Ask Sal Anything! Homeroom Tuesday, August 11

Hi everyone! Sal here. Welcome to the, I guess, Homeroom with Sal, uh, live stream. The name keeps evolving a little bit. A couple of quick announcements.

First of all, uh, we were hoping to have Lester Holt today, uh, but him being in the news industry, there's been some, uh, news, I believe, that has taken him away. So, unfortunately, we've had to postpone that. I was really looking forward to that interview, but I'm hoping we will have it in the next couple of weeks.

The other standard announcements, uh, I will make. So instead of Lester Holt, you're just going to get me. So we're going to do an Ask Me Anything. So you can even start putting the questions you have on YouTube and Facebook below the live stream, and we'll get to that in a few minutes. And literally, ask about anything.

The other announcement is my standard announcement: just a reminder that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization, that we exist because of philanthropic donations from folks like yourself. So, if you're in a position to do so, please think about making a donation to Khan Academy.

I want to make a special shout-out to several organizations that have stepped up when they learned that we were running at a deficit even before the COVID crisis, and that deficit only grew as our server costs and our need to support more folks grew through the crisis. Special thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fasting of Artists, and actually the Amgen Foundation as well.

And then my last announcement is, uh, some enterprising Khan Academy team members have realized that a lot of what we do in the live stream makes for a good podcast with a little bit of editing here and there. So, if you are into listening to podcasts and want to listen to some of our interesting conversations that we've had with some really impressive people from the car or wherever else, please check out Homeroom with Sal, the podcast, which you can find wherever you typically find podcasts in your life.

So with that, uh, let's start this AMA. So the first question, there's already a couple questions that are coming in. Actually, this was a question we had from before, but it's a good one. Adarsh persona from YouTube had asked, “Hi Sal! I heard that it is possible to take an SAT in seventh grade. Do you recommend this?”

My view is it depends on your motivation. I think if you are a seventh grader and you're just curious about it and you want to have kind of a run at taking the SAT, I think that's fine. That's great! And there's a lot of good things that can come of that.

If you take it, it'll build your comfort with the test. You'll essentially be entering into high school with a little bit more information, a little bit more context, so that's a good thing. There's also a lot of programs that you can get into if you do reasonably well on the SAT for as a middle schooler, which are pretty neat.

There's the Duke Talent Search, I believe. I think Johns Hopkins has a program; I believe Stanford has a program. So there's a bunch of programs like that. So if you're someone who likes to be on the precocious side of things, I don't think there's harm in taking it.

Now, the only reason I wouldn't take it is if you feel some type of pressure or stress around it. If you're like, “Oh, I've got to take it because everyone else is taking it,” but it stresses me out and I can't, then I wouldn't do it.

But generally speaking, I do advocate in middle school, it's not a bad idea to take it. It just makes you familiar with something; you learn a little bit about stuff; you learn what you know, what you don't know. And it's completely okay to take a test that you haven't learned some of the material.

The SAT, for example, in math goes up to Algebra 2, and really just the core of Algebra II. So, most seventh graders would not have seen that material yet, but it's interesting to see it on a test and then see it later in your classroom.

I would also say that, um, you know, if you're going to take the SAT, try to brush up a little bit or learn a little bit of algebra. You'd be surprised how far it'll get you. So, I don't think it's a bad idea. I think it could be interesting as long as you have a good mindset going into it.

So from YouTube, George Georgie Grogan asked, “Do you think Khan Academy works better for younger or older people?” Um, depends. You know, we have stuff on Khan Academy for almost every age group. We have Khan Academy Kids, and we have some really cool efficacy studies there.

And so, you know, if you have a three-year-old, four-year-old, five-year-old, or six-year-old, I highly recommend Khan Academy Kids. If we're talking about, you know, say learning Algebra 1 on Khan Academy, um, I think, you know, we do see a lot of adults that, you know, when they went through it the first time in eighth or ninth grade and they might not have perceived themselves as strong math students, when they do it as adults, they have a little bit more maturity, they're a little bit more driven, they’re internally motivated.

They’re often very, very successful at re-learning things that they didn’t learn the first time in school. I think if you're a student, it's really the degree to which you can motivate yourself to really do the work. We see a lot of students who are very capable of doing that.

In a lot of ways, that skill, that ability to kind of drive your own learning is maybe even more important than the math itself. So, I wouldn't say it necessarily works better or worse for older or younger people, but I think, you know, everyone needs different degrees of support.

