to our show. We are the voice for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I'm your host Barbara DeLuca, founder and president and my co-host is Marisol Ruiz, our co-founder and vice president. Today's guest is Iris Mendoza or Iris. She is a language access coordinator for H-C-I-R. That's the Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights. Welcome to our show, Iris. Thank you for having me here. I'm super excited. Thank you. Of course, you're welcome. Why don't you tell us about yourself, your family, bad friends, and how you ended up in this role? Of course, of course. So first of all, I want to say thank you for inviting me to your show. It's super exciting for me to connect with the Hispanic community here on a walk of a year last year and this year, just kind of finding the Hispanic community after moving here from California four years ago. So a little bit about myself is I'm originally from Orange County, California, Huntington Beach, but I've been coming back and forth to Oahu specifically and other islands in Hawaii for about 11 years just to visit family, visit friends, but I was born and raised over there. So eventually during one of my trips, I met my husband. So I ended up staying here. He is native Hawaiian, so it's really important for him to stay on the island as someone that was born and raised here, not being displaced from his, basically his homeland. So we both made the decision of staying here as long as we can. So I'm here now, but as I transitioned from California to Hawaii, I always lived close to the beach, so that was kind of like the common thing I had with Hawaii, but it was kind of culture shock for me, not seeing so many Latinos at first, not really experiencing that sense of having my family here, not knowing where to go for good Mexican food. So it was kind of a big shock for me when it came to my culture. At the same time, I was embracing the Hawaiian culture head on, kind of going to a lot of culture events with my husband, but I felt like something was missing. So during my time here, when I moved to Hawaii, I was still, I was actually working in a corporate setting for a big company in California. Kind of, I was the underwriter for insurance and kind of underwriting multi-million dollar homes, completely different than what I'm doing now. So going from that, kind of living here and then still working remotely in that corporation, I realized, hey, my heart wasn't all there anymore. I realized like I wanna do something a little bit more fulfilling where I'm actually helping people because my actual passion in life is to kind of advocate for people that are like my parents, their first, their immigrants that came from Mexico and my dad was one of those people that he actually got citizenship through the amnesty he worked in the fields in California all over North Cal and he kind of, he ran from ICE, basically everything. So I know that he faced a lot of struggles with language access, being able to find resources for himself. So, and then me growing up, being their interpreter, it's kind of like, I want other people that are like me that grew up, I want them to understand that, hey, you're not alone. There's like a big sister, I guess I would consider myself a big sister now that can help you help your parents. So, you're the auntie. Yeah, like the auntie, big sister, just you're trying to help our community kind of rise up and know that they're not alone, feel a sense of belonging in Hawaii, of course, remaining respectful to our native Hawaiian brothers and sisters. I think you and Marisol have a lot in common your pathway and... I know, I'm like listening, I'm listening to you and I'm like, everything you're saying is, we're like sisters, but you know, that's a common story with so many first generation Americans, right? Is our, I don't know if it's always our nature, but we evolve to become, I think these people where you want to help others and you want to advocate because that kind of becomes your role from being really, really young. And it just is what it is, right? And it's great because we're helping our families, but sometimes my sister and I sit down and we kind of look back at childhood and we have this conversation and it's like, wow, it was such a burden to carry without realizing that, right? Huge responsibility, knowing about things that sometimes children shouldn't know about or translating things that are just way more, beyond a scope that like, at least in my case, for a child, just too much responsibility, right? But it kind of forces you to step up when you don't know any better, right? And then you do, you find yourself in these roles where you go from insurance and you know that there's something that's more fulfilling because you see and you've lived with people that have needed that kind of help. And I mean, my experience is similar. My mother, I'm first generation American as well. My father immigrated from Mexico and my mother from El Salvador and then I was born in LA and the exact same thing, you know? And they did all of the, you know, working. Yeah. You know, anyways, but yeah. No, yeah, I can tell you would definitely relate. It's, you know, it's a very common story within our community. It is. And you know what's interesting too? I mean, one of the things we don't, I don't think I give ourselves credit enough also for our accomplishments and accolades and things that we do because it seems like it's expected and it's almost normal and it's what we should be doing.  I'm the first to go to college. And I was like, me too, me too in my head, right? But I didn't even think to talk about these things because to me it seems like, I don't know, it's almost expected, right? But yeah, I can totally relate too. I think it's awesome. But how do you make that transition from doing something corporate and you know, an insurance underwriter to something that is more service oriented? I mean, that's a big jump, I think, right? So how does that transition even occur? How does that opportunity come up? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Of course, yes. So the way basically the transition happened after the Maui wildfires, so August 8th, which ironically is also the day I got married. So after that, I realized like that, you know, I noticed that there was a lot of pages on Instagram of Latinos in Maui asking for help. They were saying that they didn't understand the language, that a lot of the resources that were coming, like for example, FEMA, Red Cross, a lot of it was not in language. So I remember kind of going through a lot of Instagram pages and just kind of, I just compelled to me, like I needed to help in a way, but I just didn't know how. So I remember finding Pacific Gateway Centers Instagram and they had a job opening for a Spanish bilingual, Spanish Kukua Navigator for a hotline that they were opening for basically all immigrant communities. So the hotline serves Chupis, Marshallese, Ilocano, Tagalog, Tongan, Spanish. So I remember seeing the job opening and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna jump on it. I don't know if it's something I could do right now, but I am gonna commit myself to it. So I spoke to Torina Wong, she's amazing. And she brought me on board and I started working on that hotline from home, just answering phone calls from fire victims that spoke Spanish. So that's how I transitioned kind of into this field, just working for non-profit, basically from corporate to nonprofit was through that hotline. And through that hotline, I actually was introduced to Liza, which she is the director of the Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights. And then a few months later, you know, we collaborated, she interviewed me and she brought me on as a language access coordinator for them. It was definitely not an easy transition, let's just say that, because usually when it comes to working as an underwriter, you can just turn off your work after you're done, you can just clock out and it's done. You don't have to worry about it till the next day. With this type of work, I would stay up at night all the time trying to balance that transition, just kind of figuring out, hey, how can I help this person that called on the hotline, his whole family passed away? You know, what can I do for him? What kind of resources can I offer him? And he doesn't speak English. And a lot of this information is not in language, what can we do? So working on the hotline, the Immigration Resource Center, a multilingual hotline and working with the coalition, we were kind of able to collaborate ideas on ways to help things to do, but it was definitely not an easy transition, but it was very fulfilling. Just being able to help and just hearing the relief that people got once they called and they would say, hablas español. And I'm like, sí, claro, hablas español. And after their whole life, you know, got taken from them, they either lost their homes or they lost kids. And then for them to hear, like, sí, hablas español, sí, yo soy de México. How can I help you? They would be in tears. They're like, oh my gosh, yo soy de México. I'm Mexican, I don't, you know, I'm scared. We, I don't have, you know, documents. I don't know what to do. So this is the amazing thing about the hotline is it's a safe space. So, you know, we were able to offer resources, kind of refer them to those resources without fear. And then we were able to serve as the people that, you know, would kind of first contact those resources to see if they were in danger of, you know, any type of legal repercussion because of their legal status. So really fulfilling is just a hard transition. I feel a lot better now getting used to it.  Like, I mean, we wouldn't even go to the doctor. Like, I remember I was literally like, my appendix was going to like blow out. And it was like, I took every remedy, T7 up, spray, like everything except going to the hospital because we're under the radar. Well, they were under the radar, right? Oh yeah. So there was this inherent fear of just keeping a low profile, don't ruffle any feathers, don't expose yourself, you know.  How do you find, and how do you know where there's so many others I can imagine that weren't bold and that are still maybe laying low for that fear of potential deportation? So how do you, how do you communicate that? That like you said, you know it's a safe space, right? But how do you really, truly convey that? And how do you reach those other people? Like I can't imagine. Can you talk a little bit about that? Of course, yes. So it takes a lot of courage for people to call. Like you said, it's taking that first step. But the main, the way that we were able to gain people to call was word of mouth. It first starts with establishing trust with the people that called.  