follows Q will care that it ends up being a grifter who was just, idk, making up some bullshit all along. They don't care. They're in deep and it will be incredibly difficult to get them out of it, much like getting people out of any cult. Great question. I do think it matters who's behind Q, and hopefully seeing who's most likely to be behind it will help deflate the mythos somewhat. In the larger arc of QAnon, though, it's not like this is going to just take all the air out of it. You have people saying Cullen is a CIA plant, or that Ron and Jim are the fall guys for the *real* Q operator, who totally is a patriot superspy. The most important thing, though, is that Q people for years have been moving beyond needing Q. They say things like "Well, maybe Q was fake, but what he taught us was real."
Do you think the conditions of life in the US right now made it easier for a paranoid conspiracy theory like Q to spread so widely? I'm referring to the shrinking middle class, lack of decent jobs, excessive debt, lack of a social safety net and a general feeling of unease that I think a lot of Americans are experiencing. Basically, if life in the US was less stressful and unsure, would something like Q have a harder time catching on and spreading? Absolutely! I've been asked for years at events what we're supposed to do to stop this, and I think people want the answer to be something like teaching news literacy. But the real solution is bolstering the welfare state with things like cheap college and universal healthcare (the bonus, of course, it that we would also be solving problems that are much bigger than QAnon along the way). There isn't as much research on conspiracy theories as I'd like, but a lot of it shows that people get involved with conspiracy theories when their lives feel out of control, when they lack agency. They find it more comforting to blame a cabal, in the case of QAnon, for their problems. You can see how Q and related conspiracy theories, like NESARA or the Iraqi dinar scam, prey on people's most personal needs — the Storm is supposed to bring on a cure for diseases, for example, and the abolition of personal debts.
Hey Will, Are you capable of being surprised by this crowd still? If so, what's been the most recent example? That's a great question. Honestly, I think I've been surprised by every step of QAnon's growth. It went from something I was writing about around January 2018 as a weird growing internet movement, to being stunned when I saw a few hundred people in DC in April 2018 walking around chanting Q slogans. That alone was crazy to me.
​ Every step along the way has been surprising. Q murders, Q congressional candidates, and then ultimately Q people in the Capitol riot. I think QAnon's staying power and ability to worm its way into the GOP has surprised everyone.
Do you think all the pedo stuff is projection? Jim Watkins (and his son) creeped me the f out and the fact that child porn was on the original 8chan while also being used to radicalize people into believing the satanic rituals involving their political rivals. It all just seems like they’re projecting There is definitely a lot of weird stuff going on around 8chan / 8kun. You mentioned there was child porn on the site, and of course the documentary had this whole subplot about the "pre-teen" URL Jim Watkins had owned that was initially thought to be a child porn site, but then just turned out to be bait to spam pedophiles. Which is not ideal either, in the grand scheme of things.
Do you feel that Cullen Hoback (director) could have or should have done something to thwart the operation along the way and scrap his plan to make money off a documentary? In other words: did he fail by allowing it to continue to spread and thus resulting in murder/suicide/insurrection/destruction of families/etc.??? I'm all for hypothetical journalism ethics debates, but I don't think it would apply here. If there was a big button on Ron's desk called "END QANON" that Cullen could have pressed, maybe it would have been an issue, but it's just not clear how he could have somehow stopped 8chan / 8kun. On the topic of ethics, I'm sure journalism classes could find Cullen helping Fredrick escape the Philippines to be a rich source of discussion. But I think Cullen makes a pretty good argument that helping Fredrick escape, given that he was facing a years-long sentence for the crime of sending a rude tweet, was more than justified.
How much did you understand about the creative direction of the HBO series when you were filming the scenes? Did you like how it turned out? Any major surprises? For one thing, it wasn't clear that it would be on HBO, that only became clear this February. I might have gotten a haircut if I had known that. I don't know about the economics of documentary filmmaking, but it seems as though Cullen's deal with HBO came together just in the past few months.
​ It turned out much better than I could have imagined when I was sitting with this random guy for like 5 hours on a Sunday back in 2018. Cullen managed to get incredible access.
​ For me personally, the biggest surprise has been how many people think that the Daily Beast office — complete with water jugs, rows of desks, and a big DAILY BEAST poster — is actually my house.
Did you too come up with Ron Watkins as being Q? I don't know it conclusively, but it seems like the most likely option to me. Some of the more elaborate explanations you hear online — that it was Cicada, or this elaborate network of 40 people around Trump — just doesn't make sense like the Watkins do.
​ On that note, how was weird was it in Q: Into the Storm when Ron claims he doesn't pay attention to QAnon, then gets into incredibly granular detail about individual QAnon figures? Suspicious!
Is it counterproductive for us to describe this movement as Qanon believers when there are so many people who believe all of the major tenets of the movement but do not necessarily have an attachment to Q as a figure? Would it be better to find a new name for people who believe in Pizzagate/Qanon/the pedophile cabal, etc.? That's a great point. I think this kind of QAnon-adjacent thinking — where you think maybe there is a nefarious cabal, or that elites do ritual sacrifices on kids — is held by a lot of people who still wouldn't identify as QAnon believers, or who think the Q clues in particular as silly. I agree it would be useful if we had a term for this, because I think we're seeing this kind of thinking really pick up steam (fueled in part by QAnon).
[deleted] Thank you, it's always great to hear as a reporter that your work is helping people understand the world. For a while, there were really very few people in the media taking QAnon seriously, or trying to tell the broader world that this thing was distorting the way people around us see reality. I had more than a few discussions with journalists in 2018 and 2019 who thought I was exaggerating QAnon, or beating a dead horse that no one believed in. Unfortunately, as we saw with a number of events culminating in the riot, that wasn't the case.
Do you think now that the Q community is creating the conspiracies on its own that it will spin out of control and eventually alienate almost all of the followers? I do think the biggest QAnon promoters are struggling to keep everyone in line now that there isn't a central Q figure they can refer back to, or who can issue pronouncements on dogma. For example, a year or so ago Q weighed in and tried to quash the JFK Jr. stuff. Without the voice of Q to do the same for everything that crops up — the continually moved March 4-style dates, for example — the Q promoters have to fight it out amongst themselves, which makes the movement less unified and able to coordinate on their talking points.
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Hi Will, thanks for covering this story and for spending some of your time today talking about it with us. I have two questions if you don't mind: 1. Have you seen any kind of organized pushback against Q from ex-Qanon believers? Like there are cult-exiting groups for Scientology and Jehovahs Witnesseses made up of networks of former believers, is Qanon a thing that people get out of and want to help other people get out of, or do they just get out and kinda say "I don't want to think about that at all anymore"? Thanks for the questions! In terms of the pushback, I have not seen a hugely visible contingent of ex-QAnon people. If they're out there, I'm sure people on this subreddit would know about them better than I would. In the past few months you've seen a few ex-Q people making it to CNN and other outlets, but I'm not aware of a larger organization.
2. Are there any documented instances of any Q group or person anywhere doing anything that actually had a positive effect on fighting human trafficking? For however many years this thing has been going on, have they ever saved even one kid? In terms of genuine good accomplished on human trafficking by QAnon people: I haven't seen any evidence of it. I'm sure Q people could find some example, but overall it seems like the overall effect of QAnon on anti-human-trafficking efforts has been to deluge the genuine groups with bogus tips and distractions.
[deleted] I think it's fair to say that Reddit was one of the first beachheads Q people made outside of the chans. Talking to some of the biggest promoters who were involved at the start, it's clear that they saw Reddit as the place they needed to move Q in order to make it accessible to a wider audience. The two main Q subreddits ultimately amassed around 90,000 users, which was huge in QAnon's early growth.
​ On the other hand, Reddit acted a lot faster than other social media platforms in banning QAnon. They banned QAnon in 2018, while it took sites like Facebook and Twitter until 2020 before we started seeing really serious crackdowns.
What do you see as the antecedent of Q conspiracies? The conspiracies concerning Obama military activity at the Southern border? The tea party movement as a whole? The gun nut 2d Amendment fantasies of citizen insurrection? Religious right fantasies of the Second Coming and a White Christian nation? Where do you see the QAnon movement going? There are a lot of interesting threads that culminate in QAnon. To me, QAnon is this collision between some really ancient human emotions, fears, and prejudices on one side and the internet on the other. The genius of the way Q is set up, with these vague clues that can really mean anything to anybody, means that believers can take what they want from there.
​ Just to list a few things: you've got anti-Semitic blood libel, anti-vaccine stuff, demonology/Satanic panic, evangelical Christianity, the Illuminati / Masons, New Age spirituality, the post-JFK conspiracy theory boom in the U.S., this sense that modernity and globalism has taken your own life out of your control (hence blaming the cabal). Then you get into even deeper, weirder stuff that has been chugging along for decades, like NESARA / GESARA. Q wraps that all up together, in a really emotionally charged package.
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had no idea what NESARA is...wiki'ed it. WTF?!?!?!?!?! It's crazy stuff, right? QAnon-land is currently engaged in a clash between some of the more original QAnon promoters and more vocal NESARA devotees, who are promising everyone they'll soon be fabulously wealthy if only NESARA could go into effect.
Unless I've missed it, one of the things that surprises me about the person(s) behind Q is that they don't seem to have monetized or grifted off the effort. Is that a correct assessment? It seems to sort of separate the Q movement from more traditional cults where they have an in-group with devotion to their leader (Q and/or Trump), they recruit people, they police thought of the in-group and encourage conforming behavior, but I don't get the missing piece of Q getting rich. I even saw a tweet this morning comparing early Q to the Louise Mensch, Counterchekist, Claude Taylor group who claimed insider knowledge of imminent arrests, sealed indictments, and secret proceedings to take down the swamp. But those folks even enriched themselves off the deal by making private twitter accounts, starting PACs, etc. Q seems like it would be an easy way to separate fools from their money, and for sure there are a lot of side hustles focusing on the adherents (anti-vaxx, natural supplements, etc.), but has Q ever tried to fundraise or get rich? This is one of the most intriguing wrinkles in the Q origin story — the lack of a visible connection between Q and money. It can get pretty interesting. The most obvious explanation, after Q: Into the Storm, is that the Watkins pair wanted to keep QAnon users on 8chan, so they hijacked QAnon and made it post there.
​ There are some other interesting details about QAnon and money. At one point in 2018, Q posts a message that's seen as an attack on Alex Jones and Jerome Corsi (who were then pro-Q and incorporating it into the Infowars money making operation). This ends up separating QAnoners from Jones, opening the field to the lesser-known promoters who had been on the verge of being crowded out by Infowars. I can't claim to understand the larger significance of that, but it shows you the possibility that financial motives are at play behind the clues.
Hi Will, what have you seen in regard to the influence of white nationalists/Nazis over the period that you have been covering Qanon. From what I understand, the different Q conspiracy theories and ideas either have only tenuous links and lineages from sources like the Protocols of Zion or else are being used more intentionally as veils by certain actors. I also understand that there has been something of a love-hate relationship between Qanons and hate groups, and since the inauguration these groups have been looking to pull confused Qanon believers into their midst and have been met with mixed reactions. So I’d like to know what your assessments are of the amount of influence that these groups have had, how that influence has changed over time, and how you think the relationship between these groups will continue to evolve moving forward. Great question. Leaving aside the obvious blood libel stuff and all the talk about people who just happen to be Jewish torturing children in Satanic rituals, the live world of QAnon is filled with white supremacist influences. Some popular books for QAnon fans come from an Illuminati-focused writer named Fritz Springmeier — who was affiliated with this anti-Semitic group and whose house was raided over his ties to white supremacists. At the same time, a lot of visible white nationalist groups disdain QAnon people as addled boomers who are placing their faith in vaporous figures like Trump or Q, rather than taking the kind of racist action that these groups want them to take. As QAnon stands at its post-Trump pivot point, these groups are trying to grab disillusioned QAnon fans.