You know, for folks who are very motivated and very driven regardless of their age and regardless of their starting capability, I think it can work very well. And then I think, uh, you know, other folks need different degrees of support, and it might be supports from their teachers, supports from peers.

Obviously, all of us at Khan Academy are constantly thinking of new mechanics, new ways of showing the information to make it more as engaging as possible. So, you know, uh, but it's not obvious that older or younger is a benefit.

From YouTube, AZ asks, “What are you planning to do after quarantine?”

After quarantine, so, you know, I've said this a couple of times in the live streams, there's certain, obviously, what we're going through as a world is a horrible and bizarre situation, but there's certain aspects of it that I'm actually starting to get used to and in certain ways enjoy.

You know, the fact that my kids are at home; I'm working from home. Uh, you know, my wife is working from home two or three days a week now. At first, it was hard because, you know, sometimes I'm recording a video and all of a sudden my five-year-old is screaming, you know, 20 feet away. It can kind of mess up your concentration.

But one, I've kind of gotten used to that a little bit, and now I've started to enjoy hearing my five-year-old scream or when I have to take, when I get a break or, you know, get lunch, I can get to see them or spend a little bit of time with them or take a break with them or take a walk with them.

And, you know, I'm realizing that, you know, time goes by very, very fast. You're, you know, if you are a kid, your childhood goes by fast. And if you're a parent, your kid's childhood is going to go by very fast.

And I think to be able to spend this extra time with family, even if it's incidental, you know, we see each other while we're eating lunch and things like that. I think that's going to be something that I want to retain as much as I can post-COVID.

Um, I think, you know, something about COVID has made us connect with a lot of friends and family that we otherwise wouldn't, frankly, wouldn't have connected with, at least as regularly, on Zoom or whatever else. I hope that's something that, uh, we keep post-COVID.

You know, I've always been the person who likes spending a lot of time outdoors, and so, you know, I live out here in Northern California where the weather is quite nice and I've always been at, like, you know, pre-COVID, and I've used to go to gatherings and say, “Why are we outside?” And people say, “It's 60 degrees! It's so cold!” And I'm like, “No! But it's outside! It's nature! Let's…”

So I hope, you know, I actually like the fact in COVID that we're forced to go outside. And if we do socialize, you know, socially distanced, in a park, in a backyard, um, the stuff that, um, I want to get, yeah, those are my big ones.

Um, obviously the things that I miss right now are, you know, my mom lives in New Orleans; she's by herself. Uh, you know, I would love for her to be able to come and visit us or for us to visit her. But obviously, you know, she's in a high-risk group, and it would be hard to travel on a plane right now because of that.

So, I think that's the stuff that I can't wait for. We get through that part because I think that it's taking a big tax on families who are apart right now. And I know I'm very lucky, uh, in considering all that's going on in the world; a lot of people are, you know, really having, I can, above and beyond the COVID hardship or the COVID fear and the quarantine hardship, are having economic hardships.

Um, uh, that I'm, you know, that's gonna be huge when we get back to normalcy. People are gonna be able to, you know, restaurants will reopen, et cetera, et cetera.

So from Facebook, Tracy Harris is saying, “I have some students who are still struggling with mastering their multiplication and division facts. How can I help them?”

Great question, Tracy! And I would say, you know, we do not talk enough about the importance of things like math facts. I think sometimes, let's call it the education establishment, we don't talk about it as much because it feels so simple, or it's not as, you know, sophisticated as talking about the deeper standards, uh, you know, of integrating knowledge and going higher up Bloom's taxonomy.

But I can't tell you how many young people I've seen, you know, I've visited sixth-grade classrooms where it's pretty clear that a majority of the school students really didn't have fluency in some of their core math facts around addition or multiplication.

And because of that, it was just holding them back. And they were getting, and even if they knew how to kind of think about the problem and construct equations, you know, when they hit 9 times 6, they would just kind of, you know, write 56 instead of 54 and get the whole thing wrong.

And so, it's super important. I think, you know, to some degree, COVID is a really good time for everyone to make sure that they have really strong foundations, including some middle school. I've met high school students who really don't have fluency at their multiplication facts.

