This is crazy. What's up money gigs? Mr. V here. Welcome to another video guys. So in today's video, I want us to talk about ticket symbol M A R A and R I O T. So these are two plays that I covered on the channel about my top five stocks for the week. And so these two stocks, I actually give my price prediction that 28 to 30 dollars would be a good price, you know, target point for these particular stocks. But boy, did they just explode. So I want us to talk about those stocks and what pushed the stocks to go past over 30 dollars and what you should do next. That's what we're going to cover into this video. But before we get started, guys, we're new to the channel. We took about how to earn money, how to save money, how to invest and build wealth. So that's something that interests you. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button and your notification bell so you don't miss out on new content. So I actually talked about these two plays here on the channel again. I told you guys that as far as Bitcoin continues to move up, these two plays that you can get into and ride it alongside Bitcoin for sure. And we're seeing it play out when Bitcoin pulled back down to say 30 thousand dollars. I did a video here again about these two stocks. I told you guys that Bitcoin seems to be consolidating around that 30 thousand dollar price point. So if you are looking to get into these two stocks, this is a time for you to do it right after that. It took off, got up to about, the stocks took off, got up to about twenty three dollars and then I still see Bitcoin making a move. Like over the weekend, that's where I had these two stocks on my watch list because or on my stocks to buy this week, because I saw Bitcoin over the weekend go to as high as forty one thousand dollars. I said, no, this is a good time to get in, introduce stocks because Bitcoin is going to move. And then, of course, Elon Musk came in and with his Tesla company and bought about one point five billion in Bitcoin, which is crazy. So that actually drove the price of Bitcoin to what we're seeing right now. As I'm recording this video, sitting at about forty six thousand five hundred dollars, which is insane. So what do you do if we go tomorrow? M a R a this is the play. So again, the price that I had for this thing, I said it would be around thirty dollars, but he's just blew past it. So sitting at about thirty six dollars right now. If you bought these stocks looking at long term, then you'll find if you believe that Bitcoin again is going to get to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you are fine. Do nothing. But if you bought the stocks based on the money that I gave to string trick the stocks now, now you're playing with house money. So what I want you to do is put a stop loss or trailing stop. So if you say you want to secure profit, again, this is my personal take. I'm just giving you guys what I think you should do or what I think would be a good approach here. If you bought this stock, it just blew past that thirty dollar price point and you're still holding it. You have one or two options. You can take some profit out and just let your game sit in there and ride all the way. Or you can put a trailing stop. And in this case, if you put your trailing stop, you want to give it another room so that if it pulls back a little bit, it doesn't just kick you out unless you want to just sell and then hope to get back in. But if you want to maintain your position, put your trailing stop with enough buffer there, maybe about 20 percent for your trailing stop so that if it pulls back, you have breathing room so you can continue to squeeze back up. And that would be the same for people that have riot. So these two stocks, again, are working in tandem with Bitcoin. When Bitcoin as Bitcoin continues to move up, the stocks continue to fly. So that's exactly why I wanted you guys to get into this, because right now the way Bitcoin is just positioning itself. We've seen micro strategy with the first. I think the first guys I started talking about investing a ton in Bitcoin. Micro strategy bought a lot of bitcoins, about $1 billion worth of Bitcoin. Now Tesla just came out and did $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. So you can see all the companies had to put money in there. And what's going to happen is the price of the stock is going to keep going up because I think investor Shamar actually said he thinks Bitcoin is going to get to 150,000 dollars. Guys, where we stand right now, I think this is going to happen. I used to think this was a myth, but I cannot put this past Bitcoin anymore. This is it's heading that direction because by the end of the week, this thing is going to hit over $50,000. And that's it. That's it. It's just going to keep going up. So again, what I wanted to cover today again with you guys is just that management. Yes, the stocks are performing like we said, you know, we were looking forward to even overperform because again, my project was like $30 and now sitting at 36. So again, I want you to be smart about this.  So make sure that you're catching you're selling at the tip. So when there's any pullback, you wait and they enter again. So again, if you have to stock, you use a trailing stop, I don't know, maybe 20 percent, whatever you're comfortable with, 20 percent. It's just that's a typical average that most people use 20 percent. Put a 20 percent stop trailing stop loss in there and just let this thing go.  And again, if you're holding in long term, you believe that Bitcoin is going to get to $150,000. You don't have to worry about anything. You can write the way if it would go up, come down, go up, come down. You keep you just keep adding to your position as when you see a pullback at your position and that would be a good way to play this too. So that's what we need to cover in this video. So let me know in the conversation what you guys think are you guys super excited, how many of you guys actually jumped into these two plays in our culinary writing it all the way again? Let me know in the comment section if you're new to the channel, we talk about how to earn money, how to save money, how to invest and build wealth. So that's something that interests you. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button and the notification bell so you don't miss out on your content. Also, if you're looking to get started with investing, we both are still doing a promotion right now. If you sign up and deposit 100 dollars, you get four free stocks and no cost to you links in the description below. And as always, guys, do your homework. Don't be really savage and stay motivated.


I'm Catherine Norr and welcome to my show, Much More on Medicine. Today we have Natalie Pettit, a workers comp attorney in Hawaii. She practices workers comp and she has so much to tell us about issues regarding COVID-19 law and workers comp. But we're also going to be talking about general issues that you may encounter with COVID-19 because we believe that we are going to have a lot of legal issues in the future and I'm sure that Natalie and I we're both dealing with them now with clients. So Natalie I'd like to welcome you. Thank you it's so great to be here. All right so tell us a little bit about your background as an attorney. Sure I practice primarily in the area of workers compensation. I have done so for over a decade. I do have a background in labor and employment law as well. Prior to private practice I was in the JAG Corps and the United States Army. I deployed to Iraq in 2003 and that kind of lets you know how old I am. So a pretty pretty diverse background. All right fantastic. So in work comp do you represent employers or employees? I represent employers but in my practice it's always very very important to me to do the right thing by both sides and I really strive to come to a fair result for both employers and employees as well. But I do represent the employers. Okay and I'm certainly going to be weighing in on this conversation quite a bit because we're both going to be discussing legal issues that we see in the practice of law and I'm an attorney and I practice insurance defense litigation sports and e-sports law and I actually have been handling some COVID-19 legal issues lately and I know both of us have been diving into some seminars related to COVID-19 to kind of learn more and to hear what other people are doing. And I kind of feel the same way that you do Natalie in that even though I represent the insurance carriers generally or their insurance I do want to be fair and then insurance companies basically have to pay what they owe and deny what they don't owe because when they deny they're actually doing that in favor of other policy holders that's an important aspect of insurance. So you know that's kind of that fairness issue. So we have a lot to cover today so what I'll ask you first Natalie is we'll first start with work cop and then we'll go on to other areas but what I'm really curious about is um is COVID-19 something that would be covered under a work comp? The answer is maybe so we're really diving into uncharted territory. These are very new issues with respect to diseases that are perhaps contracted in the workplace. If you are a medical person you work in a hospital or a nursing care home if you're in the medical field basically it's going to be presumed that that disease was caught in the workplace. However if you're not working in a medical facility usually there has to be some sort of connection to work. I mean it's entirely possible that people could contract COVID you know off the street or from a family member and since there's such a long incubation period two week period of time it's really difficult to tell where it was contracted. Now in Hawaii we do have a presumption of compensability built into the law but with this type of situation it's really incumbent upon employers to do a very thorough investigation. They may want to deny a claim pending investigation if you're an injured worker don't be surprised if this happens it doesn't mean that your claim is going to be denied it just means that they need a little additional time to investigate to make sure that it was in fact contracted at work for example and not from a family member. Natalie I was watching the chief of police on TV recently and she said she made a comment and you know I hope I'm passing this on correctly and you know she'll probably be letting us know if if I'm not but she said something that when the police officers if they contract COVID-19 there would be a presumption that it was caused by work did you hear that statement that she made? I actually did not and of course again these are all new issues so if you're deemed to be an essential worker you know historically when healthcare worker contracts a disease in the workplace generally it's automatically compensable. But for other employees no but you know it's questionable in this situation we've never been in these waters before if you're deemed an essential worker is it automatically compensable like it is for healthcare workers and the answer to that is we just don't know. Okay so we know that we've seen all these situations where employees have had to quarantine for 14 days and and have been off work for that amount of time and you know we I know everyone's been consuming a lot of news regarding this and and lately today we found out that Maui Memorial Medical Center has 15 employees that have apparently contracted COVID-19 and so can you address how it's determined how long the employee would be off and when they would return to work? Sure so the CDC guidelines provide information and some guidance on how employers can help address this type of situation really they defer very heavily to the medical doctor that's treating the patient the employee if generally you would wait the two-week period of time to determine whether or not they are displaying symptoms of COVID-19 once they've been exposed to it but they can be released to return to work sooner by a medical doctor so even if you have a presumed case of COVID meaning they're displaying symptoms but they weren't able to get a test or if there's an actual diagnosis of COVID meaning they got the test and they did test positive you don't necessarily have to wait the full two-week period of time some people their recovery time is quicker and they can be released to return to work sooner what employers are doing starting to do nationwide is once you have if you're looking to return to work once you have two negative COVID tests then you can return to work they say that with one negative COVID test there it can be a false test meaning that there's still a 30% chance the person still has COVID when there are two tests administered that reduces down to 9% and if three COVID tests are administered that reduces the chance down to 3% so they're saying when employers are looking to bring employees back to work that it's a good idea to have them take those two tests in order to make sure that they are not positive when they re-enter the workplace okay i um heard a situation from a friend of mine that stated that he that there was an employee at his office who didn't like to be around anyone