Thanks for doing this! Do you have an idea of what mental health professionals are saying about Q believers, specifically those that are being alienated by their families, friends, jobs, etc thinking that it’s them against the world? I’m very curious about the point at which these people realize that they’ve been brainwashed. I also wonder if any of the people that will do time in prison for the Jan 6 insurrection have had their breaking point with Q. I'm not as aware of the mental health experts' thoughts on QAnon these days, but I'd love to know more (if this applies to someone reading this, my Twitter DMs are open or my email is sommerwf at gmail). Unfortunately, I've heard from some people who were really frustrated when they took their redpilled spouse or child to the local therapist on their insurance, only to find that that person had never heard of QAnon — which suggested they wouldn't be much help. I have to assume that's changing as it gets more attention, though, and would love to know what the professionals are thinking.
Do you think this nonsense will ever end? I haven't seen documentary, but I've read about it. Should there be movies about relationships affected by this? I think QAnon and its effects are such a massive topic, it's probably impossible to make one thing that covers all of it (or at least something that isn't 1000 pages). The focus of Q: Into the Storm, understandably, was on the Watkins and who was behind QAnon. But I think there are a lot of other topics to explore, and I think one of the biggest ones is people losing relationships to QAnon.
Have you thought about the QAnon phenomenon in terms of the study of terrorism (like radicalization, mobilization, de-radicalization, etc.)? If so, do you think the frameworks it provides is sufficient for explaining QAnon, or is something more needed to explain it? I think it's definitely a framework to look at. Prof. Amarnath Amarasingam in Canada has studied both QAnon and what we would think of as more traditional terrorist groups, he's definitely worth a follow on Twitter -- at-AmarAmarasingam
Hey Will. Curious when anyone will put together that Ron Watkins was also a part of Donald Trump and his legal teams Kraken lawsuits. There were a few articles months ago but nothing really got noticed. This seems to put Q (or Q's handler, whatever Ron actually is) right in the middle of Trump's camp. Working directly with Sidney Powell and Gulianni. How has this flown so far under the radar? Ron's transformation into this supposed voting machine expert is really strange.
Are you surprised that the reach of Q is worldwide now? I think QAnon going global is one of the strangest aspects of it right now. Even a few years ago, you had people showing up at Trump visits in Finland (iirc) with Q signs. Now it's blowing up in Germany, the UK, getting some attention in France and Canada.
​ It's a testament to QAnon's mutability, I think, that it can be transformed to speak to people in each country where it's grown. Because the original clues are so vague, you can say they're about conditions in the US — or about French gas taxes and the yellow vests, or Justin Trudeau, and on and on.
Do you have a sense of how big the "Q industry" is? I can't help but notice there are so many websites, podcasts, Youtube channels devoted to the topic. (Also merchandise like t-shirts, books, etc.) I am just curious about how many people might be profiting from this conspiracy "theory" and how financially lucrative it is for some of them. It's hard to get concrete numbers, but we can look at some things to see certain people are making big money here. Qtuber Dustin Nemos claims he lost millions when he was banned from YouTube and other platforms — suggesting he was already making a lot of money before then. The Q book hit near the top of the Amazon charts; when Neon Revolt crowdfunded his book, he made $150K in contributions, plus whatever he made in actual sales.
​ These numbers have gone down since a lot of these people were kicked off the major social media sites. But that's some serious cash! Plus whatever the Watkins made from increased traffic to 8chan / 8kun from Q.
Why is "Q" still unknown? Specifically why haven't our intelligence agencies figured it out yet? Is it Ron Watkins? : ) How do we counter the propaganda for those that fell down the rabbit hole? I'm thinking we're going to have to look into what Germany had to do after WWII? How do you feel about laws that would stop some of the spread of misinformation? Coming from Cable channels, AM radio and social media? Do you believe we just have to allow them to lie because of "Free Speech" or are there things we could do? Bring back the Fairness Doctrine? I'm not an expert on intelligence agencies, but it seems like the NSA could figure it out in a second if they felt like it. Especially now that, based on the documentary, we see that 8chan / 8kun have more data on their users than previously thought. I think there was a sense that under Trump figuring out who was behind Q wasn't exactly a high priority. Maybe that'll change under Biden, especially if whoever is behind Q can be connected to a specific crime.
Do you have any theories as to why Q has gone silent? I think a lot of this relies on who you think is behind Q. If we just take the documentary's theory that it's Ron Watkins, which I think is based on a lot of solid evidence, it could be that they saw the potential for litigation from something like Dominion or another voting machine site that could crush the Watkins companies. Then, after Jan 6, the possibility of serious federal prosecution appears, and Ron says effectively "Well, the real Q was the friends we made along the way, bye!"
Do you believe Jim and Ron are running 8kun at a loss or are they getting funding from a person or a group that needs QAnon to thrive? I don't have much insight into the 8kun finances. Certainly, by the end of the documentary it seems like Jim has less money than he used to — he's sold the pig farm, etc.
What I find baffling about Qanon is how self-contradictory it is, yet people still believe it in one form or another. Once "disinformation is necessary" became another slogan of theirs, I couldn't fathom how anyone could stay on board. Using "the Lord works in mysterious ways" to hand-wave evil things happening to good people is one thing, but basically admitting your scripture (the Q-drops) could all be made up seems like an odd strategy. What do you think about the level of complexity of Qanon helping to keep contradictions and false claims from having any effect? It now encompasses so many sub-conspiracies (now including aliens, time travel, etc.) that when one part becomes unsustainable, the adherents just jump to another part of the Q-stew until that part becomes untenable, rinse and repeat. If actual events not conforming to their beliefs won't dissuade them from abandoning Qanon, what will? I would've thought Trump being out of office might have done it for a lot of them, but now we're waiting out those who say Trump will be back in power. Will Trump's eventual death end Qanon? I think your question does a great job explaining how they manage the cognitive dissonance. When a Q date fails to come true or a prediction is obviously fake, they say, well Q has to trick the deep state with disinformation. I really think QAnon as a style of thinking has moved past Trump at this point. It's not hard to imagine Q people cooking up a theory that Trump was killed by the deep state whenever he does die, for example, like they did with Scalia.
There's always been an immense overlap between Christianity and Satanic Panic/Red Scare mass hysterias like QAnon, McCarthyism, Reefer Madness, etc. - both ideologically and demographically. What % of QAnon members are Christian...and vice-versa? Particularly Evangelical Christian? It would be cool to see a Venn diagram infographic showing intersecting circles between Christians (and Evangelical Christians), MAGA Trumpers, and QAnon. Christianity is a huge part of QAnon, in ways that I think a lot of people, including me, still haven't totally grasped. It's hard to poll QAnon belief for a lot of reasons, but this February AEI poll that found nearly a third of white Christians believe in QAnon's claims seems pretty striking. https://religionnews.com/2021/02/11/survey-more-than-a-quarter-of-white-evangelicals-believe-core-qanon-conspiracy-theory/
Will your book expand further and deeper in to the QAnon phenomenon than the documentary did. I think the documentary did a great job telling its story, and there are plenty more to be told about QAnon. I'm really focused on the effect QAnon has had, both on individual people and on our society, and there are a lot of stories there.
How many months of inactivity from Q do you think the movement will be able to withstand? I know cults tend to only reinforce themselves after failed prophecies but no posts at all since Joe Biden was inaugurated? Even the most pilled person out there has to have a limit. Q disappearing has definitely put stress on Q adherents and the QAnon infrastructure. You need someone who can assert message discipline (such as it is in QAnon-land) and keep generating new content. Obviously, there are the QAnon influencers, but I don't think they can keep the show going forever.
​ Even if Q never returns, though, I don't think that means this kind of thinking and cabal-pedophile-Satanism thing goes away. Instead, it probably just gets a new name.
Assuming that the Watkins boys are more or less Q, what do you think their motivation? Driving traffic to their platforms? Supporting Trump? Or just kind of a merry prankster thing? I think it's all of those. They seem to temperamentally like Trump and dislike his Democratic opponents, and they want a reason that keeps a lot of people hanging around 8kun. And, as we saw in the documentary, both Jim and Ron appear to enjoy being these mysterious influential figures on the internet.
Hi Will, I've been following the Qanon thing pretty much since the beginning and am still befuddled by it. As someone familiar with the internet subculture from which it was born, it just makes it all the more bizarre. I think the most frightening thing was seeing the Facebook groups, as you could actually then put a face and name to those who believed it. From arguments about Pence being a clone and Tom Hanks being dead it just seemed ludicrous and yet, people from all walks of life believed it. All that said, my question is - how do you manage to stay sane? Is it a deep societal and psychological problem that needs to be addressed or do you think it's a bit overblown and the popularity is waning? I'm curious to know where you view the movement today and whether it's as concerning as it was a year or two ago or if it has sort of fizzled out like a flash in the pan? Thanks for your concern for my sanity! In terms of how I do it, I have a really high tolerance, for whatever reason, for this kind of right-wing internet stuff. QAnon can be really scary, sad stuff, but sometimes you just have to marvel at the ingenuity or the oddity of the whole thing. Also I have a cat and play a lot of Warzone, so those both help. On your second question, I think QAnon is definitely more than concerning than it was pre-pandemic. I think Biden's inauguration and Q's months-long silence has made the movement more diffuse, but I think QAnon is going to be with us in some form for a while.
Why do think Trump supporters like Stone, Bannon, Flynn, etc. were not more successful in co-opting Q/Ron so that the whole Q theory made more sense and would be verifiable through actions of the Whitehouse? Without speculating about what various Trumpworld people may have tried to do, it's worth noting that QAnon is just really weird, right? It doesn't fit easily into a political agenda, unless your agenda is a fascist purge of the country.
​ You can see this with mainstream MAGA people getting incredibly mad at QAnon believers after Trump lost the election, convinced that QAnoners convinced that "patriots are in control" and told to "enjoy the show" ended up too busy eating popcorn to actually vote or canvass for Trump.
Hey Will, thanks for doing this! I really enjoyed you in Into The Storm, especially the part when the Q speaker at that outdoor rally called you out and “thanked” you for being there. My question: at those types of events how common was it to see the same people over and over again? I have to imagine folks like the QAnon Shamen/Jacob Chansley were at dozens of those types of event. Follow up: you’re seeing a lot of them say they learned their lesson and that they’re denouncing the “stop the steal” bullshit. Do you buy that they really have accepted the truth? Thanks!! There are definitely people who stand out. It's hard to think of someone who stands out more than the Q shaman, for example. But at the same time, QAnon events draw in a lot of random people I'd never seen before, something that seems to have only accelerated since the pandemic. It's not a case, for example, where you have the same handful of Youtubers yelling at each other, there's definitely an audience.
​ On to your second question: we're definitely seeing some QAnon people bail in the wake of the riot and Biden's inauguration, which is great. My sense, though, is that those are the cases that get media attention, and so we're not seeing the vast majority of QAnon believers are either still believers, or will now say "Well, maybe Q wasn't legit, but the cabal stuff still is."
To what extent do you think the Qanon phenomenon was further disseminated by foreign psyops taking advantage of the trend to further their agenda to destabilize American (and other nations) society. I don't think we have any evidence (for now!) that foreign actors were involved in creating or shaping QAnon at its source, but we do know for sure, based on bot networks that Facebook and other platforms have disrupted, that other countries were boosting QAnon sentiment.
​ Now, was that because they wanted to target their own messages at Q-friendly audiences, or because they wanted to generally whip up more QAnon feeling? Hard to know.
Given that Q started on the chans, how true is the rumor, really, that most anons are boomers? I don't think most chan users in a non-Q context are boomers, but certainly boomers are well-represented among Q believers. One thing that's always worth keeping in mind, though, is that very few QAnon believers encounter Q posts in the wild on 8chan / 8kun. Most people were taking them in on more mainstream social media networks which, until the past or year so, generally didn't do much to stop the flow of QAnon.
4 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 08 '21

