Ladies and gentlemen, it's my privilege to announce that I won the Superbowl bet with Timmer, so he has to appear on my show, and here he is. Here I am! We always collaborate to review really ugly toys, so I found something special. Oh no, not the septic tank, we already did that one. No, but it is from the 90s. Please, no neon orange. Don't worry, I know how badly you react to orange, so this doesn't have a single spot of orange on it. It's a rare figure and one you've already reviewed. So what, create a cobra or... It's Cyber Viper. No! Hello everybody, hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. And I mean everyone, including the really ugly ones. Last month, the Chiefs beat the Eagles in the Superbowl. It was sweet revenge after the Eagles beat my team a few years ago. I had a bet with Timmer from the YouTube show Half the Battle, and the loser would have to appear on the winner's show, and I won. This week we're reviewing one of the strangest figures in the entire vintage G.I. Joe era. It's a mish-mash of parts and wild colors, and it came with a tub of Play-Doh. It embodies the extreme 90s. HCC and friends present the Cyber Viper. This is the Cyber Viper's Cobra's Cybernetic Officers from 1993. This figure was only available in 1993, it was discontinued for 1994. This is the only version of the Cyber Viper in the vintage line. The figure was revisited only one time in the history of the brand in the Pursuit of Cobra series. That figure looked totally different from this one. The Cyber Viper's was from the Mega Marines series. The Mega Marines was a sub-team of G.I. Joe that fought against Cobra's mutant monsters. The G.I. Joe side of this subset was led by Gung Ho. The Cobra side had two oversized mutants, the Bio Viper and the Monstro Viper, and two army builders, the Mega Viper's and the Cyber Viper's. Mega Marines figures included Bio Armor, which was really just Play-Doh. They had molds for shaping the Play-Doh into armored vests. G.I. Joe had a lot of these sub-teams, and they only became more numerous in the 1990s. 1993 included the Mega Marines, Dino Hunters, Ninja Force, and Star Brigade. There were so many subsets that the main series had to be given its own name, Battlecore. By this time, G.I. Joe had adopted many science fiction, fantasy, and horror tropes, and even a few comic tropes. Oh, hi! You got me drinking heavily and trying to understand the Cyber Viper. It's Chris from the YouTube show Comic Tropes. Thanks for having me on this review of the Cyber Viper I've been waiting forever for this one. I'm sorry, I said Comic Tropes, but I didn't mean that as a cue for you to join the show. You don't need me on the show. No, I think Timmer and I have this well in hand. Oh. I haven't been able to find out who designed this figure for Hasbro. No one seems to want to take credit for it. As we will see later, the Cyber Vipers were created by Dr. Meinbender for Cobra. There was a new version of Dr. Meinbender in 1993, but it was not in the Mega Marines set, even though Dr. Meinbender is mentioned on the file card. And here is the file card. I will read this file card later, but for now I wanted to point out that it has a list of some of the features, and I will be using this to describe some of the accessories and details. Cyber Vipers are cyborgs. Yes, there were cyborgs in G.I. Joe. In the 90s, anything could be in G.I. Joe. Cyborgs, aliens, mutants, robots, zombies. There is some debate about whether the 1986 Cobra battle android trooper was going to be cybernetic. The final product was fully mechanical, but eventually we got cybernetic cobras. Let's take a look at Cyber Vipers accessories. None of these accessories are original. Like many other 90s accessories, they came on a plastic frame. The purchaser would cut the accessories off the plastic tree. This means there is no color variation among the accessories that were attached to the tree. In this case, they are gray, which sort of makes them unique. Most of these accessories were not cast in gray for other figures. Nonetheless, absolutely nothing was designed new for the cyber viper. These are all reused accessories. Some of the accessories were not on the plastic tree, such as the mold and the missile launcher. We will get to all of them. Let's start by looking at this large rifle. It is in gray plastic. It has a drum magazine and a scope. It is very large. It's oversized for the figure. This rifle was originally issued for the 1990 Rock Viper in a cream color. The Rock Viper's rifle had a peg on the side, so it could be pegged into the figure's backpack. Like so. The Cyber Viper rifle does not have the peg. The grip on this rifle is a bit too thick to fit in my Cyber Viper's hand, so I do not put this in the figure's hand because I don't want to risk breaking the thumb. In fact, I don't put any of these accessories in the figure's hand. The next accessory is this flamethrower. It is in gray plastic. It has two grips. It has the pistol grip and the foregrip. It has a molded on hose and a peg on the back, and it also has a vintage shroud over part of the barrel. This flamethrower was originally issued with 1991 Incinerator in silver plastic. The details are good, but the Incinerator flamethrower connected to the backpack with this plastic hose that attached on the peg at the back of the flamethrower. The Cyber Viper flamethrower does not connect to anything, but it still has the peg on the back. The next accessory is this submachine gun. It is also in that gray plastic. This is a retro-futuristic design. It has a magazine and some technical detail. It has a shrouded vent over the barrel, and this fin at the back looks like something out of Buck Rogers. This accessory was originally issued with 1988 Voltar in gold plastic. I don't have the Voltar accessory. I lost it. Next we have what sources call another rifle. It is also in that gray plastic. It's a very odd shape. It has two grips. It has the back and then this foregrip here. This was originally issued with 1988 Toxoviper in black plastic. The Toxoviper card contents call it a pistol. It is neither a pistol nor a rifle. It's not clear exactly what it's supposed to be. As with the flamethrower, the Toxoviper accessory has this peg to connect to the backpack. The Cyber Viper accessory does not connect to anything, but it still has the peg. Another gray accessory is the figure stand. The figure stand is a nice innovation from the 1990s, although figure stands did exist in the 80s. In the 90s, they actually came with the figures, so that's nice. Also, the gray kind of matches the gray on the figure, so that's something. Finally, we get to an accessory that is not gray. It is not gray, but it is not an improvement. It's this missile launcher, and it is bright yellow. This is one of the infamous spring-loaded missile launchers from the 1990s. It looks really good. It has a ton of technical detail all over it. It has what may be a multi-barrel machine gun underneath, and it has this guard that's supposed to go over the arm, and this grip that's on the top. The grip is supposed to go in the figure's hand like this. It doesn't go the other way. It goes this way. Of course, I won't put that in this figure's hand because I don't want to break the thumb. As nice as this missile launcher looks, it is not original. It was issued in red plastic for 1993 Cobra Commander Version 6, and for the 1993 Crimson Guard Commander, again in yellow plastic, but with a black trigger instead of a yellow trigger. It was also issued with Eels Version 3 and the Mega Viper. The Cyber Viper launcher is the only one that came with a yellow body and a yellow trigger. The file card calls this a forearm firing cyber gun missile launcher. Since this is a spring-loaded missile launcher, it will really fire missiles. It included two gray missiles. To operate this missile launcher, just place the gray missile into the barrel with the notch side down. Press it all the way in until it clicks. To fire, you just press this trigger back. Let's test it using our old Nemesis Doctor Mindbender. Let's set him up there and then take aim and fire. At last, we get to what everyone really came here for. The moldable bio armor and the mold that works with it. It comes in a black plastic container with a pink lid. It has G.I. Joe on the top. It has a silver label that says G.I. Joe Mega Marines moldable bio armor. It says G.I. Joe Mega Marines even though this comes with the bad guy. This particular example still has the vintage Play-Doh inside. It looks like it was a red color. It's also solid as a rock now and partially crystallized. There's no way to reconstitute this. So how are we going to test the mold to see if that works? With Play-Doh, of course, regardless of what the label says, this stuff was this stuff. This Play-Doh is in a hideous pink color, which is fitting. We're going to test it with the bio armor mold, which is a neon green color. It has details on the outside, but you're not meant to attach this to the figure. It has molded detail on the inside so you can shape the Play-Doh. Let's just put a couple blobs of Play-Doh in the mold. We got to put some in the front and put some in the back. And when we press it together, it should make a bio armor vest. Now, this isn't very good armor. You wouldn't expect Play-Doh to make very good armor, but you can simulate battle damage with it, and that's kind of cool. I think that's the general idea that they were going with. The figure's arms will have to be out to make this work. This looks like the front, so let's just close that over the figure and press to shape the Play-Doh. Now, let's pop it back open and see if it worked. And it didn't work too well. It did shape the Play-Doh, but the back and the front are coming apart, so we'll need to try that again. I added some more Play-Doh to the mold, so hopefully that will help the front and the back to mesh together. So let's press it together really good. And then now, let's try to open it up and see if it works. That worked a little bit better. You can remove some of this excess, and there you go, the bio armor. We have looked at this before, and it's just as silly now as it was when we looked at it on the gung-ho figure. Like I said, you can simulate battle damage. This is cute if not very functional. It's an innovative idea to integrate another Hasbro property with G.I. Joe, even if it does look a little silly. They weren't fooling anybody by calling it bio armor, though. Everybody knows exactly what it is. You may be wondering what these other parts are for. Well, those are so you can mold warheads for the missiles. This works the same way as the bio armor you just put Play-Doh on each side and then press the missiles in. Then you can close the mold and press. And then you can remove the excess. It's a little easier to remove the excess on these missiles. So remove the excess, and then when you open it, you should have nice pink Play-Doh warheads for your missile. And there it is. It looks all right. What is the purpose of this? I have no idea. How well do these missiles work with the warheads? I'll bet Dr. Meinbender would like to find out. Let's test it. Let's place it back in the missile launcher and press all the way in. It's a little difficult to do without squishing the warhead. Yes, I have squished the warhead by pressing it in. There just isn't a way to get it in far enough. But anyway, let's test it anyway. Goodbye, Dr. Meinbender. Let's take a look at the articulation. Blah, blah, blah. The knees bend 90 degrees. Blah, blah, blah. Why do you do this every time? Dude, articulation on GI Joe figures is like always the same. At least when I talk about articulation on my brand new Saturday Shorty show, and I talk about Transformers, it's relevant because all their articulation is different.  