We researched the most popular IELTS-speaking tips and tricks so you don't have to. We're also going to show you whether these seven tips lower your score or increase your score, so you have the confidence on test day to use them or not use them. I'm going to show you exactly what IDP and the British Council have to say about these tips and tricks so that you know what we're saying is true and correct. And if any of these tips and lower your score, I'm going to give you some advice on what to do instead so that you can again have the confidence on test day to give the examiners what they're looking for and improve your score. So without further ado, let's go. So when doing this research, the most popular tips are be polite, be friendly, use eye contact, hand gestures, body language, and that is going to help improve your score. Is this actually correct or not? So if you go on to YouTube, you'll find the most popular video on this topic has 13 million views. So millions of people have watched this video and in it it says that it's important to be friendly, it's important to smile, that your body language is important, and your eye contact is important. And it's not only this video, you'll find thousands of videos and online blogs giving this advice. So what do IDP and the British Council have to say about this? So on IDP's website, you'll find an article called How to Prepare for the IELTS Speaking Test. And in it, it says this, every examiner is trained and monitored closely to be fair to every candidate and to assess your level of English. The examiners will not give you more or fewer marks if you are smiling and laughing. It is best to try and relax as much as you can and communicate in a natural way. So during examiner training, the examiners are told to assess students on their speaking ability and their speaking ability only. And if you look at the official marking criteria, it doesn't say anything about the candidate being friendly or polite, and it also doesn't say anything about body language or hand gestures or eye contact. None of these things are actually assessed during the speaking test. Let's have a look at what IDP said in another article called Nine Myths About the IELTS Speaking Test to Debug. This is what they said, being polite, courteous and smiling should be part of basic manners when engaging with anyone in a conversation. It does help the interaction move forward, however, it is not part of the evaluation criteria. You should not worry about being overly polite but focus on the conversation and topic at hand. So you'll find thousands of videos online that talk about how to greet the examiner, how to impress the examiner, that the examiner's mood and what they think about you as a person. All of this is important. What IDP is saying is none of this is important and none of it is actually assessed. We can also look at a video by the British Council called IELTS Improve English and Prepare for IELTS Speaking Fluency Coherence and in that video it states students are not assessed on appearance or body language. So these tips and tricks related to being friendly, polite, body language, etc. are completely wrong. Now many of you might be thinking well it's not doing any harm, well it actually is because if you go and look at lots of the popular IELTS Speaking Feedback videos, those one-on-one videos, you will hear those teachers giving the students feedback on their body language and their hand gestures and their eye contact and whether they were friendly. This means that your teacher is giving you feedback on things that do not matter which also means that they are not giving you feedback on things that do matter because as a student if you believe that what is important is using your hands and looking into the eyes of the examiner it means that you are not focusing on the important things which are fluency and coherence, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary.  So if you're listening to your teacher talking about all of these things that don't matter then you're not spending enough time and not focusing on the things that do matter. So what should you do instead? Well number one only focus on what is in the marking criteria. There are things in the marking criteria that you need to spend time on and you need to work on. Body language and hand gestures are not some of those things. The second thing to think about is is your teacher actually qualified and do they know what they're talking about if they are giving you feedback on these things and especially if they tell you that they are an X examiner. Real X examiners know what the test is about and what the marking criteria says. The second popular tip that we see a lot is that the IELTS speaking test is an academic test and you need to be very academic and formal and you should avoid things like slang and informal language. Is this actually true? So for example if we go on to YouTube we'll find this teacher with nearly one million subscribers clearly stating do not use slang and you'll find many other videos like this saying that you should use formal language and don't be informal and things like that. So if we go on to the British Council website and have a look at an article there called IELTS test format explained it states the content of the IELTS speaking test is the same for both the IELTS academic and IELTS general training tests and this is correct. If you have a look at the official marking criteria for IELTS speaking it is exactly the same for general training students and for academic students. So this should be an indication that it is not an overly formal academic test but let's have a look at what IDP say. A very interesting article on the IDP website is called formal and informal English on IELTS and it starts off with you wanna nine in IELTS? You might think the above sentence will give you a low score on an IELTS test however you might be wrong. IELTS tests your English language skills and yes this includes both formal and informal English. So this tip that you should not use informal English and that the test is a very formal academic test is completely wrong. The speaking test is testing your ability to speak normally in everyday situations to other people. It is actually quite rare to speak to people in a very formal academic context. I would say that less than one percent of interactions are actually really formal and academic. Therefore it would be completely unrealistic to test people on academic formal English when the vast majority of English is normal everyday English which includes things like slang, phrasal verbs, idiomatic language, things like that. So what should you do instead? First of all do not try to learn and memorize lots of academic or formal phrases and include them in your speaking test. They will sound extremely unnatural and you will also sound very robotic. Secondly relax. My number one piece of advice for students the day before their test if a student asks me my test is tomorrow what should I do it's speak to the examiner like they are a human being like they are your friend or someone you know that is going to help you relax and it is helping you give the examiner what they're looking for.  If you do the opposite and you try and remove all of this everyday English then you're putting too much pressure on yourself to use these overly rarely used academic phrases and then you are going to get in trouble and make lots of mistakes so just relax chill out and you will be much better off. The third most popular tip that we see for IELTS speaking is use lots of uncommon big fancy words and memorize lists of words and somehow these big fancy words are going to get you a high score. Is this actually true? So if we go on to YouTube you'll find lots of videos like this so for example this one with nearly one million views is called IELTS speaking vocabulary just eight words to score seven plus bands. So what they are saying is you're going to be speaking for 15 minutes and somehow eight of those words that you say in those 15 minutes are going to magically help you get about seven eight and nine. Is this actually true? So if we go on to the British Council website and we look at their video called Lexis and Vocabulary so it's all about how to use vocabulary on the IELTS test. It states many candidates memorize impressive lists of vocabulary but often end up using them in the wrong way because they haven't understood them properly. This is why you should never try and memorize lists and never try and use words you're not comfortable using because you're going to make lots of mistakes which will lower your score not improve your score. Let's see what IDP have to say about this in their article 10 tips IELTS speaking. They state quite clearly don't use big and unfamiliar words. They say you might want to impress the examiner with big and complex words in your speaking test but to be safe avoid using words you are not familiar with. There is a higher chance of making mistakes by either mispronouncing words or using them in the wrong context. Mistakes can affect your final band score and this sums it up perfectly. By watching these videos that encourage you to use big fancy vocabulary you are actually lowering your score because you are making lots and lots of mistakes. What should you do instead? Well during your preparation you should be trying to improve your vocabulary by learning new words learning new phrases but on test day play it safe. What we say to our VIP students is use the 100% rule which is if you understand the word 100% you know the meaning you know how to use it you know the context to use it in and in the speaking test you know how to pronounce that word correctly then you use it but if you're unsure of the meaning or you're unsure how to use that word or you just learned it last week then you're probably not using it or pronouncing it correctly so play it safe and you will be fine. One of the reasons why I dislike videos like this that encourage you to learn all this fancy vocabulary is what they are telling you is your vocabulary is not good enough you're not good enough yet which for the vast majority of students is incorrect for the vast majority of students we work with on our VIP course we do not actually give them extra vocabulary to learn we give them the confidence that their existing vocabulary is good enough more than 95% of the students that we work with who need like a band 7 for example their vocabulary is already at a band 7 level so it's not about learning new things it's about unlearning undoing all of these bad habits and the biggest bad habit for vocabulary in the speaking test is thinking you're not good enough and you need to learn all of these fancy words the opposite is true your current vocabulary is probably fine you're just not using it and not only will this affect your vocabulary score but if you are trying to use big fancy words then your fluency is going