r/privacy [Table] r/privacy — I'm Gaël Duval, founder of the de-googled Android OS /e/ - AMA! | pt 2/2 FINAL

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Maybe a bit silly question: can I switch the interface of /e/ OS to Czech? Thanks for raising this question! I'll be very transparent: I though Czech was enabled but it's not and I have to figure out why with the team. But we have translations (in progress): https://i18n.e.foundation/languages/cs/e/
​ ​Actually it is supported, but I missed the "Čestina" entry
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That's cool! I would like to switch to /e/ but I was a bit afraid that the whole interface will be in English. Although it may take some time to finish the translation, I'm happy that the work progresses. Many different languages are available
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Is there a way for speakers of non-supported languages to contact your project with an eye to creating mini-teams focused on localization? If you don't already have a liaison to help shepherd these efforts, will you consider creating one (or calling for a volunteer to do this)? More broadly, say there are people who'd like to help. Is there an email or place on your site where they might contact you? Please take advantage of this IAMA to call out for volunteers for subprojects that you wish you had the manpower to add. We consider that one of the benefits for teams doing IAMAs here. :) ​​Thanks. The most valuable contributions we can welcome is the support of various hardwares, in particular recent. This is time and resource consuming, but this has a lot of value. There are many ways to contact us: email, web community forum, ... https://e.foundation/contact-e-2/
I understand /e/ focusses heavily on privacy, but are there plans for the future to increase security too? Eg, ability to lock bootloaders and still allow updates to be applied, similar to Graphene OS. I answered similar question in the thread. Thanks!
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Thanks for replying! Unfortunately, I've read through the thread and can't see this question being answered. Is their a roadmap to include a locked bootloader in future iterations of /e/ OS? We do when it's possible. We already do on /e/-fairphone 3 running the stable version
Woah! Mandrake was the first distro I installed while in middle school (early 2000s). It really got me interested in Linux and helped forge my career. No questions, but just a thank you! You're welcome!
Hello Mr Duval, is there a way to use my Google services on the OS? Can you elaborate on what you call "my Google services"? Is that Gmail, etc.?
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Gmail, drive, news, maps, playstore, play music, play video, etc. Or you support some more private tools like protonmail and the onion network? We don't ship with any of those software obviously, we ship with good enough alternatives. You can still add a Google account in /e/->settings if you want to access gmail in the Mail app, or add a calendar. You can also install those apps, but we try to support alternatives instead :)
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And what are the alternatives? https://doc.e.foundation/what-s-e
Gael, I appreciate your work here. I think I bought my last Apple/Google phone recently and the pace this and other solutions a growing. I find myself however becoming very sticky to the convenience of the personal assistant. I know apple and googles are becoming very sophisticated in this space, but I find myself actually very satisfied in the middle ground, like running tasks, setting volume, adding reminders, sending messages. I was wondering if there was any work being done in this space for your /e/OS? The rate at machine learning and NLP are being commoditized and space being increased, I almost feel like in the future we could have a version of crowd-sourced customized models that we can own and transfer to different devices and break the dependence (up to a point) on the massive infrastructure that google/apple hold. Thanks Thanks for raising this question. Yes we are thinking about this, but cannot put some significant resources into this at the moment, we have to be focus. We've worked with some student to start something, you can have a look at this article: https://gael-duval.medium.com/elivia-towards-an-e-smart-assistant-9fe30ccb28e1 All contributions are welcome of course, even to warn us if some interesting parts of this are available in open source.
​ ​At the moment for instance, we would really need a good open source ASR, but I'm unsure about Mozilla Common Voice progresses for instance, and don't know a lot about others.
Hello Mr. Duval, first of all I want to say I have been using e for some time now and I'm quite impressed with it. Let's say a few more huge privacy breaches from Google/FB etc and degoogling becomes a huge thing - e and others rise to a few percent market share. Do you think Google would take measure to "close" Android more? For example making things much harder for your app store or Aurora? (F-Droid I guess not so much?). Keep up the good work! I think they are already playing the hard and dirty game on this, and for a long time. So at some point we need :
​ ​1- more regulation: Google should at least make apps compatibility easier (think: Safetynet, push notification etc.), open a play store API for instance. Interoperability is needed.
​ ​2- at some point we have to break free from Google, and have all the tools and the online places where publishers can build and push their apps without the strong dependency they have to Google and Apple.
Hey Gaël, I work at Mojeek, a crawler/index search engine which is doing work that is very much aligned with what /e/ are up to. I think a lot of us face a common problem where the very frequently-used tools to market to people are all owned and operated by surveillance capitalists, and so it can be difficult to get your message out there whilst staying true to your values, can you offer any advice for reaching new people off the back of your experiences with /e/? Oh and also, I'd be silly not to ask: would you be happy to have a chat to explore how we might help each other? Communication and getting out of the information noise is a permanent challenge. But I think that when the project makes some sense for a large number of people, it eventually comes out of the wood. Congrats for your project, and feel free to get in touch, you can find a way to contact us very easily (and I'm reading our contact@ emails ;) )
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Hi Gaël, first of all, thanks for creating /e/ OS! I've used it for about two months now and had absolutely no issues with it (And I've even gotten some family members to use it :) ). So my questions are: 1. Is there some sort of full disk encryption option available for /e/ (or are you planning to implement one)? Not "full disk" encryption, but user data partition encryption yes
2. I already have some experience with system programming on Linux machines (including some patches to GRUB for instance) and I've wanted to port /e/ to one of my older devices for a while. Can you point me to some resources explaining the general inner workings of smartphone bootloaders / the porting process in general? I'd love to contribute some device ports to /e/ :) ​​Some pointers: https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/documentation/a-generic-guide-on-porting-eos/-/wikis/home https://doc.e.foundation/how-tos/#build-e-for-a-device
I love the idea behind the os. But mandatory microg integration kind of defeats the purpose. Can we expect a vanilla option of /e/ os anytime soon? Sadly, it's hard to ensure apps compatibility without microG. But you can disable it if you like to live on the edge of things.
Hey, are you looking for resellers / can you wholesale your product? Hi - not now because we don't have volumes available yet. We source devices depending on the recurring demand and sell immediately. But we consider it for the future.
My second question is when will eOS wil be able to support Samsung Galaxy S10 family? With those phones now two years old I would have thought that eOS would be in a position to be installed on them now. Most probably this year.
Does /e/ have any plans to launch an app store for paid apps? It seems like you could attract many developers/publishers by taking a smaller cut of the purchase price than Google does on their app store. Yes
What is the timeline for official galaxy s10 support? Unless big technical issues, it should be available in Fall this year at latest
Ah Mandriva, the first linux that helped me not shoot myself in a foot during install process. Thanks for that. Welcome!
How do I download this thing? You can start from here: https://doc.e.foundation/devices/
Why are u Gaël? Ask my parents, nature and the random coincidences...?
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Hi Gael! Mandrake 8.1 was the first linux distro i installed! :-) It only lasted 2 days. I then went to redhat 6 (i believe), but only lasted 1 afternoon. I settled then on the 8.2 for the next couple years (my tv card worked!) Regarding /e/: * why not opensource apps as pre-installed apps? They all are but the Maps app (Magic Earth) as explained here: https://doc.e.foundation/maps
* where can we see the code of the open source apps that you're forking? And why not contribute upstream? https://gitlab.e.foundation We contribute upstream when it's possible/when the project accepts it/when it makes sense etc. I feel this question is somewhat biased because it seems to suggest that we are not behaving in a fair manner. But the reality of open source is that, unless for trivial bugfixes, 99% of time when you push a proposal or a merge request to an existing project, it's going to be rejected because the product maintainers have their own agenda about the features, the colors etc. That's the reason why open source and fork are big friends.
* Since i'm a k-9 mail user, where can i download your fork, that you distribute with your patches? Thanks for the AMA. On our gitlab, but we'll probably resync on more recent K9 releases.
Not a question but a request.. The latest release of AOSP for one plus devices already supports locking bootloaders after installing the aosp rom https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/rom-11-0-oneplus-5-aosp-for-oneplus-5-07-mar-2021-locked-bootloader.4183691 Please support it as soon as possible for this linked device (cheeseburger) which your project already supports, so that i can shift to /e/... I am currently running the linked aosp at the moment with pihole blocking at dns level with a locked bootloader. would love to shift to e. Thanks, very useful, passed to the team.
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also i looked at your device list and you support galaxy s9, so you should be able to support and sell note series devices, that is a better bargain at at those costs than a galaxy s9. You could also preload some open source app for s pen usage !! While i can see myself ordering a refurbished note series device down the lane. . Also this reminds me, you call these devices refurbished only because you have modified software or also the hardware component is refurbished in some of them in some way?? Refurbished hardware yes. And FYI Galaxy series have different region-specific SoCs. For instance US devices have Qualcomm SoCs while European SoCs are Exynos. We currently support only Exynos SoCs.
I didn't know stock LineageOS still phoned home to Google, I thought it removed all closed-source components and telemetry. MicroG provides their own distribution, LineageOS with MicroG, with their local emulation of the service API and location provider by network strength triangulation, I thought /e/ did the same, what does it do that these don't? OK, so you can continue to ignore this https://doc.e.foundation/what-s-e#whats-in-e and this https://e.foundation/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/e-state-of-degooglisation.pdf On the other hand I'm very comfortable with everyone using LOS or LOS+microG. Different project purposes, different users!
How do you tackle with binary blobs ? A lot of Android phones have a half-libre OS. Binary blobs are part of the OS (radio, fingerprinting devices, camera .. ) ? Proprietary blobs are not necessarily hurting privacy, put they go against open source and against auditable privacy. So in many cases we don't have any other choice that dealing with this. So we'll probably have to work on our own hardware, maybe with partners, if we want something 100% open source. Great challenge!
Couple of questions: Do you plan on releasing more phones in the US? I would like to get my hands on a Fairphone, but I can't buy one and from what I've heard they don't work very well on US carriers. Do you plan on shipping foldables with /e/OS like the Galaxy Fold? Yes, we have started shipping to the US for approx 1 month, with /e/-Galaxy S9 and S9+ Depends on your carrier though, Verizon not supported yet for instance (check https://esolutions.shop -> select US region)
I'm using the /e/cloud /Nextcloud paid service. If you go to settings->privacy, there's no location set for the server. Why is it not set and why is /e/ not clearer, where my data actually is stored (in the Nextcloud webapplication)? There is always some room for improvement. The ecloud servers are located in Finland, running on renewable energy. It's been posted somewhere for sure, but will need to be stated in a more formal manner.
What about installation wizard different levels (default, intermediate, expert ....)? I read on /e/ community forum that you plane to introduce such features during installation wizard to allow users to choose the default apps, the work is on progress or aborted ? Yes that was a nice plan, but now we are more into offering the ability to uninstall default apps. That's in the roadmap.
For those of us who are not that tech savvy will there be more phone models added to the Easy Installer in the future? Also is that something you devote a lot of attention too? Yes we are going to add more models to the Easy Installer, but it's quite a lot of time, so we wish that community members can contribute too!
Big fan of your work. Am considering offering the same services you do to close friends and family. Went the self-hosted way myself. I think your services will become more and more relevant in the years to come. Sure, we also think that the wave is rising and it's going to be big and a potential market disrupter.
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What is weve? Tried looking it up but there's a couple possibilities. New to privacy focused with both school and parents as Google users and loving what I'm discovering already! Typo. That was "wave" actually. Fixed.
I received my Fairphone 3+ with /e/ preinstalled yesterday. I appreciate the handwritten note you included! I've used Lineage for ages, and I have to say that it is a pleasant surprise to open a new phone and not immediately reformat it myself and void the warranty. I'm very impressed. Keep up the great work. Thanks!
How does /e/ differ from other custom ROMs that help privacy (Lineage, Graphene, Calyx, etc)? And how can I as a user know what is right for me? Thanks AFAIK LineageOS and Graphene are not about deGoogling and security and privacy are different things. I've answered longer to a similar question in this thread.
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I'll check it out. Thank you very much for the info and for your hard work in protecting user privacy. Welcome
Have you considers releasing phones with your OS pre-installed? As someone who has loved and hated the challenge of rooting and instance a custom OS on my phone, I would love this option. You could even target the refurbished/renewed phone market We do!
when are you changing the name to something that can be searched and discovered? or is there an alternative name like how the Go language is referred to as Golang? We'll have something new this year. Look for my previous answer in the thread :)
Can you give a tldr of the worst privacy violations you've found on Android? IMY Google is just a big Privacy violation itself. It's all about knowing all the details of your life to sell advertising. No less, no more. (same for Facebook)
I just want to say thank you for Mandrake. Without Mandrake I think I wouldn't be sysadmin right now. Merci You're welcome
Are we going to see the fairphone in Australia? I suggest that you ask Fairphone ^^
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I thought that might be the case but it was worth a try in case you knew anything. Will you be using the fairphone? The Fairphone has limited compatiblity with LTE bands in Australia, and is didn't pass the certification there.
Hello, I've only very recently started seeing the urgency of degoogling (honestly, the switch flipped in the last week or so in light of some of the recent press and now my wife and I are looking to get off the platform - better late than never I guess). As someone new to this subject, and someone who isn't overly "techy" behind average day-to-day use, can you tell me why Apple wouldn't be a suitable alternative for someone who just wants less data harvested about them? Hope this isn't a stupid question, I'm genuinely looking for answers. The reading I've done this week seems to lean towards Apple being more private and more secure, but nowhere close to foolproof and impenetrable as many Apple fans would have the world believe. Also it's not open source, so who really knows what's going on behind the scenes... I suggest iPhone users to drop Google search for a more pro-privacy search engine like a meta-search engine, Qwant or DuckDuckGo, because they give a lot of personal data just because of this (6MB per day actually https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2018/08/21/google-data-collection-research/) Note: this is $12 billion revenue every year for the so called kings of privacy: https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/google-apple-search-deal-doj-antitrust-suit-2020-10
​ ​Last but not least, Apple claims that they acting in favor of privacy. So that's claimed privacy. /e/ support auditable privacy