You betcha. Catch the show on Saturdays on my channel. Well, that's fine. But the articulation part is important. I know I say the same thing in almost every review, but any video could be somebody's first video, so it's their first time hearing it. He had the articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures well before 1993, so he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow so he could bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. This was an o-ring figure, meaning the figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that looked around the inside, not allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Cyber Viper. This is one of the most bizarre figures in the entire line. It looks like a Frankenstein figure, but it's not. It's made of entirely new body parts for some reason. The extreme mismatch between parts is intentional. They're supposed to be cyborgs, so the mismatched colors are supposed to represent mechanical and biological parts. Looking at his head, he has a yellow non-removable helmet. The card calls this a biomechanical brain-integrated computer helmet. He has yellow tubes that connect to the side and the back of his neck. The helmet has ridges that go across the top and goggles over the eyes. The file card calls this a full-spectrum sighting lens. The Cyber Viper has a Caucasian skin tone and this really strange extension under the visor that goes vertically over the mouth and connects to a brace on the chin. Why would they have this? They were definitely thinking outside the box here, but why would you want a vertical piece over the mouth that's braced on the chin? It doesn't look any better on the card art. It looks like it's right up against his lips, so it would be difficult to speak. Maybe that's how Dr. Meinbender wanted it. On his chest he has a gray vest with some buckles on the left side and some straps that go under the left arm. He also has this circular detail at the abdomen. He has red shoulder pads and on each shoulder he has a tall fin. He looks like a 1957 Chevy Bel Air. What purpose do these serve? Are they supposed to look cool? If so, they fail.  He has some red straps connected to the shoulder pad that go to some very bright green grenades on the right side and a very bright green pouch on the left side. The final card calls these grenades radioactive blast grenades. There is a red strap that connects to the green pocket on the left side and goes under the right arm. That detail continues to the back. Even without looking at the other parts, this chest is just a mish-mash of different ideas and different details that don't quite go together. Looking at his arms, yikes, the upper part of the left arm is in a bright neon green color with yellow corn on the cob attached to it. I'm sure this is supposed to be some kind of cybernetic muscle, but it looks like corn to me. His elbow is a Caucasian flesh tone. Then he has a detailed technical green band around his forearm and then a very detailed yellow glove. They did nice on the details there. I will give them credit for that. The final card calls the arm and the leg on this side a biomechanical arm and leg. Technically any human arm or leg would be biomechanical. I assume they mean it's a combination of human body parts and artificial implants. The right arm is mostly bare, just the Caucasian flesh tone down to the bright neon green forearm band with some technical detail and a green hose connected to the elbow. The right hand is bare. This hose detail on the forearm actually reminds me of the hose detail on the 1987 Techno Viper. And that's probably the best thing this figure can do is remind me of a better action figure. The waist piece has a bright neon green belt with a small buckle and two small pouches, one on each hip. He has red trousers and otherwise not much detail. Looking at his legs, double yikes. He has two totally different colored legs. The right leg is the same red color as the waist piece and there is a seam down the outside leg. Otherwise no real detail on the right leg. The left leg is a bright neon green and it has all these ridged muscle details on it. This is supposed to be a mechanical leg. I assume the ridge detail is supposed to match what's on the upper left arm, but it's done much better on the leg. There is a ridged gray band around the left leg that goes down to the left boot. The boots are gray and the boots are almost symmetrical. At least they're the same color of gray. There's a lip on the right boot that is not on the left boot. So even the almost symmetrical boots are not quite the same. When I reviewed Darklawn, I noted the figure looked like a collection of mismatched parts. Cyber Viper makes Darklawn look tasteful in comparison. Cyber Viper looks like a three-year-old who dressed himself. I understand that they were trying to make this guy look like he was assembled from different mechanical parts, but there are better ways to do that. In fact, there aren't many worse ways to do that. You didn't point out that this figure doesn't have any indication that he is cobra. I mean, he doesn't have any insignias on him, so there's nothing to say that he's a bad guy. Well, apart from the fact that you're blinded by his garishness. Thank you, Timmer. That was both pertinent and apt. Can I go now? No way. You've reviewed this thing and I need your knowledge and experience. Next year, if I win, I'm making you review RoboJo. Let's look at the file card. The file card is in a disgusting green color. Of course it is. It has some artwork of Cyber Viper here in this lower panel and then a close-up in the upper panel. And there is a color mismatch in the art. The left leg is red. On the figure, the left leg is green. His code name is Cyber Viper's hyphenated and plural. They are the cybernetic officers. Primary military specialty is cybernetic operations. Secondary military specialty, biointelligence warfare. This is a collection of smart sounding words that have no context or meaning. Here we have a quote presumably from a cyber viper. It says, This paragraph tells us all we need to know about the cyber vipers. It says, With evil brains enhanced by Dr. Mindbender himself. Abbey normal brains. They are half-man and half-robot, and both have formed one tough enemy for the mega-marines to fight. These cybernetic troopers help control the top-level command operations of the mega-monsters and are responsible for initiating their destructive attacks. They are the guardians of monsters, the overseers of doom. I doubt this file card was written by Larry Hama. The last sentence has a bit of poetry, but the rest is just a cross-promotion for other toys. Looking at how the cyber viper was used in GI Joe Media, to my knowledge he was never animated, not for the television show and not for commercials. Even the extreme 90s looked at these guys and said, That's a bit much, don't you think? The cyber viper did appear in the comic book published by Marvel Comics in issue number 149. They were shown helping Dr. Mindbender operate the brainwave scanner. This is similar to their function as described on the file card, assisting Dr. Mindbender, but there are no mutant monsters. I can't say if the comic book uniform is worse than the figure, it's bad in different ways. I have to give credit to Chris Pierce from Comic Tropes for finding these appearances of the cyber viper in the comic book. I did not find these pages until he pointed them out, so I would like to invite Chris to say something about them. Oh hi, you caught me doing literally anything else, so now you do want me on the show? Yes, you are the comics expert and I would love to have your take on these comics with the cyber viper. Oh gosh, I'd love to, but I'm doing literally anything else. Oh, well, maybe next time. Yes, and until next time, keep reading comics and then stick them up your a- Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. The cyber viper had one other appearance in a live action TV commercial. It was a very brief appearance. He was also on a trading card with the live action costume, which looked totally different. The commercial version would have been a cool action figure. Looking at the cyber viper overall, this is one of the strangest figures in the series. It looks like a bunch of parts from different action figures that were kit bashed together, but all of these parts were new and have not been used since. That's a lot of money to spend on tooling that was never used again. There are some critics who really like this figure, but I just can't see what they were going for here. There are other cyborg figures in G.I. Joe. Robo Joe looks tasteful and understated in comparison. I will never understand the vertical bar on the helmet. I get that the designer was trying to think outside of the box, but there's a reason helmets aren't designed this way.  