to suffer because you're doing more thinking than actually just speaking naturally and your pronunciation score will lower because you're making lots of pronunciation errors with unfamiliar words and your grammar score will also probably go down because you're using unusual words you're not comfortable using which will often lead to grammar mistakes so play it safe number four learn common topics and learn common questions does this actually help so you'll find lots and lots of videos like this one on youtube they talk about the 11 most common questions or the most common topics so this person has more than a million subscribers and in this video when he's talking about the 11 most common questions he doesn't give any guidance on whether these are guaranteed to come up or what chance there are that these questions will come up there's no advice on that so from the perspective of you from the perspective of a student if you see a video called 11 common questions or you might see a video called 20 common topics or something like that you are not an isle expert so you're going to assume that this person with more than a million subscribers knows what they're talking about and what you will do is you will go into the test thinking these are the questions that are going to come up is this actually true so if we look at a blog article on the isle's official website called isle speaking test topics they do give examples of some questions that could come up but they don't give any common questions there is a massive difference between an article giving you common questions which you think are definitely going to come up and example questions example questions are there just to give you an idea of what might come up and this is actually correct this is the best way to teach this to students which is these things might come up but they might not come up you might get asked different things this is very very different from a video which states common questions or most common questions or most common topics if we go on to the idp website there's an article which states in part one the examiner will ask you about yourself and general questions from common topics like work family studies interests and hobbies and this is actually true you are likely to get a question on work family studies interest hobbies everyday topics but they might also in part one ask you a completely random question like birthday cakes or hats or something like that so you should not prepare for just these common questions to come up you should expect anything to come up and to be able to deal with anything and it also says in part two of the speaking test you will be given a card with a topic and ask to talk about it for two minutes you will have one minute to prepare for your topic and a pencil and paper to draft your response it doesn't talk about common topics for part two here because there are no common topics for part two if you are preparing common topics common questions you are wasting your time for part two it goes on to say part three is a two-way conversation and the examiner will ask questions related to the topic discussed in part two so exactly the same advice for part three there are no common topics it is a waste of time to do this now you might be thinking well there's no harm in preparing common topics that is preparation that is going to help me if one of these common questions or common topics comes up well actually it does not and it is actually very damaging to you and will probably lead to failure and to explain that let's move on to the fifth tip which is memorize phrases and memorize sentences and then i'll explain how preparing common topics will actually lower your score once we go through this fifth tip memorizing phrases so you'll find many many videos on youtube that give you phrases for example this video with 1.2 million encourages you to memorize 35 phrases so what this video encourages students to think is that if you use these 35 phrases if you memorize them that you're magically going to improve your score is this actually true well if we look at a british council article called eight ways to boost your isle speaking score it states while it certainly pays off equipping yourself with relevant vocabulary and common phrases and collocations it's important to avoid memorizing large chunks of speech examiners are trained to identify memorized responses and will mark you down for that i repeat examiners are trained to identify memorized responses and will mark you down for this it is extremely easy for an examiner to spot the fact that you have prepared questions because you think that it's a common question or a common topic or you have memorized lists of sentences and lists of phrases they are trained to do it it is extremely easy to spot you are not outsmarting anyone and you are just cheating yourself because you are lowering your score the second thing i want you to think about is what are the most common phrases that examiners will hear well they are the phrases in the most popular youtube videos so if you are watching some of these very very very popular videos with millions of views that are talking about common topics and memorized answers and memorize phrases those are the phrases that examiners hear every single day so let's say for example in part one you have memorized a full answer for tell me about your hometown or tell me about your hobbies and you give an amazing memorized answer this is exactly what the examiner is going to think that person memorized that answer so now what i'm going to do is i'm going to ask them a completely different question on a completely different topic that they were not able to memorize and not able to prepare for so they might ask you something about pens do you use pens what do you use pens for have you ever bought an expensive pen what do you think about people who buy luxurious pens made of precious metals so you've gone from a prepared answer to talking about platinum precious metal pens they are going to base your score not on your memorized answer but on the answer you are not expecting because that is your real speaking level remember what are they testing they're testing when you move to london or new york or sydney how are you able to speak to people in everyday normal situations everyday normal situations are not about tell me about your hometown they are going to be unexpected questions that come up so that is your real speaking level so if you are relying on these gurus that are teaching you all of these different topics and prepared questions and prepared phrases you are going down a very dark road so what should you do instead well you should get your english level and your speaking ability to the level where it doesn't matter what question comes up if i was to do the speaking test today and they asked me about something that i know nothing about let's say they asked me about indian cooking i've never been to india i don't really eat indian food i'm sure it's lovely i'm not criticizing indian food in any way but i just don't know anything about it but if they asked me about how to cook indian food i would be able to give some sort of an answer even if it's just something like i don't know i've never cooked indian food before and i visited a couple of indian restaurants in my life but it's not something that i do very often that is giving them an answer they are not testing my ability or my knowledge of indian cooking they're testing my ability to use words effectively vocabulary that are grammatically correct grammar that i can pronounce it in a way that the examiner can understand and i can do so fluently and coherently you don't need any knowledge or prepared answers to do any of that so focus on getting your grammar vocabulary pronunciation and fluency to the level where it doesn't matter what question comes up number six is if you use lots of idioms and idiomatic language you are going to get a high score and there are certain videos that even say that you have to use a specific number of idioms or specific idioms to get a high score and really what this comes down to is a misunderstanding of the marking criteria so you'll find lots and lots of videos on youtube for example this one with a quarter of a million views a quarter of a million students have watched this video called seven idioms to score seven plus in isle speaking and it's quite interesting if you go to this video and scroll across you'll be able to find by scrolling across on the timeline you'll be able to see the most replayed part of that video and it's actually the end where you can see all of the idioms on the board because when students see this video or and videos like it they don't watch the whole video they just go to the end look at the idioms memorize them and then try and use them on test day and do you think students who look at that video look at seven idioms and use them in the test do you think they actually get a good score well we'll talk about that in a second but before we talk about that the reason why these gurus make these videos well the first is because they know that they'll get lots of clicks and that's really their motivation their motivation is to get clicks so they can make money from youtube but secondly it's because they have misunderstood the official marking criteria if you go to the official marking criteria under lexical resource which is vocabulary for a band seven it says uses some less common and idiomatic vocabulary and shows some awareness of style and collocation with some inappropriate choices so gurus who don't know what they're doing look at that see band seven idiomatic and they automatically think if you use idioms you will get a band seven this is actually not true because idiomatic does not mean just idioms if we look at the definition of the word idiomatic in carlin's dictionary it says idiomatic language uses words in a way that sounds natural to native speakers of the language and if we look at the cambridge dictionary definition it says containing expressions that are natural and correct so to summarize what idiomatic means idiomatic means words and expressions that native english speakers would use in this context so that does include idioms but it also includes phrasal verbs and it includes slang colloquialisms all sorts of things so what the official marking criteria is saying is that a person at a band seven uses some of the language that a native english speaker would use but they don't use it completely accurately there's there are some inappropriate choices so band seven students are attempting to use idiomatic language but not completely successfully now that is completely different from what these online gurus are teaching you which is all you have to do is memorize a bunch of idioms and you'll get a high score well that's just my opinion what do idp say about this well idp have an article on their website called how to use idioms and in