Can people hear me OK? Louder. All right, we'll move closer to the mic. All right, cool. OK, yeah, hello. So first of all, thank you to the conference organizers for this lovely conference and for having me. My name's Natasha. I'm a PhD student at UCL, supervised by Paul Warburton. And I'm going to be talking about some of the work we've done, looking at the effects of XX catalysts on annealing spectra with perturbative crossings. So if you were here for his talk on Tuesday, Paul's already talked a little about some of this. But I want to clarify before I start, just so there's no confusion. While his talk was focusing more on the applications of the user's votes to diabetic quantum annealing, I'm going to be focusing more on gap enhancement for adiabatic evolution. So I'm going to start with a brief introduction to the use of catalysts in quantum annealing. I'm then going to describe what a perturbative crossing is, how they can form, and how we can consider removing one with a catalyst. I'm then going to outline our problem setting without a catalyst in which we produce a tunable perturbative crossing. And we'll then look at the effects of introducing a targeted catalyst to these systems, which has been designed to enhance the minimum spectral gap. And we'll see that while in certain cases it's able to do this. We'll also see how in subtly different settings the same catalyst can result in closing gaps in the annealing spectrum. So a catalyst in quantum annealing is an additional Hamiltonian that we introduce in order to change the path that the anneal takes from the driver to the problem Hamiltonian. And this path change has the capacity to enhance the minimum spectral gap if done correctly, thereby suppressing excitations out of the ground state during the anneal. And there are already a number of examples in the literature where catalysts have been shown to be able to achieve this. However, in order to implement this as a strategy more generally, we need to understand how different catalysts affect annealing spectra in different settings. So one particular source of closing gaps in annealing spectra are perturbative crossings, which conform when we have a problem Hamiltonian with excited states that are close in energy to the ground state. When this is the case, small perturbations from the driver can result in these energies crossing. And the result of this is an avoided level crossing towards the end of the anneal where we can expect the gap size to close exponentially with the problem size. Whether or not these crossings form will depend on the perturbations to the problem energies, and this will depend on the couplings that are introduced by the driver between the problem states. Specifically, it can be shown that for the very lowest energy problem states, those that are coupled to generally lower energy states will receive a greater negative perturbation from the driver. And so in the setting that we're illustrating here, we have a problem Hamiltonian with a first excited state that is close in energy to the ground state. And this first excited state is coupled to generally lower energy states than the ground state is, meaning it gets a greater negative perturbation and two energies cross. We can understand a catalyst's ability to remove a perturbative crossing from the fact that it will introduce additional couplings between problem states. And so again, what we're doing here is illustrating a hypothetical introduction of a catalyst which couples the ground state to a significantly lower energy state than it couples the first excited state to, thereby hypothetically removing the crossing. This strategy has been shown to be able to work by, and this work by Vicky Choi, introducing a stochastic catalyst that is a real catalyst that has been introduced with the same sign as the driver so that all the off-diagonal elements in the total Hamiltonian are real and non-positive. The catalyst that I'm going to be talking about can be thought of intuitively as a complementary approach to this in that they are introduced with the opposite sign to the driver, such that the total Hamiltonian is non-stochastic. And the catalyst is chosen such that it couples the first excited state to a low energy state while coupling the ground state to a significantly higher energy state. And as well as being sort of intuitive reversal of the stochastic approach where we're coupling the ground state to a low energy state. There are also a number of examples of numerical results in the literature that can be used to motivate this catalyst as well as some analytical arguments made in a more recent work by Vicky Choi. So more specifically, our catalyst contains a single XX coupling between qubits introduced with the opposite sign to the driver, as I say, so that it's non-stochastic. And this coupling is chosen to couple the first excited state to a low energy state. And so our aims in this work were to examine the effects of this catalyst in a stripped-back problem setting in order to determine, A, how well does this catalyst work? And B, how sensitive is the effect that the catalyst has to small changes in the problem Hamiltonian? All right, so now that I've sort of introduced the background and what our aims were, I'm gonna now talk about the problem setting that we used to investigate this. So as Paul talked about on Tuesday, our problems are instances of the max-weighted independent set problem, and we're gonna make use of some nice properties introduced by Vicky Choi in their construction. So the max-weighted independent set problem is, takes as its input, a undirected weighted graph, and the aim is then to find the set of vertices with the largest weight for which no two vertices are connected by an edge. Specific problems were on complete bipartite graphs such that the problem has two local optima. So for this five spin or five vertex example, one of these local optima corresponds to selecting the two blue vertices, and one will correspond to selecting the three orange vertices. And by allocating a total weight to each of the vertices, we can decide which of these is gonna be the global optimum, which will then correspond to the ground state of the problem Hamiltonian, while the other will correspond to the first excited state of the problem Hamiltonian. So in its encoding into a problem Hamiltonian, each vertex is represented by a spin, with spin up representing a vertex that is selected to be in the set and down representing a vertex that is not. So by selecting the weight on the blue vertices to be larger than that on the orange vertices or the total weight on the blue, larger than that of the total weight on the orange, our ground state is given by this spin configuration. So the two blue spins pointing up and the three orange pointing down, while the first excited state has the opposite spin configuration. So we're now in a position to discuss what states the problem ground of first excited state become coupled to by the driver. We take as our driver the standard choice of the homogeneous local X field, such that each state is gonna get coupled to states that are one spin flip apart. So for this ground state, it's gonna get coupled to two states where one of the blue spins is flipped to the down position and three states, one of the orange spins is flipped to the up position. This means it's gonna be coupled to two states corresponding to independent sets and three states corresponding to dependent sets as illustrated by the red vertices, oh, red edges. And then similarly or opposingly to this, the first excited state is gonna be coupled to three states corresponding to dependent sets and two states corresponding to independent sets. And by the way, the problem is encoded. The dependent sets are gonna have significantly higher energy than the independent, the states corresponding to independent sets. And as a result, we now have a situation where we have a first excited state that is coupled to more or generally lower energy states than the ground state. And by the reasoning that we gave previously, we expect this to create a perturbed of crossing. It's then straightforward to scale up this problem graph by simply adding more vertices to each subset of vertices. And so long as we have more vertices in the orange set, we expect the same logic to hold and a perturbed of crossing to form. So I'm now gonna present some numerical results to confirm that we do indeed get this perturbed of crossing in the catalyst free instance. So what we have here is a gap spectrum for the anneal on the five vertex graph. And we can clearly see the appearance of the gap minimum between the instantaneous ground and first excited states towards the end of the anneal. We can also look at the ground state evolution over the course of the anneal, which we do by plotting the overlap of the vector with the different problem states, highlighting the overlap with the problem ground and first excited state with blue and orange respectively. And we can see that over the course of the anneal, the instantaneous ground state evolves towards the problem first excited state before there is a sharp exchange into the problem ground state at the same location as the gap minimum. And this is what we expect to see at our perturbed of crossing. Lastly, we can also look at the scaling of the gap minimum with the system size. And we can see here from this plot, the gap appears to close exponentially, which again is what we expect. So now that we've established the presence of the perturbed of crossing, we can think about how we can tune its properties. So