using hand sanitizer and so everyone was complaining about the fact that this employee was in their space and they couldn't use hand sanitizer finally they ultimately moved her to another area so that she could like be away from their use of hand sanitizer but everyone in the office ended up getting sick have you had any situations like that i haven't seen those types of situations it doesn't surprise me we see all sorts of of cases roll in i will say um you know that that things are being handled on a case by case basis now and you really have to look at all the facts you want to make sure that you're protecting your employees but at the same time you can't inconvenience everyone else the entire office for example um so you have to find workarounds you have to find reasonable accommodations and and see what can be done if you can find a happy medium to accommodate everybody okay so now i'd like to talk about business interruption clauses and there i know that there are a lot of businesses out there and we've seen some news about this they are trying to get coverage under their business policies for business interruption and um you know i i would just say that when we address this we ask people to read their policies carefully because there are exclusions for particular things and they don't necessarily mention or they they essentially exclude pandemics and viruses however there's going to be legal issues that arise out of those do you have any thoughts on business exclusion policies i my understanding is that you're generally correct i mean i think most of those business interruption policies don't anticipate a worldwide pandemic and those are things that are excluded they're looking more for types of things like floods or you know different events that that might occur that would disrupt the business other than disease i will say though that i would never discourage anyone and i i don't think that you are i'm just throwing this out there i would never discourage anyone from filing a claim i think that it is important um to get the claim on file and then work at determining whether it's something that you can recover for after the fact and it's my understanding that five states have already introduced legislation to expand the coverage under those policies and i don't know if hawai will do that but it's a concern to small insurance carriers who have a potential of going out of business if they have too many claims and there are some um issues regarding possible reinsurance insurance coming in in here because it is a national emergency so or actually it's really a world emergency and so it's going to impact the insurance industry significantly but before we move on to other interesting topics we will be taking a break so um we'll return shortly this is much more on medicine i'm speaking with natalie pettit about covid 19 legal issues hi i'm rosty kimori host of beyond the lines on think tech hawaii i was the head coach for the puno boys varsity tennis team for 22 years and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships my show is based on my book also titled beyond the lines and it's about leadership creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness i feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going beyond the lines leads to success in everything you do in life i'm looking forward to you joining me every monday at 11 am aloha we're back we're live this is kathryn norre with much more on medicine i'm talking with natalie pettit regarding covid 19 legal issues and uh we're going to talk about supply chain issues i'm sure that many of you have found challenges in getting particular goods when you go to the grocery store uh there's actually a facebook page devoted to helping people locate hard to find items like toilet paper um there are many companies have questions about whether the stay-at-home order applies to certain aspects of their business whether they can operate their factory with employees on us on a assembly line where they can't keep them at six feet apart so that's an issue and and many companies are seeking uh legal advice to help address that issue and whether they can continue their business but natalie do you have any thoughts on that no it's a very well i i do have some thoughts but no answers unfortunately um it's a very very interesting issue because you have so many people that are now working from home as you indicated instead of the regular workplace and so the tight we're consuming more goods at home where previously we relied on our workplace to provide those for example with you know with toilet paper um every everyone's complaining about the toilet paper being out out in the store but a lot of times when you're working you're using your employer's toilet paper for much of the day so your um need has increased and i think that that's something people are failing to recognize also the supply chain is different for what you buy for example in the grocery store um or another store that you would shop at versus the type of goods an employer buys it's a different type of good it's a different um supply chain and that's causing some hiccups in in the system well with respect to i go ahead natalie oh i was just going to say you know with respect to distancing in the workplace staying six feet apart from your co-workers when you're trying to get the goods out is an impossibility um and there are some concessions that i i think are going to need to be made sure absolutely and i see different businesses where they have a difficult time keep a difficult situation where like bank tellers sometimes they're not set up to be six feet apart and that can cause problems but in the supply chain situation my concern is that um there might be a particular small part that would not be a necessity and so it would be excluded like for example in packaging there might be a particular cap on a bottle or something that may you know may mean there's people staying at home complying with the order but they are not in the workforce developing that product that is needed to produce this particular element and there could be shortages that way that's a concern i have and i think that that's where these um determination these legal determinations as to whether these particular portions of the supply chain can continue to operate or whether they are they fall within the provisions of a stay at home order whether it be federal or state or local um let's move on to uh negligence um we are probably going to see a lot of litigation arising out of um COVID-19 and one of the things that is interesting to me is this idea that someone could file a lawsuit against a business and claim that they contracted um COVID-19 from that business or they could file that lawsuit against an individual and i think that those issues make it so that um uh businesses decide not to operate or they decide or a particular um activity is not allowed anymore like a condo complex closes a swimming pool or a tennis court because of fear of that and so uh what have your what have you seen in this regard i think you're right i think it is going to generate a lot of litigation unfortunately you know it's really sad people are really doing their best um to get through really challenging times and um inevitably some people are going to get sick um we've already seen some people die from from COVID-19 again i mentioned this in early on when we started speaking there's such a long incubation period it almost becomes impossible to identify where they contracted the disease so i do think that businesses will have a good defense in this regard but the cost of litigation in and of itself even if they prevail is is huge it's it's a a burden a lot of small employers can't overcome and hopefully you know i hopefully they have insurance that is able to help them in this regard and this is where risk management needs to come in i think that businesses have to make very strategic decisions in order to you know prevent possible COVID-19 um problems and i you know i saw it in my building um where they actually put in a COVID-19 regional testing center on floor on the first floor and that was very concerning to me and um ultimately they after about two weeks they moved it out of the first floor and they moved it down the street to a uh freestanding building i think they they probably got enough complaints from other tenants of the building about having it there and the risk to other people using it another thing that i thought was interesting is that the parking lot was actually a waiting area and i wouldn't go in the parking lot anymore because i thought that is a very dangerous place to be in order around people that actually are there coughing and they want to be tested so i think as individuals we not only have to you know ultimately um be concerned about who's at fault but i think we have to actually make some smart decisions for ourselves to avoid these situations and actually follow orders follow the stay at home order so you don't get sick and you don't have to blame it on someone that's my thought um but now let's move on to um to force majeure clauses and contracts um i'm dealing with this with clients right now in that um march and april are and june and actually march april may and june are very popular times to have events which attract many people and so with everything that's gone on especially in hawaii with we have um quarantine restrictions stay at home orders on different levels and it impedes the ability to go forward with events not only it scares people in terms of registering for events and making plane reservations but also the ability to actually have the event and these clauses in contracts actually can um excuse the parties from performance and one of the one of the requirements is or potential requirements is to determine that the going forward with the contract is an impossibility or there could be acts of god exclusions or government order exclusions natalie do you have any thoughts on uh force majeure clauses just making sure that they're included in any contracts that you have either ones that you're trying to enforce or get out of and future contracts that you may enter into as well we don't know how long the situation is going to last and it may flare up again so you want to make sure that you're protected what i'm hearing a lot is that is not a term a contract term that is frequently used it's very unusual very rare and some contracts they're finding have been drafted without that provision in it which is a huge mistake but you want to make sure that you're reading the the contract very very carefully um in order to be able to take advantage of that provision natalie you have a very good point um some people think that the force majeure contract in a contract uh clause in a contract is just not that important that it wouldn't likely occur but people have to when they enter into a contract they actually have to read the contract carefully and think about what could possibly happen now this is kind of a once in a lifetime situation i never thought about pandemics before and i admit that i never watched the the movie contagion so i had very little information about this and yesterday i was talking to jay fidel on his show about about um like when you buy into the seriousness of this situation and i was a late adopter because i thought that we would not have the problems that we ultimately did so i think that also weighs into how people act natalie did you at what point did you understand the seriousness of the situation i have to laugh i am so type a personality um you know i i don't know as an attorney maybe i just automatically have this catastrophic thinking i want to be prepared for any event or any scenario so um i i feel as though i was prepared i i i was hoping it wouldn't be as bad as it was but um i can tell you we have enough toilet paper to last well i'm glad you're prepared but you can all we also can uh be assured that we're prepared for uh hurricane season but this uh it's been a pleasure talking with you natalie and thank you very much for appearing today uh this is much more on medicine on the think tech live streaming series and please um enjoy future shows i'll be talking to family counselor welter david disney in two weeks on wednesday at three o'clock and we'll be talking about uh uh various issues and dealing with the emotional challenges of stay at home orders and i thank our producer and our um other and eric who works tirelessly to put this show on um we'll see you next time aloha


Google has launched the Africa Development Ecosystem Report 2021, demonstrating that the continent's developer ecosystem is under rise. This is according to the findings of a study conducted across 16 sub-Saharan African countries through fielded and analyzed surveys of software developers as well as interviews with local experts. The report indicates that the manful African developers reached a record high in 2021 against the backdrop of a global economic crisis and the impact of the pandemic. With increased use of the internet among small and medium-businesses SMBs on the continent, the need for web development services also increased alongside higher demand for remote development work.


