So about four months ago, I made a video called protest distros I finally get in in that video I said these words here my protests the hill that I'm going to die on the hill that I'm going to stand on and just shout out to all everyone I will Stand on the hill and say that I will use xorg until they Don't let me use xorg anymore I'm going to use it for a very very long time and I'm going to be that person who uses protest distros the only ship Xorg from now on or at least offer an xorg version from now on if your distro fedora Decides to ship a desktop environment that only has Wayland I won't be using it because you're using Wayland and I'm protesting that now so I Have a confession to make and you might have spotted it already if you paid attention to the accoutrement on my desktop I'm using Wayland today, and I have been probably as though you guys actually seeing this video for well over two weeks and You might be wondering first off Matt. Why did you change your mind? Second you probably wondering Matt is Wayland better now than it was before if so that is that what caused you to change your mind And also what happened to xorg? Well, I'm gonna answer those questions today I have a little bit of pro to eat a little bit of a hands-to-ring if you will and I'm going to talk about Why I finally made the switch made the hop to Wayland and we're gonna find out whether or not Matt who has been notoriously anti Wayland or Yeah anti Wayland has become a Wayland fanboy We're gonna find that out so before we jump into all that if you leave a thumbs up on this video I'd really appreciate it. It really helped the channel, so Let's actually take you right to my Wayland desktop here And you guys can see that I'm actually in Hyperland and hyperland is a window manager. We're gonna call them window managers We've all gotten together at least in my head and we've all agreed that it's gonna be a window manager not a Compositor because it's we have a name for these things and manages windows So if I were to open up, you know windows, it's managing my windows It's a it's a window manager, but that's a rant for another day I'm using hyperland and it is as I've talked about in videos about it before is a very cool Window manager has a lot of cool features has a lot of animations and stuff like that They make it pretty and you guys all know that I prefer my window managers to be very aesthetically pleasing Hyperland has the possibility to be amazing in that regard and always has but because it's Wayland I've always had a hard time with it, right? So what made me switch? Well, some of it was and actually most of it was pure boarder I was on X monad for quite a while and I actually have a blog post about this I think it's still patreon only but eventually it'll come out to everybody else where I talk about how I Was basically getting sick of X monad. I needed a new window manager But I've tried all the other window managers and either then they weren't working or they didn't do things the way that I wanted them to do it and Yada yada yada really out. I was just bored and I needed something new and Someone in my discord or at least actually probably multiple people in my discord They're all using Wayland, right or they're all using hyperland I should say and I see these guys make their Hyperland desktops look really cool and they're always messing around with Waybar and all this stuff and like you want I want that and You know what? I'm gonna give Wayland another try and like I said most of it was bored them But also I hear constantly how Wayland is ready how it's actually if you give it a good chance You're gonna have a good experience Even if you're on a Nvidia card well now I don't have an Nvidia card But I've always had a poor experience like I said in that video that I just showed you guys and I'll link that down below I Have always had a bad experience With Wayland usually when it comes to screen capturing and you guys are seeing me capture the screen right now Hopefully yeah, hopefully this isn't you know jinxing it and it seems to work pretty fine you know I'm just you know I can open up windows here I can open up a browser whatever and I I can record those things and that was always one of the biggest issues that I had when it comes to actually Using Wayland because I need to be able to capture my screen if you guys want videos for me I have to be able to do that right so I've always had that problem and I've been hearing people say well You know it's finally fixed it doesn't have nearly as many problems as it had before and I was like you want to find I will give it a hard try this time So in my previous attempts at Wayland specifically with window managers, I gave it a try for a day Like usually by the end of the day I was done with it because I was having so many problems specifically again with screen capture and things like that Also, there was another problem I should say before I move on is that I had a hard time getting my monitors to go to sleep on Wayland And this this is not really a Wayland problem because it happened on X work sometimes too But it happened all the time on Wayland and I needed my screens to go off, but I couldn't solve that problem So this time I decided I was going to dedicate myself to two things one I'm actually going to use it for a long period of time, right? I want to sit down and use it for multiple weeks and solve the problems when they pop up I'm gonna actually put some effort into making the Theme and all that stuff worked for me Well, I'm gonna learn how to use Waybar because I didn't know how to use Waybar all that well I'm gonna learn how to to I'm gonna go through and get all of the applications that I need to replace because they either don't work on Wayland or whatever or I'm gonna get the alternatives. I'm gonna do all this stuff I'm gonna actually buy in to the entire ecosystem of Wayland and hyperland and see how it goes now In order to do this in order for me to have been successful this I needed to solve two problems I needed to solve the window capture the screen capture problem And I needed to solve the monitors going to sleep speaking of that I need to turn on the the idle and indicator or the idle inhibitor to make sure my Screens don't actually go to sleep but the point is is that I had to solve the problems So let me talk about the monitors first because that was actually the biggest problem more recently Now overall the longer period of time the screen capture was the bigger problem because that's been going on for a long time But recently that has gotten better and I knew that it had gotten a little bit better But the monitors was still a problem this time I actually managed to fix it it took me a while a lot of googling to actually figure it out and I found at least a workaround that has worked for me over the course of the last couple weeks and that Solution is to ignore the monitors going to sleep all together and just put the computer into a suspend mode Basically, it just shuts it down and it stores everything into memory and it just Suspends it now. I've used to spend on a laptop before I've never truly used it on a desktop PC before I didn't know how well it worked But overall it has worked really really well. It turns off all the monitors It solved the x-monad problem that I was having where two of my monitors would turn on and one of them wouldn't I haven't had any of that problem so far as that's really good So I've solved the monitor problems to my satisfaction It doesn't do exactly what I like because I'd prefer the computer to stay on so I can have access to the file server But I'm finding some workarounds for that I've decided to use a different computer for that that actually will work with monitors going off and all that stuff So I've had to find some workarounds to this in order to continue the way my workflow has always gone But I've gotten that fixed in terms of screen capture Still it's not all the way there I wish I could come to you and report that I've had zero problems with your screen capture, but I cannot do that For the first thing that I had a problem with is that it would work but eventually when I switched to a different scene so like if I went to My webcam here and then switched back to the no cam where my camera is gone It would be frozen right the the screen capture would no longer be working we've I've managed to get that fixed by Changing from the hyperland portal. It's in the open SUSE repositories to the Git version basically I built it from source that solved that problem and that was good I figured you know if that's the only problem that I'm gonna