to do this, we make use of some parameters in encoding of the problem, namely the edge penalty and the precise weight difference between the two subgraphs. And as long as we keep these parameters within a certain regime, we can use them to tune the relative energy gaps within the problem Hamiltonian without actually changing the ordering of the states. And so the problem to be solved remains identical. And by doing this, we can change the properties of the perturbed of crossing. So here in the middle here, we have the same plot that we saw before for the ground state evolution. And then to the right of it, we have another plot for the ground state evolution, again for the five spin example, and again for the catalyst free case, but with these slightly different problem parameters. And we can see that by changing the problem parameters, we have significantly softened the crossing in that the instantaneous ground state is significantly more mixed before and after the transition. And also the exchange between the problem states that occurs is not as sharp as it was in the previous parameter setting. We can also compare the gap scaling in these two cases. So here in the darker purple, we have the gap scaling that was associated with our previous parameter setting. And now here in the lighter purple, we are showing the gap scaling corresponding to the new parameter setting. And we can see that while the gap still appears to close exponentially, the exponent is significantly milder in this case. Okay, so now that we've gone through the system without a catalyst, we're now gonna look at the results when we introduce a targeted catalyst to these two settings and we're gonna refer to them as the weaker and stronger gap scaling cases. So the excess coupling that we introduce for our catalyst is between two vertices in the orange subgraph. And this gives the couples the ground state to a dependent set while coupling the first excited state to an independent set. And so as we discussed before, this is a catalyst that is giving, that is coupling the first excited state with significantly lower energy state than it is coupling the ground state to. So we're first gonna look at the results for the weaker gap scaling case. So here we have a plot showing the gap size at the perturbative crossing with increasing catalyst strength for our five spin example. We can clearly see that the catalyst does indeed produce some gap enhancement with the gap size reaching a maximum at around a catalyst strength of 1.3. We can also look at the effect of the catalyst on the gap scaling here. And we can see from this plot that if we introduce the catalyst with the optimal strength for each system size, it's able to significantly suppress the closing of the gap, which was what we were hoping to achieve with this catalyst. So we can now look at the same results for the stronger gap scaling case. And so, yeah, here again, we have the gap size with increasing catalyst strength. And again, we can see that the catalyst is able to produce some gap enhancement, but we can also see that for a lower catalyst strength, there's actually initially a closing of the gap. And then if we look at the results for the gap scaling, we can see that while the catalyst is able to achieve some gap enhancement for each system size, in this setting, there isn't any noticeable change in the gap scaling, even if we introduce the catalyst with the optimal strength for each system size. We also observe another additional effect in this setting, which is the appearance of a new gap minimum in the spectrum. So here we have four plots for the gap spectra over the course of the anneal for four different catalyst strengths increasing from left to right. And we can clearly see the closing and reopening of an additional gap minimum in the spectrum. So in order to understand the closing gaps that we observe in the stronger gap scaling setting, we can look at how the catalyst impacts the evolution of the ground state vector. So first, I'm gonna note that because we have a non-stochastic total Hamiltonian, our ground state vector can have negative components as well as positive now. I'll also note that for our particular system and choice of catalyst, the components corresponding to the problem ground state and first excited state take opposite signs at some point over the course of the anneal and that this point moves earlier in the anneal as the catalyst strength is increased. So here we have a plot showing the same data for the gap size at the perturbed of crossing for the stronger gap scaling case. But now we've also plotted the location of this gap minimum with a dashed gray line and the location of the sign change that I just talked about with a dotted gray line. And we can see that this gap closes when we have these two positions intersecting. We can also look at the same kind of plot but for the new gap minimum that forms in the spectrum. And so again, the purple line is showing the gap size of this additional gap minimum that forms. And then again, we have the position of the gap minimum in the annealing spectrum as well as the position of the sign change. And again, we can see that this gap closes when these two positions intersect. And so while we can associate these closing gaps with these intersecting positions, this isn't actually quite sufficient to differentiate between the two settings. So if we look at the same kind of plot for the weaker gap scaling case. So again, this purple line is showing the same data for the gap size in the weaker scaling case that we saw before. And now again, we have the dashed line and dotted gray lines showing the position of the gap minimum and the position of the sign change in the anneal. And we can see that while there is a catalyst strength which these two positions intersect, we don't actually observe a closing gap in this setting. So while it's not yet entirely clear to us why we're observing such different behaviors in these two subtly different settings, we do discuss this a little bit further in the pre-print you can find online trying to figure out what some of the key differences between these two settings could be. So to summarize, we've applied a targeted catalyst to two subtly different settings and found that its effect on the annealing spectrum is highly dependent on small changes to the problem Hamiltonian. So specifically when applying it to our weaker scaling case we found that the catalyst was able to achieve a significant reduction to the gap scaling with the system size, which is what we were hoping to achieve. However, when we applied the same catalyst to our stronger scaling case, we didn't observe the same reduction to the gap scaling. And we also observed an additional effect of the appearance of a new gap minimum in the spectrum. And so what's interesting about this, and this is more to do with what Paul talked about on Tuesday, is that while we weren't able to achieve the same gap suppression, closing of the gap in this setting, what we've actually ended up with is an annealing spectrum that appears amenable to a diabetic quantum anneal in that we could allow the system to transition out of the ground state at the first small gap and then back into the ground state at the second.  And some initial dynamic system, dynamic simulations for closed systems have shown that this might be possible. Obviously all these results are for a very stripped back problem setting at the moment. And so it still remains to be seen how these results are gonna translate to larger system sizes and more realistic problem settings. With that, I'd like to thank everyone for listening. I'm happy to take any questions. And also I have got the code for our archive pre-print on the bottom right if you want to take a look. Good, thank you. If you look at the top left plot on a log log scale, does it look like it becomes power law with the catalyst? I haven't actually done that. I've said I would really like to go to larger system sizes before I try and make any comment on- Of course, but just out of speculatively. So it would be very interesting because it would effectively turn what looks like an exponential scaling into a polynomial scaling. And then that raises the question of how much effort is required computationally to find the optimal parameters that bring about this perhaps power law scaling? Yes, I definitely agree. It would be really looking really promising if it was actually a reduction to polynomial scaling. But I don't know if it is yet. And so yeah, I definitely want to go to high system sizes before. Okay, thanks. Another question? Yeah, I want to ask a related question. So do you have any intuition like when you go to larger actual problems beyond the bipartite? Do you have intuition regarding like where do you need to apply the XX catalyst? Yes, so the way I think about this is the XX coupling is sort of guiding the anneal away from the optimum or the local optimum that it would be heading towards and the one that you would get stuck in due to a perturbative crossing. And so if you had more local optima that were producing perturbative crossings, you might perhaps have to introduce a coupling or a kind of sub catalyst as it were to tackle each local optimum in turn. But that's again something that we'd want to numerically check by going to larger system sizes so we could have systems with many more local optima. Interesting, thanks. Any more question from here or online? So if there are no more questions, let's thank the speaker once more. The next talk is by Professor Paolo Zanetti. Recording stopped.