We're really thankful that you called. We wanna let you know that we will not disclose your information, we're here to help you. And all the information that you give us today, it's not recorded, it's the safe space. And kind of laying that out for them. And then the main way is word of mouth. They would spread the word to other people because of course, you know, in our community and our Hispanic community, a lot of times people that come straight from Mexico, other Latin American countries, they don't know how to use technology that well. So we couldn't rely solely on technology. So it was mostly letting them know, hey, can you please? Yeah, coconut wireless, yes. Just letting them know to refer us. And then another way that we were able to get the word out for the hotline and for them to call us. And not just the Hispanic community, it was basically going to the Lahaina ourselves and going to these communities, identifying grassroots organizations, such as Roots Reborn, they're amazing. Veronica is someone that's a powerhouse out there helping our community. So identifying organizations and working with them as a coalition and trying to give them those resources, give them in language flyers for them to be able to hand out to the communities that they built trust with. So that's the main way. We had to do it ourselves because it wasn't being advertised on television. We asked a lot of government agencies for help. And unfortunately, the lag was way too big. So we had to do it ourselves. And we flew out to Lahaina countless times to go to the hotels and identify LEP communities and just give them flyers in every language. Can you say LEP? What does that mean? Limited English proficiency. So basically they don't speak English. So we identified them in the hotels. We actually went to hotels, four hotels, and we passed out flyers. And we actually generated some calls for the hotline that way as well. Sounds like trust, understandably, is a huge issue. Would you say are there any other concerning things that you saw happening in the LEP community in Lahaina after the wildfire? Yes, so I think the need for language access is imperative, especially to have a blueprint in Hawaii. It's already the law. It's just the thing is it's not being implemented correctly. So just the coalition we're advocating for language access. Again, even though we shouldn't have to because it's already the law, we noticed a huge lag for the LEP community. Basically when it came to resources from FEMA, any resources basically that were given to wildfire survivors in Maui, a lot of it was not in the languages that people could understand. So a lot of the people didn't, they weren't able to apply for these resources by the deadline. So then it was up to us to kind of try to get extensions for them, try to help them having resource fairs for them to basically come in and have interpreters there. So I think the biggest problem was the lack of language access within our community, especially in disasters. We did one of the days where we went to canvas hotels, myself and the coalition. And we did, the biggest thing that we found was super alarming was, so what triggered me going over there was, I noticed that I was getting a lot of calls from Latinos saying that, hey, where can we get free food? We're staying at the hotels that are paid for by FEMA and the Red Cross. And then I said, hey, you guys should be getting free food at the hotels. What's going on? And then they were saying that they didn't have food, they didn't have money for food. So what we did is we organized the trip out there and we actually went into the cafeterias where the food is supposed to be served and the food was being served. That wasn't the issue. There was plenty of food, but the information was not in language. So, and the check-in process was not in language, meaning it was not in Spanish. It was not in other languages that people could understand. So when people were checking in, there was no kind of written material that said, hey, la comida empieza a las tres de la tarde. It didn't give a schedule of free food when the food started, nothing. Or it was free. They see people. Or it was free. You know, do we have to pay for it? There's so many questions that are not answered. Exactly, so that was not in language. So that was really hard to see because I know for a fact that there was people in that hotel that were hungry. And we spoke to multiple people. Us, the coalition, were very, very persistent pushing people to get answers. So we actually went over to Red Cross and we said, hey, what's going on with the check-in process? What's going on? These people need to have in-language materials to tell them when the food is being served because we're getting calls on Oahu saying that they're hungry. So we try to coordinate with them several times. It's just, again, it's a lot of advocacy that we have to do because they are not, basically they, we're still, just sadly, we're still working on communicating with them so we can get them those pamphlets in-language. So they still haven't been responsive, yeah. It's creating those strategic partnerships with the other organizations, the Red Cross and FEMA. So you're all on the same page, right? Sounds like when the FBI comes in and takes over a police investigation like, okay, move over, we're here. But you need to be on the same page, especially, like you said, it's the law. So it's not a privilege, it's a right. Yeah. No, and that's, it's true. Language access is definitely not a privilege. It's a right. So we were advocating for that because if there's no language access, especially during emergency situations, people can lose their lives. They can lose their entire livelihood and it can ruin their lives. And a lot of people were kind of pushing back, saying, oh, well, this is, you know, there's always that argument. This is America. They have to speak, you know, whether it's Spanish or they have to speak English. They're not just talking about the Latino community. People are talking about like Filipino, other, you know, other communities. So we understand. There's no language. So it's, you know, it's a beautiful thing to be able to speak two languages. Exactly. So I think, you know, right now our biggest priority is to push for language access just because we saw how devastating it was to our communities, you know, whether it was Marshall East communities, Filipino community, Hispanic community, a lot of our people fell through the crack. And it was really hard to see that just because the, you know, just because the resources were not in Spanish, translated in Spanish, that they missed out on opportunities to apply for, you know, for things that they qualified for. I have a question. So when you say two questions, when you say language access, do you mean primarily like we're trying to translate documents, like make whatever information's there in the respective languages, right? Is that what you mean by language access or just before the, okay, so like translating, because, you know, when I'm sitting here, I'm listening and it's a little heartbreaking because everything is information, right? In any field, he who has the information has the power and the resources can be sitting there for your taking. And if you don't know they're there, it doesn't even matter, right? Exactly. You kind of provide that information because the stuff's there, basically. Am I correct? Exactly, everything. Yeah, you're completely right. All the resources were there. It was just, there was a lot, you know, FEMA did have interpreters, thankful for that, but there wasn't enough of them. There was interpreters available, but there wasn't enough. The lag to get a document pushed out and translated took way too long. Just kind of put our communities behind. And as you know, with our communities, it's very, it's a lot of hand holding, not because they don't know or they're not smart. It's because it's a whole different culture. A lot of fear goes into it, a lot of trust building. And so, you know, I think moving forward for if we, I think with the coalition, we're working on a blueprint for something to avoid anything like this happening again, because it's, again, I saw everything kind of unfolding and oh my goodness, this wouldn't happen anywhere else. It was insane.  So there's something awesome about that, I get it. But when you come from a space of wanting to advocate and help people, how are you, have you been handling? I can't, I'm an extraordinarily emotional person.  So how do you handle a situation like that where, I mean, you went from one end of the spectrum to the other where, I mean, you're dealing with disasters and loss of life and homes and how have you been able to navigate and deal with that because you can't turn it off, right?  I think just separating sympathy from empathy, just making the, you know, just learning the difference. And then also using that empathy as fuel not so much as like feeling hopeless, using it as fuel to say, hey, no, esto no va a pasar para la otra vez. We're gonna keep pushing forward, we're gonna push bills, we're gonna do everything we can to avoid the situation. Kind of having like a five minute pity party and moving forward has been like my biggest thing.  It's okay.  And that was a lot. So kind of learning to set boundaries of what people, you know, what I'm willing to see and just kind of, yeah, again, using my empathy as fuel, just moving forward and balancing my life, going to the beach a lot has helped. And then again, you can never really turn it off, which is kind of, I guess it's the beauty because it fuels the passion, but kind of just using everything I'm seeing as fuel to advocate, I guess that's how I'm balancing. That's a great question. Still working on it, yeah. It's hard, I'm still working on it. It's a huge jump, but I think I'm doing a lot better. But yes. Can you tell us what resources are available or for the LA? Of course, why? Of course, so we, so a lot of people don't know, but Pacific Gateway Center has a center here on Oahu. They're actually in Honolulu on Umi Street. They offer a lot of resources for immigrants. So they offer shelter, housing assistance, clothing, food, healthcare. They offer employment or in entrepreneur services. The big thing that they offer is immigration legal services at low cost, which is really, really helpful. They also have a language, a Hawaii language bank. So if you ever need interpreters, they actually have a language bank that you can use. Organizations or businesses can actually use and hire interpreters through there. They also have resources. They can refer you to religious or spiritual, basically any needs that you have, whether it's religious or spiritual, they can kind of connect you with those spaces. They do a lot of outreach events and interpretation and translation services. So that's a huge one that I wanted to highlight. And they actually have a Pacific Gateway Center actually has a brand new office. It's a satellite office on Maui. So I recommend anyone on Maui going there, especially if they were affected by the wildfires. Are there any events coming up that you guys can share? So right now we're working on a COFA outreach event. So basically Micronesian community event. We're still working on it, but I will definitely keep you updated about any events we have. But for now, yeah. How can people find you and what's going on in the community? Of course. So the best way to keep up with us would be our Instagram. I know that I sent you the link. So it can possibly be found in the description, but it's h-i-c-i-r-c-i-r. And then that's our Instagram.  Is there anything you want to add before we end this wonderful conversation? Of course. I mean, listen, we could keep going. We have like 25 more questions to ask. I know. We don't have enough time, which is awesome. So we're definitely going to have to have you back. But yeah, is there anything you'd like to end with? We leave the floor to you, Iris. Yes. So if anyone watching ever needs any assistance, whether if you're Latino, Hispanic, from a different background, you can contact us, contact the coalition. We can refer you to the many organizations that we work with and we can get you the help you need. Even if we don't know the answer, we're going to find the answer for you. You're not alone and we're here to help you. Navigate, living in Hawaii. Thank you. Thank you. That was so much great information. Thank you. Perfect. Yep. This is... Thank you guys. With Iris Mendoza, with HCIR, the Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights. And we'll be back in two weeks. Thank you for joining us today on Ola y Eloha and thank you to Think Tech Hawaii, Eloha. Gracias. Gracias. Thank you.