Um, and so, you know, what I would highly recommend doing is making it social. You know, it's kind of very old school: sit down with the flashcards. I think you can order them online, get some multiplication flashcards, and sit down with your child and go through them and say, “We're gonna do this ten minutes a day!”

You know, what I've been doing with my nine-year-old who’s, you know, she essentially knows her multiplication, but it's not fluent yet, uh, you know, in the morning of breakfast, I'll go, “Six times eight,” real fast, and I'll just do two or three every morning just to see if she can get her fluency.

She gets a little annoyed; she rolls her eyes, but then she'll go, “48.” Uh, so it's… and the 48 is coming a little faster. And, you know, anyone who spent a lot of time on Khan Academy would know I'm not an advocate generally of memorization or rote memorization of things.

I think it's very important to have an intuition and to really understand what's going on. But multiplication facts, obviously, the students should understand what multiplication is and how you can even derive if you know that 6 times 8 is 48, if you want to know 6 times 9, well, you set another 6, you get to 54.

But at some point in your life, it has to come very, very automatic; otherwise, you're going to be spending too much cognitive load on the multiplication versus the higher-order things that you're trying to do.

So let's see, there's, uh, YouTube AZ, another question from AZ. You ask a lot of questions about quarantine, but these are good questions. “What's one thing you've learned during quarantine?”

Um, well, it depends what you mean by learn. If it's kind of like learning about life, you know, I talked a lot about it. It's nice to spend more time with the family; nice to connect with, you know, past friends and family over video conference.

Uh, I'm finding that, you know, obviously, the workplace has had to go—everyone's workplace, where possible, has had to go remote, especially people who've had, you know, traditionally desk jobs, so to speak. Um, it's seeming for cert—certain folks it's becoming a lot harder, and for other folks, they're actually enjoying it because it's less of a commute; they're actually feeling more productive.

Uh, so, you know, it's been interesting that a lot of our societal norms, you know, which probably wouldn't have been questioned deeply before, but quarantine has forced us to question it. I think, you know, I've learned that, uh, you know, the standard assumptions about it are maybe not 100% true.

If you're talking about, you know, like knowledge that I've gained during quarantine, let's see what my, you know, off the cuff I don't have any like new factoids that I've learned. Some things in this live stream situation, uh, you know, it was… but yeah, I haven't, I I'll keep thinking about that question.

So from Facebook, Misty Schwaller asks, “What are you currently reading?”

So I think I've answered this before, and it tells you it'll tell you how long this book is—the fact that it's been several weeks—that I'm going to give you the same answer. I'm reading Shantaram, uh, by I think his name is Gregory David Roberts is the author.

Now, for young people, I definitely do not recommend reading it. It is a very—it's about someone who escaped from prison in Australia and then kind of joins the Bombay mafia. And in some ways, it kind of celebrates the vibrancy of life in India in the 80s.

Um, but there's a lot of darkness to it, a lot of violence to it. I'm not normally a fan of violence, but a friend recommended that I read it. There's some interesting philosophical aspects of the book, uh, but it's a long book, um, and it gets a little darker than I normally like.

But that is what I am—what I have been reading. I'm almost done. I'm eager to think about what I will read next, though I'm open to any recommendations.

Um, from Facebook, Hussein Rumi asks, “Can you recommend some books from your shelf?”

Yes, and some people have wondered, is that a real shelf? You know, this world of Zoom backgrounds. But this is very much a real shelf, and this shelf has some of my favorite books on it. You know, there's a bunch of science fiction books here.

So, you know, this is—we have Ender's Game, which is if you—anyone hasn't read Ender's Game, I envy you because you get to read it now. Uh, and I think this is appropriate for anyone maybe in middle school and above. But if you're even if you're 50 and if you haven't read Ender's Game, you will love Ender's Game, and the book is, normally is the case, is much better than the movie.

And I have the other—the other books in the series where Ender travels through space and comes in contact. But I just have a ton of—I have the Foundation series here, so that's my science fiction. I mean, there's a ton that you're not seeing. I have, uh, what do I have? The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss—that's more fantasy, but highly, highly recommend it. Lifespan, David Sinclair—we had him on as a guest a couple of weeks ago.

Uh, then we have—you probably can't see all of the books here, The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee, uh, yeah. But that's just some of it. I don’t want to bore y'all for forever. War by Joe Haldeman—all interesting books.

Let's see, from YouTube, Spirit Lifter—I like your username. “What is the best way to do independent work at home if your parents aren't home?”