it it states in english we use idioms and phrasal verbs to express ourselves this idiomatic language is used frequently in our everyday communication so it's very important that we understand what idioms are and how to use them so is this saying that just use lots of idioms and you'll get a high score well it goes on to say this we mentioned that native speakers use idioms naturally keyword there naturally so be very careful not to over use them and to make sure that the idiom matches the topic area you are speaking about using seven idioms in 15 minutes is extremely unnatural and i guarantee that the seven idioms that you see in a video are not going to be appropriate they won't match the topic so you'll often hear students say like you'll ask them about a pen do you like pens oh i am over the moon that you have asked me this question about pens a native english speaker would never ever ever say that you're not demonstrating to the examiner that you know how to use over the moon correctly you're demonstrating that you know what it means but you don't know how to use it appropriately and they know because they hear it every day that you have just watched one of these videos with millions of views and this is exactly what this article says be careful not to use some that are overused and sound forced a quick internet search will produce hundreds of idioms the best advice is to listen to native speakers by chatting to them or by watching english speaking movies and to copy phrases that have been used and also learn your phrasal verbs so you know which prepositions go with certain verbs so what should you do well learning lists of idioms is going to lower your score but you should try and use some idiomatic language language that native english speakers use if you hope to get about seven eight or nine so you can do two things if you're worried about this get a podcast that you enjoy listening to probably a conversational podcast with two or more people who are native english speakers talking to each other and i want you just to listen to it and note down how many times they use idioms it will actually be extremely rare then note down how many times they use phrasal verbs or slang it will be a little bit more common than idioms but they don't use them that much this will give you the confidence that you don't need to go into the test and try and force this idiomatic language down the throat of the examiner if you are at a band seven level you will naturally use idiomatic language in your speech don't even try and think about it don't try and force it in there because if you're truly at a seven eight or nine level you will use some of these things you'll definitely use phrasal verbs but the students that are most successful go in think about the question and answer the question naturally as if they were not doing a test as if they were just talking to a friend or a colleague if you do that idiomatic language will come up and you'll probably use it correctly so don't put yourself under so much pressure on test day to go like oh i'm so over the moon you asked me about pens it was raining cats and dogs today and i thought about it like that just sounds crazy so you've heard me say this many many times what should you do speak to the examiner like they're a human being not a idiom recording device so tip number seven relates to part two i want to talk about this specifically because part two is not only the area that students worry about the most but that they do badly because of bad advice and the most common tip and trick that i see for part two is that you must talk about each bullet point and this is very very common and you'll also see students being told by teachers that you must talk about this bullet point for a certain amount of time and then the next bullet point for a certain amount of time for example this video with 3.9 million views states that you must cover every point so you must talk about each bullet point and it also says point to point as you talk so what it's encouraging you to do is point to bullet point number one talk about that then point to bullet point number two talk about that point to bullet point number three talk about that and then point to four talk about that is this a good way to answer your part two question well if we look at the idp website it says what if i only talk about the first two bullet points in the two minutes and don't cover all the questions so in other words what if i don't mention all the bullet points and what it says here is test takers sometimes worry that they have not covered all the points on their task card and right of time remember that the examiner will interrupt you at the two minute mark don't worry if this happens as you have already shown the examiner that you can speak at length appropriately extending your description so what this is saying is your job is to speak about the topic fluently for two minutes your job is not to speak about the bullet points or speak about them in order the bullet points are there to help you so this is quite frustrating for idp the british council Cambridge examiners because they're using these bullet points to help you answer the question and what many of these online gurus are doing is messing that up completely so they've taken something that is used to help you and they've turned it into something that is used to damage your score because what happens with most students is they will look at those four bullet points and at least one of the bullet points will be something that they're uncomfortable talking about so if you're uncomfortable talking about one or more of those bullet points your fluency is really going to suffer also what will happen is many students will talk about one or more of the bullet points very very quickly and there's nothing wrong with that because it might say you know talk about a pen where did you get the pen my wife got it for me for christmas like that's less than 10 seconds so when students exhaust and use all of the bullet points then they start to get nervous they run out of time so what should you do instead if you can talk about the bullet points talk about them but you can also talk about other things related to that topic the only thing you need to do for part two is talk about the main topic on the q-card you can mention many other things related to that topic and my suggestion would be to pick the things that you're most comfortable talking about again and i've repeated myself many many times the goal is to show the examiner that you can speak in everyday normal situations to normal human beings the examiner is not testing can you talk about this bullet point then that one then that one then that one because that will never ever ever happen in real life so make things easy for yourself don't make things more difficult and really to summarize this whole video why is there so much bad advice online especially on youtube because years ago these people who originally made these videos made them without really having any expertise or experience with actually helping students improve their score they just threw them up on youtube without thinking does this actually help students and then new generations of iELTS youtube gurus come along and what they do is just copy the existing videos so you get a copy of nonsense and then another copy of nonsense and then another copy of nonsense so it's just a bad copy after a bad copy after a bad copy because what these gurus think is millions of views good millions of views does not equate to good advice the best advice is extremely boring and is not very complicated so it doesn't do very well on youtube but tips and tricks will always get clicks that actually rhymes so you always should remember that just because something has lots of views or your favorite youtuber has millions of subscribers doesn't mean that they actually know what they're talking about if you found this video useful you'll probably find our writing tips and tricks video useful as well where we go through the exact same process and we show you whether the most popular writing tips are true or not


Hello and welcome to the session. In this session we will discuss a question which says that simplify the following fractions. The first one is 15 is 2, 1 and 2 by 3, second part, 3914 is to 6 by 7, third part, 6 is to 1.2. Now before starting the solution of this question we should know some results. First one is any ratio in the division form like 2 is to 3 can be written as and to simplify ratio we reduce its fraction. First form let us see an example for this to 4 upon 4 since both numerator and denominator are divisible by 2 so we write it as 1 by 2 its lowest form which is 1 by 2. And the second result will be 4 upon c upon d 1 by 3. Now we will see for the numerator we will multiply at 1 to it so it will become 2 into 3 that is 6 plus 1 which is 3. So on simplifying the next section 2 and 1 by 3 we get 7 by 3 for solving the given question. Now we will start the solution of the given question. With the first part we have to simplify 1 and 2 by 3. Now we know that every number is divisible by 1 so we can write any number x in the form. We can write fifth of the key idea. We can write can be written as 15 by 1 1 and 2 by 3 section. So here this will be equal to 15 upon 1 whole upon. Now the next section 1 and 2 by 3 will be equal to 3 into 1 plus 2 which will be equal to 5 which is the numerator and the denominator will be 3 so the next section will become 5 which is given in the key idea. This will be equal to 15 into 3 upon 1 into 5. Now 5 and 15 so dividing the numerator and denominator by 5 we get into 3. 1 into 5 into 3 is 15 and 5 into 1 is 5 3 into 3 whole upon 1 which is equal to we can write it as 9. Now let us start with the second part. In the second part we have to simplify the ratio which is 3 upon 14 is 2 upon 14 which can be further written as 3 into 7 upon 3 into 2 is 6. So 3 is the common factor of 3 and 6 so we divide numerator and denominator by 3 and we get 3 into 7 upon 3 into 6 upon 3. Now 3 into 1 is 3 and 3 into 2 7 upon 14 into 2 numerator and denominator by 7 upon 7 whole upon 14 into 2 upon 7. Now 7 into 1 is 7 and 7 into 2 is 14 which is equal to 1 upon 4 plus 1 is 2. Now in the third part we have to simplify which is given as 6 is 2 1.2. Now this can be written as 6 upon 1.2 so in the numerator we can write 6 as 6 upon 1 whole upon in the denominator we can write 1.2 as into 10 whole upon 1 into 12. Common factor of 6 and 12 so we are writing the numerator and denominator by 6 we get 6 into 10 upon 1 into 12 now 6 into 1 is 6 and 6 into 2 into 10 whole upon 1 and denominator by 2. This will be equal to 1 into 10 upon 2 whole upon 1 into 2 upon 2 now 2 into 5 is 10 and 2 into 1 is 2 so this is equal to and 1 into 1 is 1. So this is equal to 5 upon 1 or you can write it as 5 ratio of the given question time for the session hope you all have enjoyed the session.