journey with you as we learn how to take your health back. Today, our topic of discussion is worldwide COVID. Rise up, join the fight, be a hero. I'd like to welcome back David Yonamini and Hayden Daughters, who are the co-founders of the hero systems. They are both, they are just full of love and, I don't know, energy. Every time I walk in there, I just, I don't know what to say, but I've been into their office and I've experienced what they want you to experience. So being that we're on air now, all you've got to do is go down to their shop and they're just waiting, they're just waiting to educate the rest of us, but they are both here today to educate us about what the world has been experiencing for the last 20 months and to answer some questions that you may have on your mind and didn't know where to go to get the answers. And I'm sure if you ask them, these are two young, bright gentlemen that have the answers and they want to share it with you. So welcome, David and Hayden. Aloha, Wendy. Aloha, Wendy. Aloha, guys. Thanks for having us. On screen, man.  I try, Wendy. I try. I know you don't try too hard. It's a good idea. I shave for this. All right, so let's get started. I know that when we last spoke at the beginning of the year and we were introducing Hero and your non-toxic sanitization systems and solutions, how has the community responded thus far? You know, Wendy, I think when we started Hero, we had had this idea that, you know, the community would be looking for it, they'd be warm, but nothing could have matched the love, the Aloha and just the Aloha spirit that was really welcoming to us when we entered the market. You know, we had a lot of concern, we had a lot of people who were concerned about their keiki, but what was really amazing was not just some of the vulnerable, but a lot of responsible community leaders really stepped up to the plate and didn't just want to meet where the standard was, they wanted to exceed the standard. And, you know, from a lot of the local restaurants that we have out there, as well as to even some of some big community leaders like in government, we had a lot of different, even Imi Aloha center over in Big Island. I mean, we had just had a lot of people who any kind of business or church organization or NPO that had a large gathering that had a lot of people around, they were just so excited not just to be able to provide this service, not just be able to protect their congregation or their friends or their family, but their staff and their customers as well. And it was just really exciting to see from, like I said, local business owners, small business, even big business owners, just heard the call and the fact that we were able to provide something to them. And what was really exciting was that everyone was looking out for each other. And the fact that support local was so important and crucial in this process was just really exciting. And gosh, it was, it was, it was, it was really quite the honor to be able to serve our community and to help protect our Ohanas. And one of the things also if I could just add to that, it's just been so great to see in the community, you know, there's just a lot of questions, a lot of people, you know, confused, they don't, they don't know about, you know, how, how this virus, you know, works and where is it at in the community and what can they do to protect themselves.  It's just been such an honor to be out in the community to help like David said, I know recently we actually did a complimentary sanitization of the National Prayer Breakfast that was just a great thing to be be a part of out here. And just any way that we can to be able to reach the community to be able to educate to be able to share our safe and non toxic sanitizing systems and solutions. It's just been great to be able to help provide some peace of mind in the middle of a really challenging time for a lot of people. Wow, you know, when I wandered into your office and I saw that discol smoke flying around, I would not ever think that that's something that is a solution to the problem that we were just experiencing and really wanted to know what the heck what are we going to do now. And so when I wandered in and I kind of listened to what you guys are saying to others and I just kind of listened and then you said have a seat and I listened and I'm like, you know this anti-wandy we are not into chemicals and not into all these toxins and things and I thought oh no another chemical company trying to put it up my nose but what intrigued me the most and that's why I like having you guys on because you know when you say non toxic sanitization solutions I mean like you really mean that so I want you just quickly to expound on what makes it non-toxic and it being a solution and being not being non-toxic how is that even possible? Well Wendy you know that's a great question and I know when we first met you and got to talk to you a little about our solutions the fact that we had said that we found something that could be up to 80 times stronger than bleach yet completely safe to pet safe plant safe and people safe and the key ingredients were salt vinegar and tap water. I know that I feel like we had you at at at salt vinegar and tap water. Exactly. You know to be able to provide something that was effective but at the same time safer like I said earlier you know our vulnerable capuna and our sensitive keiki you know that that was something that was really close to our hearts and knowing that that when we were using something with frequency consistency and convenience that I could feel good knowing that people were using our systems and solutions and it wasn't going to have any type of long-term ramifications for people. Wow absolutely. Amen guys you guys nailed it man. Yeah sorry Hayden go ahead. No I was going to say also you know one of the biggest challenges that we've seen with COVID and we've come to discover over you know the last like you said 20 months is that um you know COVID has transmitted a lot in the air right and that's that's become really obvious in um in you know much of the research that's been done so to be able to provide a solution that you know has nano atmospheric sanitization we have the ability to literally occupy an air space with something that can help disinfect the air and help keep our air safe um you know I think it's really been and do that in a non-toxic way right because you can't do that uh with with toxic chemicals so it was just such an amazing discovery and I know it's brought uh so many people some safety and the peace of mind also you know in the middle of people we know right now especially with everybody starting to open up and you know people trying to get back together again and people being in close proximity of course it's more important than ever for us to be able to have safe environments uh you know and help to uh to sanitize the air in a safe way. Right and you know as as you said David you got me at vinegar actually vinegar because that's the old school remedy you ask any uh kupuna back in the day that was the cure all was vinegar and water and so again once I saw that I says well I want to learn more and understand more about what you all are doing there so you know we all thought this pandemic was going to come and go and now we have another variant the delta variant surging will this virus ever end? You know Wendy um I know that uh we're here kind of having fun and and being able to talk about things in a light manner and you know it really always pains me to talk about the virus and and where it is today you know we have really done as much as we can to create awareness and gosh what a great place to live we live in Hawaii where people care and people uh are not just thinking of themselves they think about their neighbors they think about their community but the truth of the matter is we're dealing with something that a lot of experts were afraid of uh we weren't sure if it was going to happen and sure enough it has and really where it started from in India you're talking about a virus that they just thought that had claimed over 400 000 souls they are now finding out that the number might be closer to 4.1 million in India you know you're talking about something right now that is that is going all across Southeast Asia you're talking about something that's affecting us on the worldwide stage with all the way from you know right now they're saying Indonesia is going to be the next India from you know countries like Taiwan and South Korea and Vietnam that had just strong protocols with using high tech and really strong methods of sanitization and still yet it's getting in there and you look at what's happening around our country right now you know you look at hospital beds being filled up you're talking about hospitalizations rising at a rapid rate as well as case counts and I know that you know a lot of people that I know that were in the testing field have you know they thought they were going to go out of business because testing has dropped so much and now you've got a huge demand for testing we have we don't have the lab infrastructure that we used to and then now talking about our islands here you know it's it's something very concerning right we've had triple digit cases for the last uh was it over 10 days now and you know you look at where this is coming from and a lot of people ask me they go David what what is the Delta variant what what are what are some of the key things behind it well you take a look at it right now the the Delta variant when when someone is infected with it sheds about 1200 more virons than than the alpha variant on top of that it only takes one tenth of this virus to get people sick that of the of the version beforehand