Thanks so much for joining us for this side event. It's really exciting to be here today. So the side event today is being organized by the Norwegian Association for Humane Drug Policy, FHN, the International Drug Policy Consortium, IDPC, Rio, and the governments of Iceland, Norway, and Denmark. So thank you so much for your support. My name is Marie Nuget, I'm the Head of Research and Communications at the International Drug Policy Consortium, where a global network of NGOs and our objective is to promote drug policies that advance social justice and human rights. So we've seen over the past few years at CND, for those of you who have been coming for a long time, that there's still a number of countries that continue to resist the consideration of human rights when we talk about drug policies. Many drug policies worldwide continue to be very punitive in nature with law enforcement practices that often disproportionately affect specific groups, including women, the gender and non-conforming groups, people living in poverty, people from specific ethnic communities. The disproportionate impact of criminal justice responses also fill our prisons, which are already overcrowded, and obviously there's an ongoing lack of availability and access to life-saving services, including health and social services, but also and more particularly, harm reduction and treatment services for people who use drugs. So in this context, this side event will actually be focusing on Nordic countries in particular, and we chose to highlight drug policies in Nordic countries because countries in the region share a very specific social welfare and economic policy model. The Nordic welfare model is built on the idea that you need to ensure positive health outcome for all, and they also share a very common respect for democracy, the rule of law, equality, and human rights. But in the area of drug policy, Nordic countries are very much focused on fairly punitive approaches and a drug-free society as a core objective, and this approach, unfortunately, has been really primarily focused on introduction, criminalization, and including for drug use. But very positively, what we've seen in the past few years is a shift in the public discourse, and a debate that's really advancing in terms of health and human rights. And there's been unprecedented debates and initiatives, including on the decriminalization of drug use and possession in the Parliaments of Iceland, Denmark, and Norway, and Cannabis Law Reform in Finland. So it's in this context that we're holding this side event today. It's actually a follow-up to a side event that we organized last year at the CND, which focused particularly on decriminalization in the region, and for those who are interested, it's actually on YouTube, so we can share the link maybe at the end of this event. But yeah, so the objective here today is really to discuss how human rights are reflected in Nordic drug policies, and we also want to highlight some of the key initiatives and options for reform in the region. So we've got an awesome panel with us today, so I'm feeling really privileged to chair this event. And so without further ado, I'm going to present our first speaker, who is Eivind Degrenes, the advisor at the Norwegian National Human Rights Institution, and he's going to present a study that has just been published on human rights and drug policy in Norway. So please speak within the mic. Thank you so much, and thank you for inviting me to this event. It's very good to be here in Vienna. So my name is Eivind Degrenes. As you said, I'm an advisor at the Norwegian NHRI, and we're an independent public body that works to promote and protect human rights in Norway. And last year, we released a report on drug use in human rights, and the backdrop for our report was that, while human rights have maybe come more to the forefront in public forest such as these internationally and also nationally in Norway, there have been few reports analyzing concrete existing public policies through human rights lens in Norway. And I would also say maybe in other countries, but we haven't looked at that. So the purpose of our report is to raise awareness of what human rights obligations that the state have in the field of illegal drugs and assess how these obligations are implemented in the Norwegian context. And just to say that, our report can be found on our website, which is nhri.no, where you also can find an English summary. And we address human rights issues within several areas. I will just briefly go through them here and you can read more online. One of them is the criminalization of use and possession of drugs for personal use and human rights aspects related to this. So we have looked at international obligations in relevant human rights conventions, as well as obligations under the three International Drug Control Convention. And our conclusion is that there is currently not a human rights obligation to decriminalize such actions. However, neither is there an obligation to under international law or human rights law, as we see it, to criminalize such actions. So this leaves a lot of leeway to politicians in this area. But that being said, this is an area that is under current change and human rights are to be interpreted dynamically. So recent practice from the European Court of Human Rights show that criminal legal actions against personal use of drugs in certain areas can constitute an interference on the right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. And this means that certain types of sanctions, if they're disproportionately burdensome, in certain cases may constitute a violation of the right to privacy. But this of course depends on what case we're talking about. So last, I also want to mention that there are several international human rights bodies which recommend decriminalization, probably a lot of you here know, in order to better implement the right to health and children's rights. And while these recommendations are not binding under international law, they are nevertheless reflect professional assessments by international bodies on how to better safeguard human rights. So the second area that we have looked into is the use of coercive measures by police in minor drug cases. So last year in Norway, there was a report that came out by the investigation that was made by the director of public prosecution, which revealed several instances of coercive measures in minor drug cases that were not in accordance with criminal procedure requirements. And the use of coercive measures, which are contrary to the law can violate the right to privacy under article eight of European Convention of Human Rights, and that's why this is definitely a human rights issue. So this looks like it has improved recently, but it's important to follow up this and see whether or not this will continue to be improved or if there are certain challenges relating to this. We also looked at health and care services for people using drugs. This may be, we've found several areas where there's room for concern. One is when it comes to protection against violence, where our conclusion is that the current measures to protect people using drugs from violence in Norway are not sufficiently compliant with a number of human rights obligations, including under the Istanbul Convention. We also have looked at control measures in opioid substitution therapy. Examples of these control measures are urine samples taken under supervision and a regular physical attendance for distribution of medicines. This, of course, is a big and complicated issue. I can't go into the details and it's unclear whether such control measures do constitute an interference in the European Convention on Human Rights, but assuming this, we have pointed to some areas which may be problematic in relation to the right to privacy. We've also looked at health and care services for adults with simultaneous drug problems and mental disorders. And our conclusion is that current services for these adults challenge the right to the highest attainable standard of health. And lastly, within health and care services, we've also looked at health and care services for children using drugs. We know that Article 33 of the CRC requires children to, states, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. And this article, the core of this article is that it places a duty to prevent the use of illegal drugs among children and to provide adequate treatment and harm reduction services. And we've pointed out three areas of concern in this area. One is drug tests and drug contacts. Another is health and care services for children with simultaneous drug problems and mental disorders and also services for children in child welfare institutions. I'm not going into detail on these issues right now, but this is something that you can read on our report online. So the last main area that we've looked at is legal protection against discrimination because as probably as being talked about a lot here in Vienna, and I'm also going to an event right after this on stigma. So stigma is definitely probably something that you're discussing a lot here. And in making our report, something that came up a lot in our consulting was that people using drugs are a very stigmatized group in society. And this brought us to question what is the status of the legal protection against discrimination for people using drugs, both in international law and in national law. So in international human rights law, there is little practice on this issue, which may be surprising, but nevertheless, that's the status. But we've looked at practice from the committee on economic, social and cultural rights, and looking at practice from the committee and their general comments, you could say that certain forms of drug addiction can be interpreted to have a legal protection against discrimination under other status in the convention. And in Norway, we've also looked at existing legislation where our conclusion is that people suffering from drug addiction have some protection against discrimination in national legislation, but there is question to ask whether this existing legal protection is effective enough and whether it covers all groups that should have a legal protection against discrimination. So that is our report as quickly as I can go through it. And we think that, of course, while we've seen a lot of positive development in Norway in recent years when it comes to human rights in the drug field, that's also important to know and to state. Our focus has been on what challenges remain. So that is kind of our mandate, and that's kind of also the focus of our report. And we think that there are several challenges which this report focus on that still remain also in Norway and Nordic countries when it comes to implementation of human rights. And we hope that this can be a contribution to more work and improved implementation of human rights in the field of drugs in Norway. And we also hope, of course, that other Nordic countries will make similar assessments of their policies because I think it's important to take international human rights standards and implement them on a national standard. And I also want to say, lastly that of course there are many viewpoints when it comes to how societies should meet drug use. And this is probably a lot of heated discussions here in the Vienna and among policymakers and civil society and so forth. And, but it's important to note that no matter what solutions are chosen, it's important that fundamental human rights are always followed because you do not lose your rights when you start using drugs. So that's what I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Raven, for your great presentation and a fantastic report. Just a couple of points. In terms of the international standards, I encourage you all to have a look at the international guidelines on human rights and drug policy. There was an event yesterday where we presented the guidelines and they're really great framework to see what are the obligations on international law and how they apply to