and welcome to another Dead Mission Live. As you can see in our chat right now, we have people from all over the planet and that makes me very excited. I'm always happy to see so many people coming in from India and South America and Europe and of course North America here in the United States where we are even up in Canada. So welcome to all of you here. We actually have a bunch of great content to talk about today. We're going to be showing you more about the serverless capability that we actually started just two weeks ago. Just hopefully you know that you're getting this Dead Mission Live content about twice a month. You'll get an email from me that basically talks about what's coming next, but just keep looking for us to keep coming out about twice a month with these great shows. Today we have Kamesh Sampath. He's coming to us from India also and he's going to be walking us into the next layer of serverless architecture with the Kubernetes and OpenShift capability that you guys hopefully know and love. And of course how does a Java developer engage some of this content? How do they build their first serverless functions? So Kamesh we're ready for you. Go ahead and take it away. Thank you so much for hello everyone. So I'm really going to share my screen for you guys. So just quickly get started and it's going to be more of a demo than slides from my side. So here we go. So I guess you guys are seeing my screen now. So just a quick start of window like I'm just showing you a couple of things. So the first two things you see on my screen are those tutorials which you can learn by yourself. And the last one is the link, the big link is for the slide deck that I'm going to run through you today. So my slides are not going to be really fast. I'm just going to hit only a few content and then I'm just going to quickly jump into demos, show things how it works actually for us. And just a quick intro about myself. This is what I am. I think you can pick up from my slides and then I have an active contributor to OpenBisk and Eclipse Chain Fabricate platform and paid-up vertex band plugin. And I work with Burr as part of the team and as a director of developer experience at Red Hat. And I'm really happy to see you and meet you developers and talk to you guys today. Just quickly about serverless quick, very short definition from CNCF. So what serverless is all about just quickly a couple of words saying that you do not require server management. This doesn't mean that I don't have my servers running all the time for me. It's all based on demand. And another one is like, I just need to write what I need to do just a small function and just get deployed onto your application server. And quickly on to the serverless cloud-related landscape. This is what CNCF right now defines and we have three big players here. You could see OpenBisk, you could see AWS, you could see Azure and then there are a bunch of frameworks like Spring Cloud Functions and AWS has as well as serverless. And then you should keep getting across all these frameworks, platform and other staff and each and every day when you start doing it serverless. And I'm just going to leave that to you. And today we are going to see how we have OpenBisk and how to play with OpenBisk on Kubernetes or OpenChift. So why do we need to do serverless? This is an interesting thing. I just got this data a couple of weeks back saying that why do I need serverless? The serverless gives you automatic scalability cost reduction because I don't have need to be running it every time. And then it gives you a better quicker and easier development because I'm just going to develop only my function, which is my business logic for the entire other thing, which might not be mostly needed by the developers. And then it increases your developer agility. We'll see how quickly we develop functions, how quickly we change. But still it's a measuring technology. So we might have a side effects as of now because still tools are measuring on that side. So it's a pretty bugging, it's getting hard. And then deployment and architectural capability, I think Bird covered a very nice session on how do we complement microservices with serverless in the last fortnight? And then I think this gives you a better picture on saying like whether I need to go with serverless or I need to go with I mean microservices. So it's always complements each other. And there is no vendor locking it's typically with respect to OpenVisk. I'll talk about it in a couple of minutes now. And then it doesn't have any kind of monitoring right now. So right now the big players are Lambda, AWS, Lambda and Azure Functions. And IBM Functions is coming catching up with things. And then we, as part of Red Pack, we're doing the top of Apache OpenVisk and then getting it deployed on I mean, that open chip platform to give you a fully functional function as a service platform. All right. So why do we go OpenVisk? Just to pick into about OpenVisk is still an open source product incubating under Apache.  All I need is that I just need to have a platform where I can Docker could be run. And then right now we are going to see how I'm going to deploy that on Kubernetes and OpenShift. And we already have something running on it. I'll show you how it looks when it's actually deployed on OpenShift. And quickly, a very quick intro about some of the theory which we'll come across. I'll be using them and I'm doing my demo. I'll be talking to you about, I'll be saying that I'm deploying an action. So action on nothing but is a core entity of any serverless platform which gives you a stateless code snippet written in any functional language. Just talk about JavaScript, Java or Python, Go or anything you do. And that gets executed. So what is, what's the next one is a package. You can just, it's a kind of logical grouping of functions. And then where we set some parameters, default parameters and make the application functions pick up from the default parameters as well. Okay. Quickly on feeds. This is a very interesting part of any serverless programming language feed. It gives you an interface between event sources and an open disk action which basically like this triggers. For example, I have a message broker putting a message in a queue and then your function is picking up there when executing that. So if we have time and today, like I would love to show you that demo where I have a function over messaging. So it's typically simulating an ESP kind of a scenario for you. And then triggers, triggers are nothing but the action, the signals of external level. Let's say I drop a message, what should not happen or which trigger needs to be triggered, right? So that's what this trigger is all about. And then if you've got rules, I need to have something which ties my trigger to an action, right? Which action needs to be involved with this trigger is called. So that's what rule does basically. And finally, we have activation. Activation is nothing but the records of output response of running action because mostly open disk actions or serverless action are asynchronous. So what I basically need to do is like I need to know what happened to my action. If the action failed, I need to see the structure. This is my action trend. What's the output of my action? So all these things has to be seen later part of time for auditing on any kind of purpose. That's what activation basically do. So we'll see about that as a lesson in the demo. I'll just show you how this do. These are the tools that's right now available for us on the tooling side of OpenWisp. The first one is WSK, which is called as OpenWisp CLI. So this is what we'll be using mostly in today's demo and the rest of the other one. Then you also have a main archetype which is to generate Java actions. So since I'm a Java guy, I'll be showing you most of my actions on Java. So we'll show you how this app tells you to create an actions on thing. And then there are a couple of other things like this deploy, which is again a tool from Apache OpenWisp and there's a serverless framework, which is again a third party framework, not part of Apache umbrella, but you could use that as well to build cross-function which can be deployed across AWS as your OpenWisp and any kind of platform. Quickly, the invocation patterns. I just want to really quickly cover these are three basic invocation patterns for any serverless architecture to be so one is asynchronous just by default. So all functions are asynchronous. We trigger it and then if I get it and it keeps running and we go back and check with using your activation log. And synchronous, I can still make my function work synchronously. So you see one example of web action where I can have an HTTP wallet to invoke the functions. For some time, we might need to use it synchronously. So that's where synchronous function comes into picture. And the third one is getting something similar to your current job so I can have some function executed at this point of the time, at this point of the day kind of stuff. Fantastic. So this is our OpenWisp is architected. The OpenWisp can have an engineering controller. As we see all these components, it's all back and containers which is running inside Kubernetes on any kind of a platform which you have. So engineering is right in the entry point. I'll show you that every call that I make even using the best CLI tool is always going to be just called back to back end. And control as the name states is this the control which controls the impact stuff within the OpenWisp architecture. And then we have CouchDB which is used for persistence. An audit authorization, your parameters, your function details and all those stuff are stored in CouchDB and every time a function is invoked, the data is retrieved from the CouchDB, checks for the authorization details before it actually gets executed. And Kafka. Kafka has basically helped you use to kind of route the messages because at no given point of time the same function cannot be executed in parallel in OpenWisp. That's how OpenWisp is architected. So the Kafka use helps you do the ordering of the messages so that the message flows in a sequence before it's getting executed. And each of these boxes you see down below, these two are the OpenWisp nodes. I mean, where the OpenWisp is deployed. And we always have one invoker. It's a talk of container running. The invoker knows which execution talk of content that he needs to call when this function is executed. So when Kafka pushes a message, the Kafka tells you that, okay, this is a Java function tells the invoker saying that this is a Java function you have to invoke a Java container to execute this particular function there. So that's what is basically done here. All right. So before we're seeing further time, I just want to show you quickly get a feel of how the function works. I'm just going to share my screen for you. And all these things are available as I told you earlier that the little links which I gave you. So all the solutions, all the functions that are code that are going to get executed are all available and get up for you. So you can go and execute it from there. So quickly, let's get quickly here. So I want to also have the console open up. Even before I go there, I just want to show you guys about the place where you can download these to execute this action. This is exactly so far. For example, if you see my screen, this project are opened as OpenShift. So this is a GitHub project from where you can download this project and get it executed to deploy this on your Kubernetes or OpenShift platform. And you can also, this is what I exactly did. So if you see my application console, if you see I have all these are just blowing it up a bit for your convenience. So you'll see all these containers, for example, I showed you about Internet, I showed you about StreamC Controller, which is used to cluster controlling and there's... Yeah, yeah, good.  