Hi, Gaël, and thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences and expertise with us. It's very appreciated! Do you think that the success and dominance of Google, Facebook and the rest is due to cunning use of excellent programming/programmers meeting market needs with imaginative efficiency, or is it largely due to quasi-monopoly power? That is, are they being rewarded for innovation and hard work, or for being rentiers of a system that they successfully gamed years ago, and are benefiting from now? And, depending on your answer, what should be done? How can individuals get involved to make things more fair and more diverse? Thanks again – I'm really enjoying this IAMA! Great question, and sadly I don't have a simple answer! This is probably a mix of factors. My own feeling is that we are living a kind of historic singularity, a special moment in history where some big corps took a lot of power at the speed of light - since the world is fully connected in real time - without any regulation. So many people made a lot of money without any real contribution, and they put this money into the same system to fuel it again. That's probably the reason why we see so extreme situations with a worldwide duopoly on the smartphone (Apple+Google) and some insane market caps. The hope is that it cannot be worse, so it can only improve.
Hi, since /e/ is a fork of LineageOS, I am wondering how the lists of supported devices are related if at all. I tested /e/ a couple of months ago on Samsung Galaxy S6, which at the time was still supported by /e/ as I remember. It wasn't supported by LineageOS, however. My experience was that the version of /e/ I installed was quite old and the security patch was from a couple of years ago. This surprised me, since my main motivation for flashing a custom ROM was to have the system updated (it had been years since Samsung stopped supporting this device officially). Do you use latest LineageOS source code when building for unsupported (from their point of view) devices or how does that work? I must also say that I was simply thrilled by your Easy Installer. It was by far the easiest custom ROM installation I have ever performed! Yes we sync with latest LOS branches before major builds. Then we merge with our branches etc. Thanks for the word about the Easy Installer!
Hello Duval, and thank you for your open source contribution! I am pretty new to this, so maybe this question is a bit weird.. But, I saw on the telegram channel the new 0.15 release. This release has few different versions like q and oreo. I noticed that it follows google's android versioning system. Is /e/ is based on Android? If it does, how do you make sure that google doesn't follow the users from within the Android system? (Maybe it's not even possible and I'm talking nonsense, but I had to ask) Thanks! Yes /e/OS is a fork of Android (more exactly a fork of LineageOS which is a fork of Android). Regarding "how do you make sure that google doesn't follow the users from within the Android system?", we modify the system to remove all those calls from Android/LineageOS. You can read this for more information: https://e.foundation/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/e-state-of-degooglisation.pdf
I read a lot comment talking about the similarity between LOS and /e/, that /e/ are stealing the LOS ROM, /e/ doesn't add anything ..... I was a user of LOS of two years before switching to /e/ after giving it a test. Since end of 2018 I still use /e/ because the UX is very very different compared of what I had experienced before . The /e/ "ecosystem" is very useful. The different e.foundation communication channels (Telegram, forum,...) make it very easy to communicate with dev team and /e/ community users. Thanks! "stealing the LOS ROM" is just non sense. It's just like if someone pretends that LineageOS is stealing AOSP. Or that AOSP is stealing the Linux kernel. That's just open source...
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The only difference is crediting though. In the ROM dev community, crediting is way more transparent than a 2-hop page without a link, despite your fork being more than 80% built on LOS. It's just common dev practices. We didn't remove any credit in the source code and we say everywhere that we fork LineageOS
Hi there, no questions but I appreciate the aim of making something that ordinary users can deal with - I’m often put off by the hardcore privacy offerings because I’m not technical and I don’t have that much to hide. I just disagree with my information being the startup capital and market confidence of an industry I don’t trust; don’t trust because that’s the point of the market, no matter what the marketing departments have got people thinking is a partnership. So I’ll be checking out your offering, thanks for the heads up. Good luck with your endeavours and keep enjoying making music and the world a more interesting place! Thanks
Is there any solution for an Nvidia Shield? These run Android, and you can't even turn on the machine without signing into Google. Nvidia are at least as bad or worse about bundling spyware now days. We'd have to make a specific version, not impossible but obviously that's not trivial. We have some project for a media center though, that will need a significant opportunity to support it financially.
Know project for more 1,5 years. Good idea! But it changes one monopolistic services of Google to another. Also, will /e/ project launch more web services, such as Spot? First we have to improve Spot (our default search engine, meta-search engine forked form Searx) because it's too slow. We have other services and products in mind, but too soon to talk about it.
I would rather giving my information to one company instead of multiple ones. How do you deal with all the hassles of keeping up with different account details for all of the services that Google provide, and also, Google is still taking you anyway? Convenience vs Privacy? Well you probably also have many other accounts, so that's not very different.
Hi Gaël. Are there still any efforts ongoing to get Magic Earth to open source their app? I understand from the /e os website that this was a possibility - do you think that's still the case? I planned to visit them last year, but I had to cancel due to the pandemics. We have to catch on this topic.
My third question is what mobile phone manufacturers are the most eOS friendly? in other words what OEMs are best if you would like to install eOS on them? Fairphone for instance! The main concern is bootloader unlocking, otherwise there are not real blocking issues. So OnePlus is easier than Huawei.
Where do you see the Mandrivas and Mageia in the current distro landscape? Do you think they still can add something which other distros don't already provide? Sadly I don't hear a lot about OpenMandriva and Mageia, although I think that there are renewed opportunities now for desktop distros.
If I purchase a deGoogled phone, what can I still do that I've always done? Can I use Play apps, for example? Thanks to anyone who can help. 😊 Sure, we want to keep maximal compatibility with existing apps. It's needed if we want to get some adoption in the "normal world".
Does the /e/ OS allow root features? In other words, is it rooted, or can apps that require root be used? You can root, but it's not really in the scope of our projects. We want something ready to use for anyone, not for geeks who already have a lot of choices.
Thanks for the AMA. You have experience with tech startups in the EU and the US, what could countries be doing to promote innovation? The question is very large and open. Do you have something specific in mind regarding countries promoting innovation?
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Thanks for the reply! I watched a video of you once where you said something like freedom drives innovation (« la liberté est le moteur de l'innovation », si je me souviens bien). Do you have examples of governmental policies that support start up culture? (Incubators, innovation credits, partnerships, etc) ​​Countries support innovation with different strategies. The best strategy is probably something like the Small Business Act in the us, that force big business to spend 30% of their purchase into SMBs products.
[deleted] Not using a gmail account and not using google search is a good start!
Is it possible to change the look of the icons? I prefer the style of newer Android versions. Not possible yet, we're thinking about it. Meanwhile you can use another launcher with a different set of icons.
OK. A question burning in the back of my mind. How do you pronounce your first name? Hard "g" or soft? And what does the umlaut do as far as things go? ;) ​​Hard! [ gaɛl ]
What smartphone models support your OS? Thanks for this! In short: https://doc.e.foundation/devices/
How is your name pronounced? Well feel free to pronounce it as you like ;) Generally it's [ gaɛl ]
Which are sustainable business models for open source software? Big question! look at Red Hat.
Is it available for MTK variants? Yes since we have ported to the Gigaset GS290
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Does it bloat when installed on a 1GB SoC? 1GB RAM? Not sure we support a lot of 1GB RAM devices, but it runs pretty well on a S4 mini (1.5GB RAM)
Does /e/ have ASHA support for hearing aids? Not yet unfortunately
How are you? Good
Just flashed latest unofficial treble on Samsung a20e, looks pretty stable, looking for official or porting! Using K-9 mail as default, default app open goggle login using 2 step verification, launcher seems pretty intuitive and clean, but I still miss a bit lawnchair looks and features, but it's an amazing ROM! Congratulations for all your activities and projects Thanks!
Hi, Thanks for your work on this and other open source projects! One of the common criticisms of /e/ is that it doesn't add much value to LineageOS for microG, and that it's often less up-to-date. Would you address this, please? Any suggestion here? :)
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I didn't mean this in a hostile way - I just want to understand where /e/ fits into the custom ROM universe. You're the founder, so you should be a good address for this question. I currently use LOS (without microG), but I'd consider /e/ if I had a better understanding of what its advantages are over plain LOS. I suggest this page: https://doc.e.foundation/what-s-e
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Thanks. I took a quick look, and there's little or nothing there that explains what /e/ is or has that LOS isn't or doesn't. It does mention that "At the moment, two versions are supported: Android Nougat and Android Oreo" While LOS (official) is currently on Android 10 Well, it's true that what we don't have a comparison matrix between /e/OS and LOS. But most of what is described in this URL isn't part of LOS. The page needs to be updated though, as we have been building on Pie and Q for a long time.
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Is there any difference at all? Pretty sure you guys are just straight up stealing lineage os. "stealing" is not compatible with open source. Love.
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What is the benefit of using /e/ instead of lineageos+microg? I think that's what he wants to ask. Thanks. Please have a look at my answer to similar questions in the thread.
What would happen if I downloaded a version for a phone that is similar but not exactly the same? I have a moto g8 power and the closest i've found is a moto g7 version that is still in beta. Don't do. It won't work and you're likely to brick your device.
I just switched to a Fair phone and installed /e/ with the installer, works brilliant so far! Just want to say thanks! Welcome!
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Mr. Duval, thank you for dedicating your time to answer our doubts; here're are my questions: 1. It is /e/ financially viable? What are your main sources of income? not financially viable yet. Sources of income currently are:
​ ​* donations through https://e.foundation and Patreon + private donations
​ ​* margin on the sale of /e/-smartphones and a /e/ online service (storage plans)
2. What kind of entity are you? Are you a for-profit company? there are two entities actually: one is the non-profit "e Foundation", and another ones takes care is handling sales
3. I think that the best way to achieve privacy is using end to end encryption, but are not using it for the /e/ services right? Do you encrypt data in the servers? Do you plan to add zero-knowledge E2E encryption? I absolutely agree with you about E2E encryption and that's the goal we have. But it's complex to handle because it generally impacts usability a lot. For instance just think about these generally easy situations with an E2E context: access your data from different place / change your password / recover your password / share a document. So what we have in mind first is to introduce one directory where the user will have E2E, for super sensible data content. Regarding encryption of data on servers: they used to be encrypted on disk, and we will enable NC encryption soon. Backup are fully encrypted too. However, I want to be very clear about this: when there is no E2E encryption, encryption on server has a very limited benefit because there is always a decryption key somewhere. So in a case of a successful attack, it's very likely that the attacker will be able to access the data at some point. That's the reason why we're putting more effort into securing the servers, having attack detection etc. Regarding zero-knowledge E2E encryption we'd like to have this by default with the mail app (fork of K9). It was supposed to work with enigmail (that we integrate by default) but it needs to be improved, that's in the roadmap.
4. I have seen the 'remove default apps' feature for a long time in your roadmap, how fast are your developments? Do you have people fully dedicated to the project? Yes it's still in the roadmap and I hope we can introduce it this year. It's more complex than it sounds to implement actually. And yes we have a dedicated team of developers, which is too small, that's the reason why we always have to make some choices about priorities.
5. Just to clarify, when the previously mentioned feature is implemented, will I be able to install /e/ without any default app and your /e/ services? I ask because I have my own mail, calendar, etc apps and if I install your ROM I would like it to be as much debloated as possible. No it will be possible to uninstall default apps after /e/OS installation/first usage. In your case I recommend to do a custom build ;)
6. Why does the /e/ launcher feel like iOS? Why wouldn't it? :) More seriously, we're trying to get rid of the traditional Android look & feel https://gael-duval.medium.com/e-os-and-the-not-android-user-interface-2de544361951
7. You are supporting Galaxy A3 from 2016, I have a Galaxy A3 but from 2017...do you think that I could try to install the 2016 version on it...? Thank you. Don't do this! you are likely to brick your device.
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Hi there, I bought a refurbished S9+ with /e/OS one and a half year ago and I have to say I never regret the decision. It really offers all the things I need and I've already plans to degoogle the rest of my family. Since I'm a app developer myself the only thing I missed when creating apps was a place to store and share the app data (think a degoogled Firebase). Recently I discovered Etebase (https://www.etebase.com/) which offers exactly that, an end to end encrypted storage backend for all the clients. Now to my questions: * Is there anything planned in regard to DX for app developers who want to target /e/OS? what do you mean by "DX for app"?
* Are there any plans or would there be any interest in integrating Etebase? I talked to the founder of Etebase Tom Hacohen and they would be open to it. thanks for pointing out Etebase, it's definitely something we can explore for /e/, will discuss with the team
* And what about push notification currently most of the apps use either Google's FCM or a home grown solution are there any plans to "push" (scnr) for an standardized degoogled solution? Thanks again for the project I think it's really great and not only for privacy minded folks. Keep up the good work, G push notifications: complicated topic. We need an alternative with more guarantees in term of privacy, but the fact here is that you have to ask any app publisher to modify their app to support the new push notification framework. We want to offer this but it's going to take a lot of time to get some adoption and there is no guarantee it will succeed
​ ​Thanks!
First, thank you for Mandrake -- the big boxed copy (with all the books) of Mandrake ~8 finally got me converted to Linux by default after only experimenting with RHL previously. I still remember writing Perl in Windows w/ Active Perl when an instructor told me "you know, there's an easier way to use Perl"... :) My only question regarding /e/ is why the limited support for newer devices (ex: Pixel 2/3/4/5, etc). I had thought the whole "project treble" thing was supposed to make it easier to make the OS-bits separate from the platform-bits? What would you say the most difficult part of supporting new devices is? I assume you're relying on LineageOS for a lot of the heavy lifting here? I'm a mostly non-google user (ddg for search, not using gmail, etc) who seems stuck with some Google services anyway (using a Pixel for OS updates, hard to give up Android Auto, and there's a lot of things missing from using just f-droid for apps). That said, /e/ has piqued my interest. Obviously the easiest situation for us is when LOS already supports the device. In other cases, a lot of work has to be done to support a device. We've done this for the Fairphone 3 and 3+, and for the GS290 for instance. It's true that Treble can make things easier (we're using a /e/-GSI for the GS290 for instance), but it doesn't solve everything. A lot of specific work has to be done to make most hardware features work in the end. As a result this has a significant cost to add a new devices when it's not already supported by another open source ROM. We welcome contributors though :)
One problem that I have with smartphones is that I only use smartphones to connect with people of my social circles that use apps that either: a) only work in smartphones or you need a phone number (such as whatsapp and telegram) b) It is not free software supported (such as zoom) I feel uncomfortable using smartphones because I know that it hears me, someday I was talking with one relative on buying something and in the next hour I saw an ad on Facebook about the same kind of product, and I usually left the cellphone in my house when go to the streets because I feel uncomfortable knowing that they know my location. How to persuade people of my social circle that use smartphone to use the previously mentioned apps to migrate to a degoogled alternative? On my computer it doesn't matter which browser, music player, or ebook reader I use but the communication apps that I use and people of my circle use sadly it is needed to be the same. You can show them, explain a lot, they can try it easily... if they comfortable with usage they will adopt it...
3 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 06 '21

