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Welcome to my channel Soul Tribe, my name is Alan! Im glad you were guided here to watch my content. You are on your own path, and your path is divinely guided! If you are watching this video, no matter how it makes you feel, you are not here by mistake! This is not a coincidence! Your Higher Self knows exactly what you need to hear and when youre ready to hear it in every now moment!

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THIS WORLD!

Peace, Alan Taylor Conscious Evolution Namaste Show less

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Conscious Evolution - YouTube

Editors Note: Traditionally, at the end of each volume, the outgoing editor-in-chief of The Commentator writes a retrospective piece, usually titled In Retrospect. Published here, in the final issue of Vol. 85, are two such pieces that analyze the overall role of The Commentator at Yeshiva University and the necessity of a free press.

---

Title: From the Archives (May 20, 1935; Volume 1 Issue 5) Looking Backward

Author: Moses I. Feuerstein and The Commentator Governing Board of 1935

As this issue goes to press, the first term of the life of The Commentator draws to a close. All in all, it has been a short but colorful one as evidenced by the interest and comment that greeted each issue. For in the short period of its existence it has revealed to the student body the possibility of accomplishments which only the most hopeless optimists had dared to seriously consider till now.

The very appearance of The Commentator at the scheduled bi-weekly intervals was already a record breaking phenomenon in the history of the College and student activities. That a tradition so deeply rooted in the atmosphere of Yeshiva could be violated by an immature and struggling young newspaper was merely another omen that even greater surprises were yet in store for the institution. Needless to say, the predictions have long since been realized, as even the most pessimistic will testify.

As the report goes out that this issue will be the last for the semester, the greatest sigh of relief will probably be heaved by the Administration. Theirs has truly been a trying position. To witness after years of rugged individualism in institutional affairs the development in one year of an articulate student body is no very soothing tonic, any college authorities will testify. Especially is this true when a student body has been as meek and complacent for such a period of years as in Yeshiva and Yeshiva College.

The fact that students had many ideas to suggest was always realized by the authorities. But the sudden evolution from rank suggestion to placing the issue in the open where the problem could no longer be evaded, climaxed the fears of the Administration. The old methods of allowing the requests to die from old age or circumlocution suddenly became as out-moded as the horse in the Machine Age. In fact, the solution of the past turned out to be a definite liability in treating with the exigencies of the present, for the more an issue was drowned in verbiage, the more the fundamental points were brought into direct relief.

Calling faculty meetings to cope with this new and insidious force known as The Commentator proved to no avail, for there could be only one solution facing the problem squarely.

If The Commentator has succeeded in initiating this new and only logical method, its mission has been fulfilled not only to the students but to the Administration as well. The cases of delirium tremens that visited the authorities before each issue as rumors of the forthcoming fiery editorials flew thick and fast will not have been in vain.

--

Title: From the Archives (May 18, 1953; Volume 18 Issue 11) In Retrospect

Author: Irwin Witty

There is an odd sensation that comes with any discovery of change. Many have tried to capture this intangible, almost inarticulate, feeling that overcomes anyone who finds himself jolted from a status quo of any sort. It is an almost lulling effect that the peace and serenity of a position, once secured, brings with it.

The realization that this was to be my last issue as editor of Commie came as something of the same nature. It was a job to which I had come to grow accustomed, and one which, with every passing day, became more a part of me. It was not motivated by sheer altruism, but neither was it motivated by self-grandeur. It was, I fear, more of that serenity that unchallenged position generates.

But the jolt has brought me to reflect. I am faced with the task of passing on the reign. I hope I am not treading upon the maudlin when I say that it is an odd I really want to use the word sad feeling. Granted there is a certain joy to know that now you can take things easy. But before that can be done, there is yet another matter to be taken up. I realize that it is my duty to charge the incoming editor with what has been called Commie tradition. And I must confess it is not an easy task.

The Commentator was founded in the firm belief that freedom of the press is an inalienable right of the student. The People of the Book inspired that freedom, and with it the implicit feeling that everyone has a right to be heard. But, as is so often the case where one interest group can impose its wishes and decisions upon another by dint of uninspired authority or by intimidation and threat, the fear of reprisal throttles us; and the baser inclination of man, to suppress and to cringe in the face of forthrightness, commits us not alone to silence, but to the effacing of our individuality. To subject oneself to authority in the face of rational and level-headed understanding of our actions, is one thing; to cow-tow and assent without reason is blindness, cowardice and an undermining of mans own right to free expression.

In the person of a newspaper, these ideas are embodied. It is my belief that these were the conscious, if unexpressed, motivations of the framers of the axiom of a free and independent press. It is my belief, as well, that these ideas motivated those students who first labored over the early pages of Commie.

The past year has had its times when these axioms were challenged by the agnostics of freedom. I fear that their campaign may have succeeded long before I could take up my blue pencil. But when the situation arose where we could clearly stand up to reiterate these truths, we were ready and dedicated in fulfilling our task.

I leave to Sheldon Rudoff and his staff a Commentator entering upon its nineteenth year of publication and simultaneously its third year under an advisorship. The step from Alumni Advisor, to faculty supervision and eventually administration censorship can be spanned in time. We must forever remain vigilant that advice be confined to counsel.

Shelley, it is to the continuation of this principle that I ask you to remain dedicated.

Photo Caption: The Commentator archives Photo Credit: The Commentator

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From the Archives: Commentator Retrospectives - The Commentator - The Commentator

Our content consumption has increased multifold and is greater than ever right now.By Amit Dhawan

My conversations these days with almost every brand that Im consulting or every person that Im teaching at the Academy are about this one thing - Our operations are in a hit, should we still be spending on marketing or creating content? And if yes, then what should we communicate or talk about as we cant sell at the moment?

Pretty relatable, isnt it? I did a webinar on digital marketing a couple of days back with about 500 attendees who had tons of questions. Almost 80% of the questions revolved around this same topic.

The answer here is very simple and Ill come to it, but before that, let us quickly do a retrospective and analyze how our day looks like in the current lockdown situation. Now while each one of us might have a different kind of day basis our jobs and responsibility division at home, but 2 things are common with all of us: The tremendous amount of digital media were consuming, and.. the dishes were washing. (You cant disagree with either of these, can you?)

Now this is just one aspect. Here is another - because of the crisis, most industries and brands have greatly reduced or completely stopped spending money on advertising. This means, because of low competition, bid costs have gone extremely low on all digital platforms like Facebook and Google, which means, there is a much higher ROI compared to the pre-pandemic times. The cost of advertising has gone down, a lot.

Looking at the two points above, it is obvious that you should be creating content. But, let me tell why you must be creating content, and that too more than ever.

It is a fact that our attention spans while consuming content are extremely short. We do not spend too much time on a piece of content while browsing through social media and it hardly registers in our mind, let alone the brand name. Now with growing demand in content and increasing production by content creators, the fight for attention is even tougher to hit the recall with the audience you care about. If youre not showing up consistently, you will be forgotten very easily and very soon.

Persistent efforts, consistent communication, and frequent reminders - are some rules of the game we all have to stick to in order to just be eligible for the play.

Now lets look at what to communicate or post during the lockdown period and how to push out so much content.

Inspired by our very own Modi ji and his CO.RO.NA. abbreviation (which in our case, can very well translate to COntent ROko NAhi ) if you remember in one of his recent public addresses, what Ive created is called the COVID-19 Strategy.

Heres how it goes:

C - Converse The first step is to listen to and converse with your target audience. Thats the best form of content anyone can create. Talk to your audience if they are reaching out to you or even if they are not. Conversational content works the best on Social Media. Remember, conversation is a 2-way thing. 🙂

O - Organize This is my favorite hack to content creation, as well as a massive recall-booster. With everyone having some spare time at hand, it is a good idea to organize online events like a LIVE or a Webinar where you can exchange informative or entertaining content with your viewers. This is THE easiest way to generate content that would actually engage your audience.

V - Vocalize Considering the current scenario, a lot is happening in the world. Brand or you as a personal brand, MUST voice out your opinion and stand for something you truly believe in. That will help you in one, creating content of course, but also in pulling people together who believe in what you believe.

I - Innovate With so much happening around, being in the moment and also innovative at the same time is the need of the hour. Dont fear experimenting with new things while creating a topical piece of content and it shall fly!

D - Document Documenting is a great way to substitute the efforts in creating fresh pieces of content from scratch. You can document the activities that the brand is doing to support the government in fighting the pandemic, or behind the scenes of operational hassles and how the brand or you are creatively tackling everyday stuff in a fun way...

19 - 19 pieces of content, every single day! This is the most important piece of the puzzle. Now I dont mean that you literally need to make 19 pieces of content, that is just a number. But produce as much as you can. From 5 to 50 posts a day as well if you are able to, which Im sure you very easily can if the above steps are followed. I am doing it, for myself, as well as for our brands. So, can you. The content can be in the form of image-based creatives, stories, videos, platform specific adapts, articles, and so on. There is no limit here.

It is not only recommended to create content (a lot of it), but it is a MUST DO in all possible ways. If youre not doing that, youll be out of the game pretty soon because what is happening right now is a massive change of audience behavior which is here to stay.

The only way to slay, is to up your creative play.

-The author is co- founder, Sociowash Digital Academy and head of digital Business. Views expressed are personal.

Read more:
The COVID-19 strategy for creating content during the pandemic - ETBrandEquity.com

May 9, 2020

CLIFFORD GOLDSTEIN

For decades I have been reading popularized books on quantum physics, relativity (special and general), and cosmology by young men brilliant enough to get doctoral degrees in mathematical physics or theoretical physics or theoretical mathematical physics or whatever, and also to write accessible books that sell in numbers I drool over.

However, as the years roll by (or whatever their physics teaches that time does), its finally dawning on these wunderkinds what the philosophical premises of their science mean for them, their families, their lifes work. After all, according to these premises, the universe that they have so deeply studied is (depending on the math in their equations) either going to tear apart, collapse in on itself, or just flat out burn out.

Enough to make even these demigods wonder, Whats it all about? Or if its about anything at all? Or is it all just as meaningless as their premises imply?

Take, for example, Brian Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and renowned for groundbreaking discoveries in string theory. Greene has also authored such bestsellers as The Elegant Universe (1999) The Fabric of the Cosmos (2004), The Hidden Reality (2011), and his latest, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (2020).

A plug for Until the End of Time says that through a series of nested stories that explain distinct but interwoven layers of realityfrom quantum mechanics to consciousness to black holesGreene provides us with a clearer sense of how we came to be, a finer picture of where we are now, and a firmer understanding of where we are headed.

Really?

Sure, Brian Greene has his conjectures, his speculations, some no doubt greatly influenced by his unchallenged expertise in mathematical physics. But thats all that they are, speculations and conjectures, which are also (Im afraid) exceedingly limited by his unproven philosophical claim that without intent or design, without forethought or judgment, without planning or deliberation, the cosmos yields meticulously ordered configurations of particles from atoms to stars to life.

How this happened, of course, is the big question; what it all means, the bigger one. Nevertheless, he claims that entropy and gravity together are at the heart of how a universe heading toward ever-greater disorder can nevertheless yield and support ordered structures like stars, planets, and people. He writes that by the grace of random chance, funneled through natures laws, that is, through gravity and entropythe universe, life, human consciousness all came into existence. (Gracethats the word he used!)

Everyones familiar with gravity, and with entropy, too, though it needs a bit of explaining. Entropy is a statistical principle that describes why cars rust, why our bodies fall apart, and why all things, if left alone, move toward disorder. (Dont put thought or energy into keeping up your abode, and see what happens to it.) Entropy (also known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics) is the measure of that disorder: low entropy, order; high entropy, disorder, and our universe is moving, inexorably, toward higher entropy, higher disorder.

To use an image that Greene uses, imagine 100 pennies all heads up on a table. By comparison he writes, if we consider even a slightly different outcome, say in which we have a single tail (and the other 99 pennies are still all heads), there are a hundred different ways this can happen: the lone tail could be the first coin, or it could be the second coin, or the third, and so on up to the hundredth coin. Getting 99 heads is thus a hundred times easiera hundred times more likelythan getting all heads.

If you keep going, the ways of getting more tails amid heads keep rising. There are 4,950 ways to get two tails; 161,700 ways to three tails; 4,000,004 ways for four tails, and so forth until the numbers peak at 50 heads and 50 tails. Green writes that at this point, there are about a hundred billion billion billion possible combinations (well, 100, 891, 344, 545, 564, 193, 334, 812, 497, 256 combinations).