Just slow down just a little bit. They're moving real fast and I love it, but some people listen a little slower. Okay, hold on. I'm just concerned about the time. Fantastic. So I just slowed down a bit because I just have only demos to run through. So let me quickly get back to the screen where I'm talking about is from where I deployed and installed it. So once you have your mini shift running on your machine, so you can just go down to this particular project here. So project are OpenShift. So you can go to this project, download these links are there already available on the tutorial, as well as on the slide deck, which I'm going to share with you guys.  As you see in my screen, just process HTTPS and then you can just go and install OpenVest. The moment it takes a bit of time initially because it has to download a lot of containers before the Sprinter app and then if you see this successful deployment, you will see something like this on your screen, like you should have an alarm provider and then you should have an engine. As we saw in our architecture, we saw one cluster controller and then we have one stateful controller which controls the patroller component you saw, CouchDB for your persistence, you have Invoker and we have Kafka and also we have a Zubkeeper which kind of does few other things internally. So you'll also see a couple of more bomb containers. We call them as pre-bomb containers in serverless terms, which means that these containers are already up and running to quickly execute some actions for you. You will see that these pre-bomb containers come into picture when we write our first function in a couple of seconds from now. What I'm going to do right now is I'm just going to show you my screen. So what's the function I'm going to create right now? It's a pretty simple JavaScript. So I'm just going to say welcome to OpenVest on OpenShift. I'll just say, okay, this one simple function which I'm going to do. It's going to return me a JSON payload the moment I created. So as I told you earlier, so all I have to do is like I'm just going to bring up my other window, so where I want to show you like how the containers come and go down. So I'm just going to do this Vest dash I and then I say action. I told you that action is the current delete. So I'm going to create a function and then say okay I called action name as breeder and then I'll say breeder.js Say the function needs to be created. Oh my gosh, sorry. This is nice. Thanks. So when you guys are going from Kubernetes and disk there's a smaller thing. It just swaps your command. So it just needs to be pretty careful about it. So I just say action create. So there's a command we need to do. I say okay go ahead and create this action. So we'll see this action has been created and then I say okay Vest. I said how do I invoke this action. So this is from the CLI. But technically if you are on a real soulless architecture you are back to services or you're other other applications going to invoke this action but I'm going to invoke this from command line for you. Say I take a breeder a function name action I should call invoke. So next command verb I need to give and then I say breeder dash dash result. I told you that there is two ways. One is to make asynchronous by default. Another one is to do synchronous. I'll show you the first one as synchronous. I just want to get this command right out there on the screen. So if you see this so you'll see this command getting quickly done up and I'll also show you once more that I go to invoke this again without the result which is an asynchronous operation. And you'll see this the pre-won container coming up here executing this and if you want to go and see what's the output I told you that I need to go check the activation log. I just go back to activation and then result and then I say activation ID. So which is we got out of the command and then you say we call this. So this is pretty much what you want to do when you want to write and how quick is update. So I just go back and then say okay I just changed to definition live and then I go back and say create the command again. So then I say I guess this is much better. So I'm just going to say update. So all I do is update the action now and then if you invoke again so you'll see the container coming up again probably three bombs so it's pretty quick to come up and go around activation result. I can also use the L parameter which is the last activation. So I don't have anything right now so I just say activation result and then give you log ID and then you see this command is getting in secret there. So this is the scope so quick to update as you saw is one of the benefits that I can just quickly develop and update all this stuff pretty quickly. So let's quickly go back and then say how do I create. So if you go back to my slide the next one I want to be about is so how to create a Java actions. So so you can just read through the couple of analysis which I did with plain old Java functions and then I also did with with spring cloud functions you can go and refer to the tech there are some pros and cons supported. So I'll skip that for now and then I'm going to quickly jump and show you a couple of more demos where I can go to create some two more Java actions. So the one thing I love about the Java actions with openvisc is that let's quickly go ahead and open this Java class. So I have a Java source here for reference. I'm just going to blow a little bit up so that it's I can just navigate as well as it's clear for you. If you see this class there's no big deal in this class if you it's just a dictation object it needs to have a main method just follow some syntax and then it needs to have a JSON objects as a return and then it should take JSON object because openvisc always takes in JSON and gives back JSON. And then it's it's a same pretty much the same one which we saw a couple of minutes back of with respect to the other functions. The other cool thing about this is that the way you need to test it right. So for example it's so easy to test because it's just a Java class static main class. I don't need to have a real function environment fast environment running for me for me to test this. For example I'm just going to quickly click this route test and you'll see this my my test has failed right now. So I'm sorry I just need to go back and check what's happened here so okay so there's something else so I'll just keep that for now so so what I'm going to quickly do is like I just go back here and then compile this how do I deploy this is to this I can just go to openvisc how do you create this you don't need to worry about as I told you earlier like we have an app type so if you go tomorrow I'm just going to blow up this app type for you which is a command I just had to tell you for you guys so if you see this from line 8 to 50 which I'm seeing right now on my screen so this is a Maven app type which is available it's right now not available in the Maven center we're trying to push it back so you can go to dev tools for example I have this link on the tutorial Apache Incubator GitHub.com so Apache Incubator DevTools yeah this is the place where I need to go Apache Incubator OpenList DevTools and then we have a Java action app type right here so this is something that you can go down download that and just do a Maven clean install to get it installed into your local Maven repo and then the moment you have this then it's easy for you to get started with like how I did here like just use Maven after to generate the moment it generated gives you these two two different classes for you the one class is that it just gives you the class which can which can help you to create the main class and then the other test class which is used to test this thing for you all right so what I'm going to do is like I'm just going to do a clean package just to save time just go and skip tests because we are just running over time I just need to quickly show you how this works I just I'm just giving tests for now and then you see there's this class getting generated and then you have a jar I don't even need to do an install so all I have to go back to do is like I just go copy the command which I have already have created for us so it's pretty much the same command so the only difference between Java action is that I need to have a main class saying that my jar has multiple classes from where we have multiple functions then I can specify which main function has to be involved for this particular class so that's what I'm typically doing here I'm just going to say whisk action create hello whisk action then give the jar name and the class that needs to be involved and that's also you have the class generated and just going back to go and involve this app so what I'm going to do is like whisk-i action invoke and then I call this allow openness function and just going to make it synchronous right so listen I just lot of show you this stuff for you so that you see this now you see this hello openness my container thumbs up and then execute this hello openness for you and then it goes back again so now it's a different container as I saw in the earlier architectures that the previous command being issued in Node.js container so your invoke on those which container has to be invoked and now if you see you have deployed a Java action now the container knows I need to go and call the Java container for this to be executed so you'll be wanting now as your as your Java guys we use rest API we use grpc because of so we'll be quite interested to know how do I deploy a base action so I'm just going to do a web-based action it's pretty much the same stuff but the only thing is that if you see this code again so all it has to do is like you just use your that URL and then you'll see the responses back on your on your console using a curl command for that stuff so so this is again so I'm just going to do main and clean package and for case giftcast and if you see the wallet packages that I'm just going to show you this command if you see this command if you see I just have one extra parameter saying that that be equal to true which makes that this particular command has a URL basically the moment how do I get a URL this is a command to get the URL if you see I'm just going to show you show that for you to see how I can get a URL so you'll see that you got a URL here so I can just go ahead and then call it from the browser as well so I have to say advance proceed I just show you in working from here it might take some time for it to come back for a street song right so the only big advantage is this is I'm just printing out all the parameters that goes in and goes out I just understand up turning it back as part of my payload the good thing about this is that there's no verb definition I can I can use get post whatever you want and then the one which you fix at the last right for example here I'm splitting this json which sets the content type automatically for you so you don't need to set the extra content type for you so that it knows what response has to be written so it goes in and works a respective function inside that I can also pass a parameter for example I won't just go to say name equal to just give my name and then if you see this the name parameter is getting passed as part of your json request as well so you can just grab this parameter using a json object which gets passed into every different function and then I can also pull out this name as well from that as well so if you don't give this and then pass this name you'll be wanting that you see we're doing a pretty much a different stuff for you and I'm just going to take out the json from here okay I just need to copy this again I use it without the name parameter and then I say name equal to