have that's fine But unfortunately, it's not the only problem that I'm having so recently for whatever reason the last couple days I've had this issue where when I open up OBS and select the Screen that I want to capture in the portal It won't actually capture that screen and it's weird. It's always one screen I can always record so I have three monitors It will record two of the monitors or capture two of the monitors. It won't record. It won't capture the third monitor I have to actually restart the portal with system CDL I'm actually four to actually work and I had to do that again this time and you know, that's annoying Well, just I don't know if that's a wayland problem. If that's a hyperland issue I've filed the bug on the hyperland GitHub repo and we'll see how that goes because they're usually pretty responsive So we'll see if they can fix that see so it's not 100% there, but I can handle it If I have to restart the portal every time I make a video, that's not that big a deal I don't I don't make videos all the time like second like like I'm doing this 24-7 or whatever And I have to constantly redo it after if I have to do it once a day Not a big deal. It works just find the way it is and once I've reset the portal or restart the portal It will actually start working and I'm guldling to go so the screen captured while it's not Perfect, it's better than it has ever been before when I tried wayland and that's good I mean that was those those two problems there were the primary hurdles to me coming to wayland there were the Biggest problem, but I talk about in many of the videos that I that I have talked about my anti-wailing stance about how I just don't get why I need to use wayland right while what benefit does this give me that I don't get on Xorg and The thing is is I still don't have the answer to that question. I really don't guys Wayland's fine It's perfectly usable now, and I'm happy that I'm here mostly but mostly because it has solved my boredom Right. It's allowed me to go and create a new bar several different times I'm still playing around with Waybar and learning all the CSS that I've forgotten after 10 years of not using CSS It actually got me to take a CSS course again So I can actually kind of re-up on it because there's a lot of stuff that's changed over the course of the last 10 15 years So, you know, I've been you know I've been able to spend a lot of time and effort putting into making sure that my desktop looks and acts and works the way that I wanted to work I've also delved deep into the hyperland documentation and Created a whole bunch key bindings and rules and stuff like that to make everything work exactly the way that I want to Work or at least as close as I can get it right and that's been very fun for me Because I truly missed the you know setting up a window manager and making it my own It's something that I've not been doing as often recently you guys probably have seen very few racing videos from me over the course of the last six months and I missed it. I was able to do that with hyperland and it was fun So that's a benefit I suppose but that would have been a benefit if I you know went and used herpes left WM or Left WM or something like that I would had to set up those similarly and I would have had similar fun doing that That's not a wayland benefit for me personally I still don't see the benefit of wayland all it has done has caused me to put effort into making my computer working in and While I've got there and I've had fun doing it because I'm a nerd I don't see the benefits actually of actually using it still. That's that's from a user perspective That's my stance and that's where my stance has always been really. I mean besides the bug, you know criticisms My stance has always been what do I get as a user now? I know that sounds entitled and all that stuff, but I can't My perspective as a developer, which I'm not a developer It would be completely different if I were to talk about it because I understand from a development standpoint There's a lot of reasons and loads of reasons. That's a big reasons why wayland is better You know Xorg is crusty the the code base was unmaintainable all that stuff Perfectly valid reasons why when it exists from a user perspective though. I still I don't get it It's fine. It works and it's beginning to work at least as well as Xorg does I'm I'm there at that point where I'll say that if you have a system that is compatible with it And you are willing to put in the effort to get to the point where it starts working for you Wayland is as good as Xorg at least in terms of using it day to day and that's a big step for me personally Because I wasn't there yet four months ago when I said I was going to die on that hill But from a user's perspective, I'm still not quite sure What the benefit is besides solving matt's boredom, you know, I mean, it's it's just not it's not something that I've really truly understood now Hyperland is a little bit differently. It's I look at it a little bit differently I understand that Wayland enables a lot of this stuff So I suppose if I were to get into them the minute details where you know I have all these really cool animations and that's really cool I mean Wayland allows all that stuff without having to add in any extra tools. So that's neat, I suppose But I don't need any of that stuff. It's not a useful feature I haven't found the useful feature to be honest with you for Wayland or even hyperland. They're just good That's really all that matters And I suppose if I look into if I look at it in a way where I know the Xorg is dying and or is going to be dead very very soon And I look at it as Wayland needs to be good enough to replace Xorg It doesn't need a top tier feature to get me to switch. It's not something It's not a new distro or a new way of doing a distro. It's not nixos I don't have to you know, it doesn't have to do things differently It just has to be as good as the thing that it's replacing what this is isn't an Improvement so much from a user perspective. It's just a replacement for something that is no longer maintained And if I look at it that way, I understand if I'm looking at it as well, what's the user benefit? Well, that's where I come into problems because there's not actually a huge user benefit What it is is just a it's providing users the ability to continue to use their computers With an up-to-date graphic stack because Xorg is dying or is dead, right? So that's the whole benefit That's the whole way that I have to look at it And I'm coming around to that right like I'm I'm no longer expecting there to be some Grand brand new feature or whatever that it's going to make me happy That's an entitled way of looking at things and I understand that and I'm toning that down Now there is a couple other areas that I need to talk about so first A big problem for a lot of people when it comes to using Wayland specifically on compositors at least Is gaming now? I don't do a lot of gaming on my main machine. Usually I use my steam deck for that at least so far I will say that gaming has been better on Wayland this time Then it was the last time that I tried it so far now granted. I've only played a couple games I've spent a few you know, maybe 10 or 15 hours in city skylines It works fine It works at least as well as it does on xorg and that's really all that I need to to to know It doesn't work as well as it does an xorg now I do not care about frames per second or at least I don't pay attention to frames per second So if you're in like a shooter or something like that or you're You know playing some games where frames per second really matters I don't I can't tell you whether or not it's better or worse on Wayland A lot of people say that it's way worse I don't have that experience because city skylines only runs at 30 frames per second anyways And it gets that at least as far as I can tell there's no like drop frames or anything like that So it works fine in city skylines too. I'll elsewhere, you know, I'm like I said, I'm not much of a shooter guy So at least not anymore So I can't really tell you how that works, but it does run them fine And you guys don't remember I'm just the frames per second argument thing has just never been very good for me because I can't really Notice the difference between 60 and 90 anyways. My eyes are horrible So in terms of gaming it does seem to be better than it was last time because last time I used it It was very very laggy this time not so much So I've switched to Wayland and I've switched to hyperland and I'm continued going to continue to use it now for Probably until I