Uh, so what I would—you know, I don't—you know, sometimes your parents could be a distraction, it's, uh, but sometimes, obviously, parents can help you stay focused and provide the environment. So, you know, Spirit Lifter, I don't know how old you are or kind of what type of independent work you are trying to accomplish at home.

But my advice is try to build a habit. You know, I've talked to this researcher who talks about the Pomodoro Technique, and it's named after this timer shaped like a tomato—a pomodoro tomato. And it's this notion of set a regular time where you're going to be able to focus on your goals.

Try to do it in 20-minute spurts. Say, “Okay, the next 20 minutes I'm going to work.” And then after that 20 minutes, you set a timer, put it on your phone or something on their computer, and then give yourself a break; let yourself do something you enjoy.

Then do another 20 minutes, and that's a really good way of not procrastinating. And then when you are doing those 20 minutes, and hopefully, it's at the same time, you have good lighting; you have good posture; you're not like slouched on the bed or on the couch. You're doing it at a desk or a table.

Uh, that—you know, just try. Well, I would say just the habit of staying engaged, even at first, it might be a little bit difficult. Slowly, that habit will build, and you will be able to make progress on your work.

I think it doesn't hurt to set goals per day, per week, per month. You know, having a checklist for the day is a great way to kind of have a bit of a dopamine hit every time you accomplish something, and it kind of builds momentum.

I've talked about this in previous live streams; you know, I like to start my day with some easy wins. I always make my bed because I'm like, “There! I've already done something—I've made my bed, and it’s something I'm going to benefit from in about 16 hours.”

I, you know, I'm pretty ritualistic about, you know, my morning run, you know, doing some meditation, doing some push-ups, brushing my teeth, making the bed, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So, I think some of, you know, the more that you can kind of build these habits and these patterns and get some wins and check some stuff off of your checklist early on, the better.

So let's see other questions. So, Musaki Yamamoto asks, “Hey Sal, would you send your kids to school if you lived in a high case state?” Interesting question!

Um, my kids' school is actually, you know, we live—I think in California is having high cases. When you look at it per capita, it's reasonably high. Our county is not like off the charts high, but it's having cases. The city I live in, in Mountain View, actually has a relatively low incidence.

I think they've only had a 100 or so cases in a population of, I believe, 75,000, if I have my numbers right. I might be wrong. Uh, so the way I think about it is the evidence we're seeing is that the youngest kids, there's not a lot of evidence that we're seeing that they are the spreaders.

You know, they usually are the spreaders for things like the cold and the flu, but most of the data that I've seen is that they aren't the spreaders of COVID. And those are also the kids that probably benefit the most from in-person social interaction.

And, you know, I'm lucky, as I mentioned, I live in Northern California; the weather's very good. It's kind of, you know, most days of the summer, the weather's in the 70s and early and low 80s. And in the winter, it's in the 60s.

And so I think for the younger kids, you know, some type of outdoor schooling that still takes all the precautions could be very interesting. And I know the school my kids go to, they are looking at that for the youngest kids—for the kindergarteners, first and second graders—and they're trying to get a variance from the state that would allow them to serve that.

And I think I, you know, you know, this is just my family; everyone has to make the right choices. Um, I would be open to that as a parent, but I think as you get to older students, given where we are at COVID right now, especially if you're not indoors, if you're not outdoors, if you're indoors, I'd be very concerned about that.

And I wouldn't—I wouldn't feel comfortable sending my kids to something that's spending a lot of time indoors where—given where COVID is. But, you know, the more time outdoors, socially distanced, masks on, feels like it could work in a lot of circumstances.

But yeah, that’s current thinking. We're all struggling with the same questions right now. But, you know, one thing that I think is interesting is even with social distancing, you know, as I mentioned, especially those young kids, frankly everyone needs social interactions.

You know, if you have local parks, if you have a backyard, you know, meeting with a small group of folks, you know, just one other family, uh, socially distanced with masks on, I think is a good way to get some of that social interaction that I think, frankly, we all need, but kids probably need it especially.

So from Facebook, Julius, apologies if I'm not pronouncing this correctly, Serniakis asks, “Are college-level math courses in the plans?”

Well, Julius, we do have some, uh, college-level math courses. Depending on whether you consider college level, we obviously have statistics, calculus; we actually have multi-variable calculus. We're actually going to be launching exercises for that soon.