For his views on the cyber viper, I go to Timmer. Over to you, Timmer. Thoughts about the cyber viper? Back to you, Steve. Oh, wait, you actually want me to tell you my thoughts on the thing. Yeah, it's pretty horrendous looking. It's not a good figure. I'm not a fan. No, sir, I don't like it. The accessories look good in gray, and there are some gems here. The incinerator flamethrower looks cool, but there is nothing new here. This is another low effort from the 90s. What do you think of the accessories, Timmer? Same. Back to you, Steve. The file card has some good points. Dr. Meinbender could use some lab assistants, but it's mostly just cross promotion for other toys. What does Timmer think of cyber viper's place in G.I. Joe lore? Back to you, Steve. Back to you, Timmer. Back to you, Steve. Back to you, Timmer. Back to you, Steve. Let's hear what Chris from Comic Tropes thinks about the cyber viper. My thoughts on the cyber viper. I don't love it. First of all, the color scheme is gaudy. I don't love the asymmetrical look. It can work, but I don't think it does in this case. And the mask is confusing. That bar that goes across the mouth. I mean, what purpose does that serve other than to force him to only take meals through a straw at lunchtime? I really don't know what that protects or what that does. And in terms of functionality for playtime, what role does the cyber viper really take on that the techno viper didn't already fill? So I don't think it was necessary. In the comics, I could find literally two examples of it being used. I don't think writer Larry Hama had a good idea for how to use them either. They show up as assistants for Dr. Mindbender, a role typically fulfilled by techno vipers. And then there's also a scene where one is driving a tank, and hoodie Coco, you're the expert here. I think this was called the Devastator. I'm not fully sure there. And honestly, in between the two issues, the costume changes a bit. So there's no real consistency. The cyber viper really shows the extremes that Hasbro had gone to with giving somebody a role and adding viper to the end of it. I don't know exactly whose idea that was to push the viper thing so strongly, but I do know that writer Larry Hama had fun with it in the comics, including scenes like this where kitchen vipers are referred to. I think that that's a pretty good gag that there are things as obscure as a kitchen chef and that they are given a title with viper at the end. That's pretty funny. Anyway, I would ultimately have more fun, even as a kid, with a kitchen viper as compared to the cyber viper. So not my favorite. That was our review of the cyber viper. I hope you enjoyed it. Special thanks to Timmer from Half the Battle and Chris from Comic Tropes. These guys have been friends and collaborators for several years. I enjoy working with them. They have their own shows that I also really love. They are worth a look and a subscription. I apologize for missing two weeks of videos. This video took extra long to make. A lot of things went wrong with it. It seemed like a cursed review. Apparently, the action figure gods did not want us to review cyber viper. If you did like this video, please give it a thumbs up on YouTube. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Share this video with your friends. You can find me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, hcc788.com. As always, thank you to my supporters on Patreon. Without whom these videos would not be possible, they really have sustained me through difficult times, and I am extremely grateful to them. If you'd like to support the channel, Patreon is a great way to do it. You can get some special perks and get your name in videos like the names you see scrolling on the screen right now. I'll be back soon with another vintage GI Joe toy review, and until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe. To you, Steve. Back to you, Timmer. Back to you. Back to you. Back to you. Back to you.


you know i have so many friends here, mama how are you? you all right? you have a gift for me? mama also give you a gift, give me money give me money i give you guys gift before i leave here don't worry give me money everyone wants my gift so one more give me one more mama this is a gift from Ghana and this is a gift from Ghana thank you


Hello there, I'm Philip Magnus and this is my latest World of Warcraft impression video. I'm talking about Legion obviously and today's topic is the latest, the third zone I have been playing through Stormheim. And yes, it's all about Vricco and the Alliance versus the Horde. These are two separate things by the way. Two separate quest lines and they are both fairly good, but let's start with the Vricco. I haven't seen the likes of these giant lovely people since all the way back in the day of Wrath of the Lich King, our Northrend. I'll admit, I didn't quite miss that race, but I do like me some counterfeit Norse mythology. There is something just so idiotically charming in the way Blizzard recycles, remakes and renames Norse gods, worlds and so on and so forth.  A large portion of the time in Stormheim is spent looking for another of those pillars of creation, sorry, pillars of eternity, wrong game, wrong franchise, another of the pillars of creation, the ages of whatever, I forgot the name, sorry about that.  Are they nether dragons, are they something else entirely? I have no clue whatsoever. What I do know is that I made friends among them, and a few memorable ones at that. What else did I do? I am, I even helped the tribe of gigantic owls, a kind of munkin, while I helped them try to survive the wild and dangerous world outside of their cave, only to create a ritual which somehow got the attention of a giant tender dragon, which for some reason burned them all to a crisp, that was cruel and weird and very, very, very unusual. And last but not least, I jumped from cliff side to cliff side, with what was virtually a bathclaw or a grapple gun, if you will. Anyway, I enjoyed a few of the characters in this quest zone, sorry, in this world zone. The main villain though, very cool wise, was a bland, angry god king. Needless to say, nothing but threats and dramatic monologues came from his general proximity to me. He was not really threatening, and it is my opinion that, well, if you want to intimidate someone, you should use fewer words and more actions.  He just went around threatening me, showing around, trying to slow me down by destroying a bridge at one point, which only made no sense, because I had to use a grapple gun anyway. Yeah, it was a weak villain, that's for sure. And of course I defeated him once in the map, and another time in the HALS VALA dungeon, for which I will make another video, it's an exceptional dungeon. I absolutely loved it, and I'm going to talk about it in due time, when I get to heroic, mythical and so on and so forth. Anyway, the intimidation factor is severely lacking in villains nowadays, at least where Stormheims are concerned. My favourite bit of Stormheim on a purely artistic basis is the bastardisation, let's call it, of HAL, the North Mythology HAL, which is renamed in Blizzard's game as HAL-heim. The ships, all serpent-like, the atmosphere, Helios and her tentacles, it's one hell of a visual and very dramatic one, quite an efficient one too. I just absolutely loved how near and how much it felt like a piece of a mythologies underworld, it was very effective and very ambient, absolutely atmospheric. The Wrickland Pillar of Creation bit, however, comes after a rather sizable prologue that is very much dependent on whether you play as the Alliance or the Horde, seeing as I'm a Horde player. I got an excellent prologue during which I was attacked by the wargin led by again Greymane and alongside with Nassanol's Blythe Collar, I actually defeated the aforementioned wargin leader. Atop an airship, after a sizable scenario, which I spent boarding different ships, moving from ship to ship, collecting very explosive barrels filled with poison, toxic toxic poison, you just love it, and an all-around good time was to be had by all, then most of me, I didn't actually see anyone else doing the scenarios, I was doing the scenario but that did not stop me from enjoying it a hell of a lot. The most awesome moments in Stormheim, I would say, come courtesy of our very undead, very ambitious warchief, Sylvanas Windrunner. Her continual quest for immortality, and continual existence of her Forsaken, has been going on since, let's see, what has it been, Wrath of the Lich King, yeah. But she has never quite managed to find a solution to her problem. You see the Forsaken, for the simple reason of being dead, cannot procreate, and that is quite difficult because they die, and Sylvanas, needless to say, would rather her Forsaken not be wiped out as a nation. Because while all Forsaken come from different undead races, supposedly, even if their models look almost exclusively like humans and blood elves, oh sorry, high elves, they have another nationality, so to speak. And Sylvanas would like to safeguard that and leave it as something greater than a momentous passing by of the winds. Anyway, she has not fared too well on that quest yet, actually quite the opposite.  I am Eir, and she managed to use a magical lantern called the Soulcage to bind the Valkyr, this gigantic Valkyr like no other, not unlike the Valkyrs that have served Sylvanas in the past. Anyway, Ganglade Greymane lets out a rather unpleasant how and manages, after a short combat with Sylvanas, break the Soulcage and free the Valkyr. And of course that is very, very unpleasant for Sylvanas, a failure and the Banshee Queen does not take well to failures. Particularly cool is a meeting a little bit earlier on in the questline between the Banshee Queen and Helle, during which the player can understand that there has been some sort of a deal between the goddess of the underworld and our glorious leader. Without that deal, we do not know, but I am certain that we will eventually find out and it might, in fact, come back and bite us in the asses, but hey, I don't know, might just as well not. We'll see, we'll see, I'm sure of it. Ah, any other impressions from Stormheim? Let me think, let me think, I asked the music. The music was once again exceptional. There was a very familiar team from Wrath of the Lich King, one of the main Nautrant teams this time, slightly, or rather reworked by quite a large margin, nevertheless it was a fantastic team and I absolutely loved hearing it again. And the atmosphere of the whole zone is very reminiscent of some Nautrant zones, especially the ones that dealt heavily with the wrinkle and their mythology and culture. And I absolutely loved that, I really did. We fought a large variety of enemies and they were entertaining. Of course, the House of Valor dungeon, whose entrance lies ahead, has been so far the best dungeon I have played in the expansion, at least on a purely atmospheric base. Very much a piece out of Valhalla. Ah, I really enjoyed Stormheim. I am now looking forward to playing the last of the low level zones and getting to 110 and getting my fish wet in Suramar and some end game content. I will keep you informed and I will keep posting these videos. If you enjoyed this, please share, like and subscribe. And of course tell all your friends about me. Thank you guys for watching and I am going to leave you off with this last video, the fight between Sylvanas Windrunner and again Greymane. See you guys next time. Bye. Thank you for watching and I will see you in the next video.