so you talk about something that's shedding more virus plus it takes less virus to get people sick you've got a deadly combination out there wow well and we thought it was just going to come and go and um it'll be another thing of the past but um it looks like it's here for a bit and um knowing that there are people and companies like yourselves that are working hard to find solutions for all of us that really gives us peace of mind and comfort so um I have to ask you know there's so there seems to be so much conflicting opinions about everything when it comes to covid yes no right wrong left right you know how do we know what's the truth well how do we know yeah that's that's an interesting question right isn't that the question that we all are asking ourselves every single day I mean I think one of the most frustrating things about this pandemic since the beginning is that you know there's just so many conflicting stories happening right ever since the beginning first it was you know it was a hoax and then it was just like the flu and then we heard things were actually more significant than they were we hear we hear all types of things about numbers and and you know you know one day I think David just said it earlier right you heard 400 000 and then deaths and then you hear four million you know you hear maybe we should wear a mask one day and the next day we shouldn't wear a mask right and people are fighting over this right and you know we we hear you know all types of different things about vaccinations and of course I'm not going to go into that today you know there's there's just debates and there's all this tension there's all this division and I think the thing that myself and I know my partners are always so frustrated about when we think about this situation is that you know we see you know many of us we're we're fighting about we're arguing we're disagreeing about all of these different facts of information you know where did it start from like what's the purpose of it you know there's all these all these all this division all this debate around it even amongst families and amongst communities um and we're fighting against ourselves um but the reality is all the while while we are fighting against ourselves we actually have a war that's going on we have an enemy that's not ourselves like we're we're we're on the same side because you know we think about it we all want the same thing right what do we want we all want you know we all want our community back right we all want to be out we we don't want none of us want to wear a mask right nobody wants to wear a mask right we all want to be out you know in you know with our with our you know you know just communities and in public gatherings we want to be able to just to do we want our life back right um so we all want the same thing but we're arguing against each other and you know and I think a lot of that has to do with so much of the disinformation out there that people are not paying attention to what what's really going on and you know David did such a great job earlier talking about what's really going on what we've seen is that we've got a virus that is changing very rapidly and is getting you know more more virulent right it's transmitting faster it's hitting people harder we're hearing about kids now in hospitals you know people that are really being affected their lives being wrecked and people are shocked about what's happening because they've been just confused by disinformation so we have an enemy and in order for us to be able to defeat this enemy we first need to recognize that we have an enemy right we we have to agree that this is a problem this is a problem in our community this is a problem in our world and and and at least agree on that you know we can we can argue about all the rest of the stuff later on but let's agree on that so that we can all come together to be able to work together to defeat this enemy and I think that's one of the things that's so important for us at hero and one of the messages that we've been putting out there is that listen we're not about a side we are about the same side which is making sure that uh that that as a community we we we fight back and we and we get our lives back we beat this virus because we can't live with it wow you hit it on the nail I mean you said as a community we need to fight back so it's not just you it's not just me it's not your neighbor it's the community and as long as we don't lose that that main source called community ohana family I think that's what we have to do we all have to be working together but yet we need the right tools to work together with so first of all knowledge and so that's why I asked you all here so that you could inform and teach and then of course you have a system a solution that you would like to share with others to just give them a cutting edge over this this COVID this this bad disease that we want to say that we want to stop it and so to shade to your company for taking it um by the horns and working diligently on this problem so thank you so you know everything that you discussed and shared with us there Hayden as well as you David these problems seem so complex even a little scary I mean not a little actually very scary what are we supposed to do can you help us well you know and I think Hayden had uh really really got us off on the right foot there with uh the fact that we need to come together and you know a big part of what hero you know we we start off as a sanitization company we start off as this company just trying to give some new technology and to help our uh you know whether whether you're a vulnerable kupuna or you're you're somebody that that maybe uh you know you're you're you're not uh as a spring chicken anymore you know and you you're not out there you can't just scrub every floor or or go out there and uh you know wash every window right we wanted to provide something for you that was as easy as uh maybe a slide a slide of some sort or a push of a button but what hero is today is we are so much more mission focused now and uh really really and and what we've discovered is that it takes all of us right it's going to be a a unifying effort and so what we've done to help dispel this disinformation what we've done to help empower people and give them education as we've uh we started an ambassador program and we call it our hero ambassador or hero heroes united and a big part of what that is about is about getting people together educating and empowering them giving them the information that they need and having them go out there and influence their communities influence their circles of influence influence uh their their their family members their their workplaces and that's what it really is about is is getting people to get in front of other people and share with them some information you know it's about saying something it's about it's about doing something it's about activation right it's about being an activist it's about going out there and and helping people and that's really what you know when we started this this hero united and this ambassador program is is really the core of it is is that education piece and getting people to understand that it's not going to be a commercial it's not going to be a radio advertisement it's not going to be a social media pop-up ad that's not what's going to do it that's what got us here you know i for me i grew up in the information age where the internet had just come on out don't get me wrong i'm not i'm not a spring chicken myself okay i remember fax machines i remember i remember i remember the rubbish can you don't know what a fax machine is okay i i remember okay and i i also grew up with the internet too i grew up with all this technology right i gosh i had a phone i think right i had a uh one of those not the flip phone or that that mortarella razor right when i was in high school right so listen i didn't grow up on smartphone tech okay but i remember i remember what it was like and and we when the internet was young you had all this information at your fingertips and it was amazing right you could something great could happen somewhere across the world and then all of a sudden a minute later an hour later everybody heard about it and that was the amazing enlightenment and the many people call it the golden age of the internet today we live in the medieval times today we live in a world where you don't know what to believe today we live in a world where it's the disinformation age and the sooner we all understand that the sooner we can get past it and we can start realizing that there are forces beyond us that are trying to divide us but there is there is so much that is being put out there with these algorithms and these different strategies that are that are pulling us up that pushing us apart and our hero mission our hero ambassador mission is to bring people back together again is to get people heart to heart face to face and understand that you can't hide behind a screen you can't hide behind i know we are on screens right now but you can't hide behind the screen you can't hide behind no face to face belly to belly and really to to communicate discuss and and and that's the that's the other key is discussion right hearing people from their side their point of view and explain to them the and explain to them yours and getting that that beautiful understanding and i i i truly feel i you know i've been all across the world and i know uh hate and i know you have too and i know that when you when you travel all over the place and and you're used to meeting all types of people that there's something magical about sitting down with someone and just having a discussion like a human being and we want to bring more of that