national drug policies. And you mentioned the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. They're going to write a general comment on drug policies. It's the first UN treaty body that does that, which is really exciting. So I hope that you can actually submit a contribution to that based on the report. So it'd be really great to understand the Norwegian model and how that interacts with economic, social and cultural rights. So Erin's gonna have to leave with us because he's actually presenting at another side event at the same time on stigma. So is there any burning questions for him before he has to leave? Could you talk about, you talked about the rights of the international rights of children. Could you extrapolate that to pregnancy? So the rights of the unborn child. And then could you, you talked about provision of services to persons with mental health disorders and substance use, which can be the majority. I always say to people, show me the person with severe substance use that doesn't have a mental health disorder. And we know that in most jurisdictions, those services are pushed backwards and forwards between one service and the other. Mental health will say, well, we're not set up to take alchohol and drugs and alchohol and drugs versus vice. And it goes back and forwards. And thirdly, how is the international obligations compromised by the involvement of criminal justice system? Thanks. Thank you. I'll start with rights of the unborn child. As far as I understand, that's not something that we've looked at in our report. And article 33 of the convention relates to born children. So as far as I can understand, that article is not something that's, unborn children is not covered under that article. When it comes to, as you say, simultaneous people with simultaneous drug addiction and mental illnesses, it's, of course, this is, as I understood what you were saying, there's kind of silos where you maybe get treatment for mental health.  And then when it comes to treatment for drug addiction, that is a separate field. And that's something that's also came up a lot in our consultations that we have with civil society and so forth that people and organizations were focusing on the fact that you don't get a whole holistic approach to treatment. And that also can have sides to human rights, of course, because when it comes to the treatment that is offered, the obligations of state, the obligations of state is not, it's the whole state, it's not, you can't look at it separately. So yeah, when it comes to whether or not human rights and how human rights can be compromised or not by drug control, that's a big issue. I don't think I will have kind of the timeframe for answering that question right now. I think what I said in terms of criminalization and what the human rights obligations are currently is kind of what we've looked into in terms of drug control and criminalization. As I said, there isn't necessarily strict obligation to decriminalize as we can see it, reading at practice from UN Convention, UN committees and European Court of Human Rights. But this is, of course, maybe changing. There may be more case law coming up that we don't know about. So this is, as I said, a dynamic issue. And of course, then you also have recommendations from the High Commissioner for Human Rights, other bodies that recommend how this should be implemented. So it's hard to give a definitive answer on that, that's a big question. You have to run. Thank you so much for being here. For those who haven't, feel free to go like these two seats here and then a bit of space there. Okay, so we're now gonna turn to our next speaker, who is Haldra Moghensen from the Parliament of Iceland, and she is going to talk to us a little bit about the initiatives in Iceland right now in Parliament. You have the floor. Thank you. I'm gonna go a little bit broader than that too, because there's been a shift in thinking about the issues of drug use, a normal shift in the past few years, especially in Iceland, where in just a couple of years, the support for decriminalizing drug use has doubled, so going from 30% of public support in 2019 to 60% in 2021. The change in direction for drug policy in Iceland, I feel is now like for the first time tangible. I think it's even inevitable, and a lot of this change has to do with both on the side of the city, where we have pirates who really brought kind of the conversation about harm reduction into the conversation for the first time, and then we won't take all of the credit for the pirate party, which I'm a member of, but also a former Minister of Health. During this time, I was actually chairing the Parliamentary Welfare Committee. She brought forth a policy about supervised injection sites, and it was interesting because at the time, the Welfare Committee came to the conclusion because the police were telling us that this is impossible, we can't do this. You're asking us basically to turn our other cheek and look past a criminal act, and so the Welfare Committee said, we have to decriminalize to make these injection sites possible. And after a conversation where I realized that the Health Minister at that time wasn't going to bring forth legislation to decriminalize, I decided to, and I feel that now the conversation around this and the support has grown, and I don't think that we can ignore this call anymore. And it has a lot to do with our understanding of what addiction is. And I believe that understanding what addiction is is the key to understanding what truly works to reduce problematic drug use, but it's also the key to understanding how much harm our current policy is causing. Our current policy is not based on evidence. And as a politician, as a lawmaker, we have to make sure that we are putting in evidence-based policy, otherwise we're just harming people. So when looking at what the evidence tells us about addiction, I personally looked to Gapur Matei, who is one of the world's leading experts in the subject, and he says that addiction is not a choice that anybody makes, it is not a moral failure, it is not an ethical lapse, it's not a weakness of character, and it's not a failure of will, which is how our society depicts addiction. It's not an inherited brain disease, which is how the medical tendency is to see it. What is actually happening is it is a response to human suffering. And this isn't just Gapur Matei's opinion, it is what the scientific and research literature is telling us, that addiction actually, rather than being a disease or an individual choice or the result of chemical hooks, addiction is an attempt to escape overwhelming suffering, even if the escape only lasts for a short amount of time. It's in the nature of human beings to escape suffering. A person with back pain is prescribed pain medication, and this is just normal, this is, of course, they seek out pain medication. But when an individual is suffering from the pain of traumatic events, which have never been processed, treated, or even acknowledged as valid in many cases, when they turn to self-medication to dull their pain, we punish them by taking away their medication, we stigmatize them, we humiliate them, we find them, and we even sometimes imprison them. Society seeks to help this person by branding them as a criminal, marginalizing them, telling them that they're broken, that there's something wrong with them. They're denied access to what they need most, which is love, warmth, understanding, recognition, connection. They need social connection and we alienate them. This is the harm that we're doing. If we consider this approach, if we really think about it, it's a grossly inhumane way to approach an individual who wishes for nothing more than to relieve themselves of suffering. So this is the fundamental harm and wrong that we're doing in our policy right now. So instead of helping people, we wage a war on them. The war on drugs and Iceland is alive and kicking still. It has a long history, like in most other countries, it got serious in the 60s and 70s. Since then, in Iceland, there's been a strict policy of fear mongering, criminalization and punishment, policy derived from the US, and based on this idea that we can somehow build a drug-free world by banning all possession and handling of drugs, by manufacturing a panic about the dangers of drugs, and then punishing everyone involved, regardless of whether they are users, sellers, producers, or importers. And over the last few years, things have been changing for the better, which is great, but it's happening too slowly. The concept of harm reduction has gained widespread attention, but these underlying ideas that have fueled our current approach, they're still present. And I think we should pause for a while and think about this idea of building a drug-free world because this has been the driving force behind the war on drugs, and it is a fantasy. We will never have a drug-free world. Drugs have been in our culture as far back as we remember, and not just in human culture. I doubt you will find an animal species that is not drawn toward intoxication of some kind, an altered state of consciousness. These chemicals are all around us in nature, and they're actually in us. They're in our brains. They're part of who we are. It is ridiculous to think that we can build a drug-free world. 90% of people who use a drug, the overwhelming majority, are not harmed by it. Only around 10% of drug users have a problem with their substance use. If we want to ensure human rights protection in our drug policy, that's where our focus should be. How do we reduce harm to drug users and help the 10% who are suffering? What we're doing now, it isn't working. During this era of prohibition and punishment, drug use has increased steadily, and the frequency and severity of drug-related problems, they have risen dramatically, and this is what we should be looking at, drug-related problems, not drug use, per se, not at those individuals who don't have a problem with their drug use. But I actually, if I have time, I actually don't think our drug policy alone is the culprit, and I'm gonna challenge a little bit our underlying ideology because it's not that long ago that Western society suddenly became convinced that the driving force in modern society should be grounded in a system where individuals compete for limited resources, where one man's death is another man's bread, so to say. One loses and another wins, where we are in fact not a society, but merely a group of individuals responsible only for ourselves. The problem with this ideology of individualism that permeates our society is that it is not grounded in reality. It's like our drug policy, it's nonsense. It is completely at odds with everything we know about human nature. We are social species that relies on cooperation to survive and thrive. Human beings have survived and evolved as a group because we learn to communicate and work together. We're safer together. Alone, we are in danger, so it's deeply rooted in our nature to seek out our group, our tribe. And yet we have never been as divided and disconnected. We've never been as lonely as we are in modern society, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that a growing number of people are suffering in these conditions. It shouldn't come as a surprise that we are seeing a growth in depression, anxiety, and problematic drug use. These things are all connected. But instead of facing the fact that so many people are suffering because of how our society is organized, we continue treating the symptoms rather than the root. So enforcing prohibition globally costs an estimated $100 billion a year. People, that's insane. This means that we're spending around a trillion dollars worldwide every 10 years. I hope my math is correct. A mind-boggling amount of resources. I mean, those are just numbers that it's unfathomable to even think about. We're looking at a multi-trillion dollar, decades-long war that has caused unimaginable suffering that echoes on through generations. This is generational trauma that we're creating. Trillions of dollars