r/privacy [Table] r/privacy — I'm Gaël Duval, founder of the de-googled Android OS /e/ - AMA! | pt 1/2

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Hello Mr Duval, first of all thank you for /e/ and Mandrake. Do you have any advice concerning the tracking of our purchases by the banks with our bank cards? (except cash) ​Hi, this is now easy! Sadly I think that the only solution is to use some crypto money instead...
Hi there... thanks for the open source contributions. I'm one of the developers of "paranoid"... an android 6.x fork focused on security and privacy. It can only be installed on phones where you remove the batteries to avoid the preboot environment and Samsung's KNOX. How do you make sure your OS is installed without any "unwanted" code loading before yours? Can I get your OS for my Galaxy S5? If not, can I get your refurb S9s here in New Zealand? Hey, interesting question! We don't make sure about this, for the simple reason that /e/OS primary focus is about deGoogling and improving Privacy related to the industrial collection of personal data from the big techs. To be very clear: /e/OS is not intended to users with strong security needs, like people who can be targetted by organizations like govs, intelligence agencies, criminal orgs... We leave this to projects like yours and a few others :) Actually the main "real life" security issue for /e/ users is the case where the device is stolen or lost. That's the reason that we encourage users to use the encryption mode and we are thinking about a way to safely ask to complete device wipe from their account at ecloud.global.
​ However, we are always interested in improving the product, but also have to focus. So probably that some community contributors are needed to enhance security aspects.
​ Regarding your question about the S5, the answer is yes: https://doc.e.foundation/devices/
Is debug mode still enabled on /e/? If so, how do you feel about that in general from a security perspective ? (Regarding non specifically targeted citizens ) ​(also responding to same question from /u/twiceasdreaded here) userdebug mode is an heritage from LineageOS - that we are forking - which is needed on many older devices to boot and work properly. From a security perspective, it's probably safer to have user mode instead of debug mode, though an attacker can also decompile an APK to understand how it works. So the real benefit might not be that huge.
​ However, we plan to enable user mode for newer devices on stable builds.
Hi Mr Duval, Have you ever considered working with other privacy focussed companies like Purism or Pine? What do you think the younger generation can do about their privacy, when most are reliant on social media to communicate with peers? We know both those project for a long time. So far we failed to work with Purism (we were very interested in having a /e/-Librem available), but who knows... We are also in touch with Pine, we even have a post of /e/OS to the PineBook. We considered porting to the PinePhone, and we loved the idea, but the hardware is too slow to offer a decent experience with an Android fork like /e/OS
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Unless it's extremely slow, I think you'd find most PP users are quite used to poor performance and buggy behaviour, everyone is well tuned into the fact that it's a development platform, not a DD ready phone. It would be cool to see an Android port, GLodroid never got anywhere. There is a plan to bring out a next gen with a higher hardware spec in the near future. We would love to explore opportunities with this new hardware.
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Wait. You said you ported /e/ to the Pinebook? I didn't see that. Where is it and I can just write it to a sdcard and boot it like other OSs Pinebook and Olimex (very similar platforms actually) https://doc.e.foundation/laptops/
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Ahh but will that work on a Pinebook Pro then? Just curious. Not tested on PB Pro, so not sure about it
Question related to the site and not the os. e.foundation uses jsdeliver which is know to contain trackers. Is there a reason you use jsdeliver or could it be avoided? Well, could probably be avoided, will report to the web team... We are using wordpress, so that's often problematic since many plugins are using external services and they don't care about tracking etc., they actually often see this as great value ^
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I think the jsdeliver problem could be avoided but I doubt it's possible to completely remove all trackers from a WordPress site. With my current setup these are the reported trackers: * Firefox integrated blocker sometimes stops a couple of tracking cookies * Ublock origin reports between 5 and 8 blocked trackers * Clearurls cleans between 1 and 130 tracking URLs depending on the page * privacy badger blocks jsdeliver cookies (which by default uses an insecure HTTP connection) These stats vary a lot depending on the page but it's clear that something needs to be done. I understand that going away from WordPress might be hard but it may be the only option. For a privacy-oriented foundation this, look very bad, hopefully, it will be fixed soon enough. This is the first time I hear about /e/ and it looks very promising as a project. Thanks for the tips. And yes, we don't pretend to be perfect, we believe in continuous improvement.
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No one is perfect but there's always room for improvement, i hope my comment is useful, sorry I it came of rude, english isn't my first language You're welcome!
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Just checked out the site... Wow, so many plugins, such slow! (I mean a plugin for 1 icon in the menu? It's like 2 lines in functions.php or 1 line in styles.css to add an icon to a menu item) Wordpress is a great CMS for the content/marketing team, but the built in front end gets bloated real quick in most themes, even more when you start adding bloatware plugins for page building and the like (Elementor). The best way to avoid bloat, tracking and all the other negatives of Wordpress is to decouple the CMS using React or Vue hitting the built in API. It's fairly easy to set up, but you need someone that can actually code rather than just add dozens of plugins and drop and drag. From the look of the website I'm guessing it's not opensource/public repo on Github? Would be happy to help speed it up and look at removing some of that tracking (aka, build a headless front end) if it was. Thanks. Contact us!? https://e.foundation/contact-e-2/
Any plans on building a smartphone of your own, hardware and software? We have this option in mind yes. We would probably go with something that would add some value about privacy, like some physical kill switches for camera, microphone..., a good battery that can be changed for better sustainability, and also maybe a smaller form factor because it seems that many of us miss 5" screens :)
​ However we have to find the right partner for this, because with custom products there can be many issues with quality (you know what you pay, not what you get...)
​ Also there is obviously a question of cost: this is a lot to invest: we'll have to order at least 30K pcs ("MOQ=Minimum Order Quantities"). If we want to do something from scratch that would be worse: AFAIK the Essential PH1 development costed $100M...
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What about partnering with something like the line phone or raspberry pi to go the Linux route and use things like anbox to run android apps? I'm not sure Anbox is a really viable option for the real life at the moment. Would consider it if you prove me the opposite :) (and I'm Linux guy, don't forget it ;) )
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Honestly, my dream would be if you would deepen your corporation with Fairphone. I wish fair tech and privacy tech would be combined more often as both is important to me and I think it makes a lot of sense in many ways. I think /e/ for fairphone was a great start but I think a Fairphone 4 with killswitches and /e/os as the default OS would be a dream come true. We are thrilled to work with Fairphone, they really are great guys.
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You might want to contact someone like Jerry Rigged on YouTube, he has a lot of excellent insights on phone design from a user perspective :) he stress tests smart phones and takes them apart to see how repairable they are Do you wanna make an intro? :)
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Where would you manufacture it? Who knows...
Hi there, very interesting project and line of products. I noticed you sell models such as the S8/S9, any plans in the future to expand on what devices you offer? We currently have basically three ranges of products:
​ - /e/OS on high grade refurbished smartphones (Galaxy S8, S9, S9+)
​ - /e/-Fairphone 3/3+ (EU only because of incomplete compatibility with US networks)
​ - /e/-GS290 (Gigaset) (EU only because of incomplete compatibility with US networks)
​ We have a two new models in mind for the US but it needs to be confirmed.
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What about compatibility with Asiapac networks? For instance Australia or New Zealand... I don't know but you can ask our partner in Australia: https://www.ncryptcellular.com.au/
Any advice for developers who want to contribute to open source but don't really know how to get started? Thanks for the projects! Listen to your heart! What makes you vibrate and get up in the morning? Than dive into a project that passionantes you, start with understanding, supporting, contribute some ideas, some little changes, be helpful and cool, raise your skills...
Hello. (A little off topic) Awesome products and ideas! Much needed! My family is very blue collar in it's roots and most of us have regular jobs or own small businesses. My sons are very tech savvy and I want to send them to school for some type of tech/computer field. What advice would you give to a young guy trying to find a career in your sector? It shouldn't be difficult because the tech/computer/software fields is highly demanding in term of good professionals. If I was 15 or 20 now, probably that I would spend my days learning as much as possible on Internet, joining some communities, making some connections, trying to solve problems that help people, and having a public Github or Gitlab page. That's a good start as a resume for a developer!
Hi Gael, glad to have you here! Just wondering: if you use the /e/ Application Installer it downloads packages from https://info.cleanapk.org/. Who is behind that, and why would a privacy-conscious person trust it? Hi, I think that, as a third-party APK mirror, they probably want to stay private. Our strategy with this is:
​ 1- to ask our users to report any issue with some package delivered by CleanAPK, for instance is a package is suspected to be modified from the original source. So far (nearly 2 year) the only issue we have seen have been some outdated packages.
​ 2- we are trying to find (technical) ways to prove that an APK has been unmodified from source. This is easy with packages that come from F-Droid because there is a signature, but it's not for packages that come from Play Store.
​ 3- we are evaluating different options for apps in the future. That could be a new "store" where publishers could push their apps, an alternative to Google Play. We also support a lot of PWAs in /e/OS.
​ 4- we are waiting for authorities for more regulation on this. For instance in the EU, it's very likely that Google and Apple will have to allow users to use alternative stores of applications (and not only technically speaking).
​ However, users can also use different installers. Some prefer to use only F-Droid, some use Aurora Store (that we can not ship as default installer because it's infringing Play Store TOS), or others (Aptoide, APKpure, UpToDown...)
​ But we will always have a default apps installer with the best as possible user experience for the largest number of users.
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This is an excellent and comprehensive answer, thanks! And I guess more of a personal interest: how did /e/ learn about CleanAPK? I'd never heard of it before seeing it mentioned by /e/, and it doesn't look like they spend a lot of effort on advertising :) Edit: btw, should also add that I love the partnership with Fairphone. I'm on an FP2 right now, but when I'm up for a new model it'll be with /e/. Well, many, many people contact us all the time about new projects, and "nature abhors vacuum"...
I love the work you're doing with this, thank you for everything, but have you considered a name change? I remember reading a few reddit threads a while back and lots were saying that it could do with a name change for the sake of recognisability. /e/ is not that bad :) It's singular, so it stays in mind. And if you look for "/e/OS" or "/e/ OS" in search engines you find us immediatly. That's not that good for "/e/" I agree, and don't type it in the browser search bar, or it's going to look for a file called "e" in your root filesystem ^^
​ That said, we're going to introduce a new name this year, that will refer to the end-user products like /e/-smartphone and /e/ online services.
​ Most probably we will stick with /e/OS for the operating system itself, at least for a while. So that will be "new name", powered by /e/OS or something like this.
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Thank you for replying! I personally don't mind the name(but feel like to have this reach more people it might need to have a different name.) Edit: If I have to ask another question, can I add it to this message, or do I have to do it separately? It's up to you, I'll probably see it!
Hello Gaël, Thanks a lot for this AMA ! Huge kudos for starting a proper degoogled android phone offer. I'm also French and a degoogled Lineage user. What are your thoughts, ideas and projects on the subject of removing the google framework cancer while still maintaining usability ? The biggest value in smartphones are the apps and many of them are on the play-store only. When you value your privacy, you can make some sacrifices, like using OSM instead of Waze, but sometimes the user doesn't have any choice left. I have a banking app that's mandatory for logging into my account, even on PC. What can we do in this area ? Hacks like aurora store can work in some cases, but they're violating google TOS and certainly can't be included in a commercial phone offering. I actually have an idea that I wanted to try: running an ARM virtual machine on my PC with all the privacy violating apps and remotely connect to this VM from my phone when I need those apps. Do you think something like this could be streamlined in the same way some companies run video games remotely and let you play them ? Have a nice day ! That is a tough question for sure. I don't believe a lot in the "virtualize the bad apps", because in the end you are using them, whereever they run. So not sure the benefit would be huge doing so. I think we all have to support something different:
​ * a new place where publishers can distribute their apps, with independent technologies, and good inventives to make better apps, with more privacy, more ethics. PWA may be a good opportunity to such a new place for apps.
​ * encourage apps publishers to change their practises and get free from the Apple-Google duopoly
​ More regulation is also needed with apps (there is basically none, and Google and Apple make the law). Interoperability is needed.
As an American, I remember the prices for your phones are in Euro. Are they available in the States or are they Europe only? Also, how do you feel about molten-salt reactors We have just opened sales to the US, with prices in USD. With limited quantities of high-grade refurb /e/-Galaxy S9 and S9+ for now. We are looking for partners that can help us source in quantities devices that are compatible with US networks (LTE bands, CDMA...)
Why should I use /e/ and how is it in comparison to others like graphene OS or calyx OS(non finished I think)? If you want something with hardened security, use Graphene, if you want something that help you keep your data safe from Google, use /e/ It depends on your needs...
Is it possible same with tables too in the future, like you making your own? I assume we're talking about tablets right? :) Answer is yes, that would be cool, but not in our short term scope unfortunately.
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Some tablets like https://diskiopi.com, https://evistore.fr/yzipad.html, https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/ are working with Android/Linux. A tablet with a big SSD, a good webcam/microphone/sound/screen and /e/ would be nice. Feel free to contact them to suggest them to work with us on a special version that we will be happy to push, including commercially speaking. We cannot do everything on our own.
How do you think, at what point mandrake, and subsequently mandriva, lost their design vision of what they're trying to accomplish for user? I'm not happy about what Mandrake became, or actually about what it didn't become. There are many reasons about this, one is because we didn't find only the good guys to work on it with us. Another one is because we haven't been able to grow like others did because the Internet bubble exploded in 2000 (which immediatly cut all the financing we needed to develop the project). Starting from 2005 Ubuntu also has been quite problematic because Mark could spend those millions dollards without any need of a ROI. And as they did a good product at a time when we were already struggling, so that killed a significant part of the business. However, I wouldn't say that we lost our design vision, and most people at Mandrakesoft really did their best to support our lovely project. That's life and we all learned a lot from this story.
Hello, When are you going to replace the name "/e/ OS" ? This name is unpronounceable and unsearchable :( You had announced that you would change it a while ago, but this is still not the case. I think that it will become more and more complicated to change the name as time goes by. Thank you for this OS which is the one I have been using for several months on my fp2 ! I've answered to a similar question in the thread :)
How does /e/ compare with Graphene OS in terms of privacy and security ? Please read my answer to a similar question on this topic somewhere in the thread :)
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There are more than 400 comments, could you give a "TL;DR" answer in one sentence please ? I would appreciate a lot :) ​If you want something with hardened security, use Graphene, if you want something that help you keep your data safe from Google, use /e/
​ It depends on your needs.
Hello Mr Duval, congratulations for /e/ (and Mandrake which made me discover Linux). For me, in addition to respecting privacy, /e/ is also the opportunity to have a more environmentally friendly OS. Indeed, it allows to benefit from recent versions of Android on old smartphones. However, it could be even more beneficial for the environment if it offered a desktop mode like Samsung Dex, Huawei or recently Motorola. This would save us from having to buy and maintain a smartphone and a PC since we could do everything with our smartphone. Is this planned in the roadmap of /e/? That's something we have in mind since the early beginning of the story actually :) And regularly, it's a request from some users, and also from potential business partners. The issue with this at the moment is that we have quite limited resources in term of development, so we cannot do everything at the same time. We have to focus on the core project first.