We also have videos in differential equations, linear algebra, so it kind of gets into your freshman, sophomore level, um, college level classes. I do hope eventually, you know, our focus is really doing the K through 12 and then a little bit of that early college.

I do hope eventually Khan Academy is able to add some of the more advanced math classes. Uh, you know, in my mind, that's when math really gets interesting, and I miss some of those courses, and I would love nothing more than to kind of re-dive deep into those courses and cover some of that with y'all.

So from Facebook, Shannon C. Beck asks or says, “Google has started offering free certificates for career paths and things like data analytics or project management. Do you think this will eventually be commonplace and a real alternative to a costly college education?”

Simple answer is yes! And I don't, you know, I don't think it's going to be an either/or. I think people are going to try to do combinations of both. But I think you're going to see a lot of people with college degrees try to get some of these certificates, and if employers like Google or the Microsofts or the Facebooks of the world said, “Yeah, we'll hire you if you are able to achieve this certificate,” then yeah, that will have a lot of cachet—maybe even more than a college degree.

So, and I think that'll be healthy if there's more paths, more variety of ways to essentially build your skills and have economic opportunity. College will always be a path, and there are a lot of great things about college, but for certain people, the costs, the time, the things that it focuses on might not be exactly right.

So, I'm always a big fan of, you know, a larger diversity of opportunity and paths. So from YouTube, Ayano Aishi Forever says, “Mr. Sal, I'm really suffering with the SAT, the English section. Do you have any tips for it?”

Well, it depends how much time you have for it. I mean, the English section of the SAT, it really is, if you read a lot, um, and your kind of language usage is solid in terms of kind of grammar and language usage, you should do okay.

You know, I think one thing that hurts a lot of people is maybe reading speed. And there I would say just practice, practice, practice. You know, practice will only benefit you. We see that in the data on the official SAT practice that we do in partnership with the College Board, that the more people practice, the more that they do the recommended activity, the more that they take practice tests, the more that they really focus on practicing skills at kind of their learning edge—that those students are growing the most.

So that's what I would recommend to you. And, you know, to earlier questions about how do you do that, build a habit. Say every day, I'm going to do, if the verbal or the English section is what's giving you trouble, every day I'm going to do an hour.

You know, by hook or by crook every day, I'm going to do an hour. And I think after several weeks of that, you're definitely going to notice improvement. Your reading speed is going to improve; you're going to just feel more comfortable and less stressed in the test as well.

So there's, from Facebook, Sandra Sands says, “Does Khan Academy only have five minutes left?” Time goes by fast. “Does Khan Academy have a larger strategy or plan to support remote learning during the pandemic?”

The simple answer, Sandra, is yes! We're trying. You know, we're doing the work we've always been doing with teachers and districts and parents and families. We've been also doing these learning plans. We've been running webinars for parents and teachers on how to do distance learning.

Uh, we are, um, expect an op-ed for me in a major newspaper soon about what good, uh, distance learning could look like. Uh, we are actually publishing a study on, you know, that distance learning—not just using Khan Academy, but also using live video conferences—what is the best practice there?

We've obviously just published our, “Get Ready for Grade Level” courses to allow students and teachers to make sure students have all their prerequisites filled so they're ready for grade level. Any gaps that they might have accrued over COVID or even before that.

I've talked about the project, Schoolhouse.world. This is a project—it's not officially part of Khan Academy; it's a separate volunteer-driven project right now. Maybe one day it'll become part of Khan Academy, but it was catalyzed by this COVID situation where you have Khan Academy; it's a place where kids and families can go to get their practice, to get supports.

They have hints, they have solutions, they have videos, they have articles. But what about live sessions with a real teacher, a real tutor? And that's what the goal of Schoolhouse.world is. It's a place where students can go and pick which areas they need help in, and they can get free live group tutoring sessions with vetted tutors who are volunteers.

So anyone's interested in that, I highly recommend going to schoolhouse.world. But this is kind of the portfolio stuff that we're trying to do in preparation for what's going to clearly be a very strange back-to-school season or year.

We want to make sure that Khan Academy is there for as much practice and learning as possible, and we can help provide some guidance and a view of how that can fit into a more holistic picture for teachers and families.

So let's see. From Facebook, Julie Frisk asks, “Are there best practices for distance learning for high school? It seems that they would be more successful if they were taking fewer classes rather than the typical nine periods.”