used to wage a war against our most vulnerable and marginalized populations. And as a side effect, we've created a huge criminal market, rampant with violence. The human cost is beyond what I can put into words. So let's imagine for a while that this money had instead been invested in social measures to reduce poverty and deprivation if it had been used to build diverse social and economic support systems to meet the various needs of families, individuals, and children with the goal of preventing trauma and reducing human suffering. If it had been used to design treatments based on the integration of trauma and the integration into society, meeting individuals where they are on their terms and providing them with the means to heal and connect with society, then perhaps we could pride ourselves on being a society that puts human rights at the forefront because we have the resources. God knows we have the resources. We're spending them. We just need to funnel them or invest them in the right places. Thank you. I wish we had that many members of parliament as inspiring as you are. But we're gonna go to another member of parliament who's actually as inspiring as you are. So this is Nana Gottfriedsen. So we've been in touch for a very, very long time since she was still a member of Street Lawyer which is an amazing NGO. You are still, which is amazing. Okay, fantastic. And she's also a member of parliament in Denmark. So, Nana, you got the floor. So good to be here. Fellow, delegates, colleagues, allies, sisters and brothers in the world, wait, drug policy, reform, family, also among people here. It's amazing to see you. Thank you for inviting me. And yes, I have been a Street Lawyer and I'm still a Street Lawyer. I've been that for 25 years. Doing outreach, harm reduction based street lawyering, mainly for people who use drugs. And yeah, I'm also now a member of the parliament but I'm not a politician. I'm a Street Lawyer on the streets and I try to develop now a new discipline of street lawyering also within the parliament because I think it's needed. The changes we have managed to get through in Denmark, we have seen progress. They have not happened because of politicians. They have happened because we pushed and fought so hard for it from civil society, from bottom up. And my hope is that we will see progress from politicians as well in the years to come. I'm not a politician. We talk about Denmark and the Nordic countries as countries, we call them welfare states. We have universal healthcare systems. People who use drugs are included. They have treatment rights and they have patients' rights, but the reality is different. We see people denied essential medicine. We see people denied being admitted to hospitals or denied what they need when they are dependent on opioids, for example. They are denied withdrawal treatments in hospitals when they actually need to be admitted because of infections and other illnesses and they are not admitted long enough. Maybe only for a few hours. We see young people die from infections as if this was 100 years ago before the invention of penicillin. It only happens to people using drugs and it's really, really bad. So on the paper, welfare state universal healthcare system, but in reality, it's quite different. We have also had this progress, at least on the paper. You can call it a mini decriminalization in Denmark in 2007, and that means that users should not be punished for when they are in procession for just small amounts of drugs. 16 years later, they are still punished. They are not able, the law is so complex that people who use drugs cannot claim it, cannot plead it, and even so complex that police officers obviously do not know or understand the law. We need really clear laws when it comes to this complex issue. Despite the progress, despite all that, people are still denied the rights in Denmark. So treatment guarantees since 2003 is not enough. Many decriminalization is not enough.  Despite these drug consumption rooms since 2012, we have the same high mortality rate. We should really, really, really consider what to do. Something needs to be done. And I'm actually here with hope because I have to be hopeful to be able to stand through and lose so many good people at a very early age. But if you look into the basis of the government, written basis, we are now talking about dignity for the most vulnerable people. We are talking about changing policies and laws and also attitudes and views when it comes to our most vulnerable members of society. As a street lawyer, I have for many years said that prohibition is a disaster. It is a disaster. And I am also saying it now as a member of the parliament, prohibition is a disaster. We should have known because history taught us. We talk about the criminalized drugs as controlled substances. We are not in control when even our kids and youngsters can buy so-called controlled drugs everywhere. We are not in control. What we have is a complete loss of control. And people who use drugs are paying the very, very high price and we do also as a societies as a whole. We need to step up. We need to be guided by human rights, by clear directions from the UN. We need to start with dignity. That's it for now. I'm going to listen to Arielle. Thanks, Nana. Our fourth and final inspiring speaker is Arielle. I've also known him for many, many years and he's done an amazing work in Norway. So he works for the Norwegian Association for Human Drug Policy. So Arielle, you've got the floor. You're probably going to update us on what's happening in Norway. Yes, we have to be guided by human rights and we have to be guided by drug user representatives. And I'm glad to say that in the context of human rights in Nordic drug policy, Norway is heading in the right direction and now even faster than ever before. Even though the report from the Norwegian National Human Rights Institution clearly shows that even the country that prides itself on being a human rights champion has room for improvement. I think it's a strength for any country to be able to have itself scrutinized on human rights. And I hope more institutes on human rights in other countries will follow this example. As some of you might remember, a conservative government suggested a drug policy reform with decriminalization in 2021. It was to advance social justice and human rights. And please remember that decriminalization of drug use is strongly supported by the entire United Nations system through the UN common position on drugs. The Norwegian society was still not ready for it. So the parliament turned the suggestion down but the discussion is still going strong and it has so happened so much in the aftermath of this that it is really amazing. The courts first started to reduce penalties in drug cases, changing sentences from months in prison to a few weeks suspended sentence. The Supreme Court then decided that those with substance use disorders shall no longer receive punishment for their own personal use. Personal use allows for five grams of heroin, amphetamine or cocaine and for cannabis the limit is set to 15 grams. In one tried case even a recreational user was let off with probation for 10 grams of amphetamine due to personal circumstances. So I must say that the Norwegian society has really started taking consideration to the well-being of the people to whom this applies rather than blindly punishing them for the sake of the society. In some ways the court system is now leading up to an even more humane drug policy than the previous government suggested. The attorney general has since instructed the police that if a person suspected to be in possession of drugs for their own use is addicted to drugs this person shall no longer be stopped, searched or arrested. If they are in doubt as to whether the person is addicted to drugs then the benefit of the doubt must be given to that person. There has been a historic drop in reported drug offenses after this and it seems as if the police now have reduced, if not stopped, their search and strip practice as well as bringing people in for drug testing to see if they are under the influence. During this extensive development the current government is planning a new drug reform that they call prevention and treatment reform. But one issue that the current government really seem to take into consideration is the principle of proportionality. What is a proportional reaction? And this is a key issue but at the same time we are seeing some troubling signals from some of our neighboring areas. Sweden, where the police response to drug use is being scaled up. Sentencing is becoming harsher and there's also a political rhetoric blaming users for the violence and even terrorism that is happening due to drug crime. We have even seen this political abdication of responsibility many times before throughout history and we know the results. More stigma, more damage and less positive health outcomes. We hope that this will end because there are alternatives. And I think that the development in Norway can be of inspiration for us all and maybe especially for the Nordic countries because seeing that the police have now stopped at least reduced their following and arresting people for suspicion of drug influence or possession, we have a unique possibility to find other ways to react to drug use. In the lead up to the decriminalization reform, a Norwegian committee did extensive research for a year, international research and they found that criminalizing drug use does not prevent drug use. It just creates problems. It is actively counterproductive and that was very surprising to many. Now I think we owe each other an extensive research on whether the police should prioritize drug use because since the police have taken two steps back, it has opened for social workers to take those two steps forward. They have the right expertise, the right tools and then the police can prioritize serious drug crimes, even such crime that, serious crime, sorry, even such crime that traumatizes people and creates the kind of trouble a lot of people use drugs to be able to bear with. Also, during the year that the police have taken two steps back, they have seized a larger quantity of drugs than in many, many years. Actually, they have increased the amount of seizures to almost twice the average of the last decade. It is also time to acknowledge that drug users have a particular vulnerability to being exposed to crime and that they must be protected. The police should change practice from criminalization to behavior regulation. They should ensure that drug users are just as protected from crime as anyone else. We want drug users to have the same protection of the law that everyone else can take for granted. A couple of weeks back, a local police officer said to me, you know, I think there are other professions that can do drug prevention work much better than us in the police and I think he's very right. When we look into, sorry, what your authorities have taken into account, what the Norwegian National Human Rights Institution had taken into account, into consideration, and what the discussion mainly is about, it's about the follow-up after arrest. But why arrest someone for drug use at all? What we are missing is a concrete discussion about police work and priorities in all stories about oppression and human rights violation throughout history. Police control instead of police protection is at the center of these stories. We therefore need, I think it is wrong to talk about de-stigmatization, human rights violation without this perspective. Thank you. So I hope you're all inspired to decriminalize all drug use and possession and all related activities now when you go back to your countries. So we're almost out of time, but I hope we can have five minutes of grace to ask some questions or make some comments for amazing speakers since they're here. Coming from the UK, politicians often move me to tears but for very different reasons. I would just like to say thank you to you both for standing up for our community. No, I know from the Danish Drug