obviously safely right with mast or with something something in the in the middle we like to call the nano atmospheric state but more importantly it's it's getting people to feel that energy again and and and to be uh to connect again and i think that way to disconnect from maybe that that those screens and connect more uh face to face right again you hit it on the nail and um that's the the feature of the blue zone lifestyle is that they believe in community you know and these seniors these kupuna for the last 20 30 40 50 years every day they came out they sat down and they talk story and they share their lies goals and ambitions and and and sorrows but they laughed and they cried together and that's what made them so healthy and have such longevity and that's of course one of the blue zones is the in okinawa and i uh study that community a bunch yes it's their diet but it's the community that they shared that they could share their hearts and be there and share emotions and that's what we need back and so we need to work a little harder um with you in uh guiding us so that we can get community back that is so so key and so important so i know you know what the problems are i know you have some solutions up your sleeve so what's the strategy to taking out covet how do we do it well what a question there right i could hop in on this one i think that's that isn't that the question that everybody around the world is asking and i know that we um you know we we've been really um thinking hard about this since uh since day one i i know that you know david said earlier we we started out as a sanitization company um and we wanted to help businesses reopen and do so with non-toxic safe solutions and you know that that was a great start but as we've seen everything evolve uh over the period of time and as we've seen this virus become more and more of a problem i think we all can kind of agree that now after we've seen this new delta variant and what's happening um we ourselves um began to get deeply concerned thinking that what we were doing with sanitization wasn't enough uh we were like it's something it's part of the solution but it is not the whole solution um you know we started to look at this whole um this whole covid situation like like a war it really is a world war that's happening and we look around the war and and everybody around this war is battling uh this virus it is a war that we are all against the entire human races against this war and you know if you think about it wendy when you are in a war you need a wartime strategy you can't just think that there's this one weapon that's going to win the war right you need battleships you need you need planes you need missiles you need infantry you need marines you need the whole thing and you need it all coordinated you need a strategy to work together to be able to win and you need to be united too i mean we talk about hero united we can't win a war when we're all fighting against each other we have to recognize that we're in a war we have to unite and we have to work a strategy to be able to win that war and when we started to think about that we actually started to look at you know an a war that actually happens inside of our body um when you know if we look at our immune system our immune system is a pretty interesting and amazing thing right and when when when you have you know a virus that gets inside of your body we have a whole detection system that works throughout our entire bloodstream they're called lymphocytes and what they do is that as soon as they recognize an invader they they eat that invader virus and and like blow itself up and sends off an alert to the entire body red alert red alert there's something that should not be here we need to get it out right and then it sets off a whole cascade a whole a whole system a whole war that happens inside your body to get this invader out of there right because if it doesn't happen that that invader if that immune system didn't you know jump into action it would it would it would shut us down right it would it would end us something as small as a little cut would do that so what happens in our body we got T killer cells that go out there and kill infected cells we have you know B cells that start creating antibodies to block viruses from entering in our system our our body heats up that's why we get a fever so that it can make it you know a hostile environment so viruses can't replicate so there is this whole beautiful symphony that happens inside of our body to be able to win this war and so we started to ask ourselves we're like well that's interesting our body is an ecosystem right think about our body is an ecosystem and what else is an ecosystem well this island is an ecosystem it is it's a body it has you know all different parts it has you know I guess think of each one of us as a cell every every human is a cell you know and we said well what would an immune system look like for the island what if we could create an immune system here that had the ability to do exactly what the immune system does which what does it do it has a detection method it's able to detect an invader immediately that it should not be if we were able to detect detect on the island whenever a virus was present let's we need to detect it right away secondly we need to alert we need to be able to alert the community that there is a virus here there's there's an invader that should not be on this island then what we would need to do is we would need to coordinate all of our defenses we need to coordinate defenses what are those defenses we talked about a sanitizing system solutions therapeutics you know our you know medical everything that we need to do to be able to you know surround and just eliminate ultimately to be able to eradicate that virus and and and that led us to this amazing idea called the shield and this amazing innovative technology that we are currently in development on right now and we're so excited about it because it's not just about the technology it's about you know Dave was saying it's about getting the community united behind a strategy and behind a technology to be able to support that strategy so that together imagine if that one together that we all united and we work together and just on this island just on this island we were able to get COVID down to zero cases and we were able to keep it there you know we started to envision that and and just have that vision and think wow if we could do it here it's then maybe we could do it around the world you know and but maybe it would start here maybe we could shield Hawaii and that's the uh that's the initiative and the campaign that we're going to be launching very soon and we're so excited to connect with the community and and work with the community to be able to make this happen wow you know and like you said you go to war you need tools you need guns you need artillery and you know i i went yesterday to your store and i bought this so look at how pretty this is guys i mean like i'm just not a commercial okay but i just like seeing this is just vinegar and water a little bit of salt putting it into the the machine to change its structure molecular structure and this to me is my piece of mind when i'm shopping when i'm traveling when i'm going out to eat i just do this and you know i tell you what's really funny i go around town and i was at the Mercedes Benz the car dealership this lady brings out her gun and she's like she's like spraying her car down right in front of me i'm thinking like hey girlfriend i know what that is i says you're a hero too and yeah so she just picked up her car and was worked on so before she went in she sprayed it down the trunk the car the mats everything she sprayed it down with her gun her hero gun and she sanitized it and made it a safe place for her and her husband to jump into as they were on their journey back home and so i just put her aside and say hey what is that and she goes oh you don't know and um she was explaining to me like i have to do this whenever i go and then put in my car all over and she was so excited like and i just pretend like i didn't know what she's talking about but she was so passionate and she knew what she had to do because her car was in strangers hands and now it's her and her husband going back into their car their home on the road and she had to make it the best and safest place for them to to spend the next uh what 10 15 30 minutes in and she says when i go home i use this i do everything i make sure i gun him down gun him down she's only gone they were really so yeah she sprayed him in and then he does her too so he gunned her down you know and so it was a reciprocation and you know what one more form of communication for husband and wife because in the past they probably would just walk into their house but anyway so sorry you went off track so you say rise up join the fight and be a hero what does that really mean and what can we all do and wendy i love that question because a lot of people ask us david what does being a hero mean to you what does being a hero mean to to your company and really what it means is it means making a statement it means saying to yourself i'm going to be a hero maybe maybe it's a hero in your family maybe it's being a hero with your friends maybe it means being a hero at your workplace maybe it means being a hero uh in your community what we're saying is that we need more heroes today and whether it's it's through our ambassador program or not we want you to be the best we want you to be a superhero in your community and whether that's saying something and saying hey listen that's not responsible saying hey listen that's not drink from the same cup or hey listen let's let's let's let's mask up before we go in here let or listen hey where's your mask at it's it's being a hero and saying something and not just saying something but doing something and right now we need more heroes we need more heroes everywhere we need more heroes we're gonna find them and we're gonna or we're gonna find friends and turn them into heroes so we don't want all the credit we want them to be a part of the solution so i'm so sorry but we run out of time right now guys so mahalo to you two young heroes and of course the other partner in crime is Dustin I know and thank you for bringing the solutions to us and helping to help us understand this little a little clearer so we appreciate you so much and one day soon we'll have you back when you you develop more tools that you want to share with us but for now thank you from think takawaii and taking your health back i'm wendy lowe and we will see you in the next two weeks aloha and mahalo young men for joining us today aloha