Now, lets move from coins to atoms, the stuff of existence (at least as stuff appears to us when we look at it). A bunch of random atoms are much more likely to remain a bunch of random atoms than to form, say, a cat or a copy of The Iliad, just as 100 random coins on a table are more likely to be in disarray than to be all heads (or tails) up, or even to get real close to either configuration. Things go from order to disorder simply because there are a whole lot more ways to be disordered than ordered.

Fine, but how does this law-like tendency for all things toward disorder, toward higher entropy, lead to all the ordered and organized structures that exist, everything from stars to human consciousness? Greene answers: its gravity. When theres enough gravityenough sufficiently concentrated stuffordered structures can form, he claims, then he spends a hunk of his book explaining how it happened.

How successfully Greene make his case, readers of Until the End of Time can decide for themselves. I want, instead, to look at something he wrote about entropy that, I humbly suggest, presents a major flaw in his thinking. Its whats known as The Past Hypothesis.

Lets go back to the 100 coins on the table, but now in a high entropy state, a state of high disorder. Suppose, as you were studying why the coins were like that, you developed a theory which required that at first these coins were in a low entropy state, all heads up, say. Fine. But this leaves open the simple question: How did they get that way? The answers obvious: some intelligence deliberately arranged the coins into that low-entropy state. How else?

But suppose that an unproven philosophical premise behind the science investigating the coins is that their existence, however it began, did so without intent or design, without forethought or judgment, without planning or deliberation. You, therefore, would need another explanation for this hypothetical low-entropy, highly ordered state of 100 heads up coins as an initial condition. (In fact, you probably would have never theorized an intelligence behind it because your philosophical presupposition, from the start, forbade it.)

Lets again move from coins to atoms, the atoms in our universe, which are in a high entropy state, and getting higher. The problem comes from The Past Hypothesis, which teaches that the universe started out in a state of low entropy.

A hundred pennies with all heads, writes Greene, has low entropy and yet admits an immediate explanationinstead of dumping the coins on the table, someone carefully arranged them. But what or who arranged the special low-entropy configuration of the early universe? Without a complete theory of cosmic origins, science cant provide an answer.

Who (perhaps a Freudian slip of the computer keys?) or what arranged the special low-entropy configuration of the universe? If 100 coins heads up, a fairly simple configuration no matter how unlikely, needed someone to arrange them, then what about the early conditions of our universe, which must have been much more complex than a mere 100 heads up coins? To paraphrase Greene, Who or what arranged it that way?

In a line from his book (the line that prompted this column), Greene just shrugged his shoulders at this question and said: For now, we will simply assume that one way or another, the early universe transitioned into this low-entropy, highly ordered configuration, sparking the bang and allowing us to declare that the rest is history.

One way or another the early universe just happened to be highly ordered? If, in seeking to understand the origins and nature of the 100 coins on the table, you just shrugged off their low-entropy beginnings with, Well, lets just assume that, somehow, the 100 coins all got heads up, youd be sneered at. Yet Greene does that with something astronomically more complicated than 100 heads up coins, the low-entropy state of the early universe.

Too bad Greene, echoing Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, cant say something like: Look, I am a scientist. I study only natural phenomena, which means that even though, obviously, some intelligence must have created the low-entropy state of the early universe, I dont deal with that but only with what comes after, or the like. Of course, even if inclined to say that, he would be derided, ridiculed, and tarred-and-feathered as the intellectual equivalent of a flat-earther or Holocaust-denier.

Theres a tragic irony, however, in not acknowledging the obvious. Until the End of Time reflects Greenes attempt to come to terms with the fact that, according to his science, every memory of him and of everything that he accomplished, along with the memory of everyone else and of everything that they accomplished, are all going to vanish into eternal oblivion as if never existing or happening to begin with. Yet he wrote about how, in a Starbucks, it hit him that when you realize the universe will be bereft of stars and planets and things that think, your regard for our era can appreciate toward reverence.

It can? For most people, every conscious moment in our era is overshadowed by the certainty thatbecause they unfold in a universe that one day will be bereft of stars and planets and things that thinkthese moments ultimately mean nothing. So how much reverence does nothing deserve? The Hebrew Scripture says that God has put olam (eternity) in our hearts (Eccl. 3:11), and as long as we can envision an olam that steamrolls every memory of us into the dirt as it moves on without us, we are left to flail about in a search for meaning amid a universe that, according to Greenes unproven presuppositions, offers none.

Its painful, because the low entropy state of the early cosmos points to the only logical past hypothesisa Creator. This Creator and His gracenot the grace of random chance, funneled through natures laws, which, after supposedly creating us, destroy us (some grace)His grace promises, for those who accept it, eternal life (John 17:3) in the same olam that the Creator has, yes, put in our hearts.

Clifford Goldstein is editor of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide. His latest book, Baptizing the Devil: Evolution and the Seduction of Christianity, is available from Pacific Press.

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Cliff's Edge -- The Past Hypothesis - Adventist Review

In the early days of Android, smartphone wars amongst OEMs were solely about the spec sheet. Big numbers, fast numbers, many numbers it was all a race to the top. The idea of a flagship was to throw as many things as you could together and present it to the consumer at a price that gave you a decent margin to operate. An attempt was made to undercut the next competitor, but not necessarily always, as flagships were not supposed to be price-conscious. These were the finest and the most important smartphones amongst the whole lineup, and OEMs were mighty proud of them.

Some of this pride was attacked in 2014 when OnePlus announced the OnePlus One. For just $299 / 21,999 for the base 16GB model, the OnePlus One offered a lot of the big numbers that competing flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S5, costing $599 / 51,500 off-contract, provided. There were a few compromises along the way, notably in the build, the camera and the display, but performance on this $299 phone was considered to be even better than that of the $599 phone. Thus was born the Flagship Killer, a term the community gave to the OnePlus One, for it was a phone that took away the shine from competing flagships. You no longer needed to pay top dollar just to get the best in terms of performance. Facilitated by the top of the line SoC and complementing RAM and storage technologies, the OnePlus One was a runaway success.

OnePlus came out with several phones after the OnePlus One, but there was a general price creep over the generations. This gradual bumping up of the price tag faded the allure off the Flagship Killer title, and somewhere along the way, OnePlus smartphones could no longer do complete justice to the Flagship Killer legacy of the OnePlus One.

A spiritual successor to the title came to us from a different OEM in 2018. POCO, a Xiaomi sub-brand back then, entered the Indian market with the POCO F1. The POCO F1 built upon the same principles that the OnePlus One had adopted fast performance, but a mediocre display, a mediocre camera (but maybe not so mediocre after all), and a less-appealing build. The company and the audience embraced these compromises in lieu of getting flagship performance at a fraction of the flagship price. The POCO F1 started off at a price tag of 20,999 in India (~$380 equivalent in Europe), which was a fraction of the OnePlus 6s 34,999 / $529 launch price tag, and less than half of the Samsung Galaxy S9s 57,900 / $720 launch price tag.

Whether it be the OnePlus One or the POCO F1, the idea behind the Flagship Killer remained the same provide the best, top-of-the-line SoC (usually from Qualcomm), complement it with other key advancements in RAM and storage technology, sprinkle it with a few other niceties as far as the budget allows, and deliver it at an affordable price tag of $300-$400 that is a fraction of the price of other conventional and premium flagships. Flagship killers thus democratized flagship performance, a feature that used to remain exclusive to premium flagships, as they lowered the bar of affordability. For users that preferred function over form, flagship killers provided the best bang for their buck.

Make no mistakes flagship killers were not perfect and they had their own compromises but the judgment on these compromises was not as harsh, as their affordable price tag shielded them from direct harsh criticism when compared against premium flagships. In the price bracket of $300-$400, you really couldnt complain a lot if you still got the best Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC onboard.

While the definition of a flagship has remained somewhat constant over the years, the price envelope has continued to expand. $600 used to be enough for a flagship once upon a time, but constant tech innovation and increased consumer expectations have led us to this point where premium flagships cost as much as $1,400. Much of this price increase is because of more expensive build materials, much better displays, much better and even more cameras, and an increased focus on the cohesive smartphone ecosystem experience. But, in 2020, there is one particular component that has introduced a larger than usual bump in pricing YoY, and which might just be the reason why the Flagship Killer concept dies this year.

Its the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 is the current flagship SoC from Qualcomm, incorporating all the latest and greatest in mobile chip technologies. Over the Snapdragon 855, the Snapdragon 865 boasts of 25% faster raw CPU performance, 20% faster graphics rendering, better sustained performance, 2x increase in AI performance, support for LPDDR5 memory, support for display with QHD+ resolution at 144Hz refresh rate, support for 8K @ 30fps videos, 4K HDR videos, support for processing images up to 200MP in size, and processing 64MP images with Zero Shutter Lag, and support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1. Thats a long list of new features, but it isnt uncommon to see such additions on a YoY basis. This is a flagship SoC after all, and it needs to stay a step ahead of the flagships themselves.

What is uncommon, however, is the jump up to 5G network technology as a mandatory upgrade, and we see it in the form of the Snapdragon X55 modem support. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 does not include any modem, not even one for LTE, which breaks away from the convention of recent years from Qualcomm.

As a result, as ArsTechnica points out, every phone company that intends to build a flagship with the Snapdragon 865 also absolutely needs to purchase the 5G-enabled Snapdragon X55 modem as well, as there is no integrated 4G modem to fall back on to keep things cheap. But just including the X55 modem does not guarantee full spectrum 5G access either. The Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF system includes compatible hardware modules for sub-6GHz 5G. For mmWave, you also need to purchase Qualcomms QTM525 or QTM527 antennae, likely in the multiples to keep things running seamlessly across phone orientations. The result is that phone OEMs have to purchase several new and expensive components to purposefully deliver on the new marketing buzzword of 5G.

As ArsTechnica also noted in their article, 5G will raise prices of the phones by approximately $200-$300. This price increase was mentioned in the context of Snapdragon 855-based 5G phones from OnePlus (the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G, as it would turn out). But with mandatory 5G in 2020, the same situation is seen across the entire current generation of Snapdragon 865 5G flagships.

As we have already witnessed, premium flagships in 2020 are much more expensive. Devices like the Samsung Galaxy S20 start at $999 and go all the way up to $1,399 for the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra; the OnePlus 8 series starts at $699, and goes all the way up to $999. The same trend continues across the board Motorola Edge+ costs $999, Mi 10 Pro costs999, OPPO Find X2 and Find X2 Pro cost 999 and 1199, LG V60 costs $800, and so on. Even the cheaper crop of flagships arent exactly cheap the Realme X50 Pro costs 37,999 / 599, making it Realmes most expensive smartphone yet.

There are multiple examples at this point, and the general trend has been the same the Snapdragon 865 with 5G is expensive, and phones will get unusually more expensive compared to their predecessors.

The outlier here is the iQOO 3, but it is an exception because of two reasons: one, it is the cheapest Snapdragon 865 device in the market right, and two, it is the only one that comes in a 4G-only variant as well. The iQOO 3 5G costs 44,990 (~$589) [launch price: 46,990 (~$615)], while the base 4G variant costs 34,990 (~$459) [launch price: 38,990 (~$512)]. The iQOO 3 managed to undercut the Realme X50 Pro in India at launch, but it could only do so by decoupling 5G away from the flagship experience. We arent sure how iQOO managed to pull off a further price cut it goes against all the indicators in the Indian market, as we all were bracing for more expensive smartphones because of GST changes, but iQOO went the other way somehow. And we arent sure how iQOO managed to decouple 5G away from the Snapdragon 865 either the iQOO 3 4G could possibly have 5G bands software-disabled using tools provided by Qualcomm but we could not locate any concrete information to explain the phone and its 5G-less variant.

From a 5G plus Snapdragon 865 perspective, the argument continues to stand: Qualcomms latest SoC and the accompanying 5G hardware makes flagships more expensive than ever before, with a steep price jump. The blame also rests on the Snapdragon 865 by itself, as Qualcomm is selling this SoC to OEMs at a much higher price than its previous flagship chips. As POCOs GM Mr. C. Manmohan mentioned in an interview with Android Authority:

Chipsets right now, all 800-series chipsets, are extremely expensive. And [the Snapdragon 865], being the first 5G generation, is just a lot more expensive.The 855 was launched with a higher price point and we expected that also to undergo some depreciation. But 865 has launched extremely high and now the transition from 4G to 5G is happening across the board. So the depreciation the 855 should have seen did not happen.