Hello, today I'll be talking about Third Party CSS, it's not safe, why because one day I just read this article and then I find it very interesting and I'm pretty sure this article has come out, came out in 2018, everyone may have read it but if you have not, you should go and read it but if you are lazy to read and lazy to understand all these words, today let's read it together because you have no choice, I will be reading this together with you, so what is Third Party CSS? I think the first paragraph we just skip first, later we'll come back So Third Party, meaning content or files that is not from your own domain, for example you are working at SingaporeCSS.github.io, anything that is outside of that domain is Third Party Okay, this is supposed to, okay, so he started with like Third Party images, why is not safe, it's because if say you initially were thinking of like you know and use some URL from other websites and then it was supposed to be a kitten image but then suddenly the owner of the website change that kitten image to something disgusting, it will make your website looks ugly, so that's why you shouldn't trust Third Party images, Third Party script is even worse because you are actually going to execute whatever is written in the script So they can actually read and do everything that on your website that you just treat them as like your own script, that kind And then lastly is Third Party CSS and that is the main topic of like why is it not safe, before we start about why we talk about it is not safe, let's look at where does this all Third Party CSS come from So it's not written in the blog, this is like I own self come one, because I'm thinking like where do I got all this CSS, I mean I'm building my own website, my CSS is all written by myself, I don't copy paste from Stack Overflow anywhere But where does this all Third Party CSS coming from, so I have a few examples, firstly is you may, okay this is not against like bootstrap but if you go to some CSS frameworks, sometimes you will see them telling you how you can use the CSS from CDN Basically you just copy this link and then they will load the CSS into your website, so unless you are telling me you will actually click into the link and look at all the contents, make sure they are safe I presume most likely you just copy and paste, you allow whatever they're going to style your website So this is like one of the place where Third Party CSS is coming from So another place would be, this is like if you go to some website, I believe, okay let's go to Shopee So if you look at the network tab and then you will realise how come my network tab doesn't open Okay, you will realise that not all request goes out to Shopee actually, if you do something like let's filter out Shopee Sorry, let's filter out Shopee You still see scripts that is loaded from say Google Analytics, Cretio, which is like an ads network and all these things They are not from Shopee and that's because they want to track you, they are relying on other social networks to have targeted advertisement for you So basically, I think your website may have it because you want to track the analytics of people coming in Also you want to make advertisement when they go to visit like Google.com and then they should see some advertisement because they come here to your site, they don't want to buy things and then you go and add advertisement on Google to ask you to come back to buy Do you actually look at what all these script contents, they can actually add, I mean if they are really nice enough not to run bad things on JavaScript but they can still add CSS on your website and install it and may screw your website That is one of the place And then lastly, I think some of us like to turn our website, want to make it nice, a browser and then want to make it nice We install extensions from like web store And then this will actually inject CSS, because they want to style your browser and install your website Do you actually really look into what the CSS they are doing Maybe something malicious So here are like the three places where the third party CSS comes in So what can they do? I mean CSS should just able to style your website Make style changes What harm can they do to your website And the first one, which is I think the most interesting one will be You can actually steal your password But I will leave this at the very end Let's look at something malicious but simple first So the first one is about disappearing content So they can actually hide certain contents of your website and then make your website looks like it's down But it's just maybe a simple line of CSS like display none So I'm going to try out whether I mean for the sake of trying out, let's see how this works So here I have one Chrome extension install In my website In my browser It will actually load CSS In the browser So if you look at here It will just inject this hacker.css Into all the pages that I'm visiting Right now it's an empty CSS But let's see what we can So this CSS is coming from This file Sorry, where is my static CSS So it's from this file So let's do a simple like hiding a content CSS So I could just do this And then I refresh It will looks as if your CSS Today got no speaker No one is speaking Got no detail I mean it's just one line of CSS And you can do so much harm to your website And what's even worse Is that They can So here we have an RSVP button But we can actually do some CSS to Say Sorry, I removed the They can Just say They can change your text To say refresh And then it's actually RSVP So they can click you to go somewhere else That you don't want to go So how we do this We can take a look It's actually Firstly we do a display none to hide everything We to add text Random text we can use before or after And use a content Let me zoom Big-big on the CSS panel Over here So we can add content So we can actually add any content And then for the button It used to be RSVP Right now What we do is actually We have Sorry We overlay a Word on top So we just Add the word Sorry We We add After We add a content And then we just draw the words On top of it And then maybe we add a background Or something to cover it up And then you will look like This button is supposed to refresh Instead of RSVP Right So you can use Lines of CSS And you can do so much harm So careful with the CSS That you Adding to the website Next thing would be adding content So similar to hiding Adding I think just now My examples kind of blend into it But this one is quite interesting Where you can actually Make nuance Changes to the website You can add Numbers In front of the prizes So one example would be You see like Shopee They say flash deal, very cheap But how about we just add Some CSS to make it Make all the price become More expensive We can try to target We can inspect and see The class is Sorry Sorry I got this panel You can find the span Where it says the price We just need to add a before To add more numbers in front So now if we refresh You will notice that The price is no longer cheap And it's much more expensive And it's not like flash deal anymore For the slow website Ya, so it looks very expensive now But it feels a bit Fake All the prices are marked up By 100 in front It feels like a very fake Prefix So that reminds me of One very nice article That was from Lea Verru If I pronounce it correctly It's about Cicada principle So basically I'm not going to read this for you So you can read it Lea Verru Basically you can use prime numbers To create patterns To make it less Obvious patterns that's coming out So What I'm going to do Is I'm going to Add Random numbers Random Repetitions And then I do that It feels less Less fake The numbers Ya, the numbers Is what It's not updated Sorry, I'm going to save It will make the price look less fake Where some prices are marked up by 20,000 And you kind of doesn't Get the sense of What is going on here Right This is a very slow website Okay I think I feel doing it Something is not right But anyway What else we can use Adding content To Break a website So I was thinking besides Using this e-commerce website One of the example I can I think of Is OCBC Like Bangs website If you can add a style What Things you can do That is not cracking But slightly breaking the website Or I was thinking that You can see Phone number over here Actually from OCBC What about Change it So I have CSS over here That will do the job Basically What it does is that it will add After tag After And then Put a content that And with a position absolute Place it overlaid on top of the original Phone number So that you just cover the original Number up Okay When I was doing it, it was a landscape mode There you go You can change the phone number And people will just Call this number instead of The actual phone number of OCBC And you can Be nice Next thing is Moving content So besides just doing Adding random Stuff that is malicious You can actually move the content Around that In a way that Is malicious as well So one of the examples they are given here was to You know make one of the Delete button or buy now button To be big enough and transparent That covers The entire site People whenever they just click anywhere On the site will just go there So one of the example I can think of Is Using a Singapore CSS websites Again I I basically go install The RSVP button To make it like it's everywhere You can't see it now but If you notice that add me up.com Is showing because it's on hover So Singapore CSS will go to the Meetup RSVP site Yay Next thing Is about reading attributes So we Slowly towards Move slowly towards where you Can actually sniff data From the user Right so Attributes like So you can have Has this attribute selector Where you can select an attribute And you can You can use like a dollar Sign or you use a carrot Sign that you can target where Attribute starts with a certain Characters or end with a certain Characters also you have You can actually target Whether the attribute value Has a certain Characters inside So Is actually try to Target value And then If it's one six Maybe it starts with one or two Or three you do or something different And then try to sniff it out But how do you sniff that out Basically what you can do Is Try to add background image Because when you have a background image The browser will actually Hose that image Can be Can be hosted in your server Basically you can know What request is coming in And based on that You kind of able to Say You kind of able to know What is What number is In front of the value If you're using like a So one thing I tried Here was that I notice that OCBC login Side So usually it forms When you want to prevent Course Wait, that's not course You want to provide cross side resource for Basically you want to prevent people From calling an API from Somewhere else You would add like a hidden value Or CSRF token Or something like that So in the OCBC form Over here You have something similar as well It's like This random These are like random generated Strings That Secures this session But what if we can target them Like we can target this ID Of a random number model And then we also add Attribute selector To select where if it starts with 8 We load some image If it starts with 7, we load another image And then basically we can Start to guess each numbers And eventually With enough CSS You can sniff out This value and do some nasty stuff So Sorry, this is not a code I written some CSS So it will try To Hold on Localhost Yup, it will try to load Image In a localhost So basically I have a server running Locally And Any request goes to the server You will see a lot over here Okay So let's Think I'm doing it, right? Let's refresh this page And take a look at the network Or image Okay, refresh My laptop is getting slower Because of the screen sharing But Let's try to Hold this Okay So I think it works There's an A character inside But It doesn't load the website It doesn't Reach my