Hey, everyone this talk is about barriers for succinct arguments in the random oracle model My name is Alonio Gevin. This is joint work with Alessandro Chiesa Let me start with an informal overview of succinct arguments in this model So here we have we have a prover we have a verifier and They communicate in an interactive protocol to decide if X is in the language. They both have Access to a shared common resource and this is a truly random function What is magical about these protocols is that the communication complexity is what's called succinct It's extremely short and in particular much shorter than the size of the witness The soundness is computational Meaning the following two requirements. So we have completeness Which says that there exists an honest prover that can convince the verifier that X is in the languages or ability one and For some this it means that if X is not in the language Then no matter what adversary you choose if it makes up to t queries to the random oracle model The probability that it wins and convinces the verifier is at most epsilon in In general the definition talks about an interactive protocol and our results All of our results in this paper holds for interactive protocols But for simplicity most of the time i'm going to talk about succinct non interactive arguments or for short snarls So Why are we focused on this random oracle model? Well, it's a very elegant information theoretic model And because of such it lets you pull lower bounds Which is usually quite hard to do outside this model And is what we do in this work? Moreover, it supports well-known constructions of snarls in the random oracle model If you want to take your construction outside this model into the real model What you can do is you can heuristically implement the function. We have many such candidates They're usually They usually use Relatively lightweight cryptographic hash functions, and then you get a heuristic construction in the standard model These constructions are also plausibly post-quantum secure and actually for the constructions we have It has been explicitly shown that they are post-quantum secure in the random oracle model, of course So what are these constructions? We have two constructions. We have Micali at 94 and more than 20 years later BCS. This is Ventsa Sonchiasz and Spooner They both work in the same paradigm They take an information theoretic proof. This is a PCP or an IOP And just a short reminder A PCP is a proof that the approval provides And the verifier reads only locally so we don't need a small number of bits from the proof An IOP is simply an interactive Generization of PCP. So after this happens the Verifier can send some message back to the pover the pover sends another message and again the verifier only reads a few bits from this So they take this information theoretic proof. They combine it with a cryptographic commitment scheme that supports local opening These are usually what's called a Merkel tree And together they compile this into a non interactive succinct argument So our starting point of this work is looking at these state of affairs and asking Why aren't there other constructions? We have this Strong model. Why don't we have more constructions? Why do all of them rely on these relatively heavy machinery of a PCP or an IOP? So now let me state our results So first we show that you can take any succinct argument in the random oracle model And you can distill from it an interactive oracle proof an IOP This is our first result. Moreover the parameters of this IOP are going to be very closely related To the parameters of the succinct argument and we'll see more about this Then our second result shows that Gives limits on the soundness of interactive oracle proofs In particular, if you have a very good IOP you get a very fast algorithm for 3SAT Combining these we're able to show that If you start with some too good to be true snarg You get a too good to be true IOP which is a very fast algorithm for SAT And if you assume eth the exponential time hypothesis Which is a standard complexity assumption Then you get a contradiction ruling out the existence of this snarg to begin with So that was an overview of our results and now I want to tell you about them in slightly more detail so the first result IOPs are inherent for succinct arguments in the random oracle model So you start with an succinct argument And you can really distill an IOP And not only that the parameters that you're going to get here Are very closely related to the parameters of the succinct argument A few more terms mainly aimed for experts If you start with a preprocessing snarg you end up with a holographic IOP And if you start with a snarg with a stronger soundness notion that we introduce some called salted soundness Which mainly says that the cheating pover can query some x Get the response y and if he doesn't like it he can ask to resample this response So if you start with this strong notion you get the strong notion of state restoration soundness Which is the soundness notion you need when you compile IOP back to snargs So I want to go slightly deeper into the parameters. So just I want to We consider the pover adaptivity parameter This is the number of query rounds That the honest pover makes to the random oracle So of course the honest pover can make the queries one by one But in the constructions we have actually this is performed in a few rounds So in each round the pover can send List of queries so x1 to xn and then he gets back a list of responses y1 to ym and after seeing this responses he goes And decides on the next list of queries to ask the overkill So as I said in all known in constructions this adaptivity parameter, which denote by a is actually quite small It's log n. So now going back to our result If you start with a snarg with argument size a yes argument size Vq verifier queries pq pover queries and adaptivity a You end up with the following iop So I'm mainly going to talk about these two parameters. So what is the poof length? The poof length is pq plus as so as is the argument size So of course we're going to have the argument here But you cannot expect to have only this because the argument is succinct and you we do not expect the iop to be succinct So we have the poof queries here, which is some arbitrary polynomial in the witness length The more important parameter is the query complexity. So this we want to be We want this square parameter to be small So this is a yes. So The verifier would need to read a yes. So we need to read the argument itself Uh, so that's at least a yes bits or just one query if you consider a larger alphabet plus We need vq times a so for every query of the verifier to the random oracle we need to read a bits on the poof There is an incomparable result of rod blom badam. They showed that pcps are inherent in succinct arguments But they consider succinct arguments that were obtained by a black box reduction to falsifiable assumptions In particular, the result does not include constructions in the random oracle model And most constructions outside the random oracle model actually use non-facifiable assumptions But the two results somehow complete Compliment each other. So I want to move on to Theorem number two result number two. So this is limits on iop's and pcps Our main question here is how high can the soundness of an iop be? Okay, and the theorem says the following So suppose that threesat Over n variables has the following iop It has soundness error epsilon It has k rounds The poof length, the entire communication is l over some alphabets sigma And the query complexity is q. So these are just the parameters Such that this condition holds And this condition merely says that it's a non-trivial iop Because if you Will read n bits then really you could have just read the entire way Satisfying the sign. Okay, so just really saying that this is a non-trivial iop Then You cannot have too good Too high soundness. So the soundness error epsilon Cannot be smaller than two to the minus q log l if it is then eth is false Okay, and we just mentioned that we have an analog result for deterministic languages Okay, if you're interested you can look at the paper And this actually matches and generalizes the sliding scale conjecture Okay, so even for iop In particular it rules out constant query PCP or iop With two to the minus s soundness Okay, even if your alphabet has size Much larger. So polynomial index two to the o of s We said that our two results implied barriers for snogs in the random oracle module These barriers are going to be in the form of barriers on the verifier query complexity So let's think for a minute. How small can the verifier query complexity be? It would be really wonderful to have snogs Well, verifier makes 10 queries to the random oracle module This is in particular important when you make non-blackbox use of the verifier So you need the code of the verifier where you replace the random oracle With some instantiation Some hash function then every query really blows up the code to to be huge This is in particular important when we talk about recursive composition So our corollary says That is very unlikely to have such snogs where the verifier makes 10 or a small number of queries to the random oracle So let me state this slightly more formally So if you start with a snog with s bits of security And here this is really a shorthand just to say that If you make 2 to the s queries then The probability of winning is at most 2 to the s and our security parameter is o of s Okay, so think of s as like 128 bits of security And the verifier complexity is vq and the proved activity is a If this condition holds vq times a is little o of s Then you get a very very good iop Which implies a very fast algorithm for 3sat and this contradicts ath Actually Very recently We improved this to the mere condition that the query complexity of the verifier Is sublinear in s So this moves out snogs with a small number of queries Okay So that was an overview of our results And now I want to give an overview of a proof So this is the transformation from snog to iop So on the left hand, we have a snog here. So again, this is just one round Okay On the right hand, we have an iop And we want to transform this creature to this creature I notice the differences. So this creature has a random oracle and here we do not have any random oracle Okay, this is an information theoretic object Uh, this is short the messages here might be long, but the verifier reads only a small number of locations So i'm going to start with a