get bored and need to find something different Because now my complaints about Wayland really kind of fall down into the the realm of we need some more window managers We really need more window managers because I want more choice because I like to hop between window managers Right now. There aren't a lot of window managers out there that use Wayland. There's cutile There's hyperland. There's sway and then there's a whole bunch of really small Kind of half maintained window managers out there That you know may or may not survive the year You know the ones that I'm talking about so it's unlike in xorg where we have a whole bunch of window managers that are either You know still readily maintained or are basically finished, right? They've been Finished for a long time and they just work my problem with Wayland now because I always have to have some kind of problem I can't just be happy about things I my problem right now is just that there's not the amount of choice that I was happy with on Xorg, you know, because if I got sick of exponent I could go to q-tile if I got sick of q-tile I could go to i3 or bspwm or dwm or whatever you name it There were 30 different options with xorg with with Wayland There's three basically now There's a few other smaller ones that you could use but they're not well developed not well maintained In terms of like a broad community that's going to maintain them and you worry about them still being around for a while so You know they There's an issue here. There's a dearth of options in choice and that's unusual when it comes to this kind of thing I think though that over time that will you know solve itself eventually We'll we'll have the same amount of choice on Wayland as we did on xorg It's just going to take some time now that Wayland's actually something That can be used by the vast majority of people so I switched to Wayland I've that whole four months ago thing where I said I was going to die on the hill of xorg Did not last very long, but I've seen I I think the they would say I've come to jesus I I've I've seen the light if you will if you how many different metaphors can I come up with I don't know But I've seen it. I've decided that xorg unfortunately is going to go the way of the dodo We know that for sure even if I took a while to admit it And I needed to start getting to the point where I've spent some time in Wayland to know what I'm doing So that when the time does come and I can't absolutely fall back text or you know, I I can say well You know, I can just use Wayland and I'm going to be fairly happy about it. So I've done it It's it's done and I'm mostly happy So that's it for this video if you guys have thoughts on this whole thing you can leave those in the comment section below I know I'm always very wishy-washy about what I use. I always have been some of it is the you know, I have Phenomenal add when it comes to my computer. I like to change things a lot I changed color schemes a lot at least I used to and it's just kind of the way that I've always been So I understand that that bugs a lot of people because there are those people out there They've been using the same thing for the last 30 years and are very very happy about it And they don't understand people who's changed things all the time. So Unfortunately, that's just the way that I am. So anyways, that's it for this video Comments in the comment section below if you can follow me unmasked it on our odyssey Those links will be in the video description. You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the linux cast You can also head on over to the store at shop.thelinuxcast.org there You'll find desk mats and hats and hoodies and stuff There's also a couple brand new t-shirts over there that I just created that were that look pretty awesome So if you want to go over and check those out You can as well that shop that the linuxcast.org all of the stuff All the proceeds that come from there go directly to helping me make more linux content So thank you so very much if you've done so thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon and youtube because you're all absolutely amazing Just seriously. Thank you so very much for your support.  So thank you so very much for your support Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you Next time


Welcome to Serving Locally with Me, your host, Michelle Dynast, podcast for the Spotlight Service in the Longmont and Timerowning communities. All right, let's get it. Hi, welcome to today's episode of Serving Locally with Me. I am here with Jessica Schultz of Voices for Children, Casa of Boulder County. Um, so I just wanted to say thank you for coming out today and being on the show and, um, we'll just start with, um, who are you and what is Voices for Children, um, just in a quick overview. Yeah. Well, first, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. So excited to be here, um, and share a little bit more about Voices for Children. So as you mentioned, I'm Jessica. I get to be the development officer with Voices for Children, Casa of Boulder County. And just our mission is to build a healthier community by delivering services, support, and advocacy to children who have experienced trauma. So we do serve all of Boulder County. Our primary program being our CASA program, um, which is court appointed special advocates. So it's community volunteers who come in and provide really the just what our mission states, service, support, and advocacy for kids who are either in dependency and neglect cases or truancy cases. Um, so youth who become involved in the child welfare system are some of the most vulnerable in our community and face some really extreme adversities. So these volunteers become a consistent adult for these kids throughout their entire case, which can sometimes last up to 18 months. Um, but just someone who is there for them, who can advocate for them, um, in regards to education, health, and really just so much more. Can you give us a little bit of a background about the organization? Yeah, voices for children in Boulder County started in 1985, but we are a part of national CASA, which started in the late seventies by Judge David Sukup. He was in King County in Washington. Um, it came about because he was making a placement decision for a three-year-old who had experienced abuse and he realized he just didn't have enough information to make a decision in the best interest of this child.  He made a call out to the community to say, Hey, can we have volunteers who are available to advocate for the children? We have so many adults in the courtroom to advocate for the parents and really everyone else involved, but no one really specifically for the child. So his call to action brought in a lot of success, turned into a nationwide movement. CASA is now in 49 states and there are 18 jurisdictions in Colorado. And then just in the last year, we served a little over 200 kids with about 120 community volunteers. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's a lot. That's, that's awesome. Yeah. What is your focus? At Voices for Children. So our vision at Voices for Children is to ensure that all children have a safe, nurturing environment where they're able to thrive. We work towards this by providing those kids with CASA volunteers who can advocate for them. These volunteers go through pretty extensive training before they're able to onboard. It's a three week in person and online training that they go through to really just ensure they have the resources, the tools they need to be successful and provide best interest advocacy for those kids. In addition to that, we're realizing that we need a more diverse group of volunteers. So one of our big focuses right now is recruiting more. And in addition to that, volunteers who are representative of the kids we serve just last year in Boulder County, about 50% of the kids we serve were children of color.  