something else this is called better that's much better than this function k so that I can award the stuff here so I don't get anything because I literally don't know which content type I have to go so basically you have all these examples again on the on the tutorial you can just go back to your tutorial and then check these actions as well so it tells you to learn much more better than these stuff all right so we've seen web actions we have seen these things we have seen a normal job action and we have seen other stuff so the last last one is the least stuff which I'm going to show you is that I'm going to show you how we can sequence multiple actions together so that's the last part of this particular demonstration which I'm going to have and then I can turn it on to q and a so I have three different functions I'm just going to build a very small function just going to go to the folder which has that so sequence demo and then I have three different I have a sort of splitter and uppercase three different functions so I just I just hit one function inside that and this function is going to do something and pass the output which is going to serve as an input for the next one so uh so I'm just going to first build uh the sort of I guess I just let me go by sequence the command which I have it's easy for me so all I have to do is like first I have to create a package so as I told you earlier this also shows you use your chance to show you that how to create a package I have a great package now what I'm going to do is like I'm just going to go to uh sort of splitter first splitter first splitter does nothing but it just takes a month's effort at strings and split them them and they give you a json array back to you so uh so no big logic there so I'm just going to do same maven clean package for these git tests so um I'm going to go back grab this command up and then show you create this class splitter is done I'm just going back again to uppercase now so let me fire the clean package command first before I go to grab the command first so I'm just going to go back and then say okay so let's create this uppercase right so we are done and then I'm going to create uppercase we are done with uppercase and the last one is shorter so let me go and call the package again so that my jar is ready and then just going to go back and say package all right so we have package now now the last command is that how do I create a sequence so this becomes a little bit interesting here so I just want to show you that um just let me get out of from here and then okay we see my sequence uh of action if you see this so I just have a sequence parameter added to this and then I give a list of actions comma separate list of actions that needs to be part of the sequence so one thing about openness sequence is that this is static order like so the water in which it is given it's it's it's kind of cannot be changed and once the function is involved okay there is something called as conductor which is available in openness I don't have this demo right now with me but that helps you to change your next action which needs to be involved based on some condition in the first action and also you also need to keep in mind that only the first action in the sequence list gets the parameter that you pass and for all of the actions the output of the previous command is going to serve as an input of the the new command so that's what is going to go down and so yeah just come back to the code in the moment and they're going to create the action for you uh I'm just going to let me zoom back in so that it's clear so I just created this action and then I'm going to invoke that as I told you earlier so it's just going to be uh an action like this I'm just going to pass a comma separated string which is a lowercase uh jumble thing like zebra cat and actually so that I can show you how it started and it also open up this console for you so that I can show you how the sequence of actions are invoked for you you see the first splitter comes first and then the uppercase now and then finally we go back and then invoke the sorter and then you get the result back right so you see now that I get the result with antelope catch zebra blah blah blah and all this stuff on these these these actions go back you know in a certain moment of time so the one the good other good thing about this like when you try to invoke these actions in the sequence I mean the victor subscriptions these contents will not go back they'll be pre-warmed state and then they'll start executing which and every stuff to do right so uh let me quickly jump to my slides to show you some interesting others interesting links and other stuff uh the demo training which is something which you have seen right now uh and there are some event event capabilities when go back and check this staff again uh I guess I'm running out of time just have three more minutes so one thing I want to show you about this is the cloud event um so right now the cncf is working towards a specification that can that can have cloud events let's say I want to invoke an action from aws lambda from my serverless provider for in this case Apache open mist so if they are coming up all these uh pass providers cloud providers all these guys are coming together to define a common way by which I can share the metadata between each of these events so that I can write my function to be make it interoperable with other providers you can find more information on cloud events.io so we can just go there and then find find other stuff as well okay uh the last stuff uh which is again uh I have another demo if you go back to my uh the demo repository which I shared with you so it has a demo which shows you an active mq base thing where I can drop a message into active mq and then it's picked up by a trigger and the trigger times up fires up some actions for you and then and the end of the day the action comes back invokes multiple different actions like for example one uh the same splitter sort of use case but it written in different languages like phyton java uh note the mingola and then jf javascript so which shows that there's the the serverless platform is polyglot you don't need to stick to one different language like for all our demos in today's session we saw all the demos on java but you can still work on all the languages then combine them together to make it work for you all right so maybe uh I'll find another time where I can show these these demos again for it's an advanced fast kind of stuff where I can show how the fees and triggers and events work together for you all right um and that's pretty much I have so again these links once again for you uh so you can just go to this bit.ly link the first link is is the tutorial which but all the sources which you just now saw are all available in the bit.ly fast tutorial if it shows you how to install by yourself you think of any shape on your local laptop I start doing stuff by yourself and the second one is again an online platform you can go to loanoutopenship.com slash serverless all the things are installed pre-installed for you all you have to do go start practicing your how to write your function how to write a java function how to create a package and all these stuff just now like how we saw right now and the link on my deck which I right now this this particular deck I skip few slides because it's for you to read a bit later so you can find this deck right down the bit.ly link which is right below there for you so they can pick out the slides and they start slapping that for you okay and that's pretty much it and back to Burr where we can just start taking questions so if that's the case


The equation of value has five types of variables. The final balance B, the deposit or withdrawal amount ctk, the times of deposit withdrawal tk, the accumulation function a of t, and the investment period tau, given any four we can solve for the fifth. So, suppose Professor Jeff, still hoping to retire, is able to deposit $1,000 now and $1,000 next year. If he wants to be able to withdraw $500,000 in two years, what interest rate will he need to receive? So, we can write our equation of value. It will be convenient to assume the account is closed by a $500,000 withdrawal at the end, so our final balance is zero. We have deposits of $1,000 at t equals zero and t equals one, and we also have a withdrawal of $500,000 at t equals two. Assuming we're getting compound interest, then a of t is one plus i to the t, and so we need a of zero, a of one, and a of two, which are, and we have everything except for a of tau, and so we need to know what's tau. Well, we'll employ the time-honored tactic of procrastination. Note we can remove a factor of a of tau from our equation, and we multiply through by one plus i squared we get. To solve this equation, we'll let x equal one plus i, and reduce it to quadratic. Now, we note every coefficient has a factor of 1,000, so we can reduce our equation to, which has solutions, and so Professor Jeff needs to find a fund giving 2,087% interest each year. So, for example, let's say you borrow $1,000 at 10% annual interest rate, you pay back two installments of $600 equally spaced. When should the payments be made? So, we'll write down our equation of value, and we want our balance to be zero, so we can replace that, and tau is, well, we don't really know that, so we'll use a time-honored strategy and procrastinate. Now, we do know that we receive $1,000 at t equals zero. Since this is a withdrawal, then it's going to be a negative about, and we have payments of $600 at some time t, which is what we're looking at. The other thing to realize is that we get a second payment at 2t, because our payments are equally spaced, and at that point the loan is paid off, our balance is zero, and that tells us that tau is equal to 2t. So, we can fill in t and tau in our expression for the equation of value, and finally our accumulation function, because it's 10% annual interest, and unless otherwise specified, we'll assume that's compound interest is going to be 1.1 to power t. Now, to simplify this expression, remember we always assume that a of zero is equal to one, and so this first fraction, a of 2t divided by a of zero, becomes, moreover, the second fraction, a of 2t divided by a of t, becomes, and finally this last fraction is a number divided by itself, so it's just going to be equal to one, and so we get our new equation. Now, we note that 1.1 raised to power 2t, well that's really the same as 1.1 to the t squared, so we can make the substitution x equals 1.1 to the t, x squared is 1.1 to the 2t, and reduce our equation to quadratic, and solve. Now, remember that we're actually solving for 1.1 to power t, and since powers are always positive, we'll only consider the positive root of our quadratic equation, and that turns out to be the time when we add the square root, so hitting both sides with the log and solving gives us t approximately 1.29 years. Suppose you deposit $5,000 at the end of each year for the next three years into an investment account earning 6% annual interest compounded. What transaction must occur after five years if we have 30,000 in the account after 10 years? Here we want the balance to be 30,000 at t equals 10. Our accumulation function is 1.06 to the t, and if we regard the balance as positive, the deposit should also be positive and occur at times t equal 1, 2, and 3. Then there's some transaction p at t equals 5. And so our equation of value will be now while we don't know tau, note that every term has a of tau as a factor so we can divide by it. And we can solve for p. And since we know our accumulation function, we note and we find p is approximately 9,809 and 20 cents. Since deposits are positive, this means we must deposit an additional 9,809 and 20 at t equals 5 to have a final balance of $30,000.