strawman proof It will give us what we want with bad complexity measures and then we'll see how to improve them So we start with a snog. So this is how it looks like we want to get rid of this random oracle because an iop doesn't have a random oracle So we're gonna push this oracle to the verifier And so the verifier is gonna Have this oracle in his head and simulate it for the pulver So what does that mean the pulver whenever he wants to make a query? she She queries x1 and the verifier is gonna respond with y1 The pulver is going to take this as the answer of the random oracle and query x2 and so on Finally the pulver gets the final argument pi and sends it to the verifier Now what does the verifier do? Well, he got this argument pi. So he wants to run the argument verifier on this The only question is how to simulate queries for the argument verifier And the important thing is that we want to simulate queries Consistently with the queries that we gave to the pulver Okay, just simulating queries easy. We can just answer randomly, but we want this to be consistent with the answers we gave to the pulver So this is what we're going to do for suppose the argument verifier performs a query x We're going to find find around i Where xi equals x Okay, if no such round exists and we really can just answer randomly, that's fine But if we found such an around then we we're going to use yi as a response There is a small problem here by an important problem We must make sure that x was not queried twice Eh, so this is not allowed in the random overcount We do not want to allow the pulver to query x get a response say, hmm, you know what? I don't like this response so much. So let's query x again and get another response So the solution is to go over all other rounds Okay, and verify that what was queried there is not the query that we're looking at So at this point, let me just say this is a valid iop. Okay, we have completeness and we're going to have very good soundness The problem is its complexity. So first the query complexity. Well, we read the entire transcript So it's not a really an iop. It's a very laconic iop And second the round complexity is also huge. So we have around for every query So fixing the round complexity, that's actually easy Why if you go back you remember we talked about the pulver and the activity So we just use that and we let the pulver send many queries at once So he sends m queries at once and the very very far just responds with m answers Then when he gets that he can send the next list of the queries and so on So the round complexity is really going to be very close to the just the pulver and activity But here still the the verify reads the entire transcript So this is our main challenge now Okay, the main challenge to get small query complexity Is the following you're given x And we're given some round j. It doesn't matter And we need to verify that x was not issued in round j Okay, so think of this as round j. We want to verify that x is not here Verifying that x is here. That's easy. The pulver can just point us to the location of x and we can read it Okay, so we can just locally read it and we don't have to read the entire message But we want to make sure that x is not here and for that we're gonna have to ask the pulver for some additional help Okay, but that's fine because this is an iop and I can use the power of iop So we're gonna make use of a perfect hash function so This is a family a small family of hash functions from some universe to o of m for parameter m And we say that this is perfect if for every subset of size m There exists at least one hash function in the family that is perfect on s Okay, there's a famous construction the fks construction You might have learned it in undergrad. It uses two levels of hash functions You first have the first level then you hashed in you're hashed into some bucket And in that bucket you can read a secondary hash function Which solves any collisions The one thing that is important about this construction is that we observe it has an addition additional locality property So to evaluate h on any specific element x You only need to read a few bits from h and this is very important because h might be very big It's actually at least m bits. Okay, actually more than that But if I want to evaluate h on one location x, I don't need to read the entire description of h It's suffices to read a small number of bits from h and this is because of the two level of hashing So I only need to read the first level and then in the second level, which is huge I only need to read the hash function for my bucket So how do we use this we ask the pulver could you please Take the set of elements you want to query in the sound And just put them in a array of size o of n according to this perfect hash function So find a hash function that is perfect for the set of queries and you can actually find this very efficiently And then he takes x one computes h of x one and writes it in the in the correct location This gives local access to the pulver and also to the verifier So the verifier now if he wants to search for x one He directly goes to here to he reads a few bits from h to evaluate it and then directly directly goes here So let's see the entire protocol The pulver is gonna send h one and then an array with the queries that he wants Okay, many places in this array are going to be empty. That is totally fine. Okay, the array is larger than the the set itself The verifier does not look at this and just answer With an array of the same size size with completely random strings This is interpreted in the following way The response for x two for example is this y seven and the response for x one is this y three Okay, so just the same location the same index in the In the arrays So this would be called t and this is t prime And then we go into the next level. He finds the perfect hash for the next next set of queries This is t two we answer with t prime two and and so on So what do we do on a query x? We find a round i where We take the array of this round. We look at only this position h of x and we verify that x is written here Then we take the corresponding y so the same location the array only for t prime and this is the response y that we use And then we're going to verify That for all the other rounds This location in the array does not contain x So this will make sure that he didn't issue x twice So notice that we We are querying every round of the protocol But there are only a few rounds. Okay, this is the pover adaptivity and for every round we're only querying all of one Cyndals, okay per round So the the final query complexity Of the protocol is very small One thing to notice is the verifier does use a lot of randomness in this protocol and this is actually inherent But the important bit is That he has only local access to his own randomness. So he's going to read his own randomness only locally He never reads this entire long string Okay This completes the proof for our first result So let me just summarize We have shown that succinct arguments any succinct argument in the random protocol model implies an iop with corresponding parameters If the snar was too good to begin with the iop has too high sourness Which implies a fast algorithm for threesat Which possibly does not exist. So this gives barriers for the query complexity of the verifier In snar's and the random protocol model And let me end with an open problem Another very important complexity measure is the argument size Okay, the argument size of these snar's and We ask the question can our techniques be used to lower bound the argument size of any snar in the random protocol model And we actually believe the answer should be yes Thank you very much


Welcome to Toffy TV. It is the Everton News Daily. Moise Keane has made the shortlist for the final 20 of the 2019 Golden Boy Award. The Everton Striker is one of only four players from the Premier League to make that final 20. He joins Mason Mount and Chelsea, Gwensley and Arsenal and Phil Foden of Manchester City. Keane, you know, we haven't seen the best of him yet at Everton, of course, still, you know, trying to adjust to life in England, trying to adjust to the Premier League Everton. I haven't found a way of playing really. That's suited Moise Keane at the moment, but this again just highlighting the talent of the lad. And if we can get a formation right that suits him, and I think once he gets his first goal, I think we will start to see the huge potential that Keane has. But it's a big, a big honour for him really to be involved in this, you know, killing him. Bapi was the 2018 winner, so good luck to Moise in this one. Michael Keane has been speaking about Keane Truma, saying that he had lots of conversations with the Chelsea defender over the summer by text and on phone calls, trying to convince him to come to Everton or talking about the possibility of coming to Everton, of course. Truma, who spent last season on loan at Everton, had an excellent end to the season. You know, Marco Silva was on record quite publicly saying he wanted to keep him. Lots of players were talking about him. And Truma, who Keane said had a great time at Everton, was looking forward to coming back to be a permanent part of Marco Silva's squad. It didn't happen. He stayed at Chelsea, because primarily because of their transfer ban. He's done alright. He's been in and out the side. Obviously, when all of their centre backs are fit, Rudiger, Christensen, Trumori, Keane, Truma rather ends up third or fourth to his centre back. Whether he'll be happy with that long term, I don't know. There's not much we can do about it at the moment anyway. But yeah, Keane just reiterated that he had a really good time here, Truma, and he did want to come back. So we'll have to see if Everton go back in for Truma in January. It probably wouldn't be January given Chelsea's ban, but maybe next summer. We'll have to see how that plays out. On the back of that, Everton have today been linked with 22-year-old Spanish centre back Unai Nunes from Atlético Bilbao. He is someone who, apparently, Marcel Branders is keeping a close eye on and is very interested in bringing through Everton in January. Everton are, of course, short in the centre back. Department, as we know, in Michael Keane, Yeri Mina and Onimation Holgate, who can play in that position at the moment. Keane and Mina have started the season as the partnership. I think Mina's done better than Keane, if I'm honest with that. And we do need the centre back. And 22-year-old fits the bill. Apparently, he's