The same report cites various sources and gives us a rough estimate of the price per chip. The Snapdragon 845 reportedly cost manufacturers around $45 plus an additional licensing fee per chip. The Snapdragon 855 and Snapdragon 855+ cost $53 plus an additional licensing fee per chip. This price increase not only affected the price of the flagships released in 2019, but it also continues to affect the viability of flagship killers into 2020 as the chip has not depreciated as much as previous trends. Xiaomis CEO Mr. Lei Jun had commented that the Snapdragon 865 cost them about $70 on the Mi 10 making it one of the biggest jumps in cost in recent times and one that directly contributes to a steep rise in flagship pricing. A teardown analysis of the Mi 10 from TechInsights pitches the SoC to be $81, while the modem costs another $26.50, and the RF component costs $33.50, equalling a cool $141. While this is an estimate from a teardown and can miss out on the benefits derived from factors-of-scale, it does make one point clear the Snapdragon 865 is expensive, with a price increase greater than previous flagship SoCs.

Not only is the Snapdragon 865 more expensive, but it also requires other components and other changes that further drive up the cost. The discrete 5G modem and the additional multiple antennae require more space inside the phone. As a result, the phone body gets larger, the display gets larger, the battery gets larger, and OEMs have been throwing in larger and more camera sensors into the mix too, to make the most out of the situation. All of these cost money, and the consumer has to pay for it.

Snapdragon 865 and Qualcomms monopoly in the upper end of the SoC market has forced premium flagships to evolve into ultra-premium flagships. OEMs are also incorporating more advancements in the display and camera segments, which exerts further pressure on this forced evolution. A price increase in this luxury segment is easier to digest keeping in mind that the target audience for these ultra-premium phones has a higher propensity to spend.

What isnt easy to digest is the doom that the Snapdragon 865 spells out for Flagship Killers, as it hungrily devours the ~$400 budget as espoused in the community definition. There is just not enough budget left over for other components even if an OEM were to stick to a middling-quality level.

What makes matters even worse is the fact that 5G comes with its own limitations. The technology still has a long way to go before it matures and sees widespread adoption, and this is in the context of developed markets that have already jumped onto the train.

There are still others that have not even taken the first steps to 5G yet. Case in point India, one of the biggest smartphone markets in the world, but one that has yet to even begin spectrum auctions for 5G, leave alone rolling out consumer infrastructure, and making 5G economically available to a population that loves its cheap and abundant 4G. Spectrum auctions were expected to be conducted in April 2020, but the poor health of the countrys telecom industry and the COVID-19 pandemic has put this on the back burner for the foreseeable future.

For India, mandatory 5G with the Snapdragon 865 was expected to make smartphones prohibitively expensive. But to bring some solace, the current releases are just mildly expensive and not prohibitively so. The OnePlus 8 series, with 5G support, launched in India lower than it did in the rest of the world. A similar story exists with the Realme X50 Pro 5G and the iQOO 3 5G.

The lower cost of these phones could be for the fact that they are missing out on incorporating support for all 5G bands and restricting themselves to just a handful of probable ones, and thus, saving themselves on certification costs for the market. But we believe there is a catch here that OEMs have not entirely been transparent about. While these phones support 5G, they may not really support 5G in India. As the spectrum has not yet been auctioned in the country yet, certifying authorities should not have the mandate available to them to certify phones for usage in these scenarios, logically speaking. Certificates are issued after testing the equipment for safety by authorities such as Telecommunication Engineering Centre, and one can only wonder how phones already released would have been tested for safety on a spectrum that is not yet available for use in the country. So while you may have a 5G-ready phone that is being marketed as being future proof, its acceptance on the 5G network is very likely subject to subsequent regulatory approval when the network finally becomes available. Our knowledge on this particular context is admittedly limited, so we have reached out to a few stakeholders to learn more about this issue well amend the article when/if we get more clarity on this point.

Even if you presume that all is rosy on the certification end, consumers in India can realistically see 5G on their smartphone not earlier than 2022. Such an estimate is also an optimistic one, one that presumes that all the expensively-priced spectrum is scooped up in the first auction (and does not necessitate multiple auction rounds as companies decide to stay away due to high prices), with other presumptions such as minimal economic fallout to the telecom sector despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and a swift end and recovery from the pandemic induced lockdown measures. By 2022, the Snapdragon 865 would be 2 years old, and the shiny smartphone in your hands will not be as shiny anymore. If you could afford an expensive smartphone with the foresight to use expensive 5G on it two years later, you may be in a good position to buy a more rounded and polished product for 5G use in 2022, too. Do you really need to buy a 5G-(probably)-ready flagship right now in 2020 though?

The overall industry-wide push for 5G also needs a mention over here as a factor that is driving up costs prematurely. Carriers in 5G-markets have begun aggressively marketing 5G, which makes consumers want 5G on their phones. This then stimulates OEMs to incorporate 5G on their phones and market 5G further, even in markets where the infrastructure is not in place. Having a 5G-enabled phone will then increase the priority of having a 5G infrastructure in that market, and so goes the cycle. Qualcomm is a piece in this bigger puzzle and the push is indeed industry-wide.

For now, no-5G in India will add to the frustration of losing out on a Flagship Killer. Developing markets are the prime targets for this product category, as users over here often prioritize the deal which gets them the most bang for their buck. Adding unusable and not-future-friendly 5G on a Flagship Killer burdens it with dead weight, one that pushes it outside of its budget for no apparent benefit in the present or the future. To this, remember that the Snapdragon 865 was already pretty expensive, so there was not enough headroom to play with, either.

Adding unusable and not-future-friendly 5G on a Flagship Killer burdens it with dead weight, one that pushes it outside of its budget for no apparent benefit in the present or the future.

The Snapdragon 865 with its mandatory 5G requirement, is thus, the end of the $400 Flagship Killer, for better or for worse. What makes a flagship is what kills the flagship killer, this year.

While we were discussing this opinion piece, an interesting counter-opinion came to light. As Pranob brought up in our discussion, the flagship killer may not necessarily be dead yet. The primary definition of the flagship killer is to offer flagship performance at a fraction of the flagship price. But since the very price definition of a flagship has expanded with the introduction of ultra-premium flagships, it is only fair that the price definition of a flagship killer is also expanded.

Consequently, since what was once sold for $700 is now being sold for $1400, one can no longer expect that what once cost $400 remains at that price point while still offering some of the best features present in the industry. It is only natural that flagship killers also seek a price hike not necessarily out of a desire to expand their profit margins, but out of a need to maintain it. Flagship killers, aka the phones with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC but with other compromises, should now be expected around the $800 price ballpark and we do have a few examples of the same currently existing in the industry.

The arguments of future-proofing also come back into play here with the inclusion of mandatory 5G. People who buy a Flagship Killer are unlikely to have a high budget to purchase a new phone every year, or even every two or three years. These value chasers are much more likely to use their phone for a longer time duration as long as it happily functions and serves their need. There is a lower likelihood of them splurging money on a new phone, just because a shiny new phone exists. For these individuals, having a phone with 5G (mandatory or otherwise) gives their phone enough of a future-proofing coat to be on top of their needs for a longer time duration. Such an argument may not necessarily apply to regions where 5G does not exist, like India, but it does extend to other regions where 5G is seeing a gradual rollout.

There is also a point to be made about flagship killers being dead only temporarily. 2020 can be considered as the first year where 5G truly goes mainstream on smartphones, so there is bound to be a larger capital overhead to bear per smartphone. We can expect the costs to go down with the next generation, as there is a valid possibility that the next Qualcomm flagship could integrate the next Qualcomm 5G modem and lower down the costs from current levels. There is no guarantee that the benefits will be passed onto the consumers they could be absorbed to cover the advancements in other pieces of technology in the phone, such as further display enhancements, better build materials, and so on.

Another argument comes up in that the entire price increase on flagships cannot simply be attributed to the Snapdragon 865, or to 5G for that matter. Smartphones this year have made great strides in terms of display and camera technology. We are getting features such as 10-bit 120Hz color-accurate displays with headlining technologies such as MEMC and dedicated display processors. For cameras, we are seeing quad and even penta camera setups, with bigger sensors all through and even further additions in the form of a periscope zoom lens. All of these features require a tremendous amount of R&D to be made possible, and this is recouped through added costs on the smartphone. Since these have become the norm on flagships, what we expect out of a flagship killer also rises up by a bit a 60Hz FHD+ display and dual-camera setup may no longer cut it for a phone to be called a flagship killer. This change in consumer expectation is not triggering a corresponding change in price expectation, and that is its own problem.

Even after such a long-winded essay, I have remained undecided either way. Mandatory 5G through the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 does hurt the wallet, a lot, especially in the times of COVID-19 and the economic uncertainties a pandemic brings along. The traditional price envelope of a flagship killer is no longer viable without downgrading (used very loosely here) to an inferior SoC like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 or the Snapdragon 730. This means we may no longer see a repeat of the insane value proposition of the OnePlus One and the POCO F1. And thats something that I will sorely miss.

On the other hand, innovations in technology need capital investments to move forward. If the very price definition of a flagship changes, there will invariably be an increase in what half of a flagship price would be. Price creep and consumer expectation force flagship killers to become the very thing they sought out to kill a flagship.

You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain

What do you think is the future of the Flagship Killer? Should 5G be a mandatory inclusion in smartphones in 2020? Should 5G be a mandatory inclusion for Flagship Killers? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

XDA Analysis The push for 5G may have unintentionally killed the Flagship Killer this year

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Original post:
The push for 5G may have unintentionally killed the Flagship Killer this year - XDA Developers

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Tim Gunn, became famous for his role as a mentor on the fashion competition series "Project Runway." Now he hosts a new fashion competition series called "Making The Cut." The entire series, including the recent finale, is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Gunn created and co-hosts the show with Heidi Klum, who he also appeared with on "Project Runway" for over a decade. "Making The Cut" brought together designers from around the world, flew them to Paris and Tokyo and challenged them to design runway and street fashion that was eco-conscious and able to fit all body types and gradations of gender.

Unlike on Gunn's previous fashion competition shows, these designers were already experienced entrepreneurs. They had to demonstrate they'd be capable of creating a global brand. The winner received a prize of a million dollars. Throughout the series, Tim Gunn serves as a mentor to the designers. Earlier in his career, he was a teacher and chair of the fashion design department at Parsons School of Design at the New School.

Tim Gunn, welcome back to FRESH AIR. It is really just such a pleasure to talk with you again. How are you? You're living in Manhattan, which is the hotspot in the country.

TIM GUNN: Well, Terry, first of all, I'm so thrilled and honored to be back speaking with you. And thank you so much. I have to tell you, New York is - it's surreal. I mean, it feels quite apocalyptic. I will say this, though, there are fewer sirens at the moment. There are visibly more people out - not a lot of people, of course. And people were wearing masks, thankfully. But the city feels as though it's picking up again, just slightly.

GROSS: I know you like being alone. I know you like living alone. Are you going through too much alone now? And if so - how are you dealing with it?

GUNN: Well, you're quite right. In many ways, this self-isolation appeals to me. But when you feel as though someone has a bayonet in your back, which, in fact, metaphorically, they do, it takes a toll. I mean, I'm, thankfully, fine physically. But psychologically, it's troubling. And it's not just about not being able to interact with people or go to a restaurant, which I didn't frequently anyway? But, I mean, for me, the greatest soul stir that I have is in a state of suspension. And that's the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is just across Central Park from my apartment. And I used to haunt those galleries. I was there at least twice a week. And it's really left a void in my life.

GROSS: What other things do you - have you had to give up? And have you been finding replacement things, replacement routines that give you both a sense of structure and a sense of kind of comfort or equilibrium, equanimity?

GUNN: Well, I've been doing a kind of life inventory of what's important to me, what isn't, including things that I own. I've been doing a lot of writing. And I've been doing a lot of reading. And I've been engaged in a lot of introspection. And I think that that's good up to a point.

GROSS: Yes. (Laughter) I know.

GUNN: And then it can just become tiresome (laughter).

GROSS: It could be kind of damaging. I mean, there's a point where...

GUNN: Yeah.

GROSS: Yeah. Self-criticism is good. And then it gets bad.

GUNN: Yeah. I totally agree. And I have to say, too, I'm such a lucky person. I have to remind myself of that because you can very easily fall into this trap of self-pitying. And I think, good heavens. I'm so lucky. I have a home. I have resources that will get me through the storm. I have people I care about and who care about me. And it's - I'm very, very, very lucky. And I need to slap myself when I start wallowing in this self-pity.

GROSS: I'm wondering what you think the meaning of clothes is now because most of us are at home. And if we're going out, like, we're wearing a mask. It's like, you're not going to look good. Do you know what I mean?

GUNN: Yes. Exactly.