So in order to fulfill that mission really of ensuring that all kids have a safe and nurturing environment where they can thrive, starts with having a more diverse group of volunteers that can advocate for them. That's awesome. So who are you trying to reach with your organization? So because the clientele we serve, the kids, we do get court ordered to have CASA on those cases. So that's not necessarily our target audience. Our target audience is the people who have the capacity to give. So whether it be volunteering with their time, great as need, we can only function if we have our volunteers and folks who can donate monetarily. So we are a 501C3 nonprofit organization and we are only able to provide this critical support because of the generosity of our community, whether it be volunteers or donations. Right. What makes the work of Voices for Children CASA Boulder County different than other similar serving organizations? Yeah, so Voices for Children CASA Boulder County is different in that our CASA volunteers are that consistent adult that is not only there to advocate for them, but allows them to just be kids. They're put in really difficult situations at no fault of their own and we hear stories about them needing to step up in different ways or almost a little bit of their childhood being taken. So having that CASA involved really allows them time to just be kids. They take them to the library. They take them to swim lessons. They take them to the zoo. So really just opportunities that they might not otherwise have had. So it's more than just an advocate that they just see in the courtroom or whatever social work cases, whatever they are part of their lives. Yes, absolutely. Our CASAs are required to meet with the kiddos at least once a month option to also do it virtually, but really to create that relationship so the volunteer can learn more about that about the child and what truly is in their best interest. A lot of times we hear from caseworkers in the court that they get so much value from CASA volunteers because they're the ones spending so much time with the child. Yeah, there's relationships there to see what the likes, dislikes and needs are actual. Yeah, that's really cool. The kid can't really verbalize that, I'm sure. Yeah, I don't know what they're, you know, what they're looking for. Yeah, and a perfect example that I came across the other day, we had a CASA volunteer working with a teen who was involved in a truancy case. And then in the courtroom, they wanted to address the truancy. Well, the teen didn't have a super close relationship with any of the other adults involved and didn't feel comfortable advocating for their needs in the courtroom. They built that trusting relationship with the CASA, where the CASA could then step up and advocate for them. Turns out this teen was being bullied in school, didn't feel safe. This wouldn't have come out otherwise because the child didn't feel comfortable advocating for that in the courtroom. As a result, the caseworker and the court has ordered therapeutic intervention to work with the student on overcoming the bullying. But they have also now are looking into a transfer of schools for this teen. So. Yeah, that's really great that they have, they can, that this organization creates that steady, you know, person that knows what's going on from case to case, probably from family to family, if they're doing from school to school to see the growth, to see the change, to see the difficulties that they're having. That is invaluable and I appreciate that with you guys. That's fantastic. So what are your greatest needs as in all non-profits? It's volunteer and money, is what I'm hearing. But if this is something that that volunteer base is very much. So what I'm looking for, it's very important for those kids. Yeah, definitely. Beyond the volunteers and monetary needs that all non-profits do, one of our greatest needs really is community awareness. We talk often about how our kids are the next generation, they're the future. We need to be there for them. However, kids involved in the child welfare system, foster care are often really overlooked in that area. So bringing more awareness to the work that we do that really supports those kids. I just think there's not enough people in the community that know about it. I hadn't heard about you guys at all, except for I met you guys at the Unity and Community. Yeah. So I'm really glad that we're doing things like that. So we can get to know. And that's why I go to those things is to try to dig you people up. So I can get you guys to give you a little bit of space to talk about and get you exposed. Well, in this platform too, thank you for hosting it because it just reaches a whole new audience for us as well. That's what I'm hoping. So that way you can not only get to the people that want to help, but people that might need the services or just, you know, hey, I might know somebody that you can connect with each other. So yeah, I see that. It's it's I'm hoping that that it's helping somebody out there. So that's good. I'm sure it is. Do you have any events coming up or volunteer opportunities that you guys do like a special thing for? Yeah. So like we talked about always recruiting volunteers, our training session has just started. We have a group of 22, which is super exciting and the largest the organization has ever seen. But there's always cases being open. So always recruiting volunteers. Our next training session starts in April. OK, volunteers can and are required to attend ACASA 101, which is an informational session to learn more about the opportunity. So those are held two to three times a month over the lunch hour and at five p.m. So whenever really works for potential volunteers to join, all information is on our website at vfcboulder.org back slash volunteers. And then we also have our annual fundraiser Night of Hope coming up on Thursday, April 11th. It will be at the Lionsgate Event Center and really just an event to generate awareness and raise the necessary funds to continue this work. We do have sponsorships available as well that they can learn more about on our website. Also vfcboulder.org back slash Night of Hope. How can people contact and find out more about voices for children? So people can visit our website vfcboulder.org. They can also call our main office. Contact information on our website or shoot over an email development at vfcboulder.org. Awesome. And I will as always have them in my QR code in the show notes so you can check that out. Check them out on Facebook and stuff too. Yeah. Is there anything else that you would like to add or just give you some space to talk about something that you just feel passionate maybe that I've missed or that you just you just feel like you need to you need to share the talk a little bit more about. I think that covers it. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Sometimes people are like, oh yeah, we've got this other thing, but you know, so it's like I just want to I want to open the floor up to anything that you feel that you want to that you want to share. No, I think that covers it. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Thank you so much Jessica for coming out and if you guys have any more questions or anything, let them know and if you guys know of organizations like this or of any kind that are nonprofit or just service for the community in any way, please connect with me so we can keep this going. I I love this. This is a passion project for me and the editing is hard for me so it takes me a while to get these out, but I appreciate all the support and hope that this is that somebody is getting help or being able to connect with other people through my podcast. So thanks you guys for viewing and thank you Jessica for being here and have a great day. Thank you. Thank you to my guests, my listeners and my supporters serving together. We can strengthen our community. Please like and subscribe. Do all those other things. You know, you got to do them. Because that's the easiest way that you can serve right now. All right, now go connect with others and be a blessing.


And what are different types of scholarships and fellowships? So scholarships can really range from a wide variety of factors. At Catholic, our scholarships are based on your academic performance. So like your GPA and your test scores. We have a scholarship that's for community service as well. So a lot of times college universities will have scholarships designated for certain students in certain attributes. So I think it's always really important as well to inquire and make sure you know if you need to apply separately to those scholarships. Sometimes the school will automatically consider for you for them and sometimes it's an additional application or an additional essay that you have to write. In terms of fellowships, that's something that's offered more in the graduate side. So if you're doing a PhD program or something like that, you often might receive a fellowship or an assistantship. That will help you pay towards the tuition for your program as well. So the scholarships and fellowships are available through universities. And also you should check your Education USA Center for any scholarships and fellowships that might be listed more generally as well. Absolutely.