One of the big problems we're facing in our digital technology today is that so much is screen based that we have no tactile feedback. I've complained on my show I've got a Tesla and I can't change the air vents without using a screen which means I have to look away from the view of the car the way I want to be driving and I don't think that's very safe and it looks like Tanvis may have a solution for that so I'm talking to Greg Topol of Tanvis. Tell us about this. So exactly right so what we're doing is we want to make an experience that is more tangible than just a vision-based input device so we've created a touch screen that allows you to feel what you see so as you just said one of the major applications that we've worked with and actually just announced a partnership with Inelux today is solving the problem of the distracted driver the idea of who's the partnership with again Inelux so Inelux makes displays for they're both a tier one and tier two for automotive manufacturers so we are working on a couple of automotive programs and they are tier one so wait a minute so touch screen but I can I'm going to be able to feel this yeah yeah yeah so actually visually this is a good example here so what we can do here is this circle right there is where it activates the knob and this is audio as well as video so I'm going to describe a little bit we see a little knob on screen yep we see a knob on the screen and there's a little button there's a little circle that that is where the active places I can feel where that active places through a little bit of texture can I feel that oh yeah so it's the screen is sort of jiggling when I got near the knob near the near that button that's right so well I should just to clarify there is no moving parts so what that come on I know it and there's more there is actually no moving parts what we're actually doing is we're calling electro adhesion we actually create an electric field underneath your finger it attracts your skin to the screen it's nothing more really yeah yeah so it's so it's an electrical impulse that's coming to my finger it's a capacitance we're actually yeah so we're attracting your skin we're not putting any energy into you we're just attracting you that's all that's great really is a good idea so the idea though is that I want to take a vision-based knob and make it so that I can actually tactically interact with it rather than have to do a visual you just said it 15 20 years ago we used to be able to navigate our screen through the sense of touch I could glance down and find kind of roughly where I wanted to be but the finer tuning of finding that control turn the volume radio station exactly turning it once all that used to be able to do while keeping my eyes on the road actually yeah a lot of those actually even had like little bumps a little detent so you'd know when you when you turn it up that's right you've got to try this Steve's doing the recording but I'm gonna have him reach in to do it too that's right when you're on it you absolutely can feel where that is that's really interesting that that it's capacitance so this is not a standard screen it this is the technology that you're selling this is both a multi touch sensor and a haptic touch screen so that's is our this is our solution and what's beautiful about is that because there's no moving parts we are completely independent of size or shape so when screens start to get curved it makes no difference to us oh okay okay say that that's kind of a harmony of our technology so regardless if it's a small little screen or a large display any kind of haptic response will feel exactly the same in any case interesting interesting so can you do more than just a little knob button there oh we can do anything you want so this is probably a little different than maybe what you're expecting you to let baby face this baby how does a beard feel so I can feel his beard when I'm feeling stuff oh wherever I go over his beard I can feel it so it's even I were touching it guys we're both touching it and feeling it well actually so this is our older generation technology where only one can feel at a time our gen 3 our new one is multi touch multi so he was stealing some touch for me so can I shave this face now well you got to have some shaving cream first so I don't shave my face okay and now I'm gonna shave and I'm gonna actually feel what it feels like to shave so where are you shaving now is smooth and where I haven't shaving yet it's still oh wow okay that's crazy I'm shaving some poor guy's nose right now sure so actually I'm actually I'm happy to say that we actually won a silver lion award from the Collio's awards a couple years ago on this application yeah interesting okay so no I want to do dinosaur reveal go for the dinosaur reveal we love this experience this is a great example of it of a application maybe for museums so obviously everything in museum is supposed to be interactive supposed to be engaging what more way of engaging rather than just being a visual now you tactically can feel that sand being removed and now you can feel those dinosaur balls oh wow so Steve has just used a paintbrush to a little brush to get the sand off the dinosaur I want to touch a dinosaur Steve is touching the dinosaur so this might be interesting for accessibility as well you're absolutely right so accessibility is obviously a major problem for touchscreens obviously the idea is that you have a vision-based input device with someone who has no vision so we can actually make it so that those textures for text or visuals obviously voice recognition is a big part of how people with vision impairment interact with it but the problem is they still don't know what's on the screen we can make you do Braille you cannot do Braille but we can change what Braille is so Braille actually puts into your finger we're just doing friction so they're two different ways of doing it but sure we can change Braille that's a long road big goal long long game long game I didn't lead with it so I did walk you into okay we got music control oh that was the one we had what was the oh the texture catalog was really fun so there's a screen that says choppy and it's basically got some some vertical lines and I can feel those with my finger and then grainy is more like the sand we're on and then fine is a bunch of little tiny lines and then wavy oh and wavy is actually that actually feels like it's got depth going in and out try this one Steve this this wavy one oh you played with wavy already so the interesting thing about that wavy is a good example of what happens when you can do a little friction change we're actually are changing your acceleration deceleration all across the screen by a little friction but it feels like you're going up and down these bumps what absolutely does all right this is very cool so this is not an end end user product this is a v2v product that you work with the your your main focus is going to be car screens so we're starting automotive it's actually one of our major focuses right now but certainly with Mima monitors we have a digital sign solution this 10 screen can be used for retail restaurants museums and so we're actively promoting that as well but the the main focus that we have a company's automotive it's a major opportunity where we can really solve a problem number one being a distracted drivers and number two these screens getting larger and curved our technology works right along with those shapes and sizes that's the saving lives category that's that's big stuff that's big stuff that's the big stuff this is very cool so if someone wanted to see this they won't get to touch it if they look at it on the web but where would they go to see your technology well there's actually a couple places so we've we've been in some museums on the past but so right now they're actually currently as we speak today at the California Academy of Sciences we actually have two displays that are being shown there but I would expect a little bit later this year you're going to start to see some different applications but but of course ultimately we want to see this in a car very soon. Is there a website that you can go to to see yourself? Of course www.tambus.co we are selling a dev kit so if you want to go ahead and buy it and try for yourself you can do that and so we have an SDK that allows you to create your own textures and all sorts of fun things. That's crazy so with the SDK though you need a device as well. Well that's what comes along so for for the for but when you purchase it you actually get this device right here this MIMA monitor product along with their SDK and API and you're off the races. Oh man that's fun that's very cool so it's tambus.co. Thank you very much Greg this is fantastic. Absolute pleasure.