GROSS: (Laughter) It's like the mask kind of ruins the look no matter what it is. Most people at home are wearing, like, sweatpants or pajamas or old jeans. And I'm wondering, like, what you're wearing now. And what is the meaning of clothes? Is the meaning of clothes changing as we're all, like, self-isolating?

GUNN: It's been a very interesting experience for me because I've gone through an evolution in these last five, 5 1/2 weeks - a fashion evolution or a clothing evolution of sorts. And it's helped me to understand a lot of issues that I've talked about in terms of the sorts of things that I observe in other people. And one is, I now understand the comfort trap. I used to bemoan it and say, you know, if you want to dress to feel as though you never got out of bed, don't get out of bed. Well, now I understand.

I mean, why should we be self-isolating in clothes that constrain us and constrict us and are not as comfortable as something that's a little looser and more forgiving? However, (laughter) I will say this. Having been introduced to video conferencing, which I - was unknown to me until this self-isolation - having been introduced to video conferencing, I've dressed up for it after, say, days of wearing, quite frankly, my pajamas and a robe. And when I got into my normal clothes - a proper shirt, a proper pair of pants, a jacket - I felt as though I was wearing a wet suit.

GROSS: (Laughter).

GUNN: I felt so tethered, so tied down. And I thought, oh, this is bad. I need to start wearing regular, normal Tim Gunn clothes more often, because that feeling, I understand it. I've worked with women, in particular. And sort of - I won't call it a makeover. I'll call it a make-better. And she'll call out from the dressing room, this jacket is too tight. Just come out of the dressing room wearing it. We'll look at it together. And I'll say to her, it's not too tight. It's exactly the size it should be for you. You're used to wearing clothes that are, frankly, too big for you. So I'm understanding people and their fashion foibles a lot better now. I have more empathy. I get it.

GROSS: So when you're wearing pajamas and comfortable robes at home, are they beautiful? Or are they just, like, no one's going to see them, so they're just whatever?

GUNN: Well, I wear a T-shirt on top, just a white - classic white tee, and pajama bottoms and a cotton robe that's navy. And it's presentable. I mean, I won't leave my apartment. I won't even go to the trash chute at the end of the hall wearing that. So it's a kind of pact that I make with myself. If I'm wearing this, I stay in. I do not open the door. I'm not going down to the first floor to get the mail.

So I - yeah. I make a pact with myself that I am not to put myself in a position where I may run into a neighbor. So that's the condition. And I'll add, every third day or fourth day, I go out to the grocery store, which is just at the corner, thankfully. And of course, I get dressed for that, but not - I mean, I have worn a sport coat and a tie a couple of times for video conferencing reasons. But usually, I'm dressed the way that I am now. I'm in a turtleneck and a pair of dark wash jeans.

GROSS: I keep getting emails because I do some shopping online from all these places that are having sales. And I keep thinking, who cares right now about buying clothes? Who knows what season you'd even be shopping for? And it just makes me wonder, like, what's going to happen to, like, clothing retail?

GUNN: Oh, I know. I considered the same thing, and it's quite a conundrum. I will say this, though. We know that online shopping is here to stay. I worry about bricks and mortar. But when it comes to purchasing things, I'm exactly like you, Terry. I haven't bought a thing since the - since being shut in on because I asked myself, well, what and why? When we get out of this - which we will eventually - we'll have a much better sense of what we want and what we need. Also, part of this inventory (laughter) that I've been doing has been closet inventory, taking stock of what I wear all the time, what I don't, what I haven't worn for a year or more. And it's resulted in a purge that's been - has made me feel physically lighter, actually. And I know where the holes are in my wardrobe, and I know where I have too much. And it's something that I think everyone should engage in. And this - these stay-at-home orders are a great opportunity to do it.

GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Tim Gunn, who became famous as a fashion design mentor on the fashion competition series "Project Runway." His new series "Making The Cut" is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. It's also a fashion competition series, but this is a global one with designers who are already experienced designers and entrepreneurs. We'll be right back after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF AWREEOH'S "CAN'T BRING ME DOWN")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Tim Gunn. His latest fashion competition series is called "Making The Cut." The entire series is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

What's it like for you to have a new series about fashion during the pandemic when, if people are going out, they're going out in a very limited way and mostly, as we've been talking about, they're staying home wearing pajamas or shlumpy (ph) clothes?

GUNN: Well, to be honest with you, Terry, my co-host Heidi Klum and I talked about this when we heard when the show was going to start airing, and we were really concerned about it. And we thought this seems to be in very egregious, bad taste to do this now. And Amazon listened to us and understood and said, you know, this is really a feel-good show. It's uplifting. It's inspiring. And people will want this at this time. People feel shaken. They feel derailed, off-center, and this show is very grounding, and it's a good time to release it. And I thought, they're right; it really is. And the response has been quite phenomenal.

GROSS: Yeah, I mean, it's a period when you can't wear, like, special clothes because there's no point, but it's fun to watch (laughter).

GUNN: Yes.

GROSS: It's like, you can watch the thing that you can't actually do yourself. So I think it's, in that sense, like, a really good time for it to come out. Do you feel like...

GUNN: Yeah. I mean...

GROSS: Yeah.

GUNN: ...People can get a vicarious thrill out of it.

GROSS: Do you feel like you learned anything about fashion inclusivity by hosting, you know, by being the mentor on the show where that was part of what the designers were tasked with? They had to think that way. They were probably already thinking that way. But...

GUNN: Oh, most definitely. But I have to say, when I became chair of the fashion program at Parsons, inclusivity was a mantra of mine and a mandate, including the dress forms. I thought, why is everything a size 6. This isn't realistic. And why are our fit models a size 4 or 2 or 0? And I began bringing in models of all - fit models of all sizes, expanding the sizes of the dress forms and even - this is not entirely a non sequitur, but it may sound like one - but even bringing in people - PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals because the department had a history of working with fur. And I thought this - I have a responsibility to these students to give them as many sides of these equations as possible. It greatly enhanced the thinking of these young designers, and it introduced a very substantive and important conversation about ethics and morals and, also, about accepting responsibility for the decisions that you make.

GROSS: Your role as a mentor, like, there are times - like, you are very honest in your criticisms. You're honest with your praise. And you're honest with your criticism. And because you're trying to be precise in your criticism - not cruel, but just precise - sometimes one of the designers is on the verge of tears. And of course, this is on camera. How do you feel about that? You've been a teacher for so many years. Of course, you were a teacher at Parsons long before you became a mentor on TV.

GUNN: Well, as a teacher, I went through tremendous growing pains and learned through trial and error what works and what doesn't. And I learned early on that you can't soft-pedal and sugarcoat things because it doesn't help the student. I also learned early on that you can't be too blunt an instrument in delivering critical analysis because if you are, you're discredited. The student just dismisses what you say as being mean-spirited and unkind and believes that you don't understand their work. So I developed what I call a very Socratic approach. I pummel people with questions because I need to know where they're coming from. I need to know a context before I dive in with my own analysis.

And for me, the ideal is - this is what I really strive for. The ideal is to get the individual with whom I'm speaking to see what I see. And on "Project Runway" for 16 seasons and on "Making The Cut" for this one season, there are occasions when I disrupt production in a manner of speaking because of camera placement, and I ask the designer to come stand next to me so they can see their own work from my point of view. And I say I disrupt production because there's a camera on me, there's a camera on the designer, and when we switch things up, the people in the control room get a little frantic.

(LAUGHTER)

GUNN: But I want that designer to see the silhouette, the proportions, perhaps even the construction - though on "Making The Cut," it's not a sewing show, which is a huge relief. The designers are making clothes, but it's not about, is the hem crooked? So for them to stand by me and say, oh, I see, that aha moment, for me, is the sweetest, most wonderful thing in the world. It's like, OK, I can leave you now because you get it; you see it. What you do about it is completely up to you, but at least you see what I see.

GROSS: You know, there's one designer who mostly does fashion in black. And at one...

GUNN: Oh, Esther.

GROSS: Yeah. And at one point, you say to her, it really needs a little bit of color. And she says, that's not me; I have to be true to myself, and I see it as black. And so it struck me, like, that must have been a kind of difficult balancing act for you because you want somebody who has a vision, who knows what their vision is and believes in that vision but, at the same time, you thought, you know, could really benefit with, like, a little bit of color (laughter). So...

GUNN: Well, I...

GROSS: Yeah.

GUNN: I was reflecting upon the comments by the judges. And of course, with each individual assignment, once it's presented, someone's going home. And I was very concerned about Esther, a superbly talented designer and also a wonderful individual. I really adore her. And I said to her, look - color. You're used to black. It is a color, but it's one color. How about merlot? How about chocolate?

(LAUGHTER)

GUNN: I mean, we're talking about slight nuances off of black, but it's still - but it's a color. It will show that you're synthesizing what the judges are saying to you and you're - and here's a product to show it. But no (laughter), chocolate was too much of a color for her or too much of a departure.

GROSS: Well, I won't give away how she does.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: OK. So you came to see teaching and mentoring as a calling. But when you started teaching, you had stage fright. You'd actually, like, throw up before classes.

GUNN: Oh, I was a wreck. And I had been - oh, I wouldn't - I won't call it student teaching. I was a teaching assistant the summer before the fall that I began teaching, and I loved it. I was perfectly relaxed and comfortable. I was fine. And then this teaching position was - well, was thrust upon me, in a manner of speaking, by my mentor - one of my favorite teachers of all time, Rona Slade. She said that a faculty member had dropped out from teaching three-dimensional design and would I like the position. Well, of course. I mean, A, yes I would, but - and also, I wasn't going to disappoint Rona.

So the very first day, I pull into the school's parking lot, and I promptly throw up all over the asphalt. And I'm shaking and shaken. And I get to the studio where I'm teaching and just the mere anticipation of the students coming into the room has me trembling. And - so I braced myself against one of the walls. My back is against it because if I step away from it, I'm just going to collapse to the floor. I mean, I needed that support. So this went on for a week - well, five days.

And on Thursday of that week, I rehearsed the meeting I needed to have with Rona, and on Friday, I had the meeting. And the rehearsal was brief, I mean, because it didn't require many words. And I just said to her, I can't go on like this. This is just completely debilitating. My health is suffering. I am not sleeping. I'm an emotional wreck. I can't go on like this (laughter). So Rona, who's Welsh, said in this very clipped voice of hers that she trusted that this experience would either kill me or cure me. And she said, and I'm counting on the latter. Good day.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Oh, that's so great.

GUNN: And who knew? I mean, 29 years later, I was still teaching. I mean, I grew to just completely love it.

GROSS: My guest is Tim Gunn. His new fashion competition series "Making The Cut" is now streaming - all the episodes, including the finale, on Amazon Prime Video. We'll talk more after we take a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Tim Gunn, who became famous for his role as a mentor to fashion designers on the fashion competition series "Project Runway." His new series, "Making The Cut," is a global competition fashion show. And all the episodes, including the finale, is now on Amazon Prime Video. So you became a teacher. But as we talked about in our previous interview, you really hated school.

GUNN: Oh, yes.

GROSS: And you went to several boarding schools, right?

GUNN: Yes.

GROSS: Then you ran away from school. I was wondering, like, what was your technique when you ran away? Like, where did you go? Did you slip out a window in the middle of the night...

GUNN: (Laughter).

GROSS: ...Like I see in movies? Like, what would you do?

GUNN: Well, I used to run away and never leave the house. I was extremely good at hiding and not making a single movement. But...

GROSS: When you say never leave the house, you mean your home or the house that you were living in the boarding school?

GUNN: No. Well, the running away began when I was still living at home.

GROSS: I see. OK.

GUNN: And I became very good at it. And then my parents brought in more resources, namely our family dog, who was always able to sniff me out.

GROSS: (Laughter) God.

GUNN: So then I would run away from home and go to Rock Creek Park, which was right behind us. This is in Washington, D.C. But then the dog would - my mother would come out with the dog on a leash. And the dog would find me. Brandy (ph) was her name. So then I started running away with the dog, thinking, well...

GROSS: (Laughter).

GUNN: ...I'll have her with me. But then I realized, she'd get hungry. She'd be thirsty. So then I used to run away with water and snacks for her. But at boarding school, I mean, there was only one really dramatic running away. And it was after - I know we talked about this. It was after a suicide attempt. And then I woke up. And I was still there. And I ran away to - this school was on - in Connecticut on Long Island Sound.

And I ran away to hide in woods next to a beach. And there were police walking up and down the beach. And I was paranoid enough to think that they were looking for me - maybe they were, maybe they weren't. But then it got dark. So I went back to the school, knocked on the headmaster's door - it was probably about 8 or 9 at night - and just burst into tears and fell to my knees. And he was incredibly kind and wonderful.