I am Jack Wall, and I am an assistant editor at Northern Light Productions. So here's the sound booth. I spent my high school years in the southern part of Connecticut. Did you record voiceover in here? Sometimes you record what's called Foley, which are sounds put into it. I didn't have a particularly glamorous life. I hung out with my group of friends a lot, worked at a movie theater. I'm working on a video for Hazelton Publishing. And always knew I was going to go to college. It didn't really know where. Kind of applied to Boston University on a whim. Ended up going to BU and graduated with a degree in film and TV production. That's where a lot of the producers sit. The time leading up to graduation was a constant fear of the future and a constant flood of anxiety. I had no idea what was going to happen or where I was going to end up. And looking back on that, I think it's ridiculous that I was ever that worried. But when you experience such a big structural change as moving from school to the working world, it's not a fun place to be. Northern Light is a community of creative, passionate, intelligent and driven people who want to create work that exposes the truth of whatever subject we're investigating. Half of the work that we do is relating to museums and museum interactives. So this is for an interactive exhibit we have at a toy museum. And our sound designer wanted more domino sounding dominoes. So what I'll usually do is record this audio a couple different times until I feel nauseous from the sounds. And that's how I know I've done a good job. I think that a huge generator of anxiety for young people is the very notion that the work you do defines you as a person and is intimately tied to your self-worth. That's very much embedded in our culture and really played into the anxiety that I was experiencing at the time because I thought, well, if I graduate and work at Whole Foods, how are people going to see me? If I walk up to someone at a bar and say, we're getting on. And the person asks me, oh, what do you do? I'm going to be afraid of their judgment as a Whole Foods employee. But if I say I'm an assistant editor in Northern Light Productions, they just, there's inherently more worth prescribed to you, which is ludicrous, but it's sort of the way we function.


Network TFNN headline news update. Good morning everybody I'm Tommy O'Brien coming alive from TFNN headquarters in St. Petersburg Florida 10 a.m. Eastern time on Friday morning 30 minutes into the trading day a jobs Friday at that and the jobs number coming in like the economy is chugging along 100 and 28 thousand jobs added for the month of October that beating all the estimates coming in with a median estimate of about 85,000 unemployment rate at 3.6% the market liking those numbers positive territory to start things off we'll see if we get another record close in the S&P we're right up near that level right now S&P's up 18 points trading at 3,054 Dow Jones up 165 points trading 27,000 212 get the NASDAQ up 61 points trading at 83.54 gold contract holding pretty steady on that number gold up $3 at 15 18 got oil up 84 cents at 55 01 notes and bonds pretty muted response so far a little bit of higher price and lower yield the 10 year up one tick at 130 10 you get the 30 year up two ticks at 161 14 and the dollar index with a little weakness negative 160 ticks at 97 196 we'll start things off and we'll start it off with that headline number jobs Friday coming in 128,000 the estimate was about 85 you also had a revision for 180,000 advance in the prior month and that is including a strike driven 41,600 decline in automaker payrolls and 20,000 temporary census workers leaving their jobs pretty remarkable number the economy strength there for sure jumping over to the charts we'll start it off with the indices and look at this strength we'll get up here we'll get that Dow and there is the spike on the jobs number and the escalation just continued from there we came into that number basically a 27,000 we're now at session highs 27 166 NASDAQ 100 session highs as well 81 47 S&P 500 3,057 as we run through these back and things up the intraday high we're right up at that level I think we're going to be above it right now that's right session highs 3058 and we'll finish it with gold spiking down on the jobs number but now back above where we were prior to that level stay tuned folks coming back at 10 o'clock with Tom of course fast market at 11 basil Chapman Steve Rhodes Dave White Tom O'Brien all this afternoon stay tuned folks will be right back


Aloha, and welcome to What's on Your Mind Hawaii. I'm Tim Apachella. Recently political commercials from Governor E. Gay has been describing his support for the $15 per hour state minimum wage. Currently the minimum wage is $10.10 per hour or $21,000 per year. All proposed bills in the state legislature increasing the minimum wage to $15 failed to make it out of committee. For the 2018 legislative session, Governor's E. Gay ads were too little, too late. Today we look at Hawaii's minimum wage of $21,000 annual wage issues and compare that to yesterday's federal housing of urban development classification of an individual wage of $40,900 as a very low wage. And now here are those interviews. This is Tim Apachella, and I'm here with Nicole Wu, and she is a senior policy analyst for the Apple Seed Hawaii organization. Nicole, thank you very much for being with us and spending time with What's on Your Mind Hawaii. So, Nicole, tell me a little bit about your background and how you've been working on the minimum wage issues for, I don't know, how many years? I've worked in nonprofits for my whole career, and I've moved from place to place. Two of my jobs were with think tanks with economists that focus on labor and wages. So one of my first jobs was as a research assistant at one of these labor economy think tanks, and we worked on one of the first studies of living wage or higher minimum wage bills or laws. We were looking at Baltimore. We were looking at how it affected small businesses in the economy of Baltimore. So that was back in the 90s. And so on and off through my career I looked at the minimum wage, depending on what I was focusing on at the time. But it's been really amazing to see how the Fight for 15 movement has just changed the playing field the last few years across the country. Well, one of the first places that went to $15 was years ago in a city to south of Seattle called C-Tac, Washington, and it's a city basically that has mostly where the airport is and many of the airlines. And so that was the very first city that I think passed the 15. And so the question is we just recently had a Senate bill 2291 at the legislature. It didn't do well. Do you have any thoughts about maybe was that a bill too aggressive or maybe just your thoughts about why that bill didn't go any further? Well we did pass an increase in the minimum wage in Hawaii back in 2014 and it was raising the minimum wage in a few steps up to 10-10. That last step happened January 1st, 2018. So I think some legislators thought it was just kind of too early to look at this issue again. They felt like we didn't just pass an increase in the minimum wage. Folks like me, people who are trying to push for a higher minimum wage here said, you know, well actually, you know, 10-10, that was the last step. So starting today or January 1st, our minimum wage is going to start losing ground to inflation, which is what it had done before 2014. There hadn't been an increase in several years here. So we just wanted to make sure that the wage kept going up because, you know, with the highest cost of living in the nation, our workers really need to be paid more than 10-10 an hour. That's only $21,000 a year for full-time work. Everybody knows that you can't live on $21,000 a year in Hawaii. Well, given the fact that our rents are still going up and we still have an issue with the general excise tax that's been increased, which affects everything that we buy and sell, and we have a combination of higher transportation costs, which affect people who don't have cars that are trying to get to work and, you know, work for that $10 and 10 cents an hour, this is really putting a lot of pressure and strain. And I think for the first time, our population here on Oahu is actually decreased. And the question