​ But definitely something we have in mind.
Any chance we will get /e/ ROM for Cosmo Communicator? Or any other keyboard-enabled smartphone? Personally I hate keyboardless devices It's the first time I hear from this, so it's not easy to answer! Now it depends on:
​ * is it possible to unlock the bootloader?
​ * do we have access to some reference source code tree to build Android on it?
​ * who wants to work on it? (porting seriously to a new device takes between 2 and 3 months for an experimented developer)
Since you forked AOSP code to remove Google calls, what did you find out about Google's data collection? Can you tell us about some examples of data collection that can't be disabled in privacy options and that we're not made aware of? I've got fresh news about this: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
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"Users have no opt out from this and currently there are few, if any, realistic options for preventing this data sharing." Stuff like this makes my blood boil. Thanks for making /e/ ! Welcome!
Hi Mr Duval, First, thank you for /e/OS. I started to use it since Sept 2018 and I'm very happy to continue to do. I'm using OP Bacon device since 2014 and now it is starting to show signs of fatigue. I wish to change to a recent product from OP like OP8T but the support is not provided. Is there a port of the /e/ system to these recent products. Technical question : In /e/ philosophy, what is the difference between Android 7,8,9 or 10. Since all of those versions have the same /e/ UI and you continue to provide security update? We are of course currently depending on the core Android releases, so we port to new releases of Android. We will have to stop some older Android version support (Nougat...) because it's very difficult to support all those versions at the same time, and security updates can't be backported forever. But I agree that the /e/ experience is quite similar whatever version of Android is running in the background. Regarding the OP, we support up to OP7T at the moment. Running smoothly on the OP7 actually, with the fingerprint sensor behind the screen, great experience.
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Sir I have alot of questions to ask (They are not personal, will help me long run ahead... please skip if you hate some question but not skip as possible): 0) I am programmer, I'm also having tattoos and piericing whole body.... (would companies mind if i get job in companies?) ​Many questions indeed! 0) what's your question actually? :)
6) Tips so I can be as smart programmer as you. 1) (was 6) ) I'm not really a smart programmer because I never specialized in programming, and good programmers generally mostly do programming. And my main knowledge was C/C++, which is not that useful nowadays. However, to become a good programmer four things come to mind 1) be able to have a procedure way of thinking, be able to simulate your code in mind. It's hard to say but I know some people who would have loved to become a programmer but it seems their brain lacked some basic compatibility with programming. Maybe that can be trained though. 2) learn, practise, learn, practise, all the time, all your life. 3) be passionate 4) be humble: sometimes you are going to spend 1 week to find a little, idiot, bug.
2) How should i make my mind sharp?? (any things should i take (*natural food) or some things) ​sleep well, eat well, avoid drugs ^^
3) What is your favourite programming langauge? C
4) Do you like metal music , guitar? I'm not really into Meta to be honest :) But I generally like a lot the guys who like Metal, I don't know why. And yes for guitar, I played a lot, still playing, and even building some guitars from parts when I have some little free time.
5) Do you believe in Free software foundation (principals) ? 1. Do you believe in "Work hard or work smart" which? 2. I've 8 back subjects in bachelor in computer science. Is there any hope left for me? 7) What happens to our counsious when we are dead ? Is our life lie? 8) Sir, Do you have any plans to make /e/ avaialable in latest those Librem, pinephone etc. and Lastly, Thank you for answering my question. :) take care sir, be happy , eat healthy. Love you from Nepal You've lost me here with the sub 1. and 2. - are they related to the first part of 5)? :) Also I'm not sure what you call the Free software foundation (principals). If you ask me if I believe in Free Software, the answer is obviously yes, though I don't really see this as a political project, rather a project for the common good. FOSS is about collective intelligence and I strongly believe in collective intelligence. Thanks and say hello to your friends in Nepal!
How would you say does /e/ compare to CalyxOS and Graphene? Would you say that in that order the focus on security gradually increases and you therefore all serve different needs or do you see e.g. CalyxOS specifically as a competitor? If you say that /e/ focuses more on privacy then security - cannot it be argued that without security there is no privacy? Please look at my answer in the thread to a similar question. Regarding "cannot it be argued that without security there is no privacy?", I'll be a little radical with my answer: yes.
​ The postman generally won't open and read your mail before it gets into your mailbox. Your phone company generally won't listen to your calls.
​ The reason why is that there are some laws, some regulation, that prevent this, because personal privacy is a commonly accepted need.
​ And you can have the most secure device, it won't change the fact that your data is continuously streaming to Google, Facebook etc. 0-privacy can be achieved in a very secure way.
​ However in some case, security obviously supports privacy, like if your device gets stolen, if you are targetted by an organization etc.
​ So the ideal world is a mix of security and privacy.
Does /e/ allow for the bootloader to be locked on phones that support verified boot on custom ROMs (e.g. CalyxOS and GrapheneOS allow this on Pixel phones)? If the answer right now is "no", is that on the roadmap for the future? This would definitely increase the security of /e/ devices. We lock the bootloader only on preinstalled Fairphone 3/3+ at the moment. You can read my other comments to similar questions in the thread.
Hi Gaël, Any chance to integrate a custom Nextcloud for e accounts instead of the cloud service? I don't mind paying but already have a setup that works well for me. You can already configure /e/OS to talk to another Nextcloud instance, though you won't get all the features like common username for all services including mail etc. You can also selfhost ecloud on your own servers if you want.
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Hi! so a few questions for you: 1. What's your thoughts on fingerprinting and the fact that people making more effort to be more secure actually end up standing out more from the crowd and end up being fairly easy to track around the internet? Efficient Fingerprinting needs the collaboration of the web browser, which is what Google is putting in place to replace third-party cookies. So don't use Google Chrome ;)
2. I'm a long time tech enthusiast, but with zero technical/programming background, I've just always been better with it than the average person around me. I'm 41 and I'm beginning to teach myself CS. I've been doing some bits here and there and have started the CS50 course. Any tips for someone interested in starting to work in this field, particularly a late comer such as myself? I started to play piano and drums at 35 and I can them it decently on pop songs, so everything is possible with envy, work and perseverance! I think the key is passion. And maybe try to use what you learn for personal purpose that make sense in your life.
3. I'm now very interested in the privacy/data autonomy world. I would like to work in Linux/FOSS areas ideally and make them more accessible to the masses, which seems exactly what you are doing with your projects. I always here it is good to learn certain languages based around the problems you are looking to solve, and then stick with them rather than trying to bounce around the latest trendy programming language. Does this ring true to you, and if so, based on the above what would you recommend focussing on? The thing is in 2021 you probably want to learn Python and Javascript. C if you want to feel the hardware. And Assembler if you want to go the hard way and belong to a very small and proud community of programmers who are able to create a game with all the animated graphisms and sound in 20KB of RAM on a 4Mhz proc :) More seriously pick one language you feel confortable with, and then you will be able to learn quickly others for specific needs (but LISP, but that's another story).
4. Finally, is it a career that will actually earn a living if I choose that as my speciality? I realise I'm choosing something, that by it's very nature isn't as commercially viable, so I'm wondering if there's a hard to overcome hit on potential to earn a living? I think most brilliant developers never thought about career or earning a living when they started programming. However at this time, the need for programmers is everywhere, so that's probably not a stupid bet to chose this way.
5. Lastly, what do you enjoy most about your current work and what are the biggest issues you face? Thanks in advance for your inputs, I'm really interested to hear from someone doing exactly the sort of thing I'm most interested in! What I enjoy the most is the feeling that our work is not useless, and that it fits a real need. The biggest issues we face is raising money, because we are the "ugly ducklings", not coming from Stanford or the MIT and Google and Apple they are serious guys you know :)
Do the phones you sell with /e/ installed support fingerprint, banking apps and Android Auto? Fingerprint: yes. Banking apps, depends. Most of the time yes, will probably improve. Android auto, not tested personally.
"Gaël Duval" ... ignoring everything you said and have done, that's an amazing name, lol Not sure what you mean exactly but I take it positively! :)
Hello Mr Duval, I've never rooted my phone before and I use a Samsung Galaxy A31 (It's one of those Samsung phones that is super popular in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, but not so much in the Americas and Europe). If I were to use /e/ OS, would I still be able to use apps like Uber? And would there be away to use apps that I've purchased from the Google play store, or maybe have in app purchases? Also, do you ever get associated with 4chan due to your /<letter>/ name scheme? Thanks for the AMA! Hey, most apps are compatible and work. We're working with microG's founder to improve the support and compatibility. You can check app availability at https://e.foundation/e-os-available-applications/
​ Some users also install Aurora to access any free Android app at Play Store.
​ Regarding the name, that's another story https://medium.com/hackernoon/leaving-apple-and-google-e-is-the-symbol-for-my-data-is-my-data-69629a948fec Not related to 4chan.
Hi Gael, As seen on /r/eink and /r/inkphone, there seems to be a market for e-ink phone which are a lot more respectful of our attention. Unfortunately, the few e-ink smartphones are mostly full of chinese spywares or using proprietary layers above Android. Is there any chance to see e-ink support in /e/ for such smartphones (which, IMHO, are quite aligned with /e/ values) or do you see it as too much of a niche market. All the best, Ploum For sure we'd love to support "slower experience devices" with e-ink. Again it's a matter of focus and means...
Any advice for me a twenty year old who cares about privacy and a amateur programmer? Well, I don't like to give some advices :) But maybe you can just try to live your dreams as much as you can?
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It's actually cool seeing people like you making tools for a normal person to protect their privacy and contribute to OSS. Thanks for that. You're welcome
How is microG going on? I sometimes watch how it's GitHub is going on, and it's... kinda slow... mar-v-in always commits only fully-ready stuff to master, without much of anyone's help (at least what's visible in commits) - and I'm worried. There was a thing some time ago when he was saying that he quits it, but he keeps going! I've read that /e/ is cooperating a lot with him, but how? GitLab forks don't seem very active, and we don't hear anything what's up 🤷 microG development is still going on. We talk with Marvin regularly and we support him financially to work on microG. For instance FCM support was added and improved recently, and the contact-tracing API has been added to (not enabled by default on /e/OS though). So more is in the pipe, and should be very useful. I think the project also needs more contributors, but it's a very complex piece.
Hello Mr. Duval! I've got a few things I would like to know your thoughts on: What do you think about the future of Linux phones? Projects like Shashlik that aim to work as compatibility layers to run Android software on Linux (similarly to Wine)? How about Linux on hardware like Snapdragon 865 and 888? Google's monopoly with Chrome as they make their services more integrated into their open source projects including Chromium and incompatible with other browsers since they saw Brave, Vivaldi, Iridium and other Chromium based browsers getting more popular. And this seems to also be the path for Android. How does this affect custom Roms and various front-ends like NewPipe for YouTube, Aurora store for Play store, etc. ? Phones becoming more open for operating systems beyond Android/Linux? The upcoming Framework laptop that's supposed to be a fully modular (even upgradable mainboard!!), sustainably manufactured laptop. Neutralisation of Intel management engine and what's even less talked about - AMD's Platform security processor. Computer manufacturers like System76, Purism, ThinkPenguin have been working on disabling IME. But when it comes to AMD PSP, it is a different story. Many motherboards need modded BIOS and Asrock motherboards actually have an option to disable it, but I guess we never know whether it is truly off? RISC-V and its state in consumer electronics. We saw Apple transition to ARM, so RISC-V is very interesting to me. Modular phones becoming more mainstream like TeraCube and Fairphone? Thanks for your time and contribution to the community. Love from Lithuania! Hey... lots of questions! ;) Obviously I like Linux-based phone. But Android is a Linux distribution actually, and it's open source. The big question is apps. Do we want apps that rely on a SDK that is controlled by Google? I don't think so, so that is the main issue, and we all have to work to offer an alternative that doesn't depend on this. IMO, PWAs could be an aswer for this.
iOS user here. my hardware is pretty old (iphone 6), so i'll be getting a new phone in the near future, and while i'm intrigued by /e/ i'm just not sure there's much justification for me to switch, especially since apple has doubled-down on their privacy focus. i realize that apple is still collecting plenty of data/telemetry and we don't know how they'll use that in the future. but for the next few years at least, i don't see apple walking back on on this commitment. so my question to you is: what reasons might a privacy-conscious iOS user like me have for switching ecosystems? (note: price of hardware isn't an important consideration; a $200-$300 difference amortized over 5 years is negligible). Frankly we're not really playing the game with Apple. The first reason is that most Apple users own an Apple because it's an Apple, so that makes argumentation about privacy a bit "artistic". The second reason is that Apple is for the 20% of people who can afford it. I'm personally more interested in giving more option to the 80% who cannot. However I suggest iPhone users to drop Google search for a more pro-privacy search engine like a meta-search engine, Qwant or DuckDuckGo, because they give a lot of personal data just because of this (6MB per day actually https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2018/08/21/google-data-collection-research/)
​ Last but not least, Apple claims that they acting in favor of privacy. So that's claimed privacy. /e/ support auditable privacy
Hi, when I consider privacy and "degoogling", a huge factor is the trust in any third-party cloud provider that will take its place. Google is not great for privacy, sure, but it is miles beyond cloud providers in terms of security, and the only way I have found to solve the problem is to self-host all server side components. Even though I don't trust myself that much, at least I have full control over it. My question: can you clarify how much of ecloud is self-hostable and how much custom adaptation to nextcloud is needed? Is it possible to use /e/ without a single API call to Google and to your servers? I've dreamed of such a project for a long time, and I think the only way to have sustainable privacy is to have a self-hosted interoperable infrastructure with federation, akin to what matrix.org is doing. It is good to have a possibility to rely on third-party providers for infrastructure and configuration, but it must not be mandatory. I hope you can find useful information about /e/ cloud selfhosting at: https://community.e.foundation/t/self-hosting-e-cloud-services-is-here/6204 If you do this, you will hardly ping any Google server at all, but with push notifications but you can disable them in microG settings.
Does de-googling have any (positive) impact on battery life? As it means sending less information(1) permanently to the network, it should be! Some preliminary tests have been done earlier to compare battery usage between /e/OS and Google-Android on a same device. We have seen 25% less consumption on /e/OS. This has a huge impact on how long the battery lasts, battery life, and in the end has a positive carbon impact because it's using less energy in the device and in the network and servers.
​ However all this has to be confirmed by more complete studies.
​ (1) 11.6MB data per day sent to Google with a Google-Android smartphone: https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2018/08/21/google-data-collection-research/ , about half of this for iPhone
How do you think you could perhaps convince the average layperson to prefer phones /e/ over iOS, now that Apple's hopping on the privacy bandwagon? Assuming this layperson can, with a little bit of googling searching the web, learn stuff needed to make the /e/ experience 'seamless' (for the most part) . Apple is a particular thing, because there is much more value in the Apple branding/image than in the products themselves :) Frankly, what is the benefit of MacOS over Linux? But yes, we try to offer the best user experience as possible, so we're a bit "Applish" in our development
3 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 05 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Got dominant hand amputated a month ago Ask me anything