So it's a 4th of July pez. This sold for $120 plus shipping. Most pez are bread and butter. I'm just gonna be straight up. Lots of them are worth like next to nothing. You can put them in lots, but... Hey, fellow buddies, thanks for watching. It's for online, little pony. Amazing, right? All right, let's get started. Hey, fellow buddies, thanks for watching. All right, in this video, we are going to talk about 4th of July bolos. So you guys have seen me do videos on Easter, Halloween, Christmas, a lot of holidays have big money bolos because people search for those items to decorate their homes. So in this video, we are gonna talk about the 4th of July. So let's get started. All right, the first item here are these popcorn decor. I don't know if you guys know about these, but these can sell for pretty good money. Halloween does well also and Christmas. So if you see these, definitely look them up. Some go for more than others, of course, just like anything else.  These actually sold on auction for $50 plus shipping. You've got the flag for, let's see it says rare, vintage rare one star flag popcorn decor for Memorial Day 4th of July. I know a lot of you listen and don't watch like if you're driving. So I will make sure that I get these titles for you all. All right, the next one, the title says 1992 skeleton motorcycle 4th of July, America, USA all over print shirt. So it's 1992. So that would be considered vintage. It doesn't say anything about single stitch, but this is the tag and it is not, it's made in Honduras, I think. Yeah. And right here you can see is where it's dated. It says LSDT's, it looks like. And this sold on auction for $72 plus shipping. I'm guessing with this one, a lot of times the all over prints that cover the entire shirt like this, definitely look those up if you see them. The next item is these vintage American flag, red, white and blue overalls, patriotic vintage. So these are super fun.  They ended up selling on auction for $85 plus shipping. But if you see the vintage Liberty brand, definitely look those up because they again can be a bolo even if they're just all denim. The next item here is this vintage NAPCO 1956 month of July, birthday angel bell, patriotic USA, fourth figurine. So this is a series and let me show you here. This is what it looks like on the inside. That is how it's signed 1956. How amazing is that? Cute little figurine here. This sold on auction for $90.99 plus shipping and it had 25 bids. The next item is this Annalee, patriotic fourth of July plush, Uncle Sam doll. It seems like the Uncle Sam, like the postcards and different things like that, they have a tendency to do pretty well. So if you see anything like that in that print, definitely look it up. This is what the tag looks like on an Annalee doll. They are typically dated and their faces, once you find one, you are going to recognize them. They are super easy to recognize once you know what to look for. It looks like he's got a little issue here on his thumb. This still sold for $97 plus shipping. All right, this is a vintage fourth of July. It's a noisemaker. It's a handheld tin noisemaker, which reminds me. Last weekend, I picked up a vintage Halloween noisemaker and I cannot find any comps on it. So I'm kind of excited about that one, hoping it's gonna do well, but noisemakers, especially Halloween, can do really, really well. Fourth of July looks like they're a bolo also. This one sold for $104.49 plus shipping. All right, now we have another noisemaker, but this one is different. And most of the people are using Rare in their titles, which I shy away from unless I can't find anything like it, or maybe there's one or two, but I typically use HTF, which means hard to find. But this is a horn. So it's, I think it's still metal here. And you can see here, yep, or tin, but it's got the red, white, and blue. Patriotic horn, $109.54 on that one. All right, the next one is this PEZ dispenser. Again, Uncle Sam, no feet. Typically the PEZ that go for big money have no feet. I did a video a while back on PEZ and things to look for for the ones that are higher dollar. It is an older video. So if you check it out, definitely maybe check and make sure those things are still trending. I think with the PEZ, it's probably gonna change a little bit, but some of those older ones are still gonna be desirable. If I had to guess, haven't done a video on these for quite a while. All right, so it's a fourth of July PEZ. This sold for $120 plus shipping. Most PEZ are bread and butter. I'm just gonna be straight up. Lots of them are worth like next to nothing. You can put them in lots, but some of them without the feet, the really old ones, they are highly collectible and can go for big bucks. So the next item, oh, yeah, okay. So one thing that you can do to see if an item sold, if you're new to my channel, you haven't seen this. If you've been here a while, I try to show you guys this because I feel like it's a very important tool when you're researching. So the reason I looked this one up is because it only had one bid. So I was a little bit concerned that maybe it didn't get paid for, but I went into the feedback and you can see right here, feedback was left and $120. So is that what that was? Yeah, $120. So that is the correct one. And it looks like they sold a Disney Goofy PEZ dispenser for $52. So Disney PEZ. All right, let me know in the comments if you would like to see another video on PEZ dispensers and updated video. And if I get enough people that say yes, I will do another video. Postcards. I recently did a video on postcards. So we know that Halloween and Christmas do really, really well. Some Easter do really well, but there's some others that really surprised me from that video. So definitely go check out the postcard Bolo video. This one is a vintage 4th of July embossed postcard, Uncle Sam's birthday. So again, we've got Uncle Sam popping around again. And you can see right here, it does have writing on the back and the stamp is there. And it's dated, which I think it's so cool, 1909. And this sold for $135.50 free shipping. The next item is this vintage Black Cat fireworks porcelain sign. So most of you know porcelain signs can be big money. It's gonna depend on the content on the front of the sign, the age of the sign, lots of variables that go into play, but this one is definitely cool. It sold for $137.52 plus shipping. The next item we have here is this vintage patriotic 4th of July Washington Cherry Tree candy container box made in Japan. I look at this and I don't even know what I'm looking at, but apparently it is a candy container. So we're gonna look here at the box and you can see it is made and occupied Japan. And I have heard people say that occupied Japan goes for more money. I don't know if that's true or not. If anybody has any feedback for me in the comments, that would be awesome.  The next item here are these vintage 1940s patriotic 4th of July Spirit of 76 flag brooch pin, World War II sweetheart figure. Ah, that word, I can't say it. Figurall, did I say it? Figurall, okay. It's a brooch and very, very cool. Look how neat it is. I don't know if I would have seen this, if I would have had any clue that it would be so valuable. It's got paint loss, but really a cool piece. This sold for $146.50. So the next item that sold is this Annelie. So this is another Annelie. This is the 1972 Democratic donkey 4th of July and let me show you, let me see if I can get a picture of the tag. Oh, they've got the original bag. That's kind of cool. Did they not do a picture of the tag? That would be very surprising, but it doesn't look like they did. I think I can see it right there on the neck. So if you're going to sell one of these, I highly recommend that you include a picture of the tag because it's going to give the date and I think that's really important that people see that. But it still sold for $152.50 plus shipping. The next item is this Annelie 16 inch elephant. Again, 4th of July, fun little character. But you see how their faces are painted super, super easy to recognize. I have sold quite a few Annelie. I've never had one go for over $100, but I've done pretty well with some and a lot of them are bread and butter. This one sold for $153 plus shipping. The next item is this blow mold. Again, blow molds are big money. Halloween, especially Christmas. Amazing, the nativity set. Wow, I keep seeing people in my Facebook group posting about nativities that they're getting for great deals.  