GROSS: What did you say to him?

GUNN: Well, I mean, he had a huge look of relief. The school knew I was missing. And what I remember more is what he said to me, just being very consoling and very - he was a good listener. And he said that my parents had been called and that they were on their way. Yeah. I had a - I mean, in some ways, I hate reflecting upon it because it was so painful. At the same time, I was so lucky to have a family that really did care. I mean, I gave them nothing but heartaches and trouble. But they were - they never abandoned me. They never said, OK, you're on your own.

GROSS: Yeah. The last time we talked, you mentioned a doctor. After you took about a hundred pills and tried to kill yourself and then found that you actually woke up and you were in a psychiatric hospital for adolescents for a couple of years, you mentioned that there was a doctor who, no matter how much you tried to push him away, he stuck by you...

GUNN: Yes, Philip Goldblatt.

GROSS: ...And that helped you so much.

GUNN: Yeah.

GROSS: Yeah. I'm wondering if that shaped your approach to being a mentor at all.

GUNN: You know, Terry, I've never considered it. And as you say it, it had to have shaped me. You know, I mean, for anyone who didn't hear our earlier conversation several years ago - I was in this hospital and was very proud of the fact that I successfully outwitted psychiatrist after psychiatrist. There had only been two before Dr. Goldblatt. But I was successful just stonewalling them and not speaking in sessions. And eventually, they just stopped having sessions with me and allowed me to be in group therapy sessions.

And when Dr. Goldblatt came, it was after I'd been there for three months. And he was young, right out of his residency. And I thought, oh, this will be a piece of cake (laughter). And after a couple of weeks of this - I don't know whether I introduced it or he introduced it. But one of us said, is this the way it's going to be? Or for me, it would have been a declarative sentence. This is the way it's going to be. So he said - what he said to me was, well, I'm not going to meet with you three days a week. And I thought, oh, OK. It's working. He said, I'm going to meet with you five days a week...

GROSS: (Laughter).

GUNN: ...Thought, what? So he really broke me down but with kindness, with nurturing and with indefatigable patience. It was - he's a remarkable, remarkable man.

GROSS: How much do you think feeling marginalized, yourself, when you were in your teens had to do with being gay and not coming out to anybody, and maybe not even coming out to yourself for a while?

GUNN: Oh, and I didn't come out to myself. You're quite right. I mean, I knew what I wasn't. I knew I wasn't a heterosexual male. But I didn't know what I was. And I had a terrible fear of intimacy. And quite frankly, I won't call it a fear today at age 67. I just accepted it's a very matter of fact. I don't have a desire to be intimate with anyone. I have to say that there were people in the hospital that - where I was as a teen who were there because they were gay. They were there to be fixed. And I felt simultaneously horrified and sad and terrified.

I thought, well, that can't be me, too. I have enough issues. And I came to terms with this in my very early 20s. And it was extremely liberating. It was, at that time, probably the happiest I'd felt. And I may have told you, I only came out to one person, and that was Dr. Goldblatt. I took the train to New Haven from Washington. And I'd made an appointment to see him. And because, you know, I've been - I was - your question is a catalyst for me to really think about this. I believe I went to him for his validation. And I - sorry. Terry, you're able to get me to well up no matter what.

GROSS: (Laughter).

GUNN: But he gave it to me.

GROSS: What was the form of the validation?

GUNN: Just that he accepted it and basically said it's - and everything's all right, isn't it? Yeah. It is.

GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Tim Gunn, who became famous for his role as a mentor to fashion designers on the fashion competition series "Project Runway." His new series, "Making The Cut," is a global competition fashion series that's now streaming on Amazon Prime Video - all the episodes, including the finale. We'll be right back after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

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Don't Worry, Even Fashion Guru Tim Gunn Is Living In His Comfy Clothes - NPR

They never tell you this in school, but sometimes even asking a question is wrong.

Some questions invite so much correction that the question itself is a crime against knowledge. They can subtract from the sum of human understanding.

But people have goals other than pure scientific understanding these days, especially the politicians who have been asking the most urgent scientific questions in the pandemic: What is it? What is it doing? Where is it going? What can we do?

The way they seek answers has been revealing, if not always for them, at least for everyone else. The result is a massive international case study for public trust in science, which has been tested like never before by the shutdown, and will be tested again by the reopening, and later by the vaccine.

It is not going especially well. The other day, for example, when U.S. President Donald Trump turned to the scientists on his task force and asked if disinfectant injections to the lungs or ultraviolet light through the skin could destroy the virus in living people, he might have felt a frisson of real curiosity, but science was being abused in that moment.

The question was wrong. It is as simple as that. But his task force coordinator Deborah Birx played along, more or less, and kept silent, only later saying Trump meant no harm because when he gets new information, he likes to talk that through out loud and really have that dialogue.

On the contrary, it was a monologue, but Birx, a physician, immunologist and diplomat, has a new reputation for compliance and deference to the president. In Trumps scientific orbit, her fame has lately eclipsed that of Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who got tagged by Trump supporters with the nickname Doctor Doom for his predictions and refusal to endorse Trumps optimism.

The picture in Canada has been more sedate, exhibiting what Heather MacDougall, a University of Waterloo historian of medicine and Canadian public policy on infectious diseases like SARS and avian flu, described as the feminization of public health work. Many of Canadas chief medical officers are women, notably the ones whose profile and public trust has been highest through the pandemic, such as Bonnie Henry in British Columbia and Theresa Tam nationally.

Trump would not be able to handle the strong women who are dealing with this crisis in this country, because he has to be totally in charge. I think it says a lot about Canadian politicians that basically from the get go, they have recognized that these people are the experts and its up to the politicians to take their advice and make it palatable to the public, MacDougall said.

She described a different sort of deference and compliance at the highest level of pandemic decision-making, as Justin Trudeau made clear he was taking his cues on science not just the answers, but the questions, too from Theresa Tam, Canadas Chief Public Health Officer.

Politically, everything flows from that, MacDougall said. It is definitely a matter of trust.

Sometimes the only thing to do is trust people who know better

Misunderstanding of science and the scientific method has contributed to the celebrification and personalization of public health in the pandemic, MacDougall said, but there is also something deeper, below conscious knowledge, in the realm of instinctive trust.

In normal times, trust in scientific medical authority is most commonly tested over vaccines and public health advice. Mistrust is the main problem, not stupidity or malice, because most people are neither scientific experts nor evil monsters. They are humans unsure how to ask and answer the important scientific questions.

In a paper in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, University of Guelph philosophy professor Maya Goldenberg reported last year that hesitancy of parents to vaccinate their children is not primarily driven by scientific illiteracy and online misinformation. Instead, its a problem of public mistrust of scientific institutions, she wrote. Non-experts take the necessary leap of faith only if they are confident that the experts are competent and honest.

That confidence has been taxed lately, in America especially.

Birx and Fauci have become extreme example of what can happen when a leader tries to pick and choose their scientists, to get advice, but also to piggyback on their prestige to justify decisions.

The United Kingdom has offered scandalous examples of the newly famous public health celebrity. First was Catherine Calderwood, Scotlands chief medical officer, busted by reporters for travelling during the isolation period to her second home outside her main home of Edinburgh. Then came Professor Lockdown, Neil Ferguson, who became a household name for his role on a pandemic advisory group, then became a boldfaced name when reporters revealed his married girlfriend had twice crossed London for romantic encounters at his house during the lockdown.

It is not often that the sex life of a scientist affects the destiny of a nation, noted The Times drily, as Ferguson resigned.

As ever, the core problem was not the sex, it was the trust. Major scientific questions have been derailed by issues of trust: political self-dealing, media hype, professional hypocrisy, public confusion and general gullibility.

These questions include whether the virus is evolving to become more contagious, and whether certain drugs for malaria and other diseases might be an effective treatment for COVID-19.

They also include whether the virus emerged naturally from bat, snake and other wildlife populations via a market in Wuhan, or whether it came from the Chinese governments Wuhan Institute of Virology, accidentally or on purpose.

This theory was debunked early in the pandemic when an international team of leading scientists found the coronavirus is not the product of purposeful manipulation and no laboratory origin story is plausible.

But just as Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the virus on America back in March, so did Trump recently endorse the theory that it came from a Chinese government lab, claiming he has seen evidence, as part of a comment criticizing the World Health Organization, which he moved to defund, for being too easy on China.

Fauci, who is to appear before a Senate committee next week, told National Geographic the evidence is strongly against deliberate manipulation. A number of very qualified evolutionary biologists have said that everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that it evolved in nature and then jumped species, he said.

Even the question of whether a lockdown is even necessary, in the eyes of scientists, was upended by Fergusons quarantine assignation.

It's a problem of public mistrust of scientific institutions

Mostly, though, the scientific action has been around predictions. MacDougall pointed out Tams efforts to explain arcane concepts like confidence intervals and other details of statistical interpretation without implying that everyone in Canada should understand.

And why should they? MacDougall said. Statistics is not for everybody, especially in a pandemic, and sometimes the only thing to do is trust people who know better.

Email: jbrean@nationalpost.com | Twitter:

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'A matter of trust': COVID-19 pandemic has tested public confidence in science like never before - National Post

Former coach of the Indian hockey team, who was also a member of Australia hockey team at the 1984 Olympics, Michael Nobbs, in an exclusive conversation with WION's Sports Editor Digvijay Singh Deo, spoke about a lot of things ranging from life in lockdown in Sydney, how Australia can resume sports, matches behind closed doors, Tokyo Olympics, Indian hockey team and its medal prospects at the Games, and much more.

Digvijay Singh Deo:The man I am speaking to can be introduced in many ways, as a hockey olympian, a former coach of the Indian hockey team, husband of an Olympic gold medalist and father of a soon to be Olympian. Those are many hats you wear Michael Nobbs but importantly all of them are related to hockey

Michael Nobbs: Yes, it's the game I love. In fact, it's the game that we all love.

DSD: How are you Michael, good to know that the lockdown has been gradually eased in Sydney.

Michael Nobbs: It was tough initially because everyone was scared and had no idea how to deal with such an unprecedented crisis. But gradually we learnt how to cope with it and now we see that things are opening up. The great thing is that we here in Australia are approaching stage two of the three-step reopening plan of the government. This means we can have ten people at gatherings, go out and exercise and return to a somewhat normal life.

DSD: I am told that you Michael have been starting hockey coaching again with kids, you havent waited long have you.

Michael Nobbs: I love coaching children, it reminds me of why I fell in love with the game. This is such a great time to play the game because normally we are always preparing for some tournament or practising with some strategies in mind, but during this period we can just play for the love of the game. It's a unique opportunity to have fun.

DSD: How have you managed Michael, you are generally any outdoor person and can't imagine you cooped up all alone in your place in Sydney...

Michael Nobbs: I didn't cope with it well to be completely honest. Fortunately, I was able to keep in touch with my friends from all around the world through social media. I kept looking ahead and planning for what I would do when the lockdown measures are relaxed and luckily that time is already here. So I'm just delighted that I can be outdoors again.

DSD: Each country has dealt with the pandemic in different ways and in Australia, each state or province too has had different ways of tackling the virus. But the fact that the death toll has been kept near the hundred marks is exemplary work by the health services.

Michael Nobbs: Yes, the people in Australia have followed all the coronavirus guidelines of the government, including practising social distancing. People in Australia have been very careful in ensuring that the disease does not spread rapidly. The health authorities have also been very proactive and the containment measures have been very effective. There is a phone app as well which will be available soon which will allow people to stay away from danger zones.

DSD: How soon do you think Australia will return to normalcy, given that there hasn't been a stark rise in the number of cases in the past few weeks.

Michael Nobbs: I don't think things will get back to normal for a long time, till there's a vaccine available. I think domestic competitions in Australia will start to get underway in July. However, in terms of international competitions, I don't see the travel restrictions being lifted which means we won't see any action this year.

DSD: Lots of debate in the world of cricket about the T20 World Cupin Australia. Do you think that event can go off without a hitch or they will have to play without spectators?

Michael Nobbs: I think the T20 World Cup will go ahead, but we have to ensure that everyone involved in the competition is virus-free. So the necessary tests have to take place. Right now, there aren't a lot of cases in Australia, but it just takes the one person to cause an outbreak. I think by the time the competition comes around in October, I hope will be able to hold matches with spectators.

DSD: Maybe we won't have a full MCGpeople will be scattered all over the stadium.

Michael Nobbs: Yes I think that is a possibility. We can have a distance between two families in the stadium, which means a stadium like the MCG would have about 30 to 40,000 spectators. That is enough to create an atmosphere. People will have to obey social distancing rules.