is, is there a correlation to that decrease in population to the fact that people aren't making it here on the island? Well, we do have the highest cost of living in the nation, high groceries, high gas, everything, high rents. And when you look at wages compared to the cost of living, our minimum wage is actually one of the lowest in the nation, just because our costs are so out of line. So, yeah, certainly some families are moving out of Hawaii because they can't make ends meet here, and those tend to be lower-wage families. They just need to go somewhere else where they can raise their children with more economic security. So here's a question. We know that the federal tax laws were just changed for companies, corporations, where they were being taxed at a 35% rate, and I believe that's come down to 20% rate. And the question is, that would free up a lot of their capital, a lot of their, basically, it's going to add a profit margin onto whatever they sell for goods and services. Have you seen any evidence of some of that money, and I hate to say the term trickle down, but have you seen any evidence of trickle down on either for wages or for other issues that corporations are engaged with? Well, some corporations have been saying, oh, well, now that we got their tax break, we're going to give workers a one-time bonus or raise our wages of $15 an hour. All the major banks in Hawaii have done that to $15 an hour. The question is whether or not they would have done that with or without the tax break because they were already raising wages here. We already know that we have a very low unemployment rate here in Hawaii, and that in response, employers do have to raise wages. And that's kind of what you hope. When unemployment goes down, it's sort of a supply and demand curve. That's when you put pressure on wages, and that's when working people can make more. That's how it works. So the corporations have been really good at kind of claiming that the tax break is what caused them to raise wages. But wages were already going up across the country.  They're buying back their stocks and they're paying their CEOs more. So it's really hard to tell how much is trickling down. Well, that's a good point. And I know there's a few big box stores just down on Nimit Highway here. And they will argue that, yes, we pay minimum wage for a lot of our entry employees, but we also provide a full health benefit program and benefit health benefits. Have you heard that argument as an excuse or as a reason? I shouldn't say excuse, but as a reason why they kind of hold to that $10 to 10 cent wage. It is an argument here in Hawaii because we are the first state to have mandated employer provided health care. And it does cost them some money to provide health care for their employees. But we also know anecdotally, and I'm trying to find this in the data, that a lot of employers hold their employees down to 19 hours a week because it's only after that at 20 hours a week that they have to provide health care. So I know people who are holding to 19 an hour a week jobs, and they don't get health care. So some employers are doing the right thing, and then others are actually employing a lot of people at $19 an hour and not paying the health care.  They're making 10, 10 an hour, they're working two jobs, and they're not even getting health insurance. So we're going to hear smaller employers say that we can't absorb this kind of increase, like a big retail outlet like Macy's or whatever store, that we're just a small mom and pop operation. And that increase in wage would result in either a reduction of hours for employees or possible layoffs. Have you heard that argument and what other arguments might you have heard from small business owners? Oh, that is certainly a very common argument. When I was doing the research on one of the first living wage laws in the country back in Baltimore, part of my work as the research assistant was doing one-on-one interviews with these employers who had been affected by it. The law in Baltimore was just for government contractors. So we focused on janitorial companies and school bus drivers because they tended to hire people at minimum wage. And those owners said to me in general, I'm a small employer. My employees are like my family. I want them to be able to buy new shoes for their kids when they need them, take their wife out for her birthday, just have a few good things in life. But if I am trying to wage us on my own, I'm going to get knocked out by my competitors. But if everybody has to raise their wage at the same time, it's an even playing field. We all have to adjust to it. And it's not a competitive disadvantage because we're all raising it at the same time. So they saw it as we need to have the law make the wage go up because as a small business owner, I can't afford to do it on my own. So that was a really interesting insight to hear from them, that they want their employees to make enough. Another thing to remember is that workers are also customers. And small businesses need people in their communities who can afford to buy their products. And if workers are struggling several part-time jobs at 10-10, they're not able to spend money at these local businesses. And that's the reason that Henry Ford, back in the day, chose to pay his workers more money. He said he wanted it to be that all of his employees could afford to buy one of their cars. And I think that's one part of the equation that a lot of businesses sort of forget when they're thinking about the wages that they're paying their employees. I spoke to one employee who works for a larger retail outlet that is paid minimum wage. And this employee made it very clear to me that they are very aggressive and proactive to let them know about social services either provided by the federal government or by the state or by the city, be it for SNAP program, supplemental nutritional assistance program, or other rent assistance programs, as almost the orientation to employment. I find that actually incredible to believe in whether or not that really does occur. Oh, yeah, Walmart got some pretty bad publicity about it a few years ago because somebody did leak their orientation forms. And it included applications for food stamps or SNAP, as they're called now. And the outrage was over the fact that these low wages are basically being subsidized by taxpayers because these employers are not paying enough for a family to live on, so they end up having to take advantage of all of these various government benefits. So raising the minimum wage is a way for people to get off of government dependence. And that's a way for the state to save money. So we had this bill 2291, I believe it was. It didn't go anywhere. Is there any sense of why? I think before this interview you had mentioned there were nine separate wage increase bills in the legislature for 2018, and none of them went through. Any sense as to why that might have been the case? And certainly it didn't even get out committee for 2291. Well, there are always a number of minimum wage bills in the legislature, it seems, just because a lot of legislators want to have their own bill. Sorry. Some of the bills actually were to eliminate the subminimum wage for workers with disabilities. And one of those has survived. And it looks quite good that it will probably pass. And that's great for workers with disabilities to be paid the same minimum wage as the rest of us. But the ones to get us up to maybe $15 an hour or otherwise raise the regular minimum wage, only one bill got a hearing. That was SB 2291, like you said. The Labor Committee hearing was actually packed. There was overflow into the hallway. There was a lot of very moving testimony in support of the bill. There were also business owners saying that they didn't like the bill. But there were young adults who said that they are having trouble paying their college tuition and paying their rent and buying enough food to eat. So it was very moving testimony from people who really say that they need an increase in the wage that 10-10 is not enough. But as I stated a little bit earlier, it seems like some legislators just weren't really ready for it yet. Because they felt like 2014, the last time the wage was raised, was really recent. Maybe in their minds it does seem really recent. But in our minds, the folks who've been working to raise the wage, now that the increases have stopped in 2018, we have to pass a new law to raise it again in the future, or else these workers are just going to be stuck at $21,000 a year. You had mentioned earlier about data. And you've been looking at data for years.  