From theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto and Boston, bringing you data-driven insights from theCUBE and ETR. This is Breaking Analysis with Dave Vellante. Virtually all tech companies have expressed caution in their respective earnings calls, and why not?  They punish even the slightest miss. Moreover, the spending data confirms the softening market across the board. So it's becoming expected that CFOs will guide cautiously. But companies facing execution challenges, they can't hide behind the macro, which is why it's important to understand which firms are best positioned to maintain momentum through the headwinds and come out the other side stronger. Hello and welcome to this week's Wikibon Cube Insights, powered by ETR. In this Breaking Analysis, we'll do three things. First, we're going to share a high-level view of the spending pinch that almost all sectors are experiencing. Second, we're going to highlight some of those companies that continue to show notably strong momentum and relatively high spending velocity on their platforms, albeit less robust than last year. And third, we're going to give you a peek at how one senior technology leader in the financial sector sees the competitive dynamic between AWS, Snowflake, and Databricks. So I landed on the red eye this morning and opened my eyes and then opened my email to see this. My barrens daily had a headline telling me how bad things are and why they could get worse. The S&P Thursday hit a new closing low for the year. The safe haven of barns are sucking wind. The market hasn't seemed to find a floor. Central banks are raising rates. Inflation is still high, but the job market remains strong. Oh, not to mention that the U.S. debt service is headed toward a trillion dollars per year and the geopolitical situation is pretty tense. And Europe seems to be really struggling. Yeah, so the Santa Claus rally is really looking pretty precarious, especially if there's a liquidity crunch coming. Guess why they call barrens, barrens. Last week, we showed you this graphic ahead of the UI path event. For months, the big four sectors, cloud, containers, AI, and RPA, have shown spending momentum above the rest. Now this chart shows net score or spending velocity on specific sectors and these four have consistently trended above the 40% red line for two years now until this past ETR survey. ML slash AI and RPA have decelerated, as shown by the squiggly lines and our premise was that they are more discretionary than the other sectors. The big four is now the big two. Cloud and containers. But the reality is almost every sector in the ETR taxonomy is down, as shown here. This chart shows the sectors that have decreased in a meaningful way. Almost all sectors are now below the trend line and only cloud and containers as we showed earlier are above the magic 40% mark. Container platforms and container orchestration of those gray dots. And no sector has shown a significant increase in spending velocity relative to October, 2021 survey. In addition to ML slash AI and RPA, information security, yes, security, virtualizations, video conferencing, outsourced IT, syndicated research, syndicated research, that's Gartner, IDC, Forrester, they stand out as seemingly the most discretionary. Although we would argue that security is less discretionary, but what you're seeing is a share shift as we previously reported toward modern platforms and away from point tools. But the point is there is no sector that is immune from the macroeconomic environment. Although remember, as we reported last week, we're still expecting 5% to 6% IT spending growth this year relative to 2021, but it's a dynamic environment. So let's now take a look at some of the key players and see how they're performing on a relative basis. This chart shows the net score or spending momentum on the Y axis and the pervasiveness of the vendor within the ETR survey measured as the percentage of respondents citing the vendor in use. As usual, Microsoft and AWS stand out because they are both pervasive on the X axis and they're highly elevated on the vertical axis. For two companies of this size to demonstrate and maintain net scores above the 40% mark is extremely impressive. Although AWS is now showing much higher on the vertical scale relative to Microsoft, which is a new trend. Normally we see Microsoft dominating on both dimensions. Salesforce is impressive as well because it's so large, but it's below those two on the vertical axis. Now Google is meaningfully large, but relative to the other big public clouds, AWS and Azure, we see this as disappointing. John Blackledge of Cowan went on CNBC this past week and said that GCP by his estimates are 75% of Google Cloud's reported revenue. And is now only five years behind AWS and Azure. Now our model is saying no way. Google Cloud Platform by our estimate is running at about $3 billion per quarter or more like 60% of Google's reported overall cloud revenue. You have to go back to 2016 to find AWS running at that level in 2018 for Azure. So we would estimate that GCP is six years behind AWS and four years behind Azure from a revenue performance standpoint. Now tech wise, you can make a stronger case for Google. They have really strong tech, but revenue is in our view a really good indicator. Now we circle here service now because they have become a generational company and impressively remain above the 40% line. We were at CrowdStrike with theCUBE two weeks ago and we saw firsthand what we see as another generational company in the making. And you can see the company spending momentum is quite impressive. Now HashiCorp and Snowflake have now surpassed Kubernetes to claim the top net score spots. Now we know Kubernetes isn't a company but ETR tracks it as though it were just for context. And we've highlighted Databricks as well showing momentum, but it doesn't have the market presence of Snowflake. And there are a number of other players in the green, Pure Storage, Workday, Elastic, JFrog, Datadog, Palo Alto, Zscaler, Cyberock, Fortinet, those last ones are in security. But again, they're all off their recent highs of 2021 and early 2022. Now speaking of AWS, Snowflake and Databricks, our colleague Eric Bradley of ETR recently held an in-depth interview with a senior executive at a large financial institution to dig into the analytics space. And