DSD: World sport has been tossed around violently by this pandemic but signs that sport is leading the fightback saying we won't be cowed down. Bundesliga starts behind closed doors on 16th May.could be a significant moment, if they go off without a hitch you could see a domino effect.

Michael Nobbs: I think the German Bundesliga is a very good test case for the world. It gives us an idea of the pros and cons of starting a major sporting competition. I think after 2-3 weeks of the Bundesliga, we will see other sports and competitions base their decisions on how the league is functioning in Germany.

DSD: Should sport resume behind closed doors. Some argue that the people need the distraction, sceptics say this is all about the money stuck in broadcast rights, the purists say how can you play team sport without the atmosphere

Michael Nobbs: Everyone loves a large crowd, there is no doubt about that. But when we were kids we used to play for the sheer love of the game, with absolutely no one watching. I realise there is a lot of money in sport, it is a huge business. The atmospherics are also a major part of top-level sport, so it does feel strange to play without spectators.

DSD: How has Australian sport coped through all of this?

Michael Nobbs: All sports are bleeding money at this point. Every domestic club relies on weekly action to sustain the salary of the employees, whether it be the players or the non-playing staff. It is going to be a tough road back for all these teams. We cannot have a full season because then one sport will overlap with the season of the other. Every sport is trying to figure out a way to survive.

DSD: In fact, if we go back to march the Australian Olympic Committee sort of put pressure on the IOC saying it would not send a team to the 2020 Olympics..that was a pretty brave call when the Olympic Committee has an IOC vice president in it.

Michael Nobbs: It is the ultimate goal of an athlete to compete at the Olympic games. Athletes, especially in individual sports, plan their preparation for four years in a way that they peak during this event, so it is very tough on them to postpone the games. But I don't think the IOC had any other choice. The health and safety of society have to be the top priority, and the postponement decision was taken keeping that in mind.

DSD: Now Michael Nobbs daughter Kaitlin was set to follow in the footsteps of her father and mother and become an olympian. Personally, how disappointing was it for the family?

Michael Nobbs: It was disappointing for us, but I was telling my daughter the other day that she is just 22 and there are bound to be more opportunities for her to compete at the Olympics if she keeps working hard. She was voted the Australian player of the year in 2019, so there's a good chance she retains her place in the squad. I'm pretty confident she will do well since she has got some of my genes.

DSD: I remember her from the time you were out coaching here Michael, that shy young girl has now become the 2019 Australian player of the year. What a dramatic evolution.

Michael Nobbs: We're really proud of her, not just of what she has achieved as a hockey player, but the way she conducts herself off the pitch. When you have a daughter, they tend to be like their mothers, very strong-willed. So it was tough at times when she was growing up, but I could not be more proud of the person she has become. I can't wait to see what she does in the future.

DSD: I dont want to play spoilsport here Michael but question marks remain over the Tokyo games. How does that uncertainty affect probable first-time Olympians like your daughter?

Michael Nobbs: Kaitlin is also doing a nursing degree while pursuing her hockey career, so she is keeping herself busy. The dates of the Olympic games are out of her control, so there's no point dwelling on that. She loves to play the game and today she was trying to find a hockey field in her neighbourhood to just hit a few balls around. That just shows you the passion she has for the sport. She understands that she can only work on herself and the Olympics are out of her control.

DSD: Australia is a powerhouse when it comes to the Olympics.how much does an athlete risk currently in this climate, let's take three sports.hockey, swimming and athletics.not possible to follow social distancing in these sports so what is the option.

Michael Nobbs: I think training has already started in groups of ten in some sports while practising social distancing. I think it all comes down to the frequency of testing and the number of tests we can conduct in a short span of time. If you can test 40-50 people in about 3 or 4 hours, then those people can be deemed safe to participate in a particular event and it can go ahead. I realise the logistics of this can be a bit of a problem, but I don't see many other alternatives. Testing is essential for us to return to the sport in a safe environment.

DSD: As it stands most of the people I have spoken to admit that the 2020 international season is a write-off. We dont know if we have a vaccine by the end of the year so you are probably looking at not a lot of competition before the 2021 games. Will that throw up a very very different Olympic podium from the ones we were expecting.

Michael Nobbs: It's definitely going to be interesting. If you can't have international competitions, it makes the Olympics less competitive. You need to be able to constantly be competing against good teams to be in the best shape possible for the Olympics, and I don't think that will be possible. So I agree, I think the 2021 games will be unpredictable. I already think there won't be any international competitions taking place in 2020. A competition like the pro league struggles for money during the best of times and now without any crowds or restart date in sight, there could be real problems for the FIH.I know a lot of teams were relying on the Pro League for their Olympic preparation so I don't know how teams will now play against international teams ahead of the Olympics.

DSD: How will hockey react to this period of no training. You had a nice and explosive start to the Olympic year with the Pro League matches. The momentum is gone now and probably peak fitness. You can't train in gyms and build up match fitness, can you?

Michael Nobbs: I think it's going to take six-nine months. It's going to be a huge task to get teams back to match fitness from this point. I don't think there is much money as well with the sporting authorities to conduct competitions because all the economies have tanked. It's going to be enormously difficult with the travel restrictions to hold international matches and I'm not sure how teams will prepare.

DSD: Considering the travel restrictions and quarantine measures in place, will the European teams have a slight advantage considering they can probably play against each other by September or October considering how easy it is to travel inside the eurozone.

Michael Nobbs: Yes I feel the Europeans will have a huge advantage. Us Australians have to travel to India to have high-level competition, which is obviously not possible at this point. We do have the possibility of playing New Zealand, but that will also become pointless after a few matches. The top 3-4 European teams can compete with each other regularly and it will certainly be a boon for them ahead of the Olympics. However, I still feel the Australian team will be well prepared for the games given the quality of the team.

DSD: How badly do you think has this postponement hit India. Lots of people were putting them down as medal contenders after a bright start to the Pro League.

Michael Nobbs: I think the team that we see now is a result of the programme that dr Narinder Batra put in place ten years ago. I remember when I was the coach of the Indian team, I felt that because of the system that was put in place, the team would be ready to compete for a medal at the 2020 Olympics. That's exactly how it has turned out, we see a team which plays outstanding hockey and can beat any team in the world on their day. India is a very young team and the players are going to find it difficult to maintain their levels without any competition. I doubt it will be possible for the federation to make any other top team travel to India. I'm not even sure if India can face Pakistan at the moment, even if they can, India are a much superior team to Pakistan currently in every aspect of the game. I used to love watching Pakistan play, but it is sad what has happened to their team. India-Pakistan games used to be major events some time ago, but now they are not nearly as competitive. However, it still might be a good idea for the two teams to start playing each other again because some competition is better than no competition.

DSD: We have had a procession of coaches Michael..it has no means been an easy road and it starts with you getting the team to London 2012. How have they evolved and is it because of the core mostly remaining the same, the likes of Sreejesh, Manpreet Singh and Rupinder Pal Singh are still around...

Michael Nobbs: That was a conscious decision I made when I was in charge, I was confident that Manpreet Singh would be Olympic captain one day. In my opinion, one has to play 100-200 games for the country to become a top international player. When I was in charge, the senior players could dribble the ball like magicians, but their fundamentals were very poor and that's where we lost out to the European teams. So I made it a point, along with Harendra Singh, to ensure that the junior players who were coming in, had the fundamentals of the game instilled in them. Harendra also did a fantastic job with the players and now we see a team which has good chemistry, strong basics and a very good coach. I'm delighted to see Manpreet Singh do so well for the team. He has been an outstanding captain and led by example from the first time I met him ten years ago.

The rest is here:
Michael Nobbs: Effective social distancing has helped Australia limit the fatalities - WION

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Bryant: Hello. Welcome to the "InfoQ Podcast." I'm Daniel Bryant, News Manager at InfoQ, and Product Architect at Datawire. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Marty Abbott and Tanya Cordrey. Marty is the CEO and co-founder of AKF Partners, a global technology consulting organization. Tanya is a partner at AKF Partners. Marty and Tanya both had fascinating careers and worked together in the early days of eBay. I followed Marty's work for many years now, having been a big fan of the books he co-authored, "The Art of Scalability" and "Scalability Rules." I was keen to learn more about his latest thinking in regards to the models that he and the AKF team have been working on. If you look back through my talks online, you can see that I've referenced the AKF Scale Cube a lot in relation to microservices.

I've also followed Tanya's work for quite some time, and I wanted to explore her experiences in relation to when she worked as the chief digital officer at Guardian News & Media. Tanya was on the senior executive team here as the organization scaled from national news reporting to a global presence. I knew Tanya had a lot of great insights into leading teams, setting objectives, and sharing the vision. This is an area I wanted to focus on and dive a little deeper into.

Hello, Tanya. Hello, Marty. Welcome to the "InfoQ" podcast.

Abbott: Hello, Daniel.

Cordrey: Hi.

Bryant: Could you briefly introduce yourselves for the listeners, please, and share a bit of your background, your career highlights as well? Thanks.

Cordrey: I'll start. I'm Tanya Cordrey. I previously lead the Guardian's global engineering, product, and data teams. It was a great time to be at "The Guardian" because during that period, "The Guardian" transformed from a UK and print-centric organization to a global digital powerhouse. We laid a lot of the foundations for commercial success. Before that, I ran product at eBay UK. I've worked for a wide range of different organizations from large legacy organizations to production tech-first companies to startups, etc. Today I spend my time on some boards of some companies, and I'm also a partner at AKF Partners, heading up our efforts in Europe.

Abbott: I'm Marty Abbott. Started my career as an officer in the U.S. Army. Moved on after five years to be a software and electrical engineer at Motorola. Then ran components of IT for Gateway when they were still around, specifically within the Asia Pacific region. Then went on to eBay for six years, last two of which I was a CTO. That's how I met Tanya. Then became the CEO for a struggling startup in New York. Turned it around, sold it to AOL, and started AKF Partners with 2 friends 13 years ago, and was lucky enough to hire Tanya recently.

Bryant: As I mentioned off mic, I'm most familiar with AKF work through the Scale Cube. I think Simon Brown tipped me off to that many years ago now, and it's been super helpful throughout my career. I saw recently you have the AKF Availability Cube online, which I thought was very interesting. I love models as a sort of ex-consultant, I really like models. Could you briefly introduce how the Availability Cube came about for me please?

Abbott: Yeah, the Availability Cube, in many regards, is just an extension of the Scale Cube which we developed 13 years ago. The premise for it and how it started was we noticed a number of clients are really struggling with the concept of microservices, specifically that they were chaining them together and very much disregarding the math regarding the availability impact of chained microservices. That's where service A calls service B which may call service C, etc., each of which has a very specific, sometimes difficult to calculate, but nevertheless measurable availability component. When they are chained, when service A calls service B calls service C, the availability lowers because you get the multiplicative effect of failure. Think about electrical circuits, any component of which when wired in series, should they break, break all components.

Now, especially when applied to services, as compared to, say, a monolith besides having these individual breakable components, any of which might cause a service to fail, you also have a number of others devices in between these services. Within cloud deployments, it's that much more difficult because you're not in control of the complete infrastructure. If service A is designed to have four nines of availability, B and C are each designed to have four nines availability. Then you have networking components in between them, which may be built to five nines of availability, etc. It's very easy to see that those 4 9s on an individual basis, coupled with the 5 9s, very quickly reduces your availability to below 99.9%. And that's roughly 42 minutes of outage or customer impact a month, which most companies really don't want.

Bryant: Totally makes sense. A question to yourself, Tanya, as you were working with "The Guardian," did you see microservices becoming a thing when you were there? Did you see this need to sort of break things apart to scale out and try to increase availability?

Cordrey: Without a shadow of a doubt. Funnily enough, I actually hired AKF to come and help us.

Bryant: What a surprise.

Cordrey: Exactly. Marty sort of rocked up. And we had a sort of rapid learning on things like the Scalability Cube, etc. It radically changed our approach on how we were building our services. Because I think at that time, we were very much focused really on the UK audience. This type of approach allowed us to suddenly really think about things in a much more ambitious, scalable way. Suddenly, we could think about having a global audience, having our own journalists, being able to write content 24 hours a day, being able to expand in different countries, etc. It really did lay the foundations for us to rapidly change our sort of engineering philosophy.