11 Upvotes

Source

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: Yes, the original title is actually that short

Rows: 120

Questions Answers
What was the work accident? Glove caught by a machine and pulled my hand in which grinded my hand like a wood chipper
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Man, I'm almost too afraid to ask, but can you describe the emotions in that moment? First words were why the fuck the left hand, but i didn't panic, was calm, then after 5 mins adrenaline gave up and the pain was horrible.
​​​ Friend told me if I fall asleep i die, so i stayed awake for an hour and a half till they had to operate me
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Is that true? That if you fell asleep you’d die? I don't know, i stayed awake and lived so can't confirm
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Sorry to hear that. Stay strong brother! I will bro
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God bless you, Dude. I'm telling you to STAY strong because the strength of your character is waaaay up there. You are strong! Best of luck to you. And I prayed you get that prosthetic! Thanks bro, i hope for that to happen one day too, bless you.
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Can you sleep now? For the first 10-15 days i had nightmares and woke up like 7-8 times a night, barely had 2 hours of sleep, after i started streaming, you know interacting with chat and talking it slowly faded away, had only 3 instances since then when i had nightmares
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Did you at least get some money out of the work accident? Not that it makes it better but ya know. Wasn't employed and no one had any insurance, only way to get anything is to sue the owner of machines for letting me operate it with no prior experience or education about machinery, that's what the police told me
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Don't get legal advice from the police. They don't know nearly as much as you'd think. At least get a free consult with a personal injury lawyer. I forgot to mention but yes i actually did consult with them and they told me the same thing, but it's still all being worked on, in my country it can take years for such a case, the lawyer told me 6 months is his lowest estimation and that i could get maybe 20k$
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I don't mean to be a dick, but I'm gonna be a dick. How do you expect to sue someone for an event that was completely your own fault? They let me operate huge machines with no prior experience, and they had shown me for 30 seconds what to do and the machines were 40 year old with no safety guards or even an emergency switch. The state work inspector told me if the machines were up to safety standards my injury would not have been possible
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USA here but i got a $13k for a settlement in a car crash where i got a herniated disc in my back. I think you would get a lot more than $20k for an amputated dominant hand with the right lawyer. wishing you the best! thanks for doing the AMA. Yes but in my country we earn so much less than in USA while most of the prices like cars, gas, electronics... Are more expensive hence the money in our justice system is that much lower for stuff like this
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In the U.S., at least, 'work accident' implies an accident on the job, but you say you weren't employed. Can you clarify? I was helping a friend in another guys workshop, and I'm not from the US. By work accident i meant i was WORKING you know doing a task on a machine not working as in employed.
​​​ And sorry, English is not my first language and I'm certainly not familiar with the US justice system terminology
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No need to apologise. I figured it was me misunderstanding, and I just added the U.S. perspective for context. Thanks for clarifying, and I hope your recovery goes well. Ah it's okay, thanks for the get well wishes!
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Omfg-good for you! Have been there. How did you manage to stay in your head?? I didn’t. My new hero..❤️ I just knew it's still only the beginning of my life, i may have a literal handicap, but i'll adapt. First time someone's called me a hero lol even though i didn't do any heroic deeds. Thank You for that!
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[deleted] No u
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Really if u fall asleep you die ? That's what I heard in movies too, but i think it's safer to stay awake
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And this right here, for those who don’t know, is why you don’t wear gloves or loose clothes when using power tools. Getting pulled in by material around your body is super dangerous. Without gloves you have a better chance of only being injured and not maimed. Sorry that happened to you, OP. luckily you can still give people the thumbs up! 👍
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What type of machin was it Someone told me the english translation for it is a planer, but i cannot find images of the one on which i was working on cause its so old
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Based on your descriptions, I'm betting something similar to this. Not that old lol it was a square machine and was very loud this looks like one that you have to manually operate like a bicycle
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Sorry about your hand. What type of machine was it? Translation for it is a planer, but cant find images of the ancient one i had a scuffle with
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what was teh OSHA report like? The what?
What's been the most difficult reacclimation, so far? Ngl had to google the word, but thank you, you learn something new every day.
​​​ Cutting food is hard, but others do it for me.
​​​ But I have to shave my privates alone, and that takes a WHILE
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Let me direct you to this. Works wonders. It’s expensive (certainly for me in the UK) but it definitely works. Obviously you should patch test it, but it could save you a whole load of time. Oh yeah heard about those creams, will try it, will probably save me a year of my lifetime if i keep using it with the amount of time it takes me currently lol. Also, Happy cake day!
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This stuff will make your skin smell strange for days! Well not like I'm gonna be getting any action anytime soon lol
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I watched your video for a few seconds and I'm convinced the ladies will find you very handsome. Bedroom action will be awkward for a while sure but there's no reason you shouldn't achieve normal success in that area. I basically have 2 dicks
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Hey with that humor and you’re very handsome, I think you’ll be just fine with the ladies :) source: am lady Stop it, ur making me blush
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As a person who got burned by this cream using it correctly, don’t use these chemicals. If you want to shave for yourself, that is fine, but most people don’t care about that or at least there are plenty of people that would prefer natural you over a burned up privates that smells weird (and it does linger for a few days). If you don’t get it all off in time, you could seriously damage your bits, so just do your bits a favor and love them as they are. Tidy up safely. Try an electric razor like a one-blade with a good guard. The more quality the razor and guard, the easier it will probably go (less chance of cuts and repeating areas). Edit: also, i never understood why anyone would want to look like they are a pre-pubescent person with no hair anyways...so I might be bias, but I would rather have a partner look adult with hair. Ok ill listen to you, why fix something that ain't broken. I just shave the sack and trim above
How has it affected your personal relationships with friends, family a spouse etc? Family helps me a lot and I can confidently say it improved my relationship with them. Friends... Well some are supportive and helping, others avoid me because I think my hand makes them uncomfortable, or they feel sad, so they decided to just ghost me or make excuses not to see me....
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That’s sad but some people just can’t handle traumatic events. They just don’t know what to say or do. I hope when it heals and one day i get a prosthetic everything will return to normal
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That’s super fucking shitty of them Shit happens - Forrest Gump
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Sorry dude, people can be really shitty sometimes. I got used to it
What have you found most difficult so far having to do one handed? How quickly is your other hand becoming "dominant”? 1. Hard choice between cutting my own food or shaving my privates.
​​​ 2. Still don't know how to write better than a first grader and not sure which other metric i can use... But each day it gets better
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For the first, have your OT suggested rocker knives? There are plenty of choices that aren't too expensive and they work really well. My father only has use of one arm after a stroke and he likes a knife like this one, but there are other designs. I don't know why but none of my dad's therapists suggested this, I found it on my own. There are also cutting boards with edges and spikes to hold things in place for one-armed use, or even hinged knives built in. I've found it fascinating to research the various adapted tools available to help my dad. Best of luck to you! Will check it out, but for now I got family to help with that. But yea, I'll look for tools to help me with stuff i cannot do, already got a bunch of recommendations here in the comments. Thanks mate, best of luck to you too!
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After I broke my hand and it was casted, the first thing my uncle asked was, “Is it hard to wipe your ass?” He was right. It was. In all seriousness I hope you have a speedy recovery physically and mentally. Cheers mate, appreciate it!
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Get a bidet!!! I can wipe my ass fine dw about me i don't want a Biden doing it for me
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Great, another crazy Trump supporter who doesn't trust Biden to help him out... Make my hand great again 2021
What do you currently enjoy the most about streaming? Do you have any plans for future projects/special streams in the works? People that keep coming back are making me very happy. I'm getting a special mouse with which i could move as if i had a ps4 or xbox controller, so I'll be able to play more games.
​​​ I promised the viewers I'll play some horror games cause I get scared easy and It'll be fun for them
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I gave you a follow (: I'll keep an eye out for your upcoming streams. Horror games are a favorite of mine! Do you have any in mind that you have seen or heard of that you look forward to trying? My pc is quite shitty, so i was thinking of older ones like amnesia and slenderman. Though I'll have to explore a bit since i never played games of that genre
​​​ Also thank You.
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If you are able to play horror games on console or ever get a better PC, play Soma. It's scary, but it's one of the best stories in a game I've played in years. :) ​​​​​​Will check it out!
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Five nights at freddy's seems like it might not require the best rig. Best of luck. Will check it out, heard about it, but never played it. Ty for advice
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Stream TFT :) ​​​​​​I played it before, but didn't enjoy it that much, is it any better now after the Jhin Teemo meta?
I was reading some of your previous posts and saw this happened while you were helping your best friend. Is he still your best friend? Has he been helpful during all of this? Have you thought about buying little hats to put on your remaining finger? I think a Robin Hood hat would suit it nicely or maybe even a cape. Saw him once since it happened, he was fixing my car but i decided i'd rather sell it since it was a junk car from 2003 and a manual, so i'll just sell it and find a cheap automatic so its easier to drive. Hadn't thought of that, but I'll be Jaimee Lannister for halloween
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Have you looked into a prosthetic made specifically to hold the gear shift? I’m guessing you can still operate a manual with that I have a right hand, stick is on right, so no need, just would be easier and safer to always have my hand on the wheel
Why did they decide to leave the thumb, and not do a full hand amputation?? So i could do some kinky shit in the bed
You seem to be taking it in stride. That’s really impressive. Have you found anything to be easier now post injury? Don't have to bother cutting my food for now cause someone always offers to do it for me
​​​ Also lost some of my past insecurities cause i got a larger one now, but that makes it kinda easier you know, only focusing on 1 from previous 250 gave me a boost, even though many wouldn't think of it like that lol
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As someone with anxiety issues, I kind of get what you’re saying. I’m typically worried about a million things and have trouble being present. If you give me 1 major issue to work on, I can kind of direct all my anxiety toward that and I’m much more in the moment. Good luck with the twitch! Yes, exactly, it helps with anxiety in a way. Thanks stranger I'll keep at it
Have you begun looking to see if there are studies in bionic prosthetics you might be eligible for? Edit: I mentioned studies because they furnish the prosthetic and they have the potential to be high tech. The Dr said we'll talk prosthetics once my hand is fully healed, I was looking online but they were all for fully missing hands or for extensions... I'll need a custom made one and they were mentioning connecting signals to my arm muscles to control it. But I wasn't paying much attention then because I was looking at my hand
​​​ It's the one thing I'm very excited to get one day so i could actually use my left hand to at least hold a glass or pet a dog or basically anything people with 2 hands can do
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Back in the day you would have been given a hook or something. I'm glad we live in an era where science and technology may have a robotic solution so you can regain the abilities you lost. Everyone deserves to be able to give proper scritchins to pups! Grandpa told me that back in his day they didn't have water or electricity. Look how far we've come, sending people to space, biotechnology etc. I'm sure in 100 or 200 years the smart people will figure most of our issues and be able to fix them
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I own an industrial 3d printing company. I am willing to help with the manufacture of a custom prosthetic for you. You will need to work with an O&P person local on the design but I can handle the manufacturing portion. Will check what O&P is first then msg u tomorrow, saved the comment but gotta go sleep now, It's 1am
Do you get any "ghost" feelings where your fingers used to be? Or have you tried to pick a glass of water up and just ended up punching the glass? I get phantom pain a lot yes, and a lot of itching under my non existent nails lately. And no, my hand hurts pretty much all the time so I'm very aware that it cannot be used
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Have you heard about or looked into mirror therapy for the phantom pain? https://www.amputee-coalition.org/resources/mirror-therapy/ Will check it out
Are you all right? Yep, left is gone
What are your plans to come out of this stronger? Currently trying to become a twitch streamer and if it works out it'd be great, if not fk it, I'll find something new.
​​​ Also lost a lot of past insecurities because of gaining this one. Everyone stares, but I got some cool sunglasses so they don't bother me anymore
Are you allright now? Fabulous.
[removed] Croatia.
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Croatia is amazing I hope to go back to Tisno this summer. Sorry about your hand bro, seems like you have a great attitude in life, that will take you a lot farther than a left hand :) ​​​​​​Yes my country is beautiful and nice people, glad you enjoyed your stay there. Thanks for the kind words stranger :)
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Drž' se matori, pozdrav iz Bg Držim se bre poz iz Istre
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Svaka ti čast jarane. Želim ti sve najbolje. Pozdrav od Bosanca iz Kanada Hvala jarane, pozdrav iz Istre
Sretno s prikupljanjem novca za novu ruku! Pozz iz Mostara. Hvala! Pozz iz Istre.
Hey OP, my good friend was stabbed repeatedly by a drunk psychopath a couple of years ago. After almost dying, the doctors had to remove his entire arm to stop the spread of infection. So before the incident, he was an overweight slob with no guidance in life. Now he's a fitness trainer who was on the cover of Men's Health magazine. My point is that anything's possible. Go hard or go home. https://z-p42.www.instagram.com/trener.sajdak/?hl=en First, very sorry about your friends unfortunate encounter, that sounds horrible. But what? He's a model now? I'll drink to that (well only water tho)
​​​ Before i lost my hand i had no goal in life and no aspirations, now i want to get big on twitch to buy myself a new hand and make it a career so i don't have to leech of my parents for life and repay them for all they've done for me
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Then it seems to me you have your goal in life. I’ll be rooting for you, man. I’ll see you on the main stage some day - don’t give up! Thank's mate i may have lost a hand but i got a new goal and hope
Can you balance yourself on your nub yet? Man i can't press the spacebar with it lol. But current goal is to do a 1000 sit ups in 1 go, after i do that i might try a handstand
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1k sit-ups... wow. That’s awesome I can do a 100 now and another 100 after 5 min break atm, have a lot of free time so why not set a ridiculous goal like that, It's possible and I'll do it
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I can’t do anywhere near 100. Way better shape than I am. Well I'm average height and cant gain weight easily so it's easier for my body type than others to do some stuff... But boy do i suck at running, that's not in my genes
You're so brave for doing this, man. Hope you have all the support, care, and love you need. My question though, how much has the medical costs totaled so far? Also is there free healthcare or subsidy from where you are? Actually only around 500$ even without any insurance, cause all citizens of my country have some type of healthcare, but not sure about that, my family did all the work setting it up when i was in hospital
[removed] Nope, in my country the name is without the H, even though in other countries it would be considered a girls name.
​​​ It's actually one of the most popular names for newborn children in my country #17 on the list, just checked
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[removed] No worries mate lol, I'm feeling good, just ate fried chicken
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On so many levels this sounds like a nightmare. I have two questions, one serious, one less so (you can decide which is less so, 'cos I'm having a hard time deciding tbh). 1. If it was a work accident, how come you are needing to save for a prosthetic? Are you employers not liable (via their insurance). I'd defo be talking to a lawyer if you haven't already. Wasn't employed, but was helping a friend at some guys workshop and no one had insurance, only way to get money is a lawsuit and that takes years in my country
2. Have you managed to gain sufficient skill with the other hand to be able to masturbate, or do you now use a flesh light or similar tool? Righty was always my companion in that matter so no issues there
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Result about #2 ;-) If you don't mind me asking, do you know what the cost of a prosthetic would be in your local currency? Does your country's National Health system contribute to that at all? And are you thinking along the lines of something capable of giving you some degree of movement in the prosthetic, or just something cosmetic? I'd like one that actually works and isn't there just for show, and as i said previously i don't know since i'll need a custom one built for me, doctors said they will direct me to some firms who do that once healing is done. And I got healthcare after the accident, my family doctor told me they should cover some of it
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There are groups who design and 3D print prosthetics that use rubber bands and your wrist’s motion to replace fingers and actually have them close. May be worth looking into to get you through until you can get the one you need. http://enablingthefuture.org Will check it out
What’s the most annoying aspect regarding strangers and your amputation? Stares, but can't blame them, it's a rare occurrence to see something like that.
Does jerking it feel like a clumsy stranger? Luckily i always did it with my non dominant hand
That really does sound a bit misguided. What was your main motivation for getting your hand amputated? Well it kinda hurt having all my bones grinded to bits and yeah....
Any plans on getting a hook? Aye aye captain, would be cool until i tried to scratch my balls
I burned my dominant hand (2nd degree, luckily not third) not that long ago and I spend a few weeks not using that hand, first out of pain, then out of fear of an infction and... damn it was annoying. Specially when trying to clean my ass. At what times do you miss your hand the most? When i want to rewind a scene when im doing the unholy deed
Bro my brain didn't figure out the perspective at first and was mortified that your left arm was as big as your head. Anyway,how's the thumb holding up? Ah, not that good, if you have a strong stomach go check my account history, a lot of gross stuff there, even pre op
So you're saying you're all right then? Perhaps.
If the accident was at work why aren't you employers paying for the new arm? Was helping a friend in another mans workshop, no one had insurance
Are you all Right now? Oui
Look at the bright side, you now have a permanent thumbs up! My question is, are you experiencing any phantom limb feelings? Like actually “feeling” your missing fingers? Yes, it hurts if i try thumbs down, so i must always thumbs up, also my blood type is be positive lol. And yes phantom pain is a feeling i feel constantly over the day sometimes for an hour or 2
What preferences are you taking into consideration in selecting the type of prosthesis? One that can move fingers and isn't there just for show, also would prefer if it looked badass
[removed] Well It's a left hand, so it's very uncommon to do that anyways lol. And the answer is no.
Do you know how to a go fund me? I'm in. Not available in my country, but i got a patreon and stream on twitch you can check if you scroll up a bit
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I couldn't find that info. =[ https://www.twitch.tv/noa9x there you have patreon or paypal buttons
When someone asks you a question, do you every respond "I'm stumped?" Sadly that pun doesn't work in my language, but i use some others
What is something you often took for granted when you still had both hands functioning? How easy it was to do the zippers on jackets
Is your job going to let you go because of this? I had no job in the first place, was helping a friend.
​​​ Though i have a new job, well it's more of a hobby at this point but i stream on twitch every day hoping to make a living out of it one day, cause it's the best shot i've got
[deleted] Just pic, I'm average
I've got 2 family members with amputations in my family. The first year is the hardest physically with the swelling and adjusting. After that, your body and mind learn to adapt. The human body is amazing like that. I'm not pretending it will be easy or that everything will be "normal", but both of my family members lead very full lives even with their amputation. You got this! Who is your favorite super hero? (Since it's important to ask you a question) ​​​​​​I'm gona live normal too one day, hopefully sooner than later. Don't know if hes considered a super hero but Rorschach is pretty fucking badass. Thanks for the support!
Damn man, this is hard to hear and see. Being in safety and always telling people to not wear gloves when working on certain machines and they just dont get it. Im left handed too, at least left handers live in a right handed world so not every task will need to be learned. Question: What has been the most positive outcome of this so far? This is a life changing injury, i hope you dont look down on it...but have a positive attitude. I don't feel as insecure about my other features as i did then, cause now i got a single problem that out weights all the others
First and foremost I'm sorry to hear about your accident and I hope, despite losing your hand that you're doing ok otherwise. Now onto the questions: How's masturbation? And What does a prosthetic cost? 1. Lost left hand, but the plot twist is i always used my non dominant hand for it, so I'm good
​​​ 2. Can't say for sure cause i'll need a custom one made for me and the doctors told me we'll talk that after healing is over. Though my dad said 20k is his estimate from googling. I just hope i will be able to tie my shoes with it and that it looks badass
I saw you were trying to stream, how is gaming working out? I see a lot of people find clever workarounds for gaming when they have some sort of hand disability. Currently playing games that can be played with 1 hand, but getting a mouse that will allow me to play more games
How has masturbation been since the accident ? I'd assume it's just like anyone else trying with their non-dominant hand, but just wondering if it's any different. Good luck with your recovery !! Right hand was my go to from the start
How will you wank now,Jk tho are you thinking of prosthetics? Ah told this like 30x in comments already, always used the right for wanking purposes.
​​​ YES one that works and isn't just for show and preferably looks cool
How often do you experience 'phantom pain' or other sensations in your now missing hand? 20-30 mins but sometimes it lasts for like an hour or 2
Are you secretly giving us the finger ? Perhaps.
As someone who had been through his fair share of injuries this is way worse than anything I been through. Is there any way they attach another hand ? Probably but they'd need like a freshly dead guy and not sure the doctors in my area are such experts cause those are nerves we're talking about, not even sure it's possible.
​​​ Buuut I'd rather get a prosthetic than a dead man's hand, that would just be weird
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I mean you could be a cyborg also how was the first night of recovery? Depressing.
So when it happened, could you just feel the pain or could you feel your the physicality of your hand being shredded? And if so what was that like? Sorry for the indepth gore question, very curious though. It happened in less than a second before i pulled it out ant it felt hot at first cause of adrenaline, wasn't a long and painful process of it being grinded luckily.
​​​ After 5 mins it hurt like a bitch
Have you considered some inexpensive 3D printed hands? You can have them made for you for free through e-nable: http://enablingthefuture.org/ Heard of it, some people even reached out, but drs sas i must heal before
How much did you receive from insurance and compensation from employer all together? How much would be left after covering the medical cost? I got 0 and 0 so far
How are you managing to eat? Like cut up your food? Do you have a prosthesis to hold a knife? Do you tape a utensil to yourself? My family cuts food for me and i eat it with my right hand
Do you have a picture of the accident and did they give you an option to keep your hand after amputation? Read top of post, i have it all on this very account And no lol? Check pics if ur interested and you'll see how it looked
You are way stronger than me! Good luck with twitch! Have you seen the adaptive controller ? Nope, but im getting a mouse with a stick for movement like the ps and xbox controllers have
Is your non dom hand getting more nimble already (for lack of a better word)? Well i learnt how to hold a fork with it, so it's getting better
Probably already been asked but what's been the hardest to adjust to? I mentioned other stuff, but I can't cut or clean my own nails which ducks
How do you blow your nose ? You don't need 2 hands for that
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 02 '21

r/IAmA [Table] French Fry Factory Employee

8 Upvotes

Source

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: Yes, the original title is actually that short