server And Let's take a look at what's going on over here Basically It says that it's being blocked By CSP So what is CSP So CSP is actually Content Security Policy That says that Your website Can only load a specific List of Images from a specific list of Trusted sources Right, so Localhost apparently is not one of them That's why it doesn't load Images from localhost So how do you This is also part of In the Blog that says how you should Do, which is you should Set a CSP To prevent loading images or scripts From untrusted sources Right, so let's take a look How OCPC set this up If you look at the docs On the website The response header CSP Is written in the response header So this list Is telling you What are the trusted Domains of assets That can be loaded I think it's a bit messy So I Copy it out Into this slide So in content security policy You can You can break it down To different types of assets You can say styles Can be from anywhere But the font can only From a certain domain And image can be only From a certain domain Another different sets of domains And if it doesn't match The asset type Then maybe fall back to the default one So these are the list of Trusted sources And apparently local host Is not one of them So a way to work around Would be To make our proof of concept Make sure that it works Let's try to fake That our Server, our images Is actually hosted in geostatic.com So it's a star.geostatic.com So maybe like a sub domain Or geostatic.com So I've preset this up So I'm going to tell you what I've done So firstly I add App.geostatic.com Into ETC host So this tells And redirect to 127 Which is a local host Sorry, this is not too much CSS Related but bear with me I try to explain it as simple as possible So basically what this does Is that any request that goes to this domain Will go to localhost That's all And then I realize When I try to realize That I need to be on HTTPS as well So to do that I need to have a cert To sign my HTTPS So I install a bunch of things To make that work And then finally I Okay So What that means is that now We just fake Saying that our request Let's go to this site And let's change it to App.geostatic And hopefully all the request will go To our local server Let me try this out first Hold on, let me restart the server Because If you're interested in The server works I generated the key And then I start the HTTPS server So Let me copy this to my Default Express server And let me start over here So now If I visit So whatever request is being logged Out here So let's go back to OCBC And take a look Um Let's refresh Wow So slow So there's a request coming in Telling me that Key ends with 5 So Theoretically, if I'm diligent enough Because I want to hack OCBC I just Have to copy and paste All this to cover all the digits And hopefully That way I could Able to read out what is in the Random number And I hope that convince you That You should add CSP Because You should add CSP Content security policy So that you can limit The So that you can limit websites From loading Untrusted third-party scripts Or assets Right Let's take a look What else is being listed Here I think we are almost Towards the end One thing that It's interesting That It mentioned in the blog is that Here I have a simple React application That has an input Over here is a password So if I type password You shouldn't see the value Over here But if you take a look At The DOM If you inspect it My laptop is so slow Or Chrome is slow Please If you take a look at the DOM You would notice That The value that you typed in You notice that the value you typed in Is in the attribute And This is By the framework design But it Kind of Is a vulnerability to your website Where you can use a similar way To actually sniff Like a third-party Sniff out So this value Updates Synchronously As you type Okay, hopefully this layout is not too bad But just to prove it out If I type Z Z right now ZC right now This is React way of trying to synchronize Whatever you type And whatever is in the element But It leaks out the value Of your password input On this end I think they mention about What you could do But nothing much you can do for now Except It doesn't say How you should work around with this Probably don't use react When you're doing the input Fuel Password input fuel Lastly You can use CSS to actually Trax interaction Of a user on the website So if you're using Things like hover or active Basically you can Change the style When the user is hovering Or Clicking on the website So here I have Like Interaction Sniffing CSS Same thing Let's do it on the Singapore's CSS website Because it looks faster So let's open up My terminal Hide it smaller Let's see Okay, so Hope you can see both So if I hover on top The request because Upon hover It's loading an image And when I click on it It will send another request You can use just CSS To track interaction of Any websites But using this trick There's one thing you need to know Is that Once you load the image It's being cached by the browser So when you do it multiple times So the limitation Of this Hack to sniff out data Can only do it Unless It refreshes again It will load the image again So That concludes all the basic Once and Let's go back to the last one Which is the keylogger Which uses the same technique as this Reading text To do it Of sniffing data So how do you read Whatever text is on the screen Basically What you can do is that You can declare different font For the paragraph And for each font For example You can set The same font family Call blah When you declare a font face For different variants Of that font You can load From a different file For a specific unicode range So this is useful In a case where Maybe you want to have You just need to specify one font But For maybe say emoji You want to use a different font Different font files For certain emojis For certain maybe Unicode characters You use a different font But you use the same font family So when you style your CSS You just write one font family But you can have different One font family can describe A variants of Font files That you can load for different unicode range Right So So basically if you have a Queue in the web page And it matches this Then it will load It will load the file And it use the same Same thing as So you can sniff it from the server Right So let's go to google.com Because it has a very big input Over here And what I'm going to do here is that I want to set a Font family To put itself And then for different characters I will load the different font files And that way I can actually Sniff out what is being typed So it could be happening on Like password fields as well So you can use a combination of Different attributes Or loading a font And you can basically Sniff out the data So That's here This much simpler version Of the code So you have different unicode range And then you Use the same font family for it And it should load It should load a different Oh wait, it doesn't load a different file Let's key It goes 1, this is 2 Right So it loads a different URL And then you can differentiate it Enough of font face Then you should be able to figure out What is being typed out So I kind of forget What is the Character for unicode range 65 So how does this work is that This is hexadecimal So you can read it So for the first 125 It's part of ASCII So you can read it out from ASCII table So 65 Is E So if I type E Over here You can see the request Being sent out And if I type A You don't see it because I didn't add that font But if you type F Then you can see it again Because that is 66 So you can use font You can target an element For font Load a different font For different characters And then that way you kind of know What characters is on the screen Or is being typed into the input And that is Also Being mention And that is the technique That the key logger is using To To basically sniff out What is being typed into the input Sorry So that That concludes all Everything that's being written in the blog That I understand As I understand it Maybe you figure out More things than me Maybe you should share it out with us With me as well So sorry It's like unrehearsal Sorry, I'm streamlined Because It's very cluttered when I was reading this And I was trying different things as well So that is My way of Train of thoughts when I was reading this So if I want to have some summary On what we have gone through Is that firstly The party CSS is not safe It's not as safe as you think So To be safe You can use CSP To load only Files from a trusted source And And then to summarize What kind of vectors or what kind of techniques That you can take it out Is that the first group we covered How to basically modify The website like adding content Remove content Move the content around to To make your website looks as if Broken And the second half of it was talking To start out from the website By reading it through attributes Or loading different font files So that Can figure out what are the characters That is on the screen And that's all from me


Because I want to show you the strategy around pressure and performance. So this comes from Psychology 101 basically and in fact comes from a sports psychology where I understand it, it's pretty old clearly, but what it refers to, and it's still used today, it's such a great graphic. If the more pressure I have, there's a certain amount of pressure that I have that will lead to optimal performance. Yes, on the different axes there, we can see pressure and we can see performance. Sometimes you'll see it written as stress or arousal on that axis and performance always on the Y. Down the bottom on the left hand side where it says low, no, I'm asleep. I'm dead. I'm unconscious. Yeah, no, no pressure, no activity, no stress, no performance, zero. So every one of us needs a little bit of pressure, a little bit of stress. Yeah, for our performance to start to go up. But there is this sort of optimal space that we that we're operating. You can see it. You guys can read it on there. And that's at the top of the invertebrate. Yeah, there's this optimal zone. There's an ideal zone. Then there's this optimal zone. But as you can see, the more pressure we get, our performance can start to deteriorate. Yeah, to the point that if we stay in that for long periods of time, we can we can end up in a space of burnout. I think of 40. How topical actually rugby? I'm a Newcastle girl. So yeah, New South Wales. Good for those of us that are watching it tonight. But you know, back in the old days, there's this young people in the room, you may not be back in the old days, they'd have this thing and they would all run out onto the paddock.  And the first couple of minutes of a game is everyone's really hyped up. What do we see? We see a punch on. Yeah, you can see it in some of the players. They're so over so much pressure that their performance has started to deteriorate. They've kind of lost control, kind of gets out of their system. And then they come back and we get to watch 75 minutes of good footy. Yeah, but we can see that when we get over over excited. Our performance can deteriorate. We can see that we get too much pressure and we don't know how to regulate that, don't know how to bring that back, have too much pressure. So if I if I said to you guys right now on the precious scale, using those as anchors, where would you put yourself on that on that today at this moment in time? Where would you where would you put yourself? Hi, I'm Amy Golding, Director of Psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute. We hope you liked the video. If you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up. We have more and more videos being released each week. So when you subscribe, you'll get a notification letting you know when a new one's just been published. So make sure to hit that subscribe button and don't miss out on this vital information for yourself, your colleagues and your loved ones.