Use and Movement, Jürgen would want me to thank you for all the work you've done for our community over the years, really. And thank you now for taking this to the next level because I think we've all realized for a long time this is a political struggle. It's not just a health struggle. It's a political struggle for our rights. Thank you very much. Well, I've got the curiosity because you call yourself, I'm from Italy. I work in London. I'm not aware, if not vaguely, of the Nordic country experience on this specific field. And I'm puzzled by how come Swedish are in the Nordic country as well? Why this is a massive split between the lot who has been speaking here in Iceland, Norway and Sweden? Why Sweden is actually in this meeting hanging up with Indonesian prohibitionist fanatics? That's bizarre. So, because I know that drugs are very much to be understood, I'm a doctor but I'm not fanatic, medicalizer. I believe that drugs have to be understood and they're used in the framework, in the context with a lot different features. Pain is the most important, but not only that, there is also recreational use, a lot of features. How come in this important issue that falls in directly or indirectly so many people such a cultural gap between Sweden and the other Nordica? Is anybody in answer? So, we're going to take one last question. Please make it very, very short because we're short on time and I want to make sure that the panelists have time to answer. Yeah, look, I agree. It's lovely to hear politicians speaking. It's, I agree with you that treatment needs to be compassionate, non-punitive, it's community responsibility. We were certainly trained and DSM will tell us that drug use is a chronic relapsing disorder. The reality is I've never bought into that. I just believe that our treatment services aren't geared up enough to be able to effectively provide what's required to prevent relapse. And I tell my medical students that all the time, much to their horror and disgust. But you talked about in Sweden about identifying services and you talked about the psychosocial services that are required. But we also need to remember that in chronic use, you get neurobiological changes and we need to address those neuro, so don't forget about the medicine term. Neurobiological changes, the reason why we have methadone, the reason why we have peprenorphine, we need to look at ways of reinstating that system. So we have genetic issues in there too. So we've got to be careful not to refine our definition of the causal nature of drug use down to two simplistic things. We need to look at what's the basic causes of all these things and get in there and treat the whole lot together. Thank you. All right, so Nona, do you want to start? Yeah, I think we need a whole session about that next year. But if I hadn't shortened down because I wanted to listen to my spiritual twin brother, Aril, I would have mentioned that during the 25 years with the street lawyering in Copenhagen, I have also served a lot of people from my neighbor country. And what they say is they describe themselves as refugees, drug policy refugees. And I've never get to talk to politicians or government officials from my neighbor country. But I had hoped they had answered your question in here. Maybe they're not here, but I would really, really like to listen to you. What is your response to what these people are telling me? So I'm here for the whole week, please tell me. Yeah, I think it's an interesting question with the cultural gap between Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries right now. And I think perhaps I don't know what the correct answer is, but I can say what I think maybe it might be that they're dealing with because drug policy, the history of drug policy, drug policy has always been used to reel in difficult minority groups. I don't know, maybe not using the right words, but it has always been a way of dealing with or attacking because drug policy, the punishment is always the minority groups that get punished. I mean, we know that there's so many people using recreational drugs. You know, if you have a suit and tie and you make an okay income, then the police aren't coming to your house. So maybe this is why Sweden is going this way. I think it's incredibly unfortunate that they are. I'm quite thankful that in Iceland I really feel like, I mean, there's such grassroot movements and we've had so many people who have gotten into harm reduction now. And because of the public discourse, we have a health minister now who's been trying to put forth a decriminalization bill that he keeps stalling because the police are like, we don't want it. Obviously, that's all they know how to do. You know, I don't think that they're the correct people maybe to make this decision. Yeah, but regarding the causes of addiction, from I'm guessing you're a medical doctor, the causes of addiction, you're speaking about this, yeah. Of course, there are many aspects to it and of course the bodily aspect to it is a part of it. It's just what the research is telling us is it's a small part of it and the largest part of it is a social, it's a social problem and we're not addressing the social problem and if we don't do that, then we'll never get to the root of it. Thank you so much, Alit. Since we've taken so much time, I want to thank you fantastic panelists and you, Marie, for leading our third meeting this year in such a brilliant way. Thank you all for coming. And just a very big thank to John Mellis for bringing us all together and Ysvan for filming. So this is actually being filmed so you'll be able to review it and share it after the event has taken place. Thanks everyone for coming. Have a lovely day.


Hi there, I'm Jorick. This is Brad's and we should have been doing this with Kurt, but he's talking in the transit So it will be just the two of us today We'll give the short presentation of Frickhead. It's okay if I do the introduction, okay, and then I will just give a short introduction of the project for who doesn't know it and Then we'll show a little bit of example of what we do around Frickhead and other stuff So for who doesn't know Frickhead yet, it's a 3d modeling application Basically we used to say it's 3d application made to build objects that will be built in the real world to make the difference with like applications that are used to make animation or movies or stuff like that which is not the focus of Frickhead because it has all those precision tools to make really precise Things such as this thing. It's really made to make such objects From people use it to make small electronic components up to buildings I'm an architect myself. I use it to make to draw buildings Brad is in CNC. He uses more for CNC and there's a wide range of uses around Frickhead and basically it's Most of Frickhead users use it to do 3d printing. That's it. I believe it's main use today It began in 2002 with two developers and now there are like I would say 20 or 30 people committing every week or so. So it's really growing and it's going quite well actually And an interesting part of it. That's what we want to showcase today Is that we have it's not really a project with I would say more than half of the developers are not from the programming background I myself am an architect. Brad is also not a formal programmer and most of the Developers didn't learn Programming formally. They just came to the project and since it's quite easy to to grasp some Python from it because it's you have the Python console all the time everything you do in Frickhead reflects in the Python console Which is around here every time you push a button You get actually a Python command printed and executed there. So it's quite didactic You use Frickhead and you learn some Python on the way and most of the developers entered the Projects that way actually Many of them. There are some professional programmers as well So this is what I'm going to talk about You want to start? So I will show you a little bit of what I do with Frickhead. I'm an architect by trade that's my day job and Actually, we have this architecture studio myself more four or five people Which is almost totally open source. It has no physical location All the projects we do are mostly open source. We just Keep the the private data of the clients encrypted so all the project goes on the Github repo and Just to the private data is encrypted. So public cannot read it And this is a kind of example of what we do in we use a lot of Frickhead in it But this is a property platform from Autodesk or have it Just to show you that Whatever you do in Frickhead is quite now really interchangable with property applications some of our team use it because they want it But the idea is not to be zealot and And say we only use in persons some clients want the property formats as an output So you have to deliver the property formats, but the idea is to say anything works like You can plug various components in the tool chain and it should work seamlessly And that's what we're trying to achieve some are working with Frickhead some are working with this and it should just go around That's the our office. It's on Github and All the projects are there That's the latest one we've done. We're doing and It's fully developed The open source way So this these are the projects files and it looks these are where our Team is located This is how we use a riot for discussion and all the technical discussions happen Online as well and it's this looks like common for open source developers That's how an open source project works, but I can tell you that for architecture is Totally uncommon people don't work that way and we're really trying to Bring the open source way to an architecture office and free cat is really at the center center of it Everything we learned from developing free cat like reflects in that in that office That's another project. We've been doing That have last year That's a wiki house base building we've built in Brazil and it's basically To showcase how things mix around free cat like basically it's a house built by people Even people without knowledge of building And it's all made of pieces of wood that are cut by a CNC machine And that they're assembled their numbers printed on the on the pieces and you have A manual that shows you piece four goes into piece two and you mount this thing like that without any nail without any glue without any Any other thing just the strength of the of the the junctions And it's all open source. We took it from its original project. We modified it and the result is also open source That's it for my part So I'm gonna talk primarily about the path work bench, which is the cam Functionality and this is a really great example of what York was talking about with kind of a cross-discipline participation on the project this started out in 2014 and I came at the CNC cam Thing as a hobbyist and was just one of a lot of people that were frustrated that there was no good cam application in the open source and particularly the Linux world and so what we did was we were already users of free CAD but Wanted the cam part as we we partnered with York first and I got the the core design for the the C++ part in In free CAD that handles storage of the actual toolpath data and the visualization But none of the user-facing functionality none of the Job control and tool set up and things like that and then that part was all written by by me in part and then more of the Community members coming on little by little and at first it was really really bad And I wind to Yorick about not knowing what I was doing and he said don't worry about it Just just just do it and somebody will come along and fix it later and and I honestly that's what happened is is Better programmers than me came on refactored code and the thing started to gather users and get some momentum behind it So this is a the typical workflow. We're designing a you know like a bench and you're starting out with a model and then within free CAD you have to take the components and Reorient them for cutting on a machine So you have to lay them out