We've got the last part of tonight's show. We're going to talk about free speech and the free speech union, which has been started by professional provocateur, Toby Young, the free speech union. This is their founding statement. Free speech is the bedrock on which all our other freedoms rest. Yet it is currently in greater peril than at any time since the Second World War. The free speech union is a non-partisan, mass membership organization that stands up for the speech rights of its members. If you think there's a risk to be penalized for exercising your legal right to free speech, that doesn't exist in Britain. Whether it's the workplace or the public square, you need the protection of the free speech union. How might we protect you? And then it lists a bunch of things basically. Basically, if you find yourself being targeted by a digital outrage mob on social media for having exercised your legal right to free speech, we will mobilize an army of supporters. I mean, okay, that's kind of strange. Talks about petitions about, if you're no platformed, how we can collectively respond. If you're punished by your employer, give you legal assistance, et cetera. Basically, it's providing, establishing a network for collective action for those who care passionately about free speech. We're now gonna look at an interview between Steve Edgington from The Sun. Also works for Guido Fork sometimes. Didn't even know he was at The Sun. I thought he was at Guido still. He moved on from Guido very quickly. Yeah, he was also involved in some leave campaigning. So he's hardly a progressive voice. Steve Edgington and Toby Young.  It's Tommy Robinson in your free speech union. Would you allow him to come in? Well, Tommy Robinson hasn't applied to be in my union yet. And I think that would be, again, a decision for the board and the advisory council rather than a decision for me. But I would say that he's welcome to become a member of the union. We have a statement of values and we encourage our members not to criticize people in the course of making an argument for their membership of various groups. So not to criticize them because they're a member of a particular ethnic group or a particular religious group or because they happen to be a woman or even because they happen to be a man. Provided he'd be willing to sign up to that statement of values, then, yeah, I think we'd let him in.  Yeah, but... Do you think he has been? Do you think he's said those comments in the past? I think some of the comments he's made about Muslims cross the line. Which ones? He's... I couldn't pull anything out of my hat, but the implication is that I think in the past he has strongly implied that there is a direct causal link between being a Muslim and being a member of a grooming gang. That's the context in which you have to understand those terrible crimes. And I don't think that's right, and I think that borders on Islamophobia. What did you make of that, Joe? As an academic who's, you know, your job is rigor and precision. What did you think of Toby Young's argument? Not particularly bulletproof, was it? Where to start? I mean, I think there's a big difference between you saying that your freedom of speech is being curtailed and people just not wanting to hear it. I think that there's been so much mixing up of terms amongst these debates. I think, you know, if we link it back to academic freedom, for example, the academic freedom, as we understand it in the UK, comes from the 1997 UNESCO. They published clear recommendations on academic freedom, and it's not just the ability to say whatever you want and outrage people. What actually academic freedom within that document outlines is two recommendations for people, and that is about concerning the self-governance of the universities that they work at and the right to criticise your own employer. Now, if you think about other countries where that doesn't exist and, you know, whether that's a very right-wing government where you can get sacked for criticising your employer or that, you know, you aren't able to regulate your institution, the idea that he manipulates that in the way that's, you know, being put forward by this union I think is quite disreputable, actually. And I think that, you know, if you think, link this back to the disputes that UCU members are involved in, what we've seen before, during previous strikes, so obviously, often people take to Twitter to say what they think about their employer. That sometimes means criticising your employer. We have seen some instances where universities discipline academics for making those views when they've brought negative comments about their institution that they're bringing them into disrepute. You give me any examples, or, I mean, obviously, you can't verbatim, but kind of ballpark what kinds of things are being said. So there were some examples during the last USS strike in 2018 where UCU members who were on strikes set up parody accounts that, you know, were not defamatory or anything, but just poked fun at university managers with paper-thin skin, and they didn't like it. And there were instances where they were threatened with disciplinary procedures if they didn't delete things and if they didn't, you know, sort of toe the line. That is a real threat, and that's in the UK.  But, you know, in the UK, you don't, if you're not an academic, you're not covered by academic freedoms. So our members of UCU and professional services, you know, can't fight back in the same way. But in addition to that, what we also see, and this is part of the broader criticism that we have of higher education, is punitive funding regimes, where you have to align yourself with a particular type of research, and that that then has to be favored by the RET, which is an audit of research, the abolition of tenure and casualization. That impacts on your academic freedom if you have to toe the line in order to benefit from the continuation of employment. All of these things actually impact on your ability to exercise academic freedom. And, you know, if we think about the prevent duty, that recently came into the news because what it revealed was that universities were acting in a really overzealous way and were reporting student essays to be investigated by the police that were, you know, flagged up as counter-terrorism. These are genuine attacks on people's academic freedom. You know, if you've got objectionable, bigoted views and people just don't want you to come to their event anymore, I just don't even see that in the same league as what we're talking about.  So yeah, I'm not really very impressed by that, I guess. Michael, yeah, I suppose just a comment on the video. So that particular video has sort of started a bit of a, I mean, kind of interesting debate in a way on Twitter as to whether or not Toby Young, in that explanation, really undermined the point of his union. And the debate is clearly in that video, he is accepting there should be some sort of political limits to freedom of speech or at least freedom of speech or at least the right to be defended on Twitter, as that seems to be what this union is designed to do. And that's seen as incoherent if what Toby Young's argument for is for free speech absolutism, basically. So anyone should be able to say anything and we should completely remove politics and power and consequences from the discussion of speech. Now, including incitement. I mean, where does he draw the line here?  And so what it is about is a concern that legitimate speech is being infringed upon, not in terms of the police knocking on your door, but in terms of, you know, people being driven out of their jobs, et cetera, et cetera, which, I mean, could be a legitimate concern. But I think that the significant thing here is to say that what Toby Young definitely does do there is to say that it's a political decision where we limit what's acceptable to say. Not, you know, I think we all believe that you should be allowed to say pretty much anything if it's not inciting violence before, you know, you get arrested or put in jail or something. But in terms of what should it be acceptable to say and believe for you to be in a particular job? So for example, with Sabiski, who was the person who was employed by Dominic Cummings, I don't think it should be illegal to talk about black people being genetically less intelligent than white people, even though I think it's complete pseudoscience and nonsense. But I do think that should make it inappropriate for you to have a job in the civil service or in the highest echelons of government. What this does show about Toby Young's project though is it is political where you draw this line. And what's clear about this free speech union is that they're not interested in free speech in general because everyone in it is a right winger. Everyone in it, the only time they've got in trouble is because they've said something about trans women or they've said something about gender equality or they've said something that other people consider racist. There's no one in this free speech union on the advisory board and it's a huge list of the standard right wing as you see on TV and in the comment pages of the times. There's no one who's interested in, I mean, for example, the fact that there's Julian Assange is about to be extradition, whatever you think of him personally, he's someone who has published materials and is gonna be extradited to America for espionage and potentially put in prison, well, we wouldn't be in prison for 175 years, but that would be the sentence he gets. These aren't people who are interested in the prevent program, which as you were describing, means that some people get reported to the police for what they've written in their essays. And these aren't people who have ever cared about the Palestinian people's right to talk about racism in the creation of the state of Israel, which displaced them and their descendants because of their ethnic background. And who get told that you can't keep your job or you can't keep your role in a political party because you're called anti-Semitic for that. So what Toby Young has to admit is that this is a political project and it's a political project specifically to allow people to say things which, many black people consider races to say things which many trans women consider transphobic and to say things which many women consider to be sexist. Nothing else. They're not concerned about things that those in power are telling us we cannot say because it will threaten their interest about that.


What's happening guys? So the number one undisputed source of financial news on the internet, BuzzFeed, put out a video where they interviewed this girl. My name is Brittany. Now she studied to get a drama degree. I studied drama and communication. And she ended up six figures in debt. And I owe $118,000 in student loans. Now I talk a lot on this channel while you should only go to college if you have a solid plan that's going to lead to you getting a good job. But Shane, my passion! Okay, okay, okay, okay, I get it. Calm down, I'm not saying that you shouldn't follow your passion. What are we talking about? All I'm saying is that if your passion is going to put you $100,000 in the hole and prevent you from being able to live a normal life, then you probably shouldn't go to college in order to follow that passion. What did you say? Instead you should get creative and find another way to follow your dreams. And Brittany here is a perfect example of that. So I'm going to react to this video and if you're somebody who's in the same boat as Brittany, I think this video is probably going to help you out a lot. Because the truth is, if your passion in life is to become an actor or work in Hollywood, getting a drama degree probably isn't going to help you out that much. Acting is open to anybody. That's quite a waste of time. If your passion is photography, getting a photography degree probably isn't going to help you much. That the majority of the people that I graduated with never got anywhere in photography. But if your passion in life is watching YouTube videos, getting a degree and smashing that like button studies is a great investment. And all you need to do is turn that little button from gray to blue. Now, I do appreciate if you do that, but without further ado, let's jump into this video and see what we can learn from Brittany's situation. So this is extremely common. Brittany was experiencing probably a lot of peer pressure. All of her friends were going to college.  