Good morning, dear student friends. I am Dr. Sachin R. Gengze, Professor and Head, Department of Electronics Engineering at Vulture Institute of Technology, Sholapur. In today's session, we are going to have a look at some of the applications of open loop operational amplifier. The learning outcomes of this session include, after completing the session, the student will able to give an input signal for open loop non-inverting op-amp, sketch the output waveform for the same circuit. Similarly, given an input signal for open inverting operational amplifier, they can sketch the output waveform for that circuit. The content of this session include, we are going to have a look at open loop non-inverting configuration of op-amp. Similarly, open loop inverting configuration of an op-amp and then we will just have an introduction to open loop differential operational amplifier. As we already know, operational amplifier, which is also popularly called as an op-amp, is directly coupled high gain amplifier. It is available as a single chip or integrated circuit. It is a very versatile device and it can be used for amplifying DC as well as AC signal. It can also be used for numerous application to perform mathematical operation like addition, subtraction, multiplication, integration on analog signals. It can also be used for applications like designing oscillators, active filter, comparator, regulators and many more. This is a symbolic representation for op-amp. This is particularly for op-amp 741. As we know, there are two input terminals, inverting input and non-inverting input and there is one output terminal which is pin number 6 and op-amp require dual power supply of plus VCC and minus VEE. Let us compare the ideal and a practical op-amp based on different parameters. For example, voltage gain. For ideal op-amp, the voltage gain is infinite, but for practical op-amp it is not infinite, but a very large usually between 10 raise to 5 to 10 raise to 8. We say that the input resistance of an ideal op-amp is infinite, but for practical op-amp again it cannot be infinite, but it is between 10 raise to 6 to 10 raise to 12 ohm. The output resistance of an ideal op-amp is supposed to be 0, but in practical case a typical value of an output resistance of an op-amp like 741 is of 75 ohm which is very less. We say that the bandwidth of an ideal op-amp is infinite, but practically we know that that is not possible and a practical op-amp has again bandwidth product which is finite. Output offset voltage of an ideal op-amp is supposed to be 0, but in case of practical op-amp it is not 0, but it is of few milliholt. So, that is a comparison between an ideal op-amp and a practical op-amp. After that let us have a look at how a typical open loop op-amp works. If we say that V1 is a voltage applied to non-inverting terminal of an op-amp with respect to ground, V2 is the voltage applied to inverting terminal of the op-amp with respect to ground and if we are measuring V0 as an output voltage of an op-amp with respect to ground and A is an open loop gain of an op-amp, the working of an open loop op-amp can be very easily described by an equation of V0 is equal to A into V1 minus V2. In other words, the output voltage is equal to the differential voltage between the inverting and non-inverting terminal multiplied by the voltage gain. So, what happened because of this? As we know V1 is an non-inverting input, V2 is an inverting input, V0 is an output voltage and A is the gain. Now is this A is an open loop gain of an op-amp and it is very, very high. For example, in case of 741 it is equal to 200,000 and it as it is very much high what we can say that even a small differential when we apply a very small differential voltage that is difference between non-inverting and inverting input, even a small differential voltage will make the output of the op-amp very high. For example, if the difference between the V1 V2 is 1 volt and A is equal to 200,000, one can say that the output voltage is equal to 200,000 but we know that practically it is not possible to get 200,000 voltage. So, we say that whenever we say that the output of the op-amp is very high it is equal to or rather it is limited by plus or minus saturation voltage. For an open loop op-amp let us remember golden rules and what are the golden rules? See if you look at the equation V0 is equal to A into V1 minus V2 then from this we can derive two golden rule if V1 is greater than V2 that means the non-inverting input voltage even if it is slightly greater than inverting voltage then the output of the op-amp V0 is plus saturation voltage or plus Vsat. Similarly, if inverting input voltage is even slightly greater than non-inverting input voltage then the output of the op-amp is equal to minus Vsat and what is plus Vsat and minus Vsat plus Vsat is usually equal to or lesser than plus Vcc and minus Vsat is usually greater than or equal to minus Vee. So, we know we know that plus Vcc and minus Vee are the supply respectively positive and negative supply voltages of the op-amp. Let us have a look at the first circuit open loop non-inverting op-amp. So, if you why this is called as a non-inverting op-amp is simply because the inverting input is connected to the ground we are applying a voltage a sinusoidal voltage or a triangular voltage or a square wave voltage to the non-inverting input of the op-amp. So, what can be the output of this circuit? Let us have a look. So, as you can see over here the same circuit is again represented over here what I am applying at the non-inverting input is a square wave. Now how to find out the output of this circuit? Now output of this circuit finding out the output of this circuit is very easy. See the non-inverting input is connected to the ground and the golden rule say that whenever the non-inverting input is greater than inverting input the output is plus Vsat and when the non-inverting input is less than inverting input then the output is minus Vsat. So, for this for this half cycle the inverting non-inverting input is greater than the inverting input because the inverting input is always connected to 0. So, for the first half cycle the non-inverting input is greater. So, you can see that I am applying a triangular wave at the V in and that is why the output of the op-amp remains to be plus Vsat. Similarly, during this half cycle what happened? During this half cycle the inverting input is still 0 whole, but the non-inverting input now becomes negative and as it is a negative the inverting input which is 0 volt is greater than non-inverting input and that is why the output of the op-amp is minus Vsat. So, as you can see that if I apply a triangular wave at the input the output of the op-amp is going to be a square wave which is limited between plus Vsat and minus Vsat. This circuit is called as a zero crossing detector because you can see that I can locate the point where the input is crossing the zero level. Now, you can pause the video for some time and answer one question. In an open loop non-inverting op-amp circuit that which we have seen what happened if we apply plus one whole to the inverting input. So, in the previous circuit we have seen that the inverting input is connected to 0 whole, but instead of that what happened if I connect it to plus one whole or minus one whole. So, I think that you are you will be now able to draw the output waveform when I am applying when I for this particular circuit you have to simply apply the two golden rules which I have discussed. So, as you can see if I apply instead of applying instead of connecting the inverting terminal to zero if I connect a plus one volt over here I can see that the reference line will shift over here and then I will get a waveform like this. Now, this circuit is called as a level detector instead of zero crossing detector is called as a level detector because it is detecting a particular level of plus one whole. Let us go to the next circuit which is called as an open loop inverting op-amp. Now, this circuit differs from the previous circuit as now I am applying the input signal to the inverting input and the non-inverting input is now connected to the ground and then I need to find out the output voltage. Now, again for analyzing this circuit or for drawing the output of this circuit again I have to apply the same golden rule we say that if non-inverting input is greater than the inverting input then the output is plus V sat and if inverting input is greater than non-inverting input then the output is minus V sat. So, you can see that for this particular half cycle where the inverting input is greater because non-inverting is connected to zero the output is minus V sat and for this the inverting input is less than non-inverting because non-inverting is zero but inverting is negative the output is plus V sat. So, again I get a square wave. The last circuit which we will try to discuss is called as a differential amplifier. Now, you can look it over here in previous circuit one of the terminal inverting or non-inverting terminal was connected to ground and the signal was applied to the other terminal but in this case now we can see that the input is applied to inverting as well as non-inverting terminal both the terminals the input is applying this particular configuration of open loop of amp is called as a differential amplifier. Now, again in order to calculate or in order to draw the output of this circuit we need to apply two golden rule it depend upon what kind of signal you are applying over here what is a voltage level but output is going to be a square wave and I have to apply again the same golden rule of if non-inverting input is greater output is plus V sat if inverting input is greater output is negative V sat. So, with that we come to the end of this session and I am I am leaving you with two points to be discussed can you think of some more applications of op amp in open loop you have seen three application inverting amplifier non-inverting amplifier and differential amplifier. So, can you think of some more applications of open loop op amp and why is such applications are limited when you try to explore the answer of first question will come you may think that there are not many applications of the op amp than the zero crossing detector or a level level detector and why it is so that these kind of applications of op amp in open loop configuration are limited. The reference for today's session you can have with op amp and linear integrated circuit by Ramakan Gaiakwar and LIC linear integrated circuit by Roy Chaudhary and Shail B. Chai. Thank you dear student for patient listening.