into a into a 2d arrangement like in the upper right corner and then generate the toolpath That's going to move a cutter around those shapes Lifting it to clear the the spaces in between the bottom left shows that operating on an actual CNC router and then the final product down below So that's that's a typical 2d or 2.5d process the Where we're now starting to move into is a little bit more sophisticated toolpaths like this is adaptive clearing So when you're you're trying to mill away metal from a shape You need to keep the cutter at the same level of engagement with the material the entire time to avoid it speeding up and slowing down and And breaking and so forth and so you're seeing a much more sophisticated toolpath in the upper left That was to mill an aluminum block that's used as a brand on a wooden cover This is another area where we're moving into this is a fourth axis where you've got a shape that needs to be milled on multiple sides And so we're rotating it. I'm cutting a piece of foam In the upper right and then so the the toolpath has to recalculate for each position as we rotate the part around this is Where we're now calculating surfaces and doing more more smoothing passes or in the case of the one on the left where we want to do a Regular operation, but we want to do it on multiple faces of a part So you need to reorient the part on a fourth axis or a fifth axis Well the toolpaths that you're seeing here the work that was done is by one of the newer developers that has joined and he's a Spanish teacher in Oklahoma and he does this as a hobby and It's surprising how much he's been able to move it forward You know with a little bit of coaching and then just you know guts and determination so this is one other area one of our other developers who's a real programmer a serious programmer has He has wanted to go one step farther and integrate direct control of the CNC machine within free CAD So instead of the traditional you set up a toolpath and then you post-process it and you get a G-code file and then you take that over to the CNC machine and load the g-code file and run it what he can do with this is from free CAD he can connect directly to a CNC machine that's running machine kit and Select the path Job that he wants to run and the numbers that you're seeing in the top left of the 3d window That's the DRO the position coming directly from the machine. So the the indicator in the 3d window and the kind on the the left side is the Cutter position within that window and when he runs the job You'll actually see the cutter move and follow the path that's generated So yeah, this is you know now a developer who came in initially for one little feature has started to you know Make bigger and bigger contributions and now his contributions are getting outside of the path Cam workbench and getting into other aspects of free CAD as well And that's really a very typical process The thing about cam is that the community is running a wide variety of machines And each of those machines needs unique g-code generated for it So one of the first places that we're seeing developers come into the project is They're writing a custom post processor for the machine that they've got or for the machine that they sell if it's a Company and and that's a really easy contribution to make but then invariably It's like does everything except that one thing that we need and then it's a feature and Then eventually they start working on the core stuff So it's it's been a lot of fun and it's It continues to accelerate and I think we got some fun stuff coming up in the future That's what I've got. I'm gonna do Q&A So these are oh, these are a few of the post processors that we have right now from Linux cnc smoothie Centroid dynapath so quite a few of the most common machines that you're gonna see in Especially in hacker spaces or small companies we We can generate g-code for right now There is an add-on workbench that could be installed through the add-on Manager that's called sheet metal and you can both design Four sheet metal and take parts that were designed that way and unfold them into a 2d representation So yes, it is there. I won't say it works for every model, but it's it's there Yeah, I'm sorry us He asked well what libraries were using for toolpath generation Right now the most of the 2d and 2.5d operations use a module within FreeCAD called path area That's basically an implementation of the clipper lib the by Angus Johnson. It's been around forever We also use open camlib and open Veroni a little bit that are for doing The Veroni thing is not merged right now that's in a one a branch on my repo, but we can do like centerline engraving of fonts and The open camlib we use for the like the surfacing that you saw in there Yeah, so he asking What are the the best arguments to switch to FreeCAD as a beam platform? I would say basically the freedom that all other platforms commercial platform would try to lock you in In a universe where you just use their platform and their file formats and you will have to use their other solutions of their Family together and by using a free software basically you free yourself from that I would say technically you basically can do in FreeCAD the same as you can do with commercial platform almost like every Free software you have to search a little bit by yourself for some solution that are not so obvious But basically technically it's there you can do it and I would say the The best argument is that is the freedom and the hack ability because FreeCAD is totally hackable You do it you do what you want with it. You reprogram it you write macro You can it's might be just five lines of code So it doesn't need to be like entering the programming world and you already make it do what you want And it's extremely easy on FreeCAD and it's really hard on other platform even with tools like Dynamo etc which are not easy and So it's basically another word another way to see things. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the question is What about using gits with FreeCAD and with architectural work workflow and Are there any plans to integrate gits better with FreeCAD? I say yes, we use gits a lot and It works and it has those limitations that you say We have already a couple of tools in FreeCAD to work with gits directly, but Let's say the advantage of it is basically Keeping you free to manage it outside of FreeCAD and it's actually a good thing That it's not tied in FreeCAD and you just manage your files the way you want Without the way FreeCAD developers would think you would need to So yeah, you have a plug-in in the add-ons where you can have a git panel in FreeCAD and you can commit from there But even me I wrote it and I don't use it because it's more convenient to do your file management yourself outside of it and on the IFC side IFC is a file format specifically for for Construction models Yes, we have already begin to have a couple of diff tools and tools that allow you to see a difference Between between one version and another version of the file. There is one in the beam work bench in FreeCAD There is one being developed for for Blender as well Blender begin to have a good IFC Interface and so you begin to have in the world open source world several Things that are better in that in that regard And so yeah, I believe pretty soon Will be able to use IFC files The right way. Let's say the open source way with all the features Well the assembly workbench The question has to do with the need for detecting if I Correct me if I paraphrase wrong detecting collisions or interferences between parts within assemblies Can you explain a little bit more how you see the overlap to the cam? With a part. Okay, so how does a tool interfere with a part for the the 2.5d that the easier Kinds of toolpaths that we've generated prior It's very simple offsetting. So there's no detection of whether or not the part is colliding with the model It's simply offsetting a rate the radius of a tool away from the the lines in or out The the open cam lib the for the surfacing part What it does is it takes the actual shape of a tool and pushes it against the shape of the model until There's an overlap between them and that's the control point for that step in the toolpath so I don't see a Direct way to generalize that from cam into into assemblies Beyond that the assembly part of free cat is is under heavy development right now in fact It's more a combination of add-on work benches And I'm not qualified to say but yeah, that's about where that's at So the question is about Alternative discussion forum for development of free cad is that correct? So right now everything is done through a php bb forum Which has an enormous amount of activity to the point that it's become Almost unwieldy. It's it's difficult or impossible to keep up The the development is broken down into channels So there's a dedicated path cam channel where most of the discussion about the cam stuff happens And the same thing for arch and the other work benches But a lot of the functionality or the development needs span Multiple work benches. So I would say yeah, it's it's talked about but I don't think we have a good answer for what What a replacement would look like or how to migrate to it if you've got ideas about how How we can improve that or specific thing specific problems to address, you know so the question is about energy efficiency modeling in in free cad Basically, yeah, you can do it basically what works at the moment is producing IFC models from free cad and exporting to a Software that accepts IFC format such as open studio and then they're converted into an energy model the problem is that For energy analysis software you need a very very specific Simplified model which is basically each room like this one is a box and each phase of the box has properties of how it lets Heat go to go through And it's a very simple model very different than what you use to Make the building where you really want to model the walls and everything So at the moment, it's a bit tricky and We cannot directly from free cat outputs a model that's ready for energy analysis But that's something I would like to have To make and we must think a little bit better how to do that How to let's say model the Traditional way with walls that have thickness and everything and from that extracts and Analyze this model and it's doable We will have a couple of ideas, but not no real plan Practical plan on how to do that yet, but yeah, that's definitely on on the on the list So the question is what programming language does free cad use Basically that the core is all programmed in C++ and all the functionality on top of it is mostly Python basically the the C++ and Python interface are very similar So we used to say basically you can work in free cad either in Python or C++ and it's more a matter of your own choice than a matter than a technical matter and Because you can basically do the same in both languages You can program a workbench fully in Python fully in C++ or a mix of both it depends mostly on on your preferences and most Libraries that we use inside the project have both C++ and Python interface So for example the Qt for the the interface you can access it from both languages And the same goes for every lib library that we use inside free cat so it's really really Convenience to use any of those two languages and basically the data to that are used in in free cat So the question is so what? Geometry formats are the most common to commonly used in free cat I would say step is the most common one Step is a solid base format step format has like the solids are defined by their Faces and those faces can be nerves that can be like defined by geometrical curves So basically you can just represent about anything with that and and it's a very very Solid file format that's there since ever and all the engineering work words still uses uses it So I would say that is the best formats to work with in in free cat STL is used a lot for 3d printing, but STL Inside an STL file. You don't only have points and triangles so your curves will get faceted turned into small Facets and so you can output things easily from free cat to STL, but it's really hard to get back an STL into free cat and You won't have the curves anymore So that's a good output format, and it's not a good input format step is good for input and output So it's basically what most people use Freak ad can import and Freak ad can import and export just about any solid model format B-Rap I just yeah DXF