So how are some of this data, or some of these survey reports, being used against the argument of a minimum wage, a livable, sustainable minimum wage? Well, the minimum wage is actually one of the most studied topics in economics, at least over the last 20, 25 years. And most of the studies look at real world changes. Because often you'll have a state like Pennsylvania raise the minimum wage, and then New Jersey doesn't. And you have all these towns that share a border. So you can actually look at businesses on both sides of the border. So there have been a lot of studies like that. And every few years, a new meta study comes out that looks at 100-something minimum wage studies that have come out over the last few decades. And you smush these all together. And in the end, it shows that there's pretty much no effect on the number of jobs in the economy. Because kind of like what I was saying before, employers get more customers. Everybody's sort of the boats all rise together. And so we don't see the type of job losses that the business community often warns us will happen. It just hasn't been happening in real life. There was one study that came out last summer in Seattle, which has a law to raise their wage to $15. It's not there yet. There were two studies that came out the same week. Looking at what had happened up through 2016, when the wage went up to $13 an hour. The first study was done by the University of California at Berkeley. And it was just like pretty much all the other wage minimum wage studies. It showed that this slow increase in the minimum wage in Seattle was benefiting workers. They were taking home more money. It got almost no media play. It just sort of fit in with all the other studies. A few days later, the University of Washington put out another study, which claimed to show job losses. And that got all over the media. I heard from legislators here in Hawaii, oh, tell me about this new study. So economists have looked at it. And it has some issues. The University of Washington study, for example, only looked at employers with a single location in Seattle. That means they didn't have any chain restaurants, any retail chain. So no Starbucks, no Subway, no McDonald's, no Walmart. None of those types of stores were included in their study. It's estimated that was about 48% of workers who should have been in that cohort of workers at or below $13 an hour weren't in the study. So that's a huge flaw. That study also found that there was this huge increase in wages above $19 an hour, which just doesn't make a huge amount of sense. So it just seems like there must be some sort of problem in how they design their study. And so some people who originally supported the bill, some economists, have actually rescinded their support, saying, oh, it looks like there are some flaws in the study and we need to go back and take a look at the numbers. So I have a feeling that both University of Washington and Berkeley will continue looking at Seattle. But that was just one study showing some job losses. Again, the vast majority of hundreds of studies don't show job losses. As long as you raise the wage in a nice step-by-step manner so employers know it's coming, it seems fine. What's an appropriate step increase? Is it $1 an hour? Is it $2 an hour? What's too much and what's too little? That actually hasn't been studied. And that is one of the unknowns. Most of the bills that we've seen have been maybe about $1 an hour, maybe a little more. And it's going to be interesting to watch a lot of these bills and laws. There are other states, California, DC, and New York that are raising their wage to $15 an hour. Of course, there's cities like Seattle. So we have to keep watching them. But we know here in Hawaii, we had steps up to 10-10. I think in 2014 to 2018, it went up in three or four steps. And our businesses are booming. We have low unemployment. Our economy's done fine. So it doesn't seem like it had the negative effects that people had been warning about back in 2014. Yeah, an increase from 9 and 1 quarter, I think, to 10-10. Or was it even lower than that? It had been at, I think, 775 or something, and then went up to 8-something, and then 9-something, and then 10-10. Well, Governor Ige just recently mentioned that he would support a $15 an hour bill. But the legislature is over as far as this bill is concerned. So a little too late, I suppose. Any messages for the legislature in 2019 to take up new bills, and what would you recommend?  Well, I know that legislators have a lot of things that they're worried about. And one of the biggest ones is our homelessness crisis and our affordable housing crisis. That ties into wages. There are all different reasons that people are homeless. But one of the main reasons that people are evicted is that they just can't make their rent. And at $21,000 a year, we all know that's just not enough. So we have the highest cost of living here. We know that people can't make ends meet. And one way to do so, one way to help people make ends meet is to raise them in the wage. So we hope that Hawaii will match up with other high-cost states like New York and California and DC and pass a law to raise the wage. Okay, well, Nicole, I want to say thank you so much for appearing on What's On Your Mind Hawaii. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your opinion and your research that you've done for all these years. And this is a very important topic and I appreciate it. Tim Appichella with Think Tech Hawaii, aloha. That's how we do it. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, host on Think Tech Hawaii of Pacific Partnerships in Education. Every other Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m., I hope you'll join us as we explore the value, the accomplishments and the challenges of education here in the Pacific Islands. Hey, aloha, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii where community matters. This is the place to come to think about all things energy. We talk about energy for the grid, energy for vehicles, energy and transportation, energy and maritime, energy and aviation. We have all kinds of things on our show, but we always focus on hydrogen here in Hawaii. Because it's my favorite thing, it's what I like to do. But we talk about things that make a difference here in Hawaii, things that should be a big changer for Hawaii. And we hope that you'll join us every Friday at noon on Stan Energyman and take a look with us at new technologies and new thoughts on how we can get clean and green in Hawaii, aloha. This is Tim Appichella for Think Tech Hawaii for What's On Your Mind Hawaii. And today I'm at Capilani Park. I'm here with Nate Hicks. And Nate Hicks is the basically director of living organizer of Living Wage Hawaii. And this group is dedicated to trying to bring a higher minimum wage here to Hawaii. So Nate, tell me why you're here today specifically. Don't let me answer for you. You answer it. Yeah, it's really important. We all know that being able to afford to live here in Hawaii is incredibly difficult. Half of families actually are unable to meet their basic needs. And this is at a time with record low unemployment, everybody can find a job. They just can't find one that pays well enough to be able to afford to live here. And that is a direct result of our worst in the nation minimum wage. Minimum wage workers can afford less of their basic needs than anywhere in the nation. And it's important we raise the minimum wage to guarantee that all workers can just at least afford to live here. What kind of conditions do you hear from people that are making minimum wage? What kind of specific challenges? Because when I hear they can't afford to live here, I mean, I'm not gonna say that's not important statement, but it doesn't have an impact to my emotions. It doesn't have an impact to what does that really mean? So kind of go in the detail, what does that really mean? Yeah, I mean, people having to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet. That means kids at home are by