been likened to Le Porte, who's at Manchester City. When I think of Everton could move and get in a centre back in January, I think it would be an excellent move. And this kid, who had a breakthrough season, played 36 games in the 2017-18 season. Last season, only played 14 times for Bilbao. And I think that's where the links have come from, but Marcel Brands has got an eye on him and that could be one worth watching. I mean, just looking through, some of Marcel Brands' transfers, he doesn't really like the January transfer window. In fact, he only brought in four players across his eight years of PSV during that time. And only one of them was on a permanent basis. But we'll have to see if we do move for a centre back in January. Everton, Steuben Pickford played last night as England beat Bulgaria six-nil. Pickford kept a clean sheet, made a good save as well. In the first half, obviously, the game was overshadowed by some awful racist, boomin and racist comments made to Raheem Staling, Marcus Rashford, Tyrone Mings, people like that. But England got the job done. You know, it's seen a lot of things where people saying, should you just walk off now and leave it. I actually applaud them for staying on. I think they did the right thing. They were in the football area like they did. And, you know, don't let the racists win. And if the players can cope with it, they like to Staling and that, and he was brilliant and got another two goals. If he can cope with it, put the ball in the net, that's to me is the best way to shut them up. Spotlight it, put the highlight on it, because I think walking off, yet it causes some, you know, immediate headlines. But I think if you can stay on and get the job done, you know, it's a more powerful message. I can see what happens with that. Guilfee Sigarton played for Iceland and Mr Penalty, as they beat Andorra, two-nil. Also hit the post as well. They haven't been filled. They're struggling a little bit for form this season, but a good result for Iceland there. Geng Towson came on in the 81st minute, as Turkey drew one-one with France. An equaliser came just a few seconds after Towson had come off the bench for Turkey, but a great result for them in France. Llewka Deane and Jibril Siddabib were unused substitutes in this game. And Andre Gomez was an unused substitute as Portugal lost 2-1 in the Ukraine. That was a game in which Cristiano Ronaldo scored a 700th goal. Gomez fully fit again, and he will be massively welcome back into the Everton start lineup at the weekend. And games tonight for Seamus Coleman. He captains Ireland as they play Switzerland, yet he mean it should play for Colombia against Algeria tonight. And Tom Davis is expected to star for England as they play Austria at Milton Keynes Donge. England under 21s through a 2-goal lead away against Slovenia last Friday. Davis played in that one, but they'll be hoping for better tonight in the under 21 championship qualifying. And that is it for the Newsday League. Subscribe if you haven't. Give this video a thumbs up. And if you want more videos, get over and become a patron. See you later.


Good afternoon. We are back with Think Tech. We are talking about Asia and today we're doing a continuation of a prior program that I started. My name is Mark Shclough. I am the host of Law Across the Sea and today we're reviewing and going back and talking a little bit more about Vietnam with Chuck Crumpton. Chuck is an attorney although he likes to be known more as a mediator and an arbitrator and he has spent a lot of time in Vietnam postgraduate and professionally and has made many contacts in Vietnam and has continued them to this day and has learned a lot about it, worked there, lived there and really has a passion for Vietnam and we're going to ask him, put him on the spot a little bit, ask him some questions about Vietnam and Chuck, good to see you again. Welcome. Mark, a pleasure. Good to be back with you. You know Vietnam has, it's in the news a lot now and last time we spoke about this about a month ago on Law Across the Sea seemed to me that Vietnam's kind of coming out of its shell and is having a little more relations with the outside world than during the times when we grew up. What's going on with Vietnam? What's happening over there politically and within the country, with its people? What's happening? A large and compound set of questions. I said I'd put you on the spot. Yeah, well I think it's kind of been evolving in the sense that Vietnam has always envisioned itself as having an important role, a constructive role and a different and very independent role in Southeast Asia. They recognize that with China that nearby and with the long history that Vietnam has with China including thousand years of Chinese occupation and some continuing tensions and strains politically and militarily and then things that have been going on in what Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries call the East Sea, China calls South China Sea. There are just a lot of reasons for Vietnam to enable its relationships to become more public, more visible, and more connected on a larger and more international scale.  They've dealt with the Chinese, the French, the Americans, the Russians, and many, many others. So they're certainly not unsophisticated, but they recognize their size, their history, their economic and political background and some of the things that may restrict or limit their ability to have influence internationally. And I think they're a very relationship building country, both at a personal level among the people and Vietnam itself as a country. And it's a very different approach to international politics than most Western countries use. It is, however, when you think about it, the approach to politics and economics and military relations that really makes the most sense for sustainability because when a country has independence, it is threatened. It depends upon and survives and thrives by those relationships with its allies, with its neighbors, with those who share core values that transcend some of the conflicts that may exist on more quantitatively measured labels like economic, political, and things like that. So I don't know, I'm not trying to beat around the bush, but it's saying in as few words as possible. I think Vietnam is sensing its time as a significant, although small, size role player coming. And they've prepared themselves for that literally since the end of the military activities during the American War in Vietnam. And that's 41 years now. So it is not a youth, it's not a teenager. This is a middle-aged, growing entity that's entering the stage with the experience and sophistication and history of someone who knows itself, who knows its neighbors, who reads people and other countries and organizations pretty well and is very well geared for survival and for sharing and teaching things that can be of huge benefit to younger countries, including the U.S. Well, you know, I sense that both the U.S. and China are focusing on Vietnam. I'm not sure why, and I kind of want to, I like you to tell me, because you say it's a small country.  The U.S. was at war in Vietnam recently compared to China. And yet there seems to be, maybe that's the relationships that you were talking about, but there also seems to be some friendliness towards both and some caution towards both. What is the feeling, I mean, why, first of all, I guess I want to ask you, why is the U.S. and why are China both competing for Vietnam's attention? What's that about? Multipart, answer that. I mean, that's a really astute perception. And I think a very accurate one, recognizing that actually even after the end of the American War, military hostilities, China actually had some military incidents with Vietnam, some border incidents after that. So things have not been comfortable on the military front or very much on the political front. And yet at the same time, you're exactly right about the duality in that Chinese businesses are extremely active and influential and large in Vietnam. There are those who think that the primary objective for that of China is to wield a level of influence that would enable them to exert a lot of pressure on Vietnam's choices and directions politically, economically. My personal response, I'm kind of biased. Good luck with that. They tried for a thousand years and then they left. They've had some military skirmishes and that hasn't gone so well for them. They're doing what they're doing in the South China Sea and they're getting away with a lot over there, which is interesting because the countries that have the political and military force to exert some counter influence to that are decidedly and consciously and intentionally not doing so. First and foremost among those, the US. There are those who say the US is so intimidated by and afraid of China and offending China that it doesn't want to do anything to put them off. I don't think we can totally discredit that. If you look at the conduct of China in the East Sea, the territorial acquisition, what has now been found by the International Court as utterly lacking in legal or historical basis, we haven't seen that kind of legally unjustified and historically unjustified expansion since World War II with Hitler and some occasions by Japan. But to simply, and it's not even turning the other cheek, I mean it's literally intentionally standing back and not taking a position. Why would the US not support the Philippines in the arbitration given the common interest between the US and the Philippines and certainly common interest that the US shares with other Asian countries? With respect to Vietnam specifically, they have an interest. I think it's, what is the Paracels, is that correct? Right. And the Spratlys. Spratlys. Right. And others. Those are islands off Vietnam and I guess there's there may be oil-rich areas and that may that have something to do with all of this. And by the way, from what I've read about Vietnam, they've never been afraid of the Chinese per se. That's true. They've always fought and they never been afraid of the United States. That's true too. The French or the Russians. They've always fought. They might have been outgunned, but they never back down. Right. From what I could see. Right. And so unlike us, the Vietnamese don't invade. Right. They protect their own people, their land, their country. If somebody comes in and attempts to assert control in ways that are not supportive of the best interests of the people and country of Vietnam, Vietnam will resist in whatever ways it finds