This is Stink Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner, Mrs. Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000-year odyssey. So tell me news of that planet, of many resources, which wonder far and wide the ancient plant of food, fuel, fiber, cultivated for millennia. As we venture through the past 10,000 years, we will explore and discover the plant of which cannabis derives, the many uses of the plant, hemp, cannabis, ashes, cannabis and religion, cannabis and medicine, cannabis and Gerald Uncle Sam. And so our odyssey begins. Today, our odyssey is not long ago and far away. It's current and in progress. It is needless to say Uncle Sam still has a part to play, but we're going to forget about sessions. Today, we are going to visit with my dear friend, and everybody that watches knows I only talk to dear friends, House of Representatives, majority leader from the Hawaii State House of Representatives, Della Albalates. Welcome, Della. Thank you so much. We've been trying to get her for months. Thank you for having me here. Thank you for being persistent. Yes. Thank you for coming. Della was in the lead or spearheaded this whole thing of cannabis dispensaries. Yes. And so needless to say, the day that the first dispensary opened, she was standing there and I said, now I need to talk to you. She says, OK, call me. Well, we have calls. Thank you so much for coming. Tell us about Della, though, first. I represent urban Honolulu, Makiki, Makali, parts of Manoa, Tantless, all of Tantless, Papakulaya, Pavao, and really urban Honolulu. Can you imagine walking that district? I have walked this district. It's certainly, I love my district. It has great disparity and diversity, but it's a wonderful place to live and raise my kids. So I have two kids, both attend public school. I enjoy being in the legislature as well as public service. It is great. How long have you been in the legislature? Since 2006. So I'll be going into my 13th year. Oh my goodness.  Every two years, yes. So now you're up for re-election again? Yes. And for anybody that doesn't know the election, primary election is Saturday, August 11, and there's no excuse not to vote. Absolutely no excuse. No excuse. No. And there's so much at stake. People say, oh, there's nothing to vote for. Well, yes, there is. There always is. There is. And especially in the cannabis industry. So tell us about the cannabis and this medical cannabis. Medical cannabis. So Hawaii was actually one of the leading states. We were the first state to, through legislation, approve the medical use and recognize the medical use of cannabis. I believe California was the first state to do it by initiative. We unfortunately did not have dispensaries until we were able to pass a bill in 2015. So dispensaries are only something new. And what's happened here in Hawaii is that for medical cannabis for a long period of time, it's been solely by personal grow. Or you could designate a patient, a qualified patient could designate a caregiver who could grow and cultivate for them. But now we have both. We have both. People can continue to grow for themselves individually in places where there are no dispensaries. The ability of caregivers to cultivate is continuing for some time, although we do see some point without phasing down with just the cultivation part of it. And then we have dispensaries as an option. What do you mean phasing down the cultivation? How can that be? So, you know, we've preserved and ensured that personal grow will continue because that's something that, you know, people can take care of their medicine. I think the concern about caregiver cultivations continuing is that we now have the medical cannabis dispensaries and we have a cultivation and production system there. So it's just one way to regulate the market. Again, I think, you know, we don't necessarily foresee dispensaries opening up on the more isolated islands like Molokai and Lanai. So, you know, there's concerns that, you know, we're going to have to continue cultivation. But even on Oahu, there are far away places, you know, the North Shore, for instance. Sure. So, you know, I really want to emphasize that we recognize, and I think the state has recognized that personal grow, the individual being able to grow for themselves is something that will be recognized, you know, going forward. But I think, you know, the real concern is that we see the proliferation and we're watching very carefully all of the states that have medical cannabis as well as recreational cannabis. And I think the concern is if the market should be regulated, it needs to be regulated because while it is a safe plan, you know, there's lots of things that when you grow things, there's lots of things that could be introduced. And so we really want to make sure that the product that is getting to our cannabis patients is quality and safe. Well, given what can be in the ground, you know, like the same thing for lettuce and all these other things that we grow and the water, how do you know? Well, except in the control area for the dispensary, but for regular growers at home. That is the real concern. So I think, you know, when we opened up the dispensaries, we acquired lab testing. Right. And now patients can actually go and take their own products because we have authorized the testing of patients' own homegrown cannabis at the labs. And I think what's sometimes stunning is that, you know, the discovery of mold and heavy metals because you can't avoid those things in an environment like Hawaii in your own personal homegrown system. That's not to say that all of the personally grown cannabis has those impurities, but that's been the concern. So I think we now know better because we have lab testing facilities. Do we have them all over the island or do you have to come bring your product to this? Sure. So we have lab testing facilities, I believe, on Oahu and Maui, I believe, has some. So one of the things that we've done is... Just one or some? I think the last I checked, I believe there were either two or three... On Oahu. Yeah, two or three that were operating and I'm not sure... I'm thinking about people away from King Street. Sure. So one of the things that we did was we don't recognize intra-island transport of cannabis by patients yet. We have allowed in the law though a limited exception so that dispensaries can transport via intra-island air travel for testing purposes only. Even though we don't have lab facilities on every island, the dispensaries can transport for limited purposes to other lab facilities if they don't have a lab facility on their island. And so, again, back to the country of the windward side, North Shore, Haleva, Wai'anae, all these people have to come to King Street. So the dispensaries on each island or the dispensary licensees, they have an opportunity to open up two retail locations. So on the island of Oahu, we're talking of... If you have three dispensary license, we're talking up to six dispensary locations. Most of the dispensary locations currently are concentrated in the urban Honolulu area, but I believe that there might be plans to expand to other areas. You know, it's really though they have to find the right site. There's, again, a lot of regulations about where... What are the regulations about where they can be? They have to be a certain distance from schools. They need to have certain security measures. I think one of the things that we found early on, and it might be changing now, you know, there were some landowners who were not comfortable with allowing cannabis to be on their properties. And it's understandable because, you know, at the federal level cannabis is still not recognized. And so people are taking risks. But finding the right places has been, I think, a challenge for the dispensaries, and yet they're still moving forward with their plans. That's great. Tell us about the reciprocity. So this year, this legislative session... What is reciprocity? So reciprocity is really allowing qualified out-of-state patients to be able to purchase in-state. And what we know is that there are people traveling from other states, and they use medical cannabis in their states. And so we want to encourage their ability to also access their medicine here. They technically cannot transport. They're not supposed to be able to transport their cannabis, their medicine with them. So we want to be sure to open up that market for our dispensaries. And I think, you know, it's important because we are a compassionate state, and we want people to come and visit. And if they, you know, like any other medicine, they should have access to their medicine. So we want to make sure that it's safe. It's been a balance, though, because we also know that we want to make sure that there's enough supply for our in-state patients. And so that was some of the conversation this year. But, you know, I believe our dispensaries, they can operate, and they want to be able to serve out-of-state patients. And so we want to be a destination that recognizes wellness, and we want to make it a welcoming state. So we do want to open up this channel. So has that passed? This session in Act 116, recently signed by the governor, we have set forward the requirements for that. It's still going to take some time because the Department of Health has to implement all the regulations. But we've given them the framework to do that. Two years ago, or three years ago, we had authorized them to start doing it. So we really want the Department of Health to get going on this. They've been awfully slow. Yes, they have been, but, you know, we have asked them to bring up an industry that has to be highly regulated. Could they be faster? Yes. Yes, I think this session, another thing we did was we created an office of cannabis, I believe, office of cannabis regulation and control. And so what we did was we combined the registry program for our patients as well as dispensary program into one office that will operate separately. So before it had been kind of dispersed. So we tried to streamline it and give them more flexibility as well as more staffing so that they can execute on the work that they need to do. Yes, they've been slow about everything. So tell me now, once the reciprocity, we have an issue, people coming, I mean, I don't have an issue with tourists, but this payment of cash. So many tourists come with cash. You know, they're used to writing with the debit or credit card. And why is it that everything is in cash? Well, there continues to be challenges with banking. And unfortunately, that's going to require a federal fix and the federal government passing some legislation to allow for the transfer of money because it's interstate, you know, and all that kind of stuff. The solution that we've come up with here, I believe, does allow people to use cash or to some kind of debit card. But there is, you know, unfortunately, we still have to work with that. And so, you know, people do bring cash with them. They can access their ATM machines. You know, it would be great if we could have more credit card transactions, but it's just something that the industry and it's happening in all of the places where they have. Either recreational or medical cannabis. They're struggling with this issue. So couldn't the state open or private open? Not a bank, but like a credit card. You know how the credit card. I mean, not the credit credit union or community, but not call it a bank, but somehow that you could have this so that the owner of the facility