So if anybody has any shipping tips for blow molds and you wanna share, go ahead and drop that down in the comments. This guy sold for $140.50 plus shipping. And again, it is an Uncle Sam blow mold. Okay, we have a vintage 1930s hand stitched quilt, red, white and blue, Fourth of July. So whether or not this is really for the Fourth of July or not, I don't know, but it definitely can be used for that based on the colors. So really quilts are, they just go for crazy money. Some of them, they got their foot in the photo there. Looks like, okay, some stains, please see photos. Now, I talked about using this area to disclose any issues with your item. And one thing that I noticed is when you're listing from your phone, this does not show up. So I recommend that you draft it or even publish it from your phone, but then go in on a laptop and add that information so that when people are looking at the main page, it's right there in their face because you don't wanna get an item not as described. A lot of people don't read the descriptions, unfortunately. And if it's right here, they're gonna see it. So if you're a new seller, if you're a seasoned seller, I think that's a really important thing to be doing. This quilt sold for 200 and 250 plus shipping. And I think even if this didn't say Fourth of July in the title, this quilt probably would have sold for big money because quilts are just going for big money right now. The next item is this umbrella. It's a vintage antique Fourth of July American flag umbrella parasol. How cute is this? But I want to point out the condition. The condition is, I don't wanna say awful, but it's not in great condition. It's got holes, it's got stains. Let me know in the comments, would you have picked this item up? And if so, would you have expected it to sell for this much? $205.83 on this item. And that was an auction also. All right, the next one here is this Teddy Roosevelt Bear Fourth of July Patriotic Rare 1907 vintage postcard. So here we have the back. You've got the date, you've got the stamp and the writing here. This sold for $710.00. Check that out. What do you guys think? Is that wild or what? Let's go in to the bid history. There were only two people bidding on this item. They started the auction at $24.99. And how happy was this person? I'm guessing really, really happy. The person that bought it had 3,413 feedback. So I'm guessing that item probably got paid for. That's another thing you can do is go in and look at the feedback of the person that won. If it's super low, maybe it went unpaid. If they have high feedback, they're probably not going to risk their account by not paying. So this is just a short little fun video. I do wanna say that I am rearranging my entire workspace. I have my jeans up high now and I'm sitting in a chair. I'm so excited to be sitting in a chair. I've just been putting this off, but I got some big shelves and I'm super, super excited. And maybe I'll give you guys a preview once I get it all figured out. It's a work in progress, but needed to get these videos done tonight because I need to post this one tomorrow. So if you're new here, my name is Courtney, also known as Bolo Buddies. I talk about Bolo items, items to be on the lookout for, items you can hopefully buy low and sell high. I got lots of category videos just like this. And if you'd like to check those out, there's an entire playlist. And I also talked to you about items that I sell on eBay. I sell on eBay, Poshmark and Mercari, sometimes Etsy and Facebook, but eBay is my main platform. I've been selling on eBay since 2005 and I absolutely love my job. And I've been on YouTube for, I think, a little over three years. So, ah, crazy. Thank you for being here. I would appreciate it if you subscribed, if you're new here. And let me know in the comments how you found the channel, even if you've been here a long time, or if you're brand new, let me know down there in the comments. All right, you guys, thanks so much for watching. I didn't do that right. Thanks for watching. I just wanted to come back on here and say I've been looking all over my table, looking on the floor. I'm like, where is my phone? Where did my phone go? And I'm like literally talking to myself, trying to figure out where my phone is. I just recorded and it's stuck in my ring light. It's not on my table. It's not on the floor. I didn't drop it. I didn't lose it. I'm recording with it. So I just wanted to come back on here and just share that nonsense with you. Thanks for watching.


Hi, my name is Greg Christerson, Operations Officer with District 8. This morning at approximately 8 o'clock we were responded to a reported factory fire at a recycling plant in Audish Road in Dandenong. It was fairly evident with the responding crews that the factory was going. We had a large column of black smoke which were emanating and the initial incident controller, Senior Station Officer Brett Sleep making pumpers for and requesting an additional aerial blinds on route. Upon arrival the crews found a factory approximately 50 metres by 50 metres well alight. Smoke emanating from the factory combined with the wind on the day as strong and orderly and the temperature approximately 40 degrees made it very difficult for firefighters to make access and try and control the fire. The temperature of the day has presented a number of issues to our firefighters in addition to the complexities here of the factory. With the high temperatures it was very evident early on that our firefighters would be subjected to extreme heat and given that there was an onus requirement on BAs that we would need to get some welfare support in place for them here on scene. Dandenong have a rehabilitation module which responds with marquees, cooling chairs and a large supply of water and electrolyte hydrate and one of the things we do very early on is establish that unit in the field to make sure that from the very onset of a firefight the primary focus becomes on maintaining the welfare of our people. The firefighter itself, Senior Station Officer Brett Sleep, supported by Senior Station Officer Glenn Probestul, they were able to establish some good foundations to effectively contain this fire to the structure of origin. The structure being approximately 50 by 50, supported by two ladder platforms they were able to contain and limit the exposures that this fire was likely to affect in the subtly direction. The wind here on the day presented some issues for the firefighters. The smoke column was leaning quite heavily towards some immediate factories directly south of the fire and setting up that ladder platform very early on was able to put a good water curtain down and limit the spread of the fire in that subtly direction. All crews on scene need to be commended for the way in which they they tackled this in very much a team effort. They were extremely well led by Senior Station Officer Brett Sleep. He had a quite clear objective which he communicated to all troops on scene right from the onset and all of his people were able to effectively do what he needed to be done and limit the damage here to the factory. One of the most important things that we've tried to get through to our people here today is that hydration is the most crucial aspect. We've said to all of our people here on scene that when they're not actively involved in the firefight to make sure that they're in the rehabilitation area which was set up near our control point and to ensure that they're drinking the right amounts of water and electrolyte and to stay cool in the shade. We've also had ambulance set up here with some welfare monitoring and their primary focus has been to make sure that the firefighters and all other emergency responders on scene have been well looked after. Given that we're in the AM period of this hot day, our firefighters here are going to be lent upon later on in the day to respond to other emergencies and what we do know is that the temperature's only going to get hotter and the winds are going to get stronger so we need to ensure that those people are ready to respond when required this afternoon. All in all this has been a very effective firefight with all agencies working very well together. We've been able to limit the damage to this factory and contain it to the structure of origin. Currently we've got district date fire investigators here trying to determine an actual cause for the fire and once that's established we'll be transferring control over to management for local area management. In relation to the community advice warning that was put out this morning, here at the incident we're experiencing some extremely strong northerly winds causing that smoke column to travel over Eastlink. We linked in very quickly with the Eastlink control centre to make sure that our warnings encapsulated the freeway and to alert all the passing motorists that they needed to display caution. The fire was fairly strong in the initial onset so we were a little bit concerned with some member attack but those very early connections with some of our stakeholders and supporting agencies is crucial to get the message out to make sure everyone remains safe. In relation to health and welfare monitoring of our firefighters on days like today particularly with this structural PPC it's crucial to make sure that when they're not actively involved in the firefight that when they're removed they're sufficiently hydrating, they're using the electrolyte and they're staying cool but even for those who are involved in roles that are far enough away from the incident that they take the jackets off and remain cool. It's all about the welfare of our people and making sure that they're not only fit to suppress this incident but we've also got to look at what the requirements will be further on in the day.


Hi, I'm Somya, a researcher at the MIT IBM Watson AI Lab. We're presenting a tool at NeurIps this year that reduces bias in an AI model without having to retrain it. Our method allows you to rank all the data used to train your model according to how much it contributes to a particular bias decision. Let's say you have a biased content moderation algorithm that flags all internet commons as toxic based on things like race or gender. Our technique can find the data points in the model that's causing this bias to show up and force the model to ignore them. Our method lets you fix the bias in your model without having to retrain it. Now, this is a huge deal if you're working with foundation models, say with billions of parameters trained on enormous amounts of data. Retraining such models can be extremely expensive and time intensive. We're excited to see if this technique can be applied to other situations where you'd want to understand how a model's data are influencing its decision.