effective. Sometimes it will just outlast them. Sometimes it will actually militarily defeat them as they did France. Sometimes they will outlast them culturally as they do with the Chinese over a thousand-year period. Develop their own language and some of those things. I want to talk a little bit about the the South China Sea or the EC or whatever it's called. But before I go there, so we have China trying to continue our art to get great influence in Vietnam of some sort. Perhaps. And the U.S. has this pivot towards Asia as it's called and maybe they're trying to get trade or in some way have more influence and that mostly seems to be from Obama and maybe his his background with Asia seems to be pushing towards that from what I can see. So you have them those two great powers competing for influence and trade perhaps and and I think that I can understand that. Now what what does Vietnam want from China and the U.S. What what is I mean is it just playing them off against each other or is there more to it what what's that that is another astute perception. We need to remember historically that Ho Chi Minh's plan at the end of the American war was to essentially play the Chinese off against the Russians to ally with the Americans and to rebuild and redevelop the country with the Americans participation and support not as dominant one way or the other but as partners. And people forget that Vietnam's Declaration of Vietnam's Constitution and essentially Bill of Rights Declaration of Independence draw very heavily from ours and that Ho Chi Minh during his time in France in Paris was extremely strongly influenced by Hamilton and Franklin and Payne and the American thinkers of the 18th century and their thoughts about the connection between equality and independence as the source of sustainability of a country. And Ho Chi Minh was wise enough to see the common ground with socialism and the ability to use that common ground to coexist even with Russian communism for a sufficient period of time to become free of it and to wave goodbye to the Russians as they had to the French the Americans and the Chinese before. So your perception about sort of playing off and striving for their own independence I think is spot on from the history of Vietnam from the leadership that has been given and from the things that have worked for them in the past. What's interesting about that is the flip side of that coin is that I believe Vietnam being a relationship building oriented country culturally and hopefully not politically as well is recognizing that in order to do that it needs to build the best relations possible with its own neighbors and through that build to the larger connections to the Western powers U.S. Europe Australia some of the others. And it's it's a step process. And so you see Vietnam for the last 10 15 or more years having spent a great deal of concerted subtle under the radar effort building relationships in ASEAN the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and one of the hopeful objectives of that would be to balance the approach to allocating responsibilities territories resources in the East Sea. One of the things standing in the way of that at this point in time and part of it simply timing but part of it is clearly Chinese strategy in ASEAN right now Laos has the chairmanship and while Vietnam really wanted to be able to come into the last ASEAN meeting and come out with a fairly strong statement in support of the ASEAN nation's rights and interests in the E.C. because China has such huge influence and control over Laos and Cambodia in ASEAN they were able to block that they did not get the unanimity they needed and therefore the consensus that they needed to be able to achieve that. So the competition is going on at a political level through China's influence and power over Laos and Cambodia in which their economic interests are so powerful that those countries and their leadership really don't legitimately feel they have much choice but to go along. And what I what I've learned here is that Vietnam may be following Ho Chi Minh's vision in all of this and there is a perhaps a cultural as well as a political need for independence and this is a and that's what this strategy is all about and that makes a lot of sense to me and we'll talk a little bit more about this after the next break. Okay all right. Hello and I'm Patrick Bratton please join me for Global Connections every Thursday at 1 p.m. where we talk with a variety of guests about various international issues historical issues both here in Hawaii and abroad range from security human rights ethics and all sorts of other things so please join me I look forward to talking with you and seeing some of my guests. Aloha I'm Kaui Lucas host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday here on Think Tech Hawaii. I also have a blog of the same name at kauilukas.com where you can see all of my past shows. Join me this Friday and every Friday at 3 p.m. Aloha. Aloha How you doing? Welcome to Iwachi Talk. I'm here at Gordo the Texar on Think Tech Hawaii and I'm here with my good old buddy Andrew the security guy. Hey everybody how you doing? Aloha. Thanks for watching. Good to have Andrew here in the house. Please join us every Friday from 1 to 1.30 and follow us up on YouTube and remember as we say at the end of every show. How you doing? How you doing? Okay you know I learned something today about Ho Chi Minh and I always knew that he was influenced by American patriots and yet I didn't know what you've just told us about his ideas about keeping independent and maintaining the independence of Vietnam and that's enlightening. Now how does you know you can be independent but you are on the mainland of Asia surrounded by China, Laos, Cambodia and I mean then you got Taiwan, Thailand and we'll talk about the the sea in a minute but how does all that independence work with those countries? I think one of the most important things to understand to me about Vietnam is the independence and the interdependence are yin and yang. Within the independence is interdependence. Within the interdependence is independence. An example is Ho Chi Minh himself in his strategy. He not only wanted to maintain Vietnam's independence from both Russia and China despite being considered a communist country. He wanted to at the same time ally and partner with the least communist country in the Western world which is the U.S. That takes relationship building skills that are at a consonant level. That's the kind of person and kind of leader he was and the other things remember about him. What president and leader of his country has ever been thought of by his people as Uncle Ho? It is a familial relationship. He is a friend in and within the family of every single person in Vietnam. He's Uncle Ho. Whether you deride it or believe in it and revere it, Uncle Ho is Uncle Ho. He's family. Right. And I also hear you saying without saying is that this conscious strategy of Ho Chi Minh wasn't seen by the West or was ignored or not taken advantage of because here we have the French fighting in Vietnam and then the U.S. and blunders really when you come down to it. Perhaps there would have been another route here. Am I reading you correctly? No you are. People forget that at the end of the French being militarily vanquished in Vietnam and getting out. De Gaulle immediately after that gave a speech in Nampen directed specifically at the Americans saying don't make this same mistake. We are not good at listening to other people at paying attention to them at respecting their cultures. We have been for many, many decades viewed by many countries if not most in the world as the ugly Americans because when we come to their countries we don't learn their language, we don't learn their culture, we don't respect their language or their culture. We expect them to cater to ours. We want things in English, we want McDonald's burgers and Starbucks. Why go? I mean why have those things even here but much less? Let me go back now to the East China Sea or the South China Sea or East Sea or whatever you want to call it depending on where you're standing I suppose. What's it about and what's going to happen there? Vietnam is protested and yet they also are talking with China about other things and as well as with the U.S. What's going to happen with those islands? Is China going to maintain or try to maintain its bases there and is Vietnam going to try to get those back or did they ever have them? What do you foresee from Vietnam as a position going forward or will it change and depend on the relationships? It absolutely will depend on the relationships. There was an incident a few years ago where a Vietnamese fishing boat that was in waters that China had decided they were going to take control over, was seized by the Chinese and was held for a number of weeks and then eventually it was negotiated and released and the story in Vietnam of course which does not make the national press and which amused me and I can certainly identify with is the Chinese grab them because they're just better fishermen and so they learned more about how to fish then they let them go because they didn't need them there now they knew how to fish. So Vietnamese and I take that from a little bit of a play onwards Vietnamese are willing to teach people to fish they're willing to teach other countries and their leadership the relationship building skills that will enable alliances so that resources and territories and rights and interests can be negotiated based on relationships to strengthen the relationships not to break them down that's not our approach. We export war because we are combative and competitive and because our military industrial complex is served together with the financial and other industries that derive their money benefit from it and their political strength from it by exporting war if we ever figure out I think it was Mark Twain that may have said maybe Woody Guthrie hey that if we ever figure out what the effects of war really are by experiencing them in those cells them ourselves and we probably won't want to do that anymore. And you know I I when you were talking I thought about this you mentioned that 4,000 years Vietnam history and background and culture a couple thousand with China directly involved one plus yeah Vietnamese are patient oh absolutely you know and that's what I learned from from culture yeah the longer you culture the more patient you are maybe they're willing to wait this out maybe they're there they've not retracted their claim to these