wouldn't have all this cash at the end of the day. There have been suggestions that we can do that. So I think there are people creatively looking at those kinds of options. The real fix, though, and I think, you know, again, with every election, I think as more and more states take on medical cannabis, the pressure to find and come up with a federal fix for the banking problems will emerge. So I'm more hopeful for that. We could engage in trying to create a state bank or a state credit union, but those those still face the same challenges of the current banking situation. What now when you know we have this this issue of money. The thought that I would have all of this cash to go in to a facility, the security. I know that facilities are secure, but what about the patient that comes out and walks to their car or gets on the bus? All of those things that especially older people. I think those are real concerns that I would imagine that the dispensaries on their properties, you know, are very concerned about that too. You know, in other states, we haven't seen the kind of crime emerge around the cannabis dispensaries as some thought that would emerge. So, you know, we have to be concerned about that. You know, the state was really concerned about how they were going to take in all that amount of cash in taxes. And so, and I know the dispensaries have also been very concerned about having those kinds of large amounts of cash also on site. So, you know, people have been taking the appropriate measures. And so that again, that's another reason why regulation is so important. You know, we wanted to we want to ensure that this is their safe transactions and people are safe. We can't protect against everything. But I think, you know, people have to be smart about when they're transporting their own and be safe. Now, we put up a big fight against the governor and the opiate bill. Yes. Of which he vetoed. Yes. And I've broken hearted because we did, did all we could. What, why was the veto? Now, I read the bill and it said that it was an amendment to the definition. So why the veto? So, you know, when the law was first enacted, the Department of Health in 2000 was authorized actually to add qualifying conditions and to amend it so that it could be more inclusive of other uses for the medical cannabis and recognizing other medical uses. They didn't start activating that process until we passed the bill in 2015 for medical cannabis in part, because in 2000, it was the Department of Public Safety that really had authority over medical cannabis. I think we've seen a sea change now that the Department of Health has authority. They've actually authorized additional qualifying conditions. And so I think I understand the governor's veto. You know, it would have been he could have easily just taken our legislation and passed it, but I think we now have an administrative process that works. Now, if that process fails in light of all of the findings and research that we now do have that medical cannabis can be a replacement for opioid addiction and opioid therapies that maybe, you know, then that's when the public should come back to the legislature. But I think we should allow that administrative process to occur because really at the legislature we should be looking at the larger policy issues. And at some point in time, really, we have to ensure and defer that the executive has the ability and the staffing and the resources to do what they need to do in accordance with best practices. Well, now the governor of Hawaii is the most quote, most powerful governor in all 50 states with 18 departments under his purview. That's a big job. Yes. And the health department seems somehow to run amok to do whatever they do without anybody from the top saying, hey, wait a minute, slow down. They even got what was it with the health care? I mean, a nursing home that the fed said you aren't doing a good job because they only had nine examiners. Where is it from the top that says, hey, we need to fix this? So what happens in from what it says that he is supposed to do or she or whatever to what actually happens down in the department? Sure. You know, the Department of Health has a lot of responsibility. And I think with the cannabis dispensaries, we expect it a lot from them. Could they have done things faster? Sure. But they wanted to be careful. I think now that we've reorganized and we've given them more flexibility over both the registry program, so the patients as well as the dispensaries, we're going to, I hope to see more efficient use of resources. They were short staffed for a long time. So a lot of it is about staffing. You know, I think the governor is allowing for this to go forward. The new director is supportive, I believe. So I think we really have to keep pushing on all the advances we've made. Okay, now we need to take a break. Okay. And we'll be back in a minute. Yes. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Do you want to be cool? If so, watch my show on Tuesdays at one called Out of the Comfort Zone. I sang this song to you because I think you either are cool or have the potential to be seriously cool. And I want you to come watch my show where I bring in experts who talk all about easy strategies to be healthier, happier, build better relationships, and make your life a success. So come sit with the cool kids at Out of the Comfort Zone on Tuesdays at one. See you then. Okay. And we're back. I'm Marsha. And today we are visiting with House Majority Leader, Della Albalates. And we are talking about cannabis. So, tell us about, you know, there's so many questions that patients have. Certainly. Once they get the card, then what? What happens? So, every year they have to recertify their card. And one of the things that we did this year was in Act 116, we authorized the extension of the written certification for debilitating conditions for up to three years for chronic conditions. Every year we come back and we look at ways that we can improve the law. And there's numerous patient-friendly, consumer-friendly provisions that we put in. Another thing that we authorized this year was we're allowing for a bona fide patient-physician relationship to occur by telehealth. So, we know that patients on other islands may not have access to doctors who are willing to certify their medical conditions for the use as a qualifying condition. So, again, those are other things that we've done. A third very important kind of pro-patient thing, two actually, is that we authorized working groups for two very important areas. The first area is regarding reimbursement, insurance reimbursement issues around medical cannabis. That was my next question was, okay, now I go to the doctor and I have this forever ailment, lupus, for instance, MS. Those aren't going to go away. So, what about the insurance Medicare? And I guess Medicare is federal, so that's out. But other insurances? So, that's something that we're going to be struggling with. And, you know, we know that there are actually FDA approved cannabis-based medicines coming on board, right? So, the issue of how are we going to reimburse and pay for these is becoming more and more solidified as something that we need to do something about. So, for the longest time, patients are paying out of pocket and that could be very, very, very expensive. So, you know, we're looking at that. But really, there's a lot of complex issues because insurance, you know, depending on is it federal insurance, federal insurance will not cover it, given the prohibitions at the federal level. So, we have to ask, you know, what are the obstacles and barriers at the other, you know, other levels? And what can the state do to require? There are some states moving forward and then individually some insurance companies may already be honoring some of that, because if they know that it's something that's like replacing opioids that could be costly or other medications, it makes sense for them. But we have to figure out what are the policy obstacles and then see if we can do anything. So, that our audience knows when we talk about opiates and cannabis, the cannabis doesn't cure. No. It just alleviates as you are stepping down from your habit. It keeps you sane. It helps you step down to kick that habit. It isn't, what is it? A supplemental. It is not the cure. So, that we want to keep that straight and the audience doesn't think. Sure. Sure. I think it's really something, you know, the use of cannabis should be used in consultation with a physician. That's what's required right now. A healthcare provider needs to help people navigate it. So, that is in the requirement. You know, there's one other area that we are looking at and we created a working group and that's around employment issues. And when patients, qualified patients who we know are functioning and they can function in the workplace, cannabis allows them to function and be productive. They're concerned about being... A dirty pee test. Yes. Yes. So, you know, we're looking at those issues. Again, other jurisdictions are struggling with it. We have had a long history of zero tolerance. So, really, we need to come to grips with that. And so, there's lots of challenges there. But because medical cannabis is recognized and we have more and more patients coming on board, it's going to become more and more of an issue for our employers. I know that the big, what do you call those things, professional ball-playing groups, basketball, football, they recognize that their players get hurt and that they can use this. Yes, they're recognizing it. You know, there's lots of issues and people can function better. They're still safe. Really, it's about, are they operating under the influence and are they dangerous? And certainly, we do not want people who are under the influence of any drugs in situations. So, we have to look at that carefully. Yeah. Because we have to look at alcohol, which is legal, and that's worse, far worse, to your body. And cigarettes are legal. So, we've got to look at, I think that, now, can we do this safely, I guess is my question, because we're not doing it safe with alcohol other than tax it. So, I had one more question for you, and now it's gone, as old age is it. What next? Where do you go from here? You know, I think we have to continue to monitor what's happening. And every year, there is a push to recognize recreational, basically legalize cannabis for all uses. I think we need to look at that. We need to keep having the conversation. I do think, though, that Hawaii is on the right track, because what we see in other jurisdictions when they quickly go to recreational, then sometimes the needs of medical cannabis patients are lost. And really, we need to make sure, because this started, and it really is about getting quality, safe medication to patients who really need this. You know, I know cancer patients who are benefitting from medical cannabis. We know children with epilepsy can be helped by this. We need to make sure that that is honored, and we create the system that protects the medical use of cannabis. Well, thank you so much. And one last thing, Hawaii is the only state that changed from marijuana to cannabis. Was that your idea? You know, I have to say that it was representative Cynthia Thieland who has really pushed us on that. But, you know, I think all of us have just recognized that it's cannabis, and we should use that term. Thank you so much, Della, for coming and spending this time with us. And we will see you next time.