Abbott: I think back to my earlier point around the Availability Cube and microservices, we've always been huge proponents of microservices. The issue is in how they're deployed and architected. Microservices help engender significantly higher levels of organizational scalability. If not applied properly, as in breadth versus depth, depth being the chaining of micro services, if not deployed such that each pool of microservices faces a customer and they're never deep, that's where we may get organizational scale at the expense of the availability of the solution. We like to flip that. We like to present microservices and breadth as components of the product architecture, but never in depth.

Bryant: That's really interesting because I think there's a tendency with folks, when they hear the word microservices, is to decompose. We have this sort of notion of bounded context and so forth. I definitely see people wanting to go to the chaining level. They say, "I'm going to have the cart service that calls the payment service," these kind of things. I think from when we build systems at a code level, that's the kind of natural way we structure our code, the different layers, the different kind of chaining of things. Have you got any advice on how folks should design to minimize this long chain of services?

Abbott: Sure, we often use the phrase, "Services for breadth, and libraries for depth." The thing about libraries, everyone seems to be running away from them. The great thing about them is they eliminate all of these extra hops, call through the operating system to the neck down through the network, to another service, etc. They still, especially if you use dynamically deployable, shared loadable libraries, they give you many of the same benefits of services in depth without the significant availability impact, all of these other devices standing between service A calling service B, and still allow for independent deployment. Yet, for some reason, folks have just forgotten about them. They think service is everywhere, service is deep, service is broad. As a result, we get these huge service mesh networks that not only have low availability, but are incredibly difficult to troubleshoot because when one of these little fuses or services pops, if everything's connected, it's generally called the N-squared problem, everything fails. When everything fails, you don't know where to start troubleshooting.

We see companies striving to get better organizational scale, where an organization or team of 15 or fewer people own a service. All great. That allows us to have lower overhead, which results in higher velocity. Again, they start stacking services deep. The number of our clients that do this runs into the hundreds at this point. Then they all wonder, "Why is it that my services deployment results in lower availability, even though I get higher velocity than it did before?" The answer is simple. It's the same thing we see, again, in electrical components. Think of Christmas tree lights. The old lights that if a single bolt burnt, the entire string went. That's what happens when we chain services together.

Bryant: One thing I think you hinted there, Marty, which developers do you like is the ownership thing, the whole two-pizza teams, and Jeff Bezos and so forth. How does the ownership work with these libraries? Because I'm totally fond of libraries, I've built my fair share of libraries in the Java world, but again, I was working on the monolith then. I was boning the library as part of the general code base. If we're trying to split services up into different teams to improve velocity, how do the libraries play into this? Is it a centralized team or not, for example?

Abbott: You can deploy a library in the same fashion that you deploy a service. As a matter of fact, often when we work with clients, again, we're talking about services that run deep here, or call chains, if you will, we often tell folks that a service is nothing more than a demonized library with a restful interface. Again, remember things like DLLs, or shared dynamically loadable libraries in both Unix and Linux, if you can do that, a team can own it, deploy it separately, and it just requires a restart of the service that was causing it, which, as a side note, often happens when you deploy a service anyways. The parent or calling service will often need to be restarted even if it has circuit breakers, etc. It's just good practice to eliminate all these extra hops, but again, obviously focus on services decomposition, but do so from a broad perspective.

You also brought up, if you don't mind, I think it's an interesting story, the notion of Jeff Bezos and two-pizza teams. There's a great story behind this. When Rick Dalzell was the CTO of Amazon, Amazon had hired him from Walmart long ago. He had a reading club within Amazon and they read Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month." In there, Brooks references Conway's Law, which at the time was published in about 1969. The paper is called "How do Committees Invent?" Brooks is the first one to call Conway's Law Conway's Law, before it was a little red activity. "In there," he said, "Brooks and Conway argue that teams should be small and own components," which is one of the corollaries of Conway's Law. Jeff asked Rick, "How large should teams be?" Conway, by the way, in his paper says should be less than 8 people, but Brooks sort of increases that to the closest Dunbar number which is between 12 and 15. Tells this to Bezos. Bezos is like, "This makes a lot of sense, but it's hard to follow. Why don't we say nope, team should be larger than that which two pizzas can feed?"

Bryant: That is an awesome story. I read that read "The Mythical Man-Month" in college. I thoroughly enjoyed that one. I see the problems talked about in that book reinvented time and time again. I'd be curious, actually, to get both your opinions on why do we as industry seem to repeat history? We don't always learn as much as I think we should. Don't know if you've got opinions on that.

Cordrey: I just think people often just get their heads down and sort of forget to look up and realize what's sort of happening. As an industry, as you quite rightly say, we're very passionate about having small empowered teams. Yet, particularly over the last 12 months, I've seen so many teams have really got very bloated, and because the teams are really keen to have an expert on each thing in the room. For example, there'll be, obviously, the engineers, but then they'll have the product manager, and they'll have a data analyst, and they'll have a user experience researcher, and then they'll have the designer. Then sometimes there's more than one of those people in the room. Suddenly, a team that's meant to be very efficient to sort of 6, 7 people is suddenly becoming 10, 11, 12 people.

What's really frightening about the way some of these teams work is that they're being very much sort of siloed in their responsibilities, so they don't get out of their own swim lane. I think that's particularly worrying with things like the data and the metrics, because nothing makes me sadder when you go and see a team and you ask them about their success metrics, or the performance, or particularly something they've implemented, what impact has it had. Then the team will look a bit blank and go, "We don't have the data person here." You're sort of going, "Come on." Everybody should really be owning that and feeling sort of passionate about that. I suspect you've seen the same sort of thing, Marty.

Abbott: Well put, Tanya. I liken this to two different areas, hopefully they'll resonate with the listeners. One being diet and fitness. A lot of folks will attack only one side of it, right? They'll either diet or there'll exercise, but they don't do both. As a result, the results are suboptimal. The next analogy is the comparison of corporations with the military. Specifically, the military is always fighting the newest war with the newest weapons, but last war's tactics. Corporations do the same thing. It's new battle, new technology, old tactics. We'll deploy microservices, but we'll do it in the same fashion that we used to think about libraries. That creates a problem. New weapons require new tactics, new technology requires new approaches.

Cordrey: I was going to add. I think one of the things I've seen, and we see a lot, actually, now when we work with companies is that you have a lot of teams that are really trying to do the right things. I often refer to them as sort of framework fanatics. This is where these teams really beginning to make process rather than outcomes, their Northstar. Now, I have to confess, as consultants, as you've quite rightly said, we all love a good model, a good framework, etc. I love a great framework to simplify a problem or identify a potential solution. Software development, product management, these things are not painting by numbers. Frameworks, rituals, processes are guides, not solutions. Too many teams today are really making their role about the execution of the process, rather than the impact of the work.

I've actually even come across teams who come to a product squad. I came across one a few months ago, and they defined their mission as being exemplary in Agile. They even had OKRs about how great they were doing Agile, and the what and the how they were doing it had become the whole focus, rather than the why, which I think everybody here would agree is the most important question.

Bryant: Yes, the tail wagging, the dog type situation. I think it's often easier to focus on process than it is on outcomes. My experience is as an organization gets bigger, it's even harder because there's more bureaucracy introduced by its very nature as an organization scales. I think that's something I've tried to fight against sometimes, and reduce the bureaucracy. You mentioned OKRs there, for example. I think OKRs, when used well, are really good way to align teams on what are we actually trying to do, and what are our leavers to have [inaudible 00:15:24] experience. How do we best communicate that to our teams, have you got any advice on that?

Abbott: I think that a senior technology executive's job, one of their primary jobs anyways, is to create a really good causal roadmap between what an engineer does every day and how it creates value for the company. If OKRs are implemented properly, nested properly, and always reviewed thoroughly and updated frequently, it's a great mechanism to do that. The test there is can an engineer look at an OKR tree and understand what he or she does every day and how it creates business value. If we do that, I think we eliminate some of the issues, similar to what Tanya brought up, specifically having approaches run perpendicular or orthogonal to the outcomes of the company. It's unclear how being agile, and the way that Tanya put it, really starts to create stakeholder wealth and value within a company.

Bryant: Interesting. There's something I want to riff off there and pick up what you said, Tanya. I've definitely seen this where teams get bloated. What do you think is the way to resolve some of that? Is it to have, say, more of these specialists as consultants, even if they're full-time staff, but do they consult more to the individual teams?

Cordrey: I would agree with that. I think you don't need everybody in the room all the time. I think teams need to be clear on who is the decision-making body. What's that lovely phrase? Camel is a horse designed by committee. I think sometimes when you get teams that are too big, unfortunately sort of common sense disappears and groupthink takes over. I think teams really need to apply common sense. Put bluntly, if there are too many people in the room, you should kind of say, "Hold on, we need to get some of the people out of the room." Because I think the trouble is that often teams can see when things are going wrong, but actually, we're all very nice. Nobody wants to be the jerk to sort of say, "Actually, hop it, half of you." I think sometimes teams really need to do that.

For example, let me tell you a story of a team last year I came across. So this team was really passionate about discovering getting user feedback, which obviously we all agree about. Every team had a dedicated user researcher. The team had really landed on this idea that you would test everything in front of real users. They built a testing lab in their building. So far, so good, you think that sounds all great. Over the periods of months, the process took over everything and nothing could be decided until it had been in front of some focus groups, and not just one focus group or two focus groups. What's it with the design sprint, the sort of Jake Knapp process, they say you only have to put it in front of five people? This group were putting it in front of 8, 9, 10 focus groups. Because it's a team sport, discovery's a team sport, everybody had to attend every focus groups.

The team lost confidence in making any decisions. The team became completely reliant on focus groups. When they got the answer they didn't like, they just did more focus groups. The engineers were utterly tearing their hair out because they had stopped writing any code because they're always in focus groups. The thing is, this team had moved their OKRs to be around how many focus groups they were actually conducting. They were doing great on the OKRs, but actually, common sense had gone through the door. As I say, the engineers were just so frustrated. What had started as a very sensible thing and a very sensible approach, driven by good intentions, had just got warped. Again, I think size of teams, it doesn't happen overnight where you have a high functioning team of 7, and then one day, there's 15 people. What happens over a matter of weeks or months, suddenly that 7 becomes 8, then 9, 10, etc.

Bryant: That drift into failure mode, isn't it?

Cordrey: Yeah.

Abbott: Size of an organization responsible for getting something done is always highly correlated with bureaucracy, the larger the size of a group necessary to get something done, the higher the level of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is all non-value added overhead. Trying to get teams to be the right size, own outcomes consistent with their size is how we battle bureaucracy, and then measuring what matters. Specifically with an engineering, what matters is how much time an engineer is spending doing the thing for which you pay him or her to do, and that's code. If they're in meetings, if we don't measure that, if we don't know that an engineer spends 50% of his or her time in meetings, we don't know that they're only writing 50% of the time, which means that they cost twice as much to us. We're paying twice as much as we should for what matters and management has to get involved and eliminate that bureaucracy, push ownership down, properly relate teams to architectural components, which are further directly related with business and product outcomes. That's how we engender empowerment within teams.

Bryant: Well said. I wouldn't mind to pivot a little bit to just look at some of the architectural principles now, if that's okay. It's nice leading there, I think. Microservices we're not necessary a thing when your book was first published now many years ago, but the other principles were there pre what we're now labeling as microservices. What's your thoughts of the evolution from the monolith to microservices? We're even seeing some folks now sort of going back towards the monolith. Have you got any sort of commentary around the journey we've been on?

Abbott: This whiplash that you describe of teams rapidly adopting microservices and moving back to model is seen time and time again with virtually every other technology evolution. It's not uncommon for folks to latch on to whatever the [inaudible 00:21:04] or approach du jour is go wholeheartedly, drop their hips and drive into the objective, and then realize, "We didn't plan enough. We didn't understand enough what we should be doing. We didn't architect well enough." Back to our earlier discussion, now we have these deep changes of microservices. Unfortunately, often they say, "Let's just go back to the prior state." When the best solution is, again, to optimize both sides of the equation. It's to both plan properly for availability, calculate the theoretical availability of a solution, broaden your microservices, in depth use libraries, your failure rates drop, the probability of failure drops. As a result, your availability increases and you still get all of the other benefits of microservices.

Bryant: I like it a lot. I was actually looking back through your book earlier on today. One other thing I picked up on the designing things, whether it's using mature technologies. I guess that can apply to programming languages, as well as databases and other things. We've got a fantastic array of technology at our disposal now. As a developer, when I started my career, I couldn't have dreamed what we've got now. What's your thoughts on how we should pick technologies appropriate for the task at hand?