Taking loans out was just part of what everyone had to do, that they weren't going to affect my life that much. And so as a 17-year-old making one of the biggest decisions of your life that doesn't really know that much about life in general, of course, that's what you're going to do. You're just going to do what everybody else is doing. Going to college is pretty much just a part of the American dream at this point. And so that's what everybody thinks they should do. On top of that, there's a ton of pressure from society, as well as your parents and your family. Everybody's saying you need to go to college to be successful. The media, TV, movies, shows, popular culture, they all portray college as the funnest time of your life. And then if all that wasn't enough, universities spend millions and millions of dollars every single year to tell you that same exact message. In fact, many of them spend more money on the advertising and the marketing than they do on the students themselves. And when you do agree to student loans, it's almost like one of those long terms of service agreements that you just scroll to the bottom all through all 37 pages and just automatically click agree without reading any of it. And I know that when I was going through the process of applying to college, not one single person, not high school counselors or college counselors or anybody sat me down and was like, Shane, you do know what you're getting yourself into with this debt, right? Nobody bats an eye, even though it's probably one of the top five biggest decisions you'll ever make in your life. And why would you? Everyone's doing it, right? I really didn't understand the magnitude of them until I graduated and your minimum amount is astronomical. So this is what I'm trying to save everybody from going through with this channel.  And so therefore millions and millions of people fell into that trap. Nobody worried about the health consequences because there were so many different forces from peer pressure to advertising. They were telling you that you should smoke. Well, turns out that smoking is horrible for your health in the same way that student loans are horrible for your finances. This is why you need to start thinking of college as an investment and any investment has to have a good ROI. And if an investment is going to lead to you not being able to get a job and being buried in high interest student loan debt that you can't forfeit, then don't do it. And sure, it's really sad that we all have to think this way. It would be great if college was just a place for learning and enlightenment and becoming a better citizen of the world. But the reality is that in the United States of America, things just aren't this way anymore. Gone are the days where you can just get whatever degree you want and employers would be lined up outside your door. This is why I always tell people that they need to start thinking about their future. Think about the job you want in the future, the career that you want.  And then whatever degree that you want to get, make sure that that degree is going to help you achieve your goals, not hurt you. So my total due for this month, $707.74. I'm literally just paying the interest. Holy cow. So she's been paying off her student loans for over 10 years now and the majority of it just went to the interest. Hardly any of it even went towards the actual loans that she took out. And this is all because of the power of compound interest. So I do talk a lot about investing on this channel and one of the biggest things when it comes to investing is when you're young, you have time on your side. And here's a quote from one of the smartest people that's ever lived. Albert Einstein says, Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it. He who doesn't pays it. And without going into too much detail here, if you understand how compound interest works and you start investing early, you can easily become wealthy. However, in the case of student loans, the power of compound interest is working in reverse against Brittany. Now, Brittany's only making the minimum payments. So most of her payments is going towards the compound interest and then a tiny little bit of it is going towards the principal.  You can default on that debt, declare bankruptcy, and then it's not a pretty process or anything, but you don't have to pay it off at the end of the day. Now, with student loans, you can't really do that except in extreme circumstances.   It's a huge debt trap and it's almost impossible for people to get out of it.  So at this point in the video, she basically just goes over how she has to be extremely frugal and she has to sell her clothes and a lot of her possessions just to make ends meet. And then she drops this on us. I'm a freelance production assistant. I also work at a dance studio as a receptionist and I also work for a temp agency. Wow. So she's working three different jobs just to get by and two out of the three jobs aren't related to a drama degree or a career in drama or whatsoever. So I have to be honest, you know, a lot of comments on this video are really negative against her and I don't agree with those comments at all. I feel really bad for Brittany. She's in a horrible situation and she's not the only one. A lot of other people are finding themselves in similar situations to her. They buy the hype, they go after their dreams and follow their passions and they get a college degree that is supposed to lead to them being in something that they're truly passionate about and they end up working two or three jobs just to get by and they never even work in the career that they originally wanted to be a part of. And this is all even though they're college educated and they learn a lot from the degree itself. That's why as someone who has gone all the way to the very highest level in education, I'm trying to get the word out there to people so that you can make a better decision for your future. And I guess it's kind of interesting to mention that not a single time in this entire video and I watched it several times now, did she mention anything about what she learned from her education or what she got out of college? Because education a lot of the time is kind of an afterthought at most colleges. And a lot of people who have gone to college will agree with me on this.  You can barely see the professor unless you stand at the very front. Usually the lecture's pretty boring or dry. A lot of the time the professor will literally read word for word from the slide, which I mean, I can just read the slide myself. I don't need them to read it to me. And this is why a lot of the time students will end up just not going to class after a few weeks at all. And then there's a lot less people in the class at that point. And the truth is that many professors don't really care that much about the teaching portion of college. They're going to the university, first of all, just to make ends meet. And second of all, they're doing it because they want to research. That's their primary job and their mind. They're all about the research and the teaching is just a little thing that they do on the side. And I'm not saying all professors are like this. There's definitely a lot of exceptions, but I would say that at least the majority of them in my experience and the experience of a lot of people I've talked to have been like this. Now on top of this, most of the stuff you learn in college, you'll never actually use in real life or even in your job. You know, I'm in the medical field and never once have I ever had to know the ridges and the pathways on a bone that you have to memorize an anatomy. And in my opinion, there's really only two main reasons to go to college. The first one is proving that you have the ability to work hard and sort of just learn how to learn. And then the second and most important reason is for that piece of paper at the end that's going to open doors and opportunities for you. And then I guess you could add the third little part in there, which is a very distant third, which is having fun. So I think colleges are basically for fun and to prove you can do your chores, but they're not for learning. But going into debt to go to college just to have fun is like going into debt to buy a gold plated PlayStation 4 because that's going to be some of the most expensive fun you're ever going to have. Instead, what you really want to do is make sure that your college investment is going to pay off for you and think about it like return on investment like I mentioned before, the ROI. So I just want to reemphasize here that in no way am I making fun of Brittany. I feel really bad for her and the situation that she's in. And I'm sure some people in the comments section are going to say, you know, she made bad choices. It's her fault. She has to deal with it now. And there is some partial truth to that. I do think that she should take responsibility for her choice and then make sure that she makes better choices in the future. But on the other hand, when you see millions and millions of people falling for the same exact trap, you have to stop and think for a second. That tells me that there's just not enough awareness around this subject right now. And I really wish things weren't this way. I wish it were still like the 70s where you could just get any degree. It doesn't matter what you get and you'd have a really good job lined up for you for the rest of your life. But at least here in the United States, it's not like that anymore. And you have to start thinking of your degree as an investment. And that's one of the main reasons that I made this channel so that less people will fall for these sorts of traps. So I really appreciate Brittany for sharing her story and I hope that you can learn something from this video and make better choices for your own life so that you can have a better future. But if you haven't done it already, make sure to smash that like button, hit the subscribe button, ring little notification bell and then comment down below any ideas for future videos or any comments on this video. Thank you so much for watching and bye for now.


Hey curlfriends, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today and today I am partnering with a new brand called Twist by Weedat and they sent me a huge PR box. I think of their entire collection that it's just been staring at me in the face all week but I haven't opened it because I've been waiting to open it with you because I know how excited you get about new curly hair products just as I do. So without further ado, let's go open that big old box. Oh my, okay, here she comes. Oh my goodness. This box is like 50 pounds. Twist by Weedat. Oh yes. So because this is a brand by Weedat, you already know that they know what they're doing in the curl department but look at this beautiful box. So on the box it says moist is good. Well, let's open this. Doo doo doo. Curls meet moist. Welcome to the Twist Curl Collective. Take our hair quiz to discover which products to mix and match for your unique curls or Weedat's open them all. Looks like we have one, two, three, four different boxes to open. It says to start here which is probably the maximum moisture box. Let's try it. Okay, box number one. This box says does the word moist make you cringe? No, who's a big fan of moist? Curls. I actually do know a couple of people that hate the word moist. Like they're like ugh. So let's slide this open. Wow. Oh, this is a lot of product. No wonder it was so heavy. Big, rich and dreamy ultra hydrating co-wash. Hello to this big mama bottle. 16 fluid ounces, that's what I'm talking about. Glow the extra mile, two-in-one hydrating dry oil. Boss-bounced, light as air, buildable styling cream. The primed-in-co, two-in-one conditioner and primer. And the curl rain, multi-use miracle oil. So all of these products are part of the ultimate moisture for curls. So I'm already loving the unique packaging. I'm a sucker for cute packaging and this is everything. I'm loving the large bottles. Looking forward to trying box number one. All right, let's continue. Next one is this one right here. All those gorgeous waves, spirals, kinks and coils thrive on moisture. That's why we created the Twist Moisture Scale. Oh, I knew that was gonna happen. Why did I do that? So we got the Curl Goals Moisture Lock Leave-in Conditioner. We have the Meet Sunday Feels, our curl restoration expert. Hmm. Weather up lotion, super light styling lotion. Ready, set, bounce, soft, hold, curl defining jelly. Yeah, you guys know I'm a jelly girl. Curl refresh and conditioning spray. Oh, it's exciting. So rich, so fresh. Cleansing and conditioning dry shampoo. I love a good dry shampoo and it's silicone free. It's kind of hard to find a silicone free dry shampoo. So I will be using that one. On repeat, gentle oil infused shampoo.  