So, Julia, I couldn't agree more with your intuition. I think in this—I think frankly even in normal times, nine periods is like, that's a lot of breath and a lot of stress. That's not a good idea.

Um, it's much better to do a few courses and be able to focus on them. And especially in a time of COVID, you know, what I've been telling people at all grade levels, at all age levels is, focus first and foremost on the math, the reading, and the writing. Make sure those don't atrophy.

If you can put in even 40, if you're a high school student, let's call it 45 minutes a day of solid active work practice in each of those math, reading, and writing every day, you're going to not atrophy and you'll probably progress.

And the reading and the writing, for sure, can be very low tech. It could be go find a book list of books appropriate for your grade level or whatever reading level you're at. Read those books. Find a group of people that you can talk about them with.

Hopefully, your teacher is leading you through this, but even if you're not getting that support, find some students, some peers who want to go on this journey with you, or some families, if you're a parent with a high schooler that will do this with you.

The writing, every week pick something to write about, uh, and you could mix it up through the year. I'm going to write a couple short stories; I'm going to write a couple of opinion pieces; I'm going to write an analysis of whether we should open schools or something like that.

And, and put them on a blog, put them on Medium or something and send them to all your friends and family and get your, get feedback from them and ask for feedback. How could this be better? How can I improve this? And iterate on it.

I think if you do that, you're not going to atrophy and you're actually going to develop a lot of skills. And then, once you have your legs under yourself there, then I would layer on, you know, maybe one science and one, um, one social science, you know, a history, and you know, whatever science you're working on, whether it's physics, chemistry, biology.

And if you do that, that's really solid. Especially while we go through this pandemic and make sure that you have enough time for sleep, enough time for socializing, enough time for exercise, time with your family. Because I think the biggest race we have right now is just people burning out and the mental health issues that might happen because of quarantine.

So yeah, I agree with your intuition to kind of focus on doing fewer things but doing them better and not stressing ourselves out or spreading ourselves too thin in this very, very difficult time.

So, it looks like we're almost out of time. Let's see if there's any questions I can answer. Any, let's see, from YouTube, it's—there's a lot of numbers in this username, t0rick'scane3s. “Do you have any suggestions for remembering factual information in subjects like history?”

I'm not the best memorizer in the world, so take anything I have to say with a grain of salt. But what I find is the more ways that you can represent knowledge to yourself and the more connections you can draw, the more that you will retrain.

And you know, when you look at these people who are like, you know, Guinness Book of World Record memorizers, what they'll tell you is they have visualizations they do. So they're trying to memorize a list of objects, like a cat, a clock, you know, spaghetti, and a shoe.

The way that they will memorize that is that they'll say, “Okay, I'm going to go…” They’ll visualize a story that they walk into a room, and then the cat comes, and it meows, and just as it meows, you notice that there's a clock right behind the cat. And so you enter the cat, the room. You look at the clock, and you realize, “Oh my god, it's time for spaghetti! I can smell the spaghetti! Let me enter into the kitchen and have the spaghetti.”

And so when you—the analogy—the good thing about history is that history already has a narrative with it. You don't have to make one up with some, you know, cat and a clock and spaghetti. History, there are connections.

And so what I would recommend you do is don't just memorize that, you know, World War I started in 1914 and, you know, Kennedy was, you know, inaugurated in 1961, you know, just blindly or memorized facts. Think about what else was going on in the world.

Think about, okay, in 1917, what was the state of technology? Visualize it. Think about, wow, you know, that was two years before the Spanish flu hit. Um, and what was, you know, what was it like to live there? And, you know, what was going on in other parts of the world where maybe there weren't at war or other parts of the world where your history books aren't covering?

The more connections you draw, um, the more that you'll have a frame, and then those years and those dates and those names and those places will kind of very naturally fit into place.

So, unfortunately, we're all out of time. This always goes much faster. I guess I like to, you know, answer questions. Uh, but thanks so much for joining, uh, the live stream today. Once again, my apologies for those of y'all hoping to see Lester Holt. That obviously would have been an improvement over just me.

Uh, but we are hoping to get him soon. He had to, uh, delay because of, uh, some breaking news, uh, but I look forward to continuing this shortly. So, thanks everyone for joining this AMA, this Ask Me Anything livestream!