Abbott: We have a wonderful article on the site about the bathtub effect in failure rates of different things, whether they be infrastructure or software, as it relates to their age. Think about a graph that has a bit of a bathtub. Think of it as a U, where the x-axis is time and the y-axis is failure rates. Any new technology, whether it be infrastructure or software, has an incredibly high failure rate as we try to figure out how to make it work, how to reduce defects, etc. Ultimately, we bought them out, not so mature technology, but if you wait too long, as infrastructure ages, or as you take on additional debt and don't pay it down from a software perspective, those failure rates, again, increase on the far right side of the curve. Where we want our clients are in the basin of the bathtub. Solutions that have been tried by many other companies already. Most of the kinks have been worked out, but there's still some competitive advantage in adopting them. Then ride that until such time as the next bathtub comes around and swap before you have significantly higher failure rates.

If your designing systems predicated on high availability, either to meet a business need, a B2B business, or a consumer need, a B2C business, inherent to that value adoption by the consumer is availability. We overlook it, we just think, "It's a new competitive advantage," and don't properly apply the calculus to understand what the failure rate and associated impact to our availability will be.

Bryant: Very interesting. Have you got an experience with this one, Tanya, say, picking too new technology and then regretting the choice at all?

Cordrey: I think we did that a couple of times at "The Guardian," but it's really hard because when you have a fantastic enthusiastic team, often the engineers want to try new technology. I'm a big believer in making space for everybody to sort of learn, and grow, and test, and all those sorts of things. I think there's the balance between allowing the team to try out new things. As Marty quite rightly says, it's balancing the risk. You don't want to be trying something really funky and new on something that's mission-critical system for your service or product, etc. I think there's a case of trying to give teams the room to experiment, but actually, at the end of the day, you have to sort of be taking kind of fairly cautious, pragmatic, and a very sort of business approach on kind of where you do that, and where you don't do that.

Bryant: It makes total sense. It's something we talk at InfoQ a lot is about diffusion of innovation. Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm," for example. One thing we see is folks don't always recognize that different people's perspectives of it are going to be different. If you're a super hipster startup burning through VC money versus you're an enterprise, you've got money-making software on COBOL that you've got to keep running, your risk tolerance, I guess, is very different depending on where you're coming from. I'm kind of curious have you both got experiences of that where perhaps people haven't fully realized where they are in terms of what is risky to them. Is this new technology can going to value? Or is it too risky to experiment with?

Abbott: I think applying Tanya's approach of playing with things in non-mission-critical areas of a product, or even within a development or R&D environment helps teams better understand that and also get up to speed on the technology before it goes into a mission-critical system. As a side note, the diffusion of innovation, do you happen to know where that came from prior to Geoffrey Moore?

Bryant: I've recently re-read the book. Actually, I don't. Go on, Marty, let me know.

Abbott: The technology adoption lifecycle and diffusion of innovation theory comes from Rogers in 1962. But it had nothing to do with technology per se. It was the adoption of hybrid corn seed. This model applies not only to technology, but virtually everything else that we do, any new innovation, even though it's called the diffusion of innovation theory, which resulted in the technology adoption lifecycle and the technology adoption model, but it applies to the adoption of virtually anything that's innovative.

Bryant: Intriguing. There's always lots to learn. When I was an academic, actually, my professor at a time always said to me, "Cross pollinate." I was in, obviously, computer science, but he said, "Go and chat to the biologists. Go and chat to different people." You learn so much more by learning from other sources, I think, than where you're coming from.

Abbott: Absolutely. That's why we are so big as a firm and try to get our clients to adopt the notion of durable cross-functional teams, where it's not just software developers who then pass something along to infrastructure people. Rather, you have business people, product owners in an Agile term, and software and infrastructure DevOps, SREs, etc., all working on the same team to achieve a common outcome within that team.

Bryant: Very nice. You mentioned the SREs there and DevOps. One thing on the conversation I was keen to pick up on is observability, as we're now calling it, sort of monitoring, logging, and so forth. I'm guessing, we all know really, that's super important. Have you got any sort of thoughts on how that relates to scalability and availability too?

Abbott: Absolutely. There's a wonderful notion not widely adopted of test-driven development within engineering. We sort of took that and said, "You also need to be thinking about, at the time of design, how it is you're going to monitor for the desired effect or business outcomes of this solution." Very often we say, within the Agile notion of done, something being complete, it's when something actually achieves the business outcome, because that's where the expenses were predicated. Not when we're done developing something, but rather did it achieve the desired outcome? If we start thinking that way on day zero, besides just the software that we write, and the infrastructure upon which it's hosted, we would also be thinking about all of the associated monitoring capabilities to detect not only that it's not functioning as design, I think that's a horrible term, but rather, as expected. Expected means achieving the desired business outcome.

Bryant: I wonder if you can talk a little bit about performance testing. Now, I always find this quite tricky. Often it's a big bang thing at the end of a project. We've designed the system, hopefully, we thought about the cross-functional, non-functional requirements. My experience frequently is things like performance testing is done at the end of the project. Any advice from either of on how to shift that left or shift that forward a bit? Get sort of things like performance into the design and into the testing early on?

Abbott: I have two thoughts. One is that the most mature organizations we know perform performance testing within their CI pipeline, such that commits ultimately trigger not only integration in unit tests, but also performance tests to understand the impact or degradation of performance of added functionality. That's point one. Point two, performance testing rarely has the payout we desire because it's rare that we can reproduce the production environment in its entirety. If you were to do that, you've doubled your cost. If your production environment is properly fault isolated, back to the Scale Cube, along the z-axis, by customers. Let's say you have 10 of these, each of which serves one tenth of your customers, with one very small exception that might be 30 basis points of your customers. That's your Canary environment. Now we can test live. As long as we can easily roll back, we'll understand with real user traffic what the impact is going to be.

One of the biggest issues with performance testing is when we release new functionality, we have an expectation as to user behavior, but very often what happens, and this is from our third book, users will use the new functionality in a way that we didn't understand, so our test is invalid to begin with.

Bryant: Digging along that, Tanya, I've seen that too. I'm guessing you've seen.

Cordrey: I think that you always have to be very aware of how the users are behaving. As Marty quite rightly says, sometimes they don't behave in a way that you're expecting. Or there's the other trap you fall into where you look at the data and you make an assumption. I remember in the early days, when I worked at eBay, there used to be this amazing chart that we had, which showed the number of pages that users looked at. This, as I say, is in the very early days of eBay. It was a bubble chart. When you looked at all the other big websites at the time, the eBay sort of engagement of how many pages people looked at, it was like this big Deathstar bubble chart. This sort of Deathstar in the middle was eBay. We really took it, at least for us in the UK, we looked at it, went, "Aren't our users engaged? Isn't that really great?" We were really proud of this chart. As we were trying to grow the business, we'd go out and sort of show it a lot to talk about how engaged our users were.

However, as we sort of matured a bit and we started doing different types of testing, different ways to engage with our users, we realized that a fair proportion of all those pages people were checking out was because they were finding discoverability really hard on the website. They couldn't actually find what they were looking for. We had this metric that we initially thought was a really fantastic thing. We were very proud of it. Then actually, when we started peeling away the onion, we realized that a fair chunk of it was actually due to sort of user confusion or not being able to do what you wanted to do. Not surprisingly, discoverability and findability became a sort of big priority then for them months ahead, once we discovered that.

Abbott: That is such a great story about making sure you're measuring the right things. As a result of that, we moved away from how many things or items the customer views to the ratio of searches to an Add to Cart or purchase because that's really what's important.

Bryant: We're coming to the end of our time now. Are there any additional topics you were keen to cover?

Cordrey: In the middle of our sort of Coronavirus craziness, there are a lot of websites at the moment that are really struggling with scalability, availability, etc. I thought it'd be really interesting, Marty, maybe if you had a few words of sort of, if you're the CTO or engineering head of one of those companies, from a leadership perspective, how do you work through these crazy times? I see Zoom today has published something about what they've been doing. Obviously, you're also one of the people who've lived through this sort of crazy hyper growth, and then having to deal with the consequences of it.

Abbott: I don't know how a company can properly identify black swan events like COVID. I do know that there are companies that have absolutely risen to the occasion, and you both mentioned Zoom. Those folks should be applauded, because all of a sudden, overnight, I have no direct insight into their traffic numbers or interaction numbers, but overnight, everyone's working from home and they're using solutions like Zoom to do this. Those folks emerge from this thing as a shining star in terms of the scale and availability of their solution, as compared to a number of old brick and mortar companies that didn't properly invest in their commerce solutions online that are failing, because they're all seeing Black Friday-like numbers. These things, while they take time to fix, they're almost always easy to fix. It's just technology. As long as it's architected properly using building blocks or scale bricks, as we call them, it's easy, especially with elastic compute, to be able to scale these things nearly on demand and avoid black swan events. Again, as with any significant issue like we're facing today, they're always the heroes like Zoom. Unfortunately, the landscape's always littered with folks who weren't prepared for the black swan.

Bryant: I was chatting with some folks the other day, and they were talking about running local game days, effectively sort of creating disaster scenarios. Not real ones, but as in creating these scenarios, running them, and see how people behave. Is that something either of you've done in the past?

Abbott: Absolutely. We always tell our clients that you need to practice what we call the DID approach. The first being the design of a solution, which is theoretically, or at least intellectually, high cost. In terms of actual software, there's not a lot to do. You need to get that out of the way before these events, such that you would understand how to deploy. High cost intellectually, but the absolute cost is low. Then the implementation of it, which is the writing of software, lower intellectual cost, but higher activity, operating margin impact you're paying engineers. Then finally, you don't actually have to deploy the last D until you need it, especially in the cloud infrastructure as a service enabled world. Therefore, you don't have to impact your cost of goods sold. You'll have it developed and ready. Then it's just the elastic expansion when you need it.

Bryant: Interesting. Have you seen anything like that, Tanya? I've heard a bit of it more recently, about folks sort of running these disaster trainings, for example. Like Marty said, you got to have some capabilities already there. It's often interesting from the social side, how do folks react to disaster?

Cordrey: We probably never planned anything quite the level of disaster that we're seeing today. We've never planned for some COVID-19-type event, but we have done, though, sort of disaster recovery days where something's not working, or what have you. The one that, funnily enough, teams often neglect is particularly when you have a lot of legacy systems. There's that one engineer who is the only one left in the building who knows something. If you're ever doing the sort of planning around sort of disaster scenario planning, you should plan that that engineer is suddenly unavailable, because that's often a really big single point of failure that many teams have.

Bryant: I like that a lot. I don't know if either of you have read "The Unicorn Project" and "The Phoenix Project" by Gene Kim. He talks a lot about this kind of stuff. I recently read "The Unicom Project," and it's very much the people can be as big of a bottleneck as the technology. I like it a lot. Super. Thanks both for your time today. I really enjoyed chatting. Thank you very much.

Cordrey: No, thank you. It's great.

Abbott: Thank you, Daniel.

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Marty Abbott and Tanya Cordrey on Microservices, Availability, and Managing Risk - InfoQ.com

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA: A wholesale market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan played a role in the outbreak of the novel coronavirus last year, as the source or possibly as an "amplifying setting", the World Health Organization said on Friday, calling for more research.

Chinese authorities shut down the market in January as part of efforts to halt the spread of the virus and ordered a temporary ban on trade and consumption of wildlife.

"The market played a role in the event, that's clear. But what role we don't know, whether it was the source or amplifying setting or just a coincidence that some cases were detected in and around that market," said Dr Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO expert on food safety and zoonotic viruses that cross the species barrier from animals to humans.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said there is "a significant amount of evidence" the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory, although he has also said there wasn't certainty.

No public evidence has linked the outbreak to the lab in Wuhan and scientists have said the coronavirus appears to have developed in nature. A German intelligence report cast doubts on Pompeo's allegations, Der Spiegel reported.

Ben Embarek did not address the accusations.

He noted that it took researchers a year to identify camels as the source of the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) virus, a coronavirus that emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and spread in the Middle East, adding: "It's not too late."

"What is important, what would be of great help, is to get hold of the virus before it adapted to humans, before the version we have now. Because then we would better understand how it adapted to humans, how it evolved," he said.

"In terms of investigations, China has most probably, most likely, all the expertise needed to do these investigations. They have lot of very qualified researchers to that," he said.

A common sight across Asia, wet markets traditionally sell fresh produce and live animals, such as fish, in the open air.

Many markets worldwide that sell live animals must be better regulated and hygiene conditions improved, and some should be closed down, Ben Embarek said. "But the vast majority can be fixed, can be better organised."

It is often a question of controlling waste management, the movement of people and goods, and of separating live animals from animal products and from fresh goods, he said.

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Wuhan market had role in virus outbreak, but more research needed - WHO - ETHealthworld.com