Think Tech Away, civil engagement lives here. Good afternoon, welcome to Glover Report. I'm your host, Valee Ong. We have with us today Henry Bit. He's an ex-backed child here in Singapore. Welcome to the show, Henry. Thank you very much. Thanks for being on the show, Henry. Now, Henry, reason I invite you on the show is because I want to learn more about the life of an ex-backed child in Singapore. How old are you now? I'm actually 17 years old. I'm turning 18 this year. And how old were you when you came to Singapore? I was a baby. I was two months old. So I practically lived in Singapore my whole life. If I don't count it two months, I don't live in France. So, yeah, I've been here my whole life. But you still have a very strong French accent. How did you maintain that? I maintained it because I did most of my studies in Singapore at the French school. So I studied in French from preschool to grade 10. And preschool starting at age three? Age three, yeah. In French. So I was possibly exposed to the French language. And even at home, because my parents are French, which means that I still speak French at home. So at a French school, everything was instructed in French? Everything was instructed in French. Except for the, yeah. Do you do English classes at all? We did English classes five hours a week. Five hours a week. Is it daily? It is early, yeah. Well, that's amazing. If you did it just one hour a day and you speak French at home, that you're able to... Well, that's probably not the reason why I can speak English pretty well right now. I've actually changed school to an international school at the end of grade 10. Which means that I spoke 75% of my time in English. So... How many years have you been at the international school? For two years now. For two years. Well, that's still pretty amazing. That's just two years in. Wow. Do you have any siblings? I do have siblings. So I have two sisters and one brother. My brother is 21 years old and he lives and studies in France. Whereas my older sister, she's 23 years old and she lives in Sydney. And then my smaller sister, she's 15 years old and is still a student at the French school. So your older siblings, did they move with you when you first came to Singapore? They didn't move with me yet. My whole family moved. And do you know how they like it? How was the transition for them? I think that they still prefer Singapore because when they moved here, they were pretty young. So they were seven years old maybe. Which means that all they did in France was go to school and go back home. They didn't really spend time outside of... Which means that I think they still prefer Singapore because as they grow up, they just started to feel more of an environment in Singapore which is stronger than in France. So Singapore is feeling more like home to them than France is. Now what brought your parents to Singapore? What was the motivation behind the big move? My dad's work. He got a job here in Singapore. Which is the reason why we all moved to Singapore. And when he moved you guys out here, he knew that you guys were going to stay here for... And it was a surprise for every three years basically if you were going to stay. So we were supposed to stay here for just a few years. But it turns out that the contract got extended. Which means that we stayed in Singapore for seventeen years. But every two to three years, we wouldn't know if we would go back to France or not.  So whenever it's extended, does your family cheer or you're kind of wishing that you could go back to France? We're happy to stay. Now what has your parents or your school done or yourself have done to keep the French culture alive in you? What my parents have done is to make sure that I speak French at home before. Also the French culture, as you said, food is a big part of the culture. So we eat food 30% of the time. Does mommy cook or do you have a helper? We have a helper but sometimes my mom cooks too. So does the helper know how to cook French food? You teach her. How is it? Is it pretty authentic? She picked it up well. She's a pretty good cook. And then I stayed at the French club for 13 years. Which means that I spoke for the whole time. I was exposed to the French people the whole time. Which made me have that French culture. What about in a French school? Do they sell French food too? They do sell French food sometimes. We do have maybe two times a week French food. Do they have dormitories? Do they make you guys stay there? It's not like a boarding school. I don't think that the French school is a boarding school. One of the only boarding schools in Singapore is UWC. Where you can actually board a school. My school does that too. But you need to find a place to sleep. But the French school didn't do that for sure. What's the population of the school? Is it a large school? What's the percentage of local kids to international kids? Local kids from a closer Singapore and China. I would say it takes approximately 50% of this school. 50%? 50% 50% 50% of this school. Including mainland China? Mainland China. At the French school? No, at the Canadian school. At the new school? Okay, at the new school. But at the French school, what was the composition of the nationality? I'd say 95% of the students were French. Oh wow, okay. I mean, it was pretty hard to get into the school if she didn't know how to speak French. And if she weren't French. I see. So this is what... What's that prerequisite? You've got to speak French to get in there. I mean, all of the classes are in French. You need to speak French. I see. Or you will struggle. I see. I see. Okay. Alright, and with the new school, it's more mixed. You mentioned it's about 50% of Chinese. 50% Chinese. And from the people from Vietnam, from the Philippines, you know. 50% of the school, I would say. And then from Europe, I'd say it's 30% of the school. And there's 20% from the USA. Or from other places.  Do you enjoy studying in a school where there's such a strong mix of nationalities and cultures? I prefer the diversity of culture. Especially here in Singapore, there's a big mix of cultures. Yeah, there's a big mix of cultures between Chinese culture, between the French culture that isn't that big here. But there's a lot of different places in Singapore. We should present a country. So there's a big mix of cultures in Singapore. And this is what I mainly like about Singapore is this mix of culture, which means that I prefer to be in a school where there's a lot of different people. Not all the same people. Now, do you see international kids, foreign kids that tend to stay in their cliques? Where they don't mix with the local kids, they're just kind of always in their same cliques. I've seen that at a French school. It's understandable because speaking English for them is not their main language and they're always exposed to the French language. So it's kind of hard for them to be friends with some different schools as they all speak English. And this mainly happens at a French school as this is what I think. But in my school, we love to meet new people. Now, do you have friends outside of your school? I do have friends outside of my school. How do you meet them? Do you join clubs or sports teams? Through sports teams. I've met some of them through my old soccer team, which I used to be a part of for five years. As we played against different clubs, we played against students from different schools too. Most of the time, I would make new friends in games, but of course, it's a competitive sport, so we're not always friends at the end of the game. So these teams, are they today comprised mostly of international kids or it's a mix of locals and international? It depends what team you are on. I know that there's a French team which is just only French, but then the team that I was in was the local team and we played against different clubs from different nationalities or mixed nationalities.  I go back to France two times a year for sure, but we tried to make it three if we could. So basically, I go back to France for the spring break, which is two months long. Is it just you or your whole family goes along with you? My whole family goes. My whole family just joins the friends. So did your mommy take time off?  I was going to say that's nice of her boss to let her go for that long. She's her own boss. So she can take two months off if she really wants to. Whereas my dad, as he is more and more busy, he can only come back to France for two weeks during the spring break. But he can also go back to France with us in the winter break, which is also two weeks long. And he usually takes two weeks off to just go back to France and speak because it's cold there. So you guys have families back in France? Most of my family is my grandparents. So they are in France. So my grandparents from my dad's side, they are in France.  How long have they been in Spain? I'd say five to seven years now. So when you go back to France, do you also hop over to Spain to visit them? No, we all join back in France. Okay, but have you visited them in Spain before? I did visit them in Spain before, yeah. And when you go back to France, what do you do there? I spend as much time with the family as I can because it's a holiday. And then I also try...  So I'm going to go skiing and then I'm going to do a lot of snow activity still, which is really good. But in the spring break, sorry, it's kind of the same as Singapore because it's hot and there's a beach there, there's a beach or two, which is really nice. So we kind of do the same thing. It just feels like holding there when you go back. I see, okay. Well, now the current school that you go to, do they teach French there? Are you able to keep up with your French learning? They do teach French and thankfully they do. For real, I would have not... like, if they didn't speak French, I could not speak French right now. So you take French as your second language at this new school? Second language, yeah. Do you take other languages? No, just English and French. Just English and French. What other languages do they offer? They have Mandarin and Spanish. And how often are these second languages taught? Same as the French one, I would say five times a week. One hour a day. One hour a day. One hour a day, okay. Well, how are you liking the Singapore food? It's really good. Us as French people, we like good food. And the food here is really good. It's simple, but it's the best thing you could ever eat. That means a lot coming from a French because we know you have very high standards food-wise. What is some of your favorite local food? Okay, it sounds simple, but it's chicken rice. The Hainanese chicken rice? Hainanese chicken rice. It's so good. I recommend it for sure.  I know that there's some at Newton which are really good. It's pretty close by from there. And they're really, really good there. And the best thing is you don't have to go to a really expensive restaurant to get a plate of chicken rice, right? It's cheap and it's good.  I sometimes do, but I try not to. I'm not a big fan of chili. So you don't like spicy food? I do like it sometimes, just not when it's too spicy. So when you say the food here is good, that means you like the Malay food, the Indian food, the Chinese food and the... Yeah. And the Chinese food here is really good too. All the food here is good. Now who cooks at home? Sometimes my mom cooks, but most of the time it's my helper. We teach her how to cook of course. Do you teach her to do just French food or she can do local food as well? She can do all the food that we need to. She's a really good cook at first. That's wonderful. That's really helpful too. It is helpful.