themselves all day after they come home off the school bus. That means that people are skipping meals. That means people are living in their car. Obviously we know homeless rate is the highest in the nation, but it's not just the homeless, but it's everybody. And the issue as well is everybody's struggling. Everybody's stressing out about trying to make ends meet. And so it's really important that we make sure we just give everybody the opportunity to afford their basic needs. So there was a Senate bill, Senate bill 2291 in the legislature. Tell me what happened to that bill and why do you think it didn't progress? What's your thoughts on that? Yeah, so Senate bill 2291 was one of the many minimum wage bills to raise the minimum wage in the state capital. It passed its first chamber and then was not scheduled to hearing by Senator De La Cruz of the Ways and Means Committee. I can't say for certain what reasons they really killed the bill, but I just don't think they understand how important this is to the entire economy. All jobs are paid lower than what they need to be because our floor is so low. With entry-level workers getting paid near the bottom of the entire nation, all jobs are really suffering because of it. I think if they understood that and how raising the minimum wage gave us all the opportunity to survive, they would schedule it and pass it tomorrow. So making this very clear to them that this bill would impact everybody and give all of us a better chance to live would easily get them on board. Well, it seems to me in the past the legislature and the governors, Governor Abercrombie, Governor Ege, were supportive of a higher minimum wage. So was there something specifically written in that bill that was a poison pill, if you will, that just was so unattractive they couldn't live with it? No, this is just a straightforward raising the minimum wage bill. I'm as flabbergasted as well. It seems pretty simple. This is a state legislature that's fully democratic party. And if they wanted to pass it, they could. Unfortunately, with New York, with California, with DC and several other cities raising their minimum wage up to 15 and even Republican states like Maine and Arizona, they're raising that up to $12 an hour for us to be stuck at 10-10. Something's going on and we need to make sure that the people know it and that we can start voting for candidates and legislators that do support raising the minimum wage. Before it graduated on January, 2018 to 10-10, do you remember what the increment was just below that? Was it 9-25 or? I think 9-25 is right, something around there. And then before that, eight-something and then 7-75 and then 7-25. So 10-10 is the minimum wage. Now what about employers that said, well, yes, we're paying 10-10 and maybe that's a little lower than the rest of the country given the high cost of living here in Hawaii. But you get our medical benefit package. Yeah, and the medical benefit package is important and it's necessary. Unfortunately, it's not enough to actually allow people to meet their basic needs. They need to put a roof over their head. They need to eat. They need to get to work. And so healthcare is a necessity. We all need it, but we need everything else or we need all of our other basic needs too. When I think of people working at minimum wage, I think that a lot of times because of the high cost of housing, the high cost of rent, they're not able to live close to where their employment is. So that means they're traveling long distances somewhere else on the island. And I'm wondering what impact that has to people that are making minimum wage. Do you hear from your membership about that issue at all? Yeah, I think we all know. I mean, you go and see traffic on the West side. I mean, people are driving hours each way just to be able to find a job that works for them and might not even work for them. So people are struggling. You have children obviously coming home to parents who are still in their commute. This issue is really hurting all people. And yeah, time is a huge factor for all of us. Well, it's time, it's a stress, but also I'm thinking what the impact of further erosion of costs for gasoline, for depreciation of the car, for insurance. I mean, those are other costs that keep eroding into what is already a non-livable wage of $10.10 an hour. So I'm just wondering if that impact kind of works its way into the discussion or the conversation. Again, the livable wage as calculated by the Hawaii government actually, DBET just came out with a study, a Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, that livable wage is 16. At 10.10 is far too low. And so it's extremely necessary that we raise it up. All these things are counted towards just making ends meet. It's very baseline. These aren't saving up to go on vacation or even enough to save up for retirement. 40 hours a week, full-time work. We are less than two-thirds of the way there. So all of these things are really putting a strain on our families. So what are the causes or what are the symptoms of why we have a $10.10 minimum wage and worse yet, given our low employment, employers are able to get away with it? Is it just because everyone wants to live in Hawaii and have an Hawaiian experience and therefore that's the prevailing rate? Is it a supply and demand kind of issue or what do you think it is? I mean, it's clear that the minimum wage is the floor. We actually have people leaving the state more than people are coming in. We have the worst rate of people leaving on the entire nation and this is at a time with low unemployment. So because the minimum wage is so low, the corporations are able to get away with it. Again, people are leaving the state and so it's very important that the government stand up and say, no, our people are worth more than this. They are worth enough to actually afford their basic needs. Does your group Living Wage Hawaii have any data about what employers are out there that actually do start at a minimum wage versus a higher minimum wage? Seems to me that some of these retail outlets are actually just above minimum wage, but not really a whole lot. Do you have any data about that? I don't know, but I do know that 40% of jobs pay less than a livable wage. I don't know the actual number of corporations, but this is a rampant issue. All of the people in Hawaii are hurting negatively because of this. Our workers are being exploited. They are unable to find a job that can afford them the opportunity to live here. And so if we can take that group and raise them up to at least an entry-level, livable wage position, all of the rest of the jobs can rise up above. Well, there's a livable wage and then there's a minimum wage. What was the Senate bill proposal? Was it $15 an hour? Senate bill was going to push it up to $15 an hour, which still isn't enough, unfortunately. That is a great step and that's why we supported the bill for sure. But once we get there, we need to make sure we also account for our high cost of living, the highest in the nation. If you had an opportunity to stand in front of the legislature and you were given 35, 40 seconds to talk to all the representatives and all the senators, even if the governor was there, what would you say? I would say if we want to provide a future for not only ourselves, but also for our cakey, it's incredibly important that we give all workers the opportunity to at least survive and make a living here. If we do that, all jobs around the state will increase and everybody will benefit. This bill is going to help businesses, it will help employees, it will help all families, it will help everybody. And so as long as we continue to allow people to be exploited at the extreme level that they are, everybody is not gonna be able to afford to live here. So passing this bill is incredibly necessary. Okay, well, Nate, Nate Hicks with Living a Wage Hawaii. I appreciate you taking the time to share your sentiments and the issues at hand here and they're important issues. So I hope the next legislative session is gonna go a lot better for this issue. So thank you so much for coming on the show and spending your time. I'm Tim Appachella for What's on Your Mind Hawaii, Aloha. Thank you, welcome back. And that's our show for this week. Please join us in two weeks for that I believe that's May the 8th and Aloha.