islands of these small little islands that everybody wonders why they're so important and China is you know developing that bases on them they haven't given those up but they they're not taking action they're waiting perhaps is that is that well true I mean what why get yourself shot you know why jump into the ring with a 300 pound WDOMF wrestler hey if you're a skinny little 110 pound guy there are different ways to approach the situation and I think you're exactly right and that's spot-on perception the Vietnamese are extremely patient what we need to remember and those who have been fortunate enough to have sustainable relationships in your family and your marriages whatever if there is a greater virtue foundational virtue than patience in enabling a relationship to be sustainable I haven't seen it and the Vietnamese know that and they live that they won the war that the Americans participated in by simply outlasting them and by taking control of their homeland in a way that enable them to maintain the connections to their land and their people and we never were able to break that connection we we wanted to mediate gratification and Vietnamese were we're saying we'll wait a thousand years now let me ask you true that's what we do to to to close off here we have to look at the current leadership in Vietnam are they following Ho Chi Minh are they following that strategy and vision what are they what are their plans going forward for Vietnam yeah that's a great question and probably one that's worth leading into another show with because leadership evolution in Vietnam has become much more complex it's not straight party driven anymore the party is still the primary influence right but look how young Vietnam's president is look how internationally he has connected not only with President Obama but with others who are not at all communists about as anti-communist as you'd ever want to get they're really comfortable with that they are relationship builders they are able to be comfortable in the WTO in the United Nations with people of any background because they're open to people because they are patient because they recognize everybody brings value to the table and because they're round table negotiators not square table negotiators everybody sits at the table with equal spiritual value whether they may have more political economic leverage is another matter over which they have no control but spiritually their value is worth respecting and honoring that's who they are I kind of sense that maybe your desire to be an arbitrator and a mediator flows from that philosophy that perhaps it helped me become a reformed attorney yes indeed all right well thanks Chuck Mark I love to learn about Vietnam and I learned a lot today from you thank you very much thank you pleasure as always


Because if you change the size of the buckets, then you can have a big difference in terms of what the data set's gonna look like. And people can use this to glean more information, but they can also use it to be a bit deceptive in how the information is presented possibly, right? So if I say, so over here, if I say the bend width, if I bring the bend width down to say 2,000, I'm lowering the bend width as I hit tab, I would think that the number of bends would increase, right? So I'm gonna say, boom, notice the automatic number of bends down here now went up to 15. So now I've got 15 bends with the 2,000 there. Now notice these outliers are getting more extreme as I make more buckets, right? Because now these outliers are way out here. So you're gonna get like a skinnier looking graph that might kind of really show those outliers specifically, for example, out there. Now, if you don't want those outliers to be so far out, you could have an overflow bucket, for example. You could say, okay, everything that is over, let's say 79,000, I want you to put that in like one bucket. So now I kind of combine those together. So now it's not giving as much emphasis to those outliers. And you can see that might be good in some cases. I can do the same thing for the bottom. I could say, hey, look, I want you to pull in those to like 64,000 or something, right? So now the data's being pulled in, and you can see that you have a whole different looking feel to the data once we start to do that. So you have to be kind of careful with the parameters that you're gonna be putting around your histogram because they can have an influence on what the data's gonna look like, obviously. So if I reset this, we're gonna go back to the resetted format. So there we have those. Let's reset this one as well. Hold on a second, I'm clicking on this. Let's go to this, and then I'll see if I can, this one, I wanna go back to automatic. Let's go back to automatic. And so there we have our automatic. And then I'm gonna just take the overflow bin off completely, untagging the overflows. And so that's basically the default that we were given with the histogram. So usually the default is pretty good with the histogram, but oftentimes you might wanna go in here, and again, the major things that you would be adjusting would be the bin width, and then those basically the overflows. So we'll get into a lot more detail on that in future presentations. For now, I'm just gonna close this out and note that we have some more options up top. So there's multiple ways we can get into different things. So these are the axes. This is the axis title. So if I select this item, it's gonna give us those titles over here that we can add. And because it's a histogram, you might want the chart title. It might be the way to go, because if you were gonna name the axis, these would be like the wage amounts and then the number over here. So it might just be easier to just put like this as wages histogram or something like that. And then we're gonna say the data labels. Oftentimes that's useful to be adding. So now you can see the numbers that were counted up. We'll get to those numbers in a bit more detail on future presentations to get a better idea. We typically aren't gonna need a legend because we only have one item on the histogram. So we don't really need a legend here. So I'm gonna close that. If I select the numbers, note that within the numbers you can change, like I could go to the home tab, for example, and increase the size of the numbers. If we so choose, we could embolden the number, for example. And so we have the formatting for those. So that's the general idea of the histogram that we can compare and contrast to the good old box and whiskers.


All right y'all, my last video of the day, I did a lot of videos this time. Woo! Van Damme and Street Fighter II. Lionheart Edition. Let's check it out. It's like that pulsing suit that's real. I love this fight in Lionheart. Kidney shot. 22, when the dude stepped up too, he thought he was real tough.   He's eating a form with it. And that knee too. Win. Perfect. Win. Perfect. Dude was like, he kind of pretty. This was his hardest fight besides Attila. If you watched the movie, it was like why was this third fight the hardest one? It was a long fight too. I used to watch this every day when I was a kid too. This was one of my favorites. I was fast forwarded past this fight because I didn't like it. No, the fight was just slow. It's nothing really dynamic about it, except for those two kicks he hit him with. He's like the guy in the pool or the guy in the tennis court. And not tennis court, where the racket ball court?  And Ramiya Jackson in Bloodsport. Movie's really bringing me back. Man, I ain't seen this in a long time. Here we go. He was the dude that was in Only the Strong. Cling, they coppa well in my history. Chico. You mad?  This is one of the best knockouts I've ever seen in a movie period. The best knockouts I've ever seen. And it's where they gig Johnny Cage. I bet you that rising up for cut of the elbow uppercut. That is my favorite knockout in that whole movie. He's like, that was one of them big, bearded, thick motherfuckers. Solid motherfuckers. Like you know you got hit him hard, didn't knock him out. And he definitely won that first round. I remember that. Watch out for the rib. With them fierce punches. He's gonna lose this round. He ain't actually have to say.  Popped her up. I ain't heard this song in a while.  Speaking of that, I can't wait for Street Fighter V. Out of all the games for PS4 that might be by PS4, that and Ark Knight of like probably a tie because Street Fighter II is just my favorite fighting game of all time period, man. If there was a game that obsessed me more than anything else, it was that. Like if I was gonna say the greatest game, my favorite game of all time, it's gonna be Street Fighter II period. I mean, I was just obsessed. And I was real good.  I always wanted to be in a tournament to see how good I was. But now I'm kind of like the fighter that's retired, you know? Like I remember there was this one guy that I grew up with that was really good. He was all around good. Like he was good in every single fighting game there was. He was just good at my thing. I specialized in Street Fighter. And I'll never forget it. Street Fighter Alpha was when he first challenged me and I beat him. And he literally was looking at his controller like, he couldn't believe that I beat him. So he practiced like a few weeks and he challenged me again. I ended up beating him again, like a few games, but he beat me one. He was like, yes, yes, yes. Like he was so happy that he got me. And then after Street Fighter Alpha, I really stopped playing. And I remember one day he challenged me in like, what was it like? Marvel superheroes versus Capcom or something like that. And he beat me and it didn't mean much to me. But I remember there was this other kid that lived another town over who challenged me. And he brought his special controller, but I couldn't play with the system he wanted to play on. I think we're playing on PlayStation, I always played on Sega Saturn. I mean, on Sega Saturn, if y'all remember had the controller built. It was just perfect for Street Fighter 2. We played it on both sets.   He beat me one game with his controller and people was trying to, oh, he got dog. He can't, he, no, don't even try it, all right? I was wearing him out a few games and he beat me once and y'all talking about it.  But anyway, that was my little Street Fighter stories. Post your comments down below. Let me know what you think. If you enjoyed my reaction, hit the like button, subscribe, and share. If you didn't, you're not a Van Damme or Street Fighter fan. One million subscribers. Woo!