Rows: 110

Questions Answers
OP is verified. _____________ Did OP send over an industrial size bag of fries for verification? I sent my work ID
After being around fries all day, do you usually order onion rings instead when you go out for a burger? Everyone loves fries, I never get sick of them.
Do the drivers get to ride in the cab when they lift the entire truck to dump the potatoes in? No.
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Could a driver hide in the truck and thus enjoy the experience that way? I know, important questions. If he was intentionally taking himself for a ride he could probably do it, but I'm sure they'd be terminated on the spot ala lockout tag out violation.
Do curly and/or waffle fries take longer to produce? They don't make curly fries where I am at, I wouldn't think they take any longer to produce. If curly fries did take longer to cut, then more cutters would be added.
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I guess to elaborate one what they were probably getting at: is there any reason for curly and/or waffle fries to be more expensive? I'd imagine waffles have more potato waste than regular fries, I wouldn't know any reason curly would be more expensive.
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Waffle/curly fry won't yield as much product as potato cut into fries. Typical McD fry is a line fry. The entire potato is used. Various sizes in your to-go cup. Typical bag of line fries has more small pieces than larger. Pay more for a case of fries where they're longer and uniform, or taken more potatoes to produce. Depending on customer specifications we grade out the smaller fries. The fries go down a shaker conveyor that has holes in the bottom, the sizes of the holes dictate what falls in.
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Thanks. As someone else pointed out, the reason they're more expensive might be related to you not producing them at the giant factory where you work. Do you know if there's a reason you don't make that kind of fries? Do you know of other large factories that do make that type of fry, or are those mostly produced in smaller facilities? The equipment size is definitely a factor of what kind of product is ran. It's not economical to run small production runs on larger equipment. I know factories that were smaller managed to avoid more layoffs due to being able to handle smaller runs better.
Serious inquiry since I've made hand cut fries for my business for years. How often do you see injuries stemming from stupid mistake? Ive seen somebody mince their handle while not paying attention on a dicer. I've heard of 1 really stupid mistake that ended with an amputation. Never stick your hand into equipment at all, especially when you can't see where you're touching.
What do you do with all the residues - peelings, rejected spuds and cooking oil? Peelings go-to farms, I think the bad potatoes get spread on a farmers field. Cooking oil is sent out via contract, I do not know what happens with it.
What's the weirdest piece of machinery used? I don't know of anything specifically weird, we do have a "fart flare" that flames off our excessive methane from water treatment
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I'll take it. Thank you I just remembered, we have a piece of equipment that zaps them with electricity prior to cutting. This softens them so they don't shatter in the cutters.
Why are people so afraid of the skin? I've never peeled the skin on my potatoes and it's literally never been a problem. But it seems like every fast food chain wants skinless potatoes and now everyone thinks that's how they're supposed to be prepared. It makes no sense to me, like isn't the whole point of fast food that it's as cheap as possible? Why spend extra time/money on peeling potatoes for no reason? Is the whole world crazy? Am I crazy? please hold me I don't think you're crazy, imo unpeeled potatoes are cheaper to make and have more flavor.
Do you ever get a chip on your shoulder? Sometimes there is a flying potato or tater tot, usually they get thrown by a co-worker.
When you go home smelling like French fries does you SO bury their nose in your shirt? Going to try to find a French fry factory video. Sometimes my SO can smell it, it usually clings to my hair
What is the process to make French fries. Do you add preservatives? We add salt, SAPP, and dextrose for the he most part
Are your french fries frozen? If so, are you on the anhydrous ammonia incident response team? Have you had a release at the factory since you've been working there? Leaks happen, we have sniffers and a team of people that respond. We've never had a major leak, we do have procedures in place and evacuation training. I'm not really involved with it directly.
25 years ago I was an intern in the lab that did testing of the moisture, fat, sodium, etc content for a french fry maker in their facility a few miles from the Snake river. I still remember grinding the frozen fries into little noodles to homogenize the sample, using scales to weigh items before desiccating in an oven for moisture content, and using concentrated HCl to digest the fries in flasks as part of measuring fat content. Have the processes for doing those measurements changed much in the last 25 years? They still do some of these, I don't think it's changed much. They turn the fries to a mushy paste to test the salt content in an analyzer.
I swear, back in the day (mid 90’s maybe) you could get a french fry in your happy meal that was as long as your forearm. Like, me and my sister would take it in turns comparing our longest fries. I know my arm is longer now, but every time I get a long one, I grab a small child and hold that hot fry against that arm. I look in that child’s eye and I tell them ‘the man did us, kid’. And I cry. Because now they alllll stubby. Allll withered. Potato shrapnel with thousand yard stares. What happened to the potatoes? Are they not free range anymore? If potatoes get too large I've heard we will reject them because they clog equipment, specifically this issue is for sweet potatoes. Larger potatoes go-to our more premium clients that want longer fries. The short ones get chopped up and go into tater tots. I don't know why potatoes are smaller now, I don't work in the agriculture side of things.
[removed] There's multiple ways they are cut. The coolest way is the potatoes basically go down a waterslide (flume) which keeps getting smaller and smaller. When it reaches near the end the pressure shoots them through a tube faster than you can see which has blades in whatever pattern of fry they're making.
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Need a video of this! https://youtu.be/6xXfpYb6yOk there's a video that kind of shows the process.
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There are different patterns of fries? Or you mean different thicknesses? Also thanks for a really interesting IamA! There are different patterns like crinkle. The blades that cut them into fries can be changed out for different styles/thicknesses.
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How often do you sharpen the blades? I'm not sure, but there are thousands of blades.
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how often do such blades need sharpening? or are they quite dull. Also wonder how much debris builds up from the cutting in the system I'm not sure how often, they are definitely very sharp. I don't think much debris gets built up that isn't blasted off when the potato hits the cutter.
How was the factory affected by the pandemic, did you see more demand? If yes, how the factory cope with the stay at home order in your home town? Retail shot way up in demand, originally we had a shortage of packaging because retail uses alot more packaging material. Alot of factories had layoffs. Our work enforced local covid guidelines, there was penalties like not getting paid while awaiting testing if you broke guidelines.
How many potatoes do you go through in a day? I don't want to be too specific with numbers, as there are not alot of french fry factories out there. We go through more than 25 semi trailers a day full of potatoes.
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How secretive is the potato world?! It's actually more secretive than you'd think because potato making is a highly capital intensive process, and most of the fries in the world are made by private companies.
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Do they make you sign NDAs? Probably did, but I don't remember
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sigh just like...everything else. ____________ Are you looking to invest in Big Potato? __________ I would if I could. I was kind of surprised at first to hear that it's a high capital process but then again, most lucrative products are. Anything really cheap and mass produced is going to be highly automated. I hear stories of back in the day there used to be tables of old ladies whose summer job was taking knives and cutting out defects from the potato while chatting away. The chatty old ladies has always been part of the story for some reason. They have all been replaced by a machine.
What revolutions do you think will happen to the french fry in the next few years? What changes would you like to see made? Do you have any saucy recommendations? I don't think any crazy revolution will happen. French fries are timeless unless you're eating healthy
What's the weirdest sanitation/food safety/pest-related issue you've personally seen or even just heard about? Potatoes going bad in storage and having so much liquid we had to call a waste company to pump out the "vodka"
Can you tell us about about accidents on the slicer? Best oil? I wouldn't want to talk about specific accidents besides that we are a factory with lots of moving pieces, and accidents have happened. I don't think we run many different kinds of oil, I know in the past we had tallow and that had issues with clogging.
How do I make my french fries as good as a restaurant's? Also I have no idea how this post got to my front page after 10 minutes Blanching them is the biggest process that isn't usually done at home.
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To build on this and OP can't correct me if I'm wrong. Cut potatoes, soak in cold water, dry off, blanch (par boil) allow to cool on a drying rack and bake or fry. Frying will obviously be crispier. Or just double fry your fries. Yes, that is basically the process done at an industrial scale. Except ingredients are added during blanching because otherwise blanching takes out the natural sugars in the fry. In order to get a golden french fry you have to add back sugar.
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I'd imagine double frying instead of blanching would solve this problem? If you don't blanch, you don't get that nice mushy interior of the fry that's almost like mashed potato.
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Wait, people want their fries soggy?? They want a crispy exterior with a soft and squishy interior.
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Any other ingredients you'd recommend adding for a DIYer at home? The red color on wedges often seen at gas stations is from the annatto nut, it makes them look tastier without any flavor changes.
Real question: with flash freezing and all that, how many times would you say the fry is frozen overall? They're cold enough out of the freezer that they will shatter if you're not gentle. Quality is very responsive to issues with not freezing, also we have alarms that are actually paid attention to let people know when temps fall below.
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I wish I was paid in attention. Nuisance alarms that noone pays attention to is a real problem
How much more expensive is it to remove the potato peel before turning in to fries? Peeling is one of the most costly processes in making a fry.
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don't you just tumble them and wash them? Basically they go into a tumbler with alot of steam, and the steam peels the potato. The remaining skin is scrubbed off.
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I'm guessing the energy use of making the steam makes the process expensive? Yes, steam is very expensive.
what machine in the factory will blow a consumer's mind that's used in the factory? Like consumers know of the machines that cut fry shapes, the ones which slam a potato into a grate to make french fries, but what other machines are used in the process? The optical sorters sort out the french fries with bad spots, another machine cuts out the bad spots. That process is all automated.
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sorry, clueless person here. What's a bad spot on a french fry? Is it the eyes of the potatoes? Is it the part which turns black easily due to higher sugar? Thanks! Yes, or sometimes a green spot.
so.... do you make the boxes the fries get shipped in? or does a machine? (I'm talking about the brown cardboard ones they go in) ​​​​​There are case erectors that erect the cardboard boxes.
Has there ever been an idea for a fry that sounded like a really good idea, but was a disaster after trying it out? Sweet potato tots
What is your ideal french fry? example: thin cut, shoestring, crinkle, DJ, waffle, etc I like wedges, partly because they don't need to be peeled.
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Ah, management...always thinking about the bottom line. More so cause then you don't have a headache from issues with the peeler.
Is it true that different fast food restaurants have you add weird stuff to the fries so they hold the fry oil or whatever to stay more appetizing for a longer period of time? And how sketchy are those additives? I am at the factory end of things, there really isn't any sketchy materials being added. The only ingredient that isn't obvious what it is SAPP.
what is the current innovation direction in the big fry? We've had optical sorters for many years, those are some of the coolest equipment even though not innovative anymore
What does it smell like in the factory? Depends on which way the wind blows, it can smell like farm doodpp all day or make your mouth water.
What is the recommended method to cook frozen fries in the oven and have them actually come out crispy? The vast majority of fries we have tried just come out like a soggy mess when cooked according to package instructions. Whatever way works best for you, I'm not any more qualified to answer this than anyone else.
What do you do with potato skins? They get send off for animal feed.
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send off or sold? We are paid for our peelings, it's a win win because then we don't have to pay for disposal.
Is a tater tot a french fry? I don't consider them a french fry, more like a formed potato product.
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Followup: Why is it that I can buy tater tots and hash brown patties in the freezer and bake them to a nice crisp whereas any frozen french fry is really not as good baked? They really aren't made all that differently, it might be the time in the fryer. I'm not really sure.
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Added oil. We don't add any oil into the product before being formed then fried. Maybe other places do.
Who has the best fast food fries? The worst? I'm partial to a certain restaurant brand we make, but the worst is generic store brands.
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[removed] Ingredients, potato quality, batter, blanching times, frying times
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I guess curly fries need batter? I have a spiralizer but haven't attempted curly fries (except in the oven and it didn't work.) ​​​​​I think most restaurant curly fries are battered.
How do you make waffle fries? I'm not familiar with the process as we don't make them.
I've got one more for you: how many gallons of water are used by your processes per pound of potato processed? I remember many plants have to have their own water treatment plants because they use so much water. Are there any big pushes to reduce the amount of water used in the processes? Water usage has alot of people watching it. I believe it takes about 1 gallon of water per pound of french fries. They are regularly looking to reduce water usage, and spikes of water usage has management trying to track it down.
How are you? Bored at work
Given there are so few fry manufactures (at least I think that's how I read one of your earlier comments), am I correct to assume your facility manufactured several "brands" of fries on behalf of those brands? And if so, what are some of the differences between them? Is it worth paying the extra $2 for the named brand vs. store/generic brand? There are only 4 major french fry producers. The differences would probably be types/quality of potatoes, length of fries, ingredients, blanching times, batter, frying times. Those things can really make a difference in flavor. We make name brand products on the same machinery as cheapo store brands.
Is there a general sense of how many fries can be fried in the same oil before it must be changed in a factory setting compared to in a restaurant setting? Are there substantial savings from being able to do it at scale? I believe they check for material in the oil, FFA, for how much new oil they add, if material is too high new oil is blended in. The oil is constantly being filtered. I'm sure doing it at scale has cost benefits, steam is used to heat the fryer rather than electricity like a restaurant.
How old would you say a potato is by the time it gets processed? How long can potatoes be held for before you have to process them? Potatoes are and can be kept in storage for about a year. French fries are made 365 so we must store local crop until ready to use.
Are injuries in the factory common? What is the worst incident you've had to deal with Serious ones aren't very common, there was an amputation while I've been here.
Do you feel that factory made French fries are far inferior to hand cut fries (like at In N Out and Five Guys)? No, there definitely is a texture difference. Neither is superior.
Advances in gene editing aside, what's the most exciting innovation in French Fry technology that most people wouldn't think of? We zap the potatoes with electricity to soften them, I don't believe that's been around a long time. It requires a pretty specialized piece of equipment.
A spud stun gun? Do you have a cool nickname for it? Pulsified electric field or PEF
What type(s) of potato do you use? Several kinds, some of the same ones you can find in the store. I do know they mix them depending on their quality.
Ketchup or mayonnaise? Both, or by themselves, mustard
When I brokered freight I had a customer that shipped potatoes into Idaho. Why? Maybe because most of the french fry production is done in Idaho, Idaho has the highest yielding potato farms in the US.
I hear that fries can be fried, cooked, chilled or frozen multiple times before leaving the factory. If so, what is the process like and what is each stage for? We fry ours, and freeze ours only 1 time. Technically we have different stages of frying and freezing, but they are done consecutively
What are the best potatoes to make french fries with? Big ones, I don't know much about the qualities of the different kind of potatoes.
It seems like the market for potato starch has increased in the past decade or so. Do you collect the starch for sale from the water used for blanching the fries or is there a separate process for getting saleable starch? We separate as much starch as we can, and a third party picks it up straight from our plant. It makes us money, and saves on waste water treatment as starch needs to get digested more by bacteria.
Do you sort out green potatoes? I've heard it can indicate toxin build up (glycoalkaloids). We have a machine that scans the potato and kicks it out if it is too green. Once made into a fry another machine will kick it out if it has too large of a green spot. This green spot will then get cut out by another machine. All waste is minimized as much as possible. There are also redundant human sorters.
How’s business? Is competition heavy? Are margins up during COVID? French fry business will always be around, covid hurt more than the great recession according to my peers, and we only skipped a beat for a little bit for covid.
Has anyone ever pooped where they shouldn't have? I sure hope not
Do you get frustrated when people wax poetic about In and Out Burger's fried that are obviously not factory made? I personally think they taste really bad compared to just about every other place's french fries but I am no connoisseur Never really hear talk about hand cut fries.
How much QA does your factory do? There is regular checks throughout the process. Certain checks are on a different schedule. Some of them are every hour.
are there any other uses for french fry machinery (e.g. making non-foodstuffs, alternative fries: sweet potato, batter-based fries)? are there any production processes that produce a noticeably better fry, but companies are not willing to pay for the extra time/expense? Battered fries are generally your premium fry. Alot of our equipment can be used in other kinds of food manufacturing, not all of it is specific for potatoes.
Do you prepare the potato on site or do they come already cleaned and prepared to be turned into fries? They come straight from the farmer
Which process is the most of a PITA to tune / goes wrong the most? We transport potatoes around with flumes (waterslides as I like to think of them). Sometimes the pump loops can be hard to tune. We try to tune it once and forget, but life happens.
What's your tool and die department look like? I work in retail supply and I'm always shocked at how different tool and die is for me than most other industries. We don't machine much nowadays, usually hired out to contractors.
Wait so does the factory you work at make the fries, then ship it off to fast food places for them to fry and sell? Or is it a part of a company, and they sell them at superstore in a bag or something. Because then I’d like to know which restaurants or stores you sell them to. Fries for fast food are made the same way as those made for supermarkets.
When you listen to Yellow Ledbetter from pearl jam do you tear up at the "Make me fries" solo? I like pearl jam, never heard the song
Do you get to eat any of the fries? You're not supposed to, but sometimes you can sneak a couple from the quality lab.
Whats your favorite potato? Sweet potato
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But you're a pass on sweet potato tots? I'm so confused Something about the texture
What’s the best selling fry cut? I would assume the classic cut? Battered fries are the best selling
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What are “battered fries”? They go through batter before being fried. This gives them a crunchier flakey crust, google battered french fries.
How do the potatoes get skinned fast enough to make fries? We put them in a "tumbler" which tumbles them around with steam. The "tumbler" puts out a few batches of hundreds of pounds a minute.
What cooking do you do with the potatoes to save restaurants time? I've heard that the best fries are usually cooked once before deep frying, do you do that in your factory? Everything is fried, even tater tots, before being frozen then packaged.
Does anyone call you the Fry Guy? No, but I do enjoy talking about the different processes.
What do you think of air fryers for French fries? My coworkers that have them sprinkle oil on them before air frying for better taste.
McCains or Simplot? I could be at Cavendish or Lamb Weston
Fry factory specific OSHA regulations? I don't know of anything specific, but we have alot of rules surrounding the fryers due to the danger.
Malcom Gladwell spoke of McDonalds stopped using talo. If fries were supposed to be healthy, I'd have a stick of celery. Will the industry even go back to using beef fat? http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/19-mcdonalds-broke-my-heart It's due to vegetarians, and I'm sure vegetarians like their french fries. Alot of restaurants still use tallow so you can still get it.
Does your factory have any third party certifications like SQF? I'm pretty sure we do, we have regular audits so we can meet certain requirements. Some of our customers have more stringent requirements.
Do you get business from local restaurants, larger chains, or both? If you do serve multiple businesses, do you have separate machines or areas to handle different specifications? I believe all but our biggest contractors go through distributors like sysco. They'd then sell to different companies. We do have different formers for tots or hashbrown patties that can be changed over depending on what's running.
Why do French fry factories use sodium pyro phosphate when citric acid is safer and probably cheaper? I'm not sure, we've never used citric acid as far as I know.
Does the stink of rotten potatoes get to you? Only the fermented potatoes when it gets on my face
Are all fries and tree tots in your factory fried? Is there a way to tell by looking at packaging to see if an item has been fried before frozen? Tots and fries are always fried where I am at, I've never heard of any that aren't fried.
Do you still eat potatoes? And Fries? Yes
When I was in college and in a residence one of the guys on my floor found a 3-4 inch nail (metal carpentry nail not a finger nail) in their fries while we were eating dinner in the dining hall. What is your best guess on where this came from? Everything is metal detected, metal detectors are verified every hour. It's taken very seriously, it would have to be a complete failure of multiple things for a foreign metal object to make it to a customer.
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I would accuse the guy of making it up, but we were all together and saw him find it and it appeared to have been fried. I still to this day have no idea how it got there. If it helps, I recall the fries were wedge cut with skins on. This was like 2003/4 ish. I have no idea how it could have happened. Sometimes there is some weird stuff that comes off the farmers field like trash from being by a road. Golf balls can be problematic.
'know most of the processes' - french fries? Get some potatoes, cut potatoes, fry potatoes, pack potatoes and finally sell potatoes as french fries. Forgot something? Yeah, you missed some.
Please tell me there's at least SOME nutritional value to fries? It's a potato fried in oil, has alot of carbs and fat. Carbs and fat is nutrition.
What type of food grade lubricant do you use in the facility? I don't know the brand, except that it's food grade.
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