Another co-wash. Use all these products today. Wow, what products am I gonna choose? I'm gonna have to take that quiz. So this is the second box. A lot of interesting products in here. So first thing I noticed is that this co-wash has five little water droplets on it and this one has three. So this one has even more moisture than this one if you don't need that much moisture in your hair. But believe it or not, we still have two more boxes. This one has one water droplet on there on the bottom. This says, twist flexes with our curls ever changing moisture needs, making the most of moist. Mix and match between moisture levels to start your personalized hair journey. So many products. Now we have the hit reset light clarifying shampoo. The whether or not element defined conditioner. The weather up gel weightless curl defining gel. Rally the curls weightless curl defining primer and the hype it up weightless refreshing spray. So this has one water droplet on all of these. This is the first time we're getting a shampoo and conditioner versus just a co-wash and we're getting a gel and a refresher. This one might be the line for me, but let's keep going. And last but not least, it is least placeholder. That's all. You know what, that's just fine because this is a lot to work with. So since this is so many products, I do think I'm gonna go ahead and take that quiz just to see what it recommends even though I kind of already know what I wanna try. So I'm at twisthair.com taking the quiz. It says, what's your curl wish list? Definition, shiny, elongation, frizz control, hydration, bounce, nourishment. Probably all the above. But I can choose up to three. So I'm gonna click frizz control, definition and elongation or shine. Let's do hydration. Now that you need a bunch of photos to choose from, I'm gonna choose coily. Would you describe your texture as thick, thin, average or unknown? It's actually, let's say average. All right, so I just finished my quiz on twisthair.com and according to twist, they recommended I use the light clarifying shampoo. I was gonna choose that one. They said the foreign one hydrating conditioner. Got it. Then the ready set bounce soft hold defining jelly. I was debating between the weightless curl defining gel possibly over the soft hold jelly only because my guess is that this gel might be a little bit stronger of a hold. We'll see if I listen to them on that one. A deeply hydrating hair mask. How did they know I love hair masks? A dry shampoo because I work out or a day. Need that one. And the last one they suggested was the weightless curl defining primer. Well, there you have it. There's my routine. So this was a very helpful quiz. I definitely recommend you guys go into the website and letting them help you choose what products will be best for you. Luckily it is wash days. I'm gonna try these products right now using the shampoo and conditioner. Deep conditioning with their hair mask. Then out of the shower I gotta decide between the weather up gel or the soft hold curl gel. I might do a side by side because I really wanna see how both of those work. And then the primer or leave in conditioner step ones. This one is probably a lot thicker because it has more moisture than this one. So I'm gonna stick with the light hold one like they recommended. If I need some extra volume I might use the dry shampoo today. Otherwise this is probably gonna be great for my refresh days. So without further ado, let's hop in the shower. Thank you, bun. You've done all you can do. Let's wash these curls. Starting with the hit reset light clarifying shampoo. This shampoo smells so good. I wish I could wear it as perfume. But it does give you a nice little lather. Get rid of any product buildup. It's non-stripping. So I'm gonna rinse this out and now move on to the give me it all four in one hydrating conditioner. One of my favorite things about this new twist line is that they're so affordable. Every single product is $9.99. Yes, even these huge shampoo conditioner co-washing bottles. So every single product that you see today is $9.99. I love that. This is a co-wash, a conditioner, a leave in and it even says you can use it as a styler. Four in one giving you one more than the usual three in one we might have seen before. It does have really good slip. It was easy for me to tangle and my curls look very moisturized after. Now I'm gonna rinse it out and grab these Sunday feels deeply hydrating hair mask. It's gonna soften, reform and restore my curls giving me some extra moisture. It has shea butter, coconut oil, jojoba oil, almond oil and grapeseed oil. That's a lot of oils but they're all gonna be really good for our curls. Now I'm gonna put it up in a way and let it sit on my hair for three to five minutes. Then I'm gonna rinse it out and continue with styling. And we're back and it's time to style. So I'm gonna start with rally the curls, weightless curl defining primer supposed to replenish, form and define. It has a one drop of moisture. The multitasking weightless formula works hard so you don't have to. Boost strength, enhances definition, increases elasticity and reduces frizz. Define and shape curls by applying a damp strands before styling or use as a overnight treatment to help reverse signs of damage and restore natural texture. Interesting. So it could be used as an overnight treatment. All the twist products have all of the good which is coconut oil, moringa oil, grapeseed oil, rice protein and quinoa and none of the ugly. No mineral oil, no petroleum, no pyramids, no filets, no harsh sulfates and no silicone. Beautiful. So let's do this. So since this is a primer, kind of thinking of it as like a primer we put on before we put on makeup. This is gonna be our first step before we put on our styling products. Ooh. Oh, it smells so good. Mm. I don't even know. Like a, like a yummy perfume smell. So it's a very lightweight serum, not like a creamy moisturizer at all. Definitely lighter than like a leave-in which is probably gonna be good for my fine hair. If you have thicker hair, you'll probably use one of the thicker leave-in creams first. Yeah, it's extremely lightweight. Oh, it's called the weightless curl defining primer and it's definitely weightless. Feels like nothing's there. If you have thicker hair, you'd probably go for the two-in-one conditioner and primer, this one. Out of curiosity. Let me just see. Mm, smells good too. They all have a different scent. This one has sweet almond oil. So it's a little bit sweeter. Oh yeah, this one has a much thicker consistency than this weightless primer. So if you have thicker hair, it's probably gonna recommend this primer. Now for the gels. Because I'm so curious, I really wanna use both because I don't wanna wait. So one side I'm gonna do the weather up gel and the other side I'm gonna use the ready set bounce. Okay, weather up gel, a weightless curl defining gel. Frizz fighting, long lasting, no crunch. It has one drop of moisture. I wish I had better adjectives to describe how good they smell. I love it. Very slippery. This is supposed to be a no crunch styler, high performance gel that creates defined curls and blocks humidity to prevent frizz and flyways without leaving your curls feeling sticky or weighed down. The only reason I think I didn't get this gel in my quiz is because I don't live in a humid area. But if you guys do, this is gonna be the one for you. There we go, side one. Next side I'm gonna use the ready set bounce soft hold curl defining jelly. Boost shape, no crunch. Extra moisture for curls has three water droplets of moisture. Ooh, it's a little more creamy, which makes sense since it has more moisture. This curl defining jelly encourages your natural bounce and definition while keeping your curls moisturized and frizz free without any crunch. This one has a little less slip, even though it has a thicker consistency. All right, got my two sides. I'm gonna let this air dry for a little bit, diffuse, and we'll see which side we like best. First impression off of this air drying, it's a very, very close race. I think I'm gonna choose this side only because I am getting a little bit more of a hold and I am a strong hold type of gal. And that's what I figured would happen from a gel that claims to work in humid areas. If you live in a humid area, you need more hold. So I'm definitely getting that vibe from this side. But even this side also has a decent amount of hold before. It's just a little bit fluffier than this side, which is what I would expect from a soft hold jelly. So right now I would say this side is a 10, this side is like a 9.7. Still both very good. But now let me diffuse and see how it looks completely dry. Here we go. Found our results. Very pretty. It's also a very close race still between the two. I still think I prefer this side. I'm getting a little bit more shine, a little bit more definition than this side, only because this side is definitely a softer, fluffier side, but I feel like this will last me longer throughout the week. But both, very pretty. I also feel like my curls look really long. Like this is a very elongated look with a lot of shine. But because I'm curious and I have so many products to try, I'm gonna try a couple more just to see what happens. So let's try this glow the extra mile, two-in-one hydrating dry oil for an instant moisture boost, simple spritz on the go. It revives and brings life back to dried out curls for finer hair types, spray this for mid-lengths to end. Let's see. So I'm just gonna get this like, I have one little frizzy spot.  So let me see. Oh, it's literally an oil. Let's see what this does. Never used like a dry oil before. It's really giving my curls some extra shine. That's for sure. I like that. I've never had a spray oil before. But I also have the Hype It Up Weightless Refreshing Spray, perk up lackluster curls. Okay, let's find another little lackluster curl. This might went for best smell. I think I like the line, the scent of the white. God did a really good job. This is probably gonna be a great, easy refresh spray for day two and day three here. I like that. What else can I use? Multi-use Miracle Oil. Let me just be clear that you don't have to use all these products to get beautiful curls. I'm just being excited. I wanna try as many products as I can. Add some oil to the ends. Adding an oil will also help break up the cast if you don't like any, but right now I don't have any cast. And last but not least, I think I could squeeze in one more product. This is the So Rich, So Fresh Cleansing and Conditioning Dry Shampoo. So this is usually used to kind of cleanse and absorb any product buildup, oil, or sweat on your scalp after a workout since we do refresh our curls daily. But I honestly always use dry shampoo as like a hairspray to kind of give me some more grip at the roots to give me more volume. So let me see if I can get away with using this on day one. So I'm gonna shake it, then you wait 30 seconds before you fluff. This also smells good. Oh, I love it. Upside down, shake it, let it dry. The things we do with curly hair, wait 30 seconds for the formula to do its thing. This has witch hazel, lemon balm leaves, aloe vera, chamomile flower, sage, a lot of good stuff and no silicones. I'm gonna shake it out for some extra volume. Oh yes, I know you see the difference. I know you see it. Dry shampoo is my secret weapon, even on day one. So when we look at these curls, it's giving me everything that I want. Definition, shine, moisture, volume. Twist products are definitely beyond grenade approved. And I love that twist understands that no two curls are the same. So they didn't just create a for all curl types type of line. They created specific products depending on your curls needs. So if you need a lot of moisture, you're probably gonna go for the red ones. If you need a medium amount of moisture, you're gonna go for the black bottles. And if you like light weight products, don't need too much extra moisture, you're probably gonna go for these in the white bottles. But overall, all the ones that I tried today were bomb. I am loving my results. I have so many more to try, even though I tried to use as many as possible as I could today. I'm gonna continue to use these throughout the week and I'll check in with you guys on Instagram when I find a new cocktail or new product that I like. So make sure you're following me on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter at MsBeyondGrenet. And you might just see a giveaway of these products happening right now. So if you'd like a chance to win your own twist products, make sure you follow me on Instagram at MsBeyondGrenet. Once you go to my Instagram, you'll see my twist reel. Leave a comment and read the caption of that reel and you'll know exactly how you can enter to possibly win. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give me a thumbs up and subscribe.  Are your curls thirsty or like super thirsty? Let me know. I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for watching Beyonk Grenet today.