there were some interesting takeaways that we'd like to share. The first is a discussion about whether or not AWS can use SERP Snowflake as the top dog in analytics. I'll let you read this at your leisure, but I'll pull out some call outs as indicated by the red lines. This individual's take was quite interesting. Note the comment that quote, this is my area of expertise. This person cited AWS's numerous databases as problematic, but Redshift was cited as the closest competitors to Snowflake. This individual also called out Snowflake's current cross-cloud advantage, what we sometimes call SuperCloud, as well as the value add in their marketplace as a differentiator. But the point is this person was actually making, the point that this person was actually making is that cloud vendors make a lot of money from Snowflake. AWS, for example, sees Snowflake as much more of a partner than a competitor. And as we've reported, Snowflake drives a lot of EC2 and storage revenue for AWS. Now as well, this doesn't mean AWS does not have a strong marketplace. It does, probably the best in the business. But the point is Snowflake's marketplace is exclusively focused on a data marketplace and the company's challenge or opportunity is to build up that ecosystem and to continue to add partners and create network effects that allow them to create long-term, a long-term sustainable moat for the company, while at the same time, staying ahead of the competition with innovation. Now, the other comment that caught our attention was Snowflake's differentiators. This individual cited three areas. One, the well-known separation of compute and storage, of course, AWS has replicated sort of, maybe not as elegant in the sense that you can't, you can reduce the compute load with Redshift, but unlike Snowflake, you can't shut it down. Two, Snowflake's data sharing capability, which is becoming quite well-known and a key part of its value proposition. And three, its marketplace. And again, key opportunity for Snowflake to build out its ecosystem, close feature gaps that it's not necessarily going to deliver on its own, and really importantly, create governed and secure data sharing experiences for anyone on the data cloud or across clouds. Now, the last thing this individual addressed in the ETR interview that we'll share is how Databricks and Snowflake are attacking a similar problem, i.e. simplifying data, data sharing and getting more value from data. The key messages here are there's overlap with these two platforms, but Databricks appeals to a more techie crowd. You open a notebook when you're working with Databricks, you're more likely to be a data scientist, whereas with Snowflake, you're more likely to be aligned with the lines of business within sometimes an industry emphasis. We've talked about this quite often on breaking analysis. Snowflake is moving into the data science arena from its data warehouse strength, and Databricks is moving into analytics in the world of SQL from its AI and ML position of strength, and both companies are doing well, although Snowflake was able to get to the public markets in IPO, Databricks has not. Now, even though Snowflake is on the quarterly shot clock, as we saw earlier, it has a larger presence in the market, and that's at least partly due to the tailwind of an IPO, and of course, a stronger go-to-market posture. Okay, so we wanted to share some of that with you, and I realize it's a bit of a tangent, but it's good stuff from a qualitative practitioner perspective. All right, let's close with some final thoughts, look forward a little bit. Things in the short term are really hard to predict. We've seen these oversold rallies peter out for the last couple of months because the world is such a mess right now, and it's really difficult to reconcile these countervailing trends. Nothing seems to be working from a public policy perspective. Now, we know tech spending is softening, but let's not forget it, five to 6% growth, it's at or above historical norms, but there's no question the trend line is down. Now that said, there are certain growth companies, several mentioned in this episode, that are modern and vying to be generational platforms. They're well positioned, financially sound, disciplined with strong cash positions, with inherent profitability. What I mean by that is, they can dial down growth if they wanted to dial up EBIT, but being a growth company today is not what it was a year ago because of rising rates, the discounted cash flows are just less attractive. So earnings estimates, along with revenue multiples on these growth companies are reverting toward the mean. However, companies like Snowflake and CrowdStrike and some others are able to still command a relative premium because of their execution and continued momentum. Others, as we reported last week, like UiPath, for example, despite really strong momentum and customer spending have had execution challenges, Okta is another example of a company with strong spending momentum, but is absorbing off zero, for example. And as a result, they're getting hit harder from a valuation standpoint. The bottom line is sellers are still firmly in control. The bulls have been humbled and the traders aren't buying growth tech or much tech at all right now. But long-term investors are looking for entry points because these generational companies are going to be worth significantly more five to 10 years down the line. Okay, that's it for today. Thanks for watching this breaking analysis episode. Thanks to Alex Meyerson and Ken Schiffman on production and Alex manages our podcast as well. Kristen Martin and Cheryl Knight, they helped get the word out on social media and in our newsletters and Rob Hof is our editor-in-chief over at Silicon Angle. He does some wonderful editing for us, so thank you, thank you all. Remember, all these episodes are available as podcasts. Wherever you listen, all you do is search breaking analysis podcast. I publish each week on wikibon.com and siliconangle.com and you can email me at david.volante at siliconangle.com or DM me at dvolante or comment on my LinkedIn post. And please check out etr.ai for the very best survey data in the enterprise tech business. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE Insights powered by ETR. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time on breaking analysis.


Alcoholism is a compounded phenomenon. For the many years of alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence, the brain itself changes. There are neurological changes, some of them irreversible and deep, for example to memory structures like the hippocampus, and there are biochemical changes, many of them reversible, once consumption stops. But at any rate, during the alcoholics phase of active consumption, the brain is different. But there's also a pronounced psychological dimension, and it is not clear who drives what. It would seem that first there was a psychological need, and the changes in the brain followed. My name is Sam Vakny and I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited. Alcoholism serves several psychological purposes effectively. This is why alcoholism is so intractable, difficult to get rid of, difficult to treat. The recidivism, the relapse rate of alcoholics who have gone through a rehab phase in a residential treatment program and then followed up with group sessions and individual psychotherapy. Even among this group, people who are committed to sobriety, the relapse rate is anywhere between 40 to 60%. That's even higher than among psychopathic criminals. And all this happens within the first year after rehab. So, the first psychological function of alcohol is palliative. It helps the alcoholic to cope with dissonance, frustration, narcissistic injury, anxiety, anger, stress, sadness, panic, helplessness, hopelessness, and other negative emotions or mood disorders. The alcoholic is overwhelmed by these emotions or overwhelmed by narcissistic injuries in case he is a narcissist or a psychopath. In order to palliate, in order to reduce and ameliorate this ego dissonance, this extremely painful inner turmoil, the alcoholic resorts to alcohol. The second function of alcohol is restorative. It helps the alcoholic to restore his or her sense of self-confidence and self-esteem. Also, sometimes, as a man or a woman, especially when it is coupled with a body image problem or issue. This is why, very often, alcohol leads to promiscuous sex. It is an attempt to self-medicate both with alcohol and with a member of the opposite sex, to buttress and uphold one's wavering sense of self-worth. And then there is the disinhibitory function. By lowering inhibitions, alcohol legitimizes narcissistic traits and behaviors like lack of empathy, extreme egotism and selfishness, a sense of entitlement or even aggressive impulses in the case of antisocial alcoholics. It allows the alcoholic to express his or her repressed promiscuity and aggression. Traits that he or she find ego dissonic. Traits that she, when sober, dislikes in herself. Alcohol renders the alcoholic much more sociable, much more grandiose and much more sociopathic. Many alcoholics become volumely defiant. They to authority feats.  In this sense, alcohol is very intimately linked with antisocial traits and narcissistic traits. The fourth psychological action of alcohol is that it is instrumental. It allows the alcoholic to accomplish goals that he or she would never even try when sober. It is goal, it restores goal orientation. The drunk person becomes daring, risen and risk, instead of being risk averse, he becomes a risk taker or a risk seeker, a seeker. Some alcoholics just cancel. And so they enter a phase called alcohol-induced blackout. This is very typical of alcohol use disorder, rather than mere social drinking or functional alcoholics. When someone has already full fledged developed alcohol use disorder, blackouts become gradually more and more common. The drunk person during an alcohol-induced blackout is fully aware of what he or she is doing. She is fully aware of who she is doing it with and what he or she is doing is wrong. So there is this measure of right and wrong. And that's why people are answerable and accountable for their actions, even in the legal sense, when they are in an alcoholic blackout. They know if they are hurting loved ones with their promiscuity, immoral or antisocial or even criminal acts. During the entire episode, the drunk makes multiple choices and decisions based on rational analysis and his or her emotional states. She is 100% in control. The law recognizes this. Drunkards, even during a blackout, are fully accountable for enemies' contact and for criminal acts. For example, running over someone in a car. Throughout the blackout, orientation, reasoning, immoral sense, short-term memory and decision-making are not impaired. This is contrary to all this. There is some cognitive impairment, but it has to do more with other issues, which we will discuss shortly. But during a non-college used blackout, all these, I repeat, reasoning, orientation, moral sense, short-term memory, decision-making, they are all intact. The only defect is this long-term memory. The connection between the rest of the brain and the hippocampus were long-term memories are created. The next morning, the recovering alcoholic has zero recall of what has happened during the blackout. There is also something called brownout, fragmentary amnesia, where some of the images and some of events come back over the next few days. But in a classic full-scale blackout, they never come back because they were never created to stop it. This is why it is difficult to tell a drunk in a blackout state from a merely inebriate person or social drinker. They are going to be fully print. They are going to be fully cognizant throughout the blackout. And they actually are. They are absolutely there. The only thing they don't do is generate long-term memories. All the rest is perfectly functional. Motor functions are affected to some extent. And there is a tendency to repeat the same sentences over and over again, but essentially that's it. Like narcissists, people wasted to the point of a blackout just don't care about anything or anyone but themselves. Behavioral inhibitions are down. Alcohol disinhibits, of course. Empathy towards one's nearest and dearest is utterly turned off. Strangely, it is redirected with strangers. A sense of invulnerability, grandiose invincibility, omnipotence, and impunity sets in. The drunker experiences attraction or even infatuation with members of the opposite sex. This is because of inability to judge facial symmetry properly when drunk. So members of the opposite sex look much more attractive than they would when the person is sober. And the high and the buzz of the drink compensate for any frustration, depression, stress, or anxiety with a heightened sense of well-being and with aggression.  A severe depression setting. People, and especially men, get that drunk in order to feel better about themselves and about their lives, legitimize their promiscuity and cheating. They say, the drink did it to me, and I cannot remember a thing. And also in order to trash themselves in a bout of punishments and destruction. These are of course common among men as well. But they've been identified much more prevalent among women who drink to excess. Women who drink in order to lose themselves. Women who drink up to the point of blackout. One of the main motives is self-destructive, trashing yourself with the wrong partner, with unprotected sex, other reckless behaviors, aggression with consequences that sometimes are life-ordering.


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What's going on, everyone? Sam here with Leighton Sports Guards. We're doing 21-22. Penini select basketball hobby, six box, half case break. Number 23, pick your team style. Let me read off the names and teams. Here we go. We've got Brad R with the Warriors and Pelicans, Chenkai W. Pacers, Christian S. Heats, Christopher S. Wizards, Daniel L. Lakers, Dustin H. Bulls, Ed B. Spurs, Eric R. Pistons, Fang G. Raptors, Jeffrey C. Mavericks, George J. with the Bucks, Harper B. Timberwolves, Jake H. Cavaliers, Jason H. Hawks, Jeffrey H. Rockets-Thunder, J. Sim with the Nets, Jordan W. Knicks, Lisa B. Celtics, Michael C. Kings, Mike J. Hornets, Raquel B. Nuggets Magic, Russell N. Gris, Scott T. Sun Sixers, Skyler T. with the Blazers, Talon H. Clippers, and Yasudo N. with the Jazz. Good luck here, everybody. Let's pull some fire. These can get crazy. There's Donovan Mitchell. 266 out of 299 for the Jazz. Blake Griffin, Premier level. There you go. We've got our auto coming up here, guys. Why? Moses Moody. It's gonna be Gerald Wilkins. 276 out of 299 for the Nicks on the Inflate Signatures. Kai Jones Scope, not numbered, Hornets. Davion Mitchell Rookie. Mobley Rookie on the Concourse. Luca Trikow, James Book Knight, Premier level Rookie. Josh Giddy, Concourse Rookie. That's gonna be Boyan Bogdanovich. Kairi Irving. Gordon Hayward, throwback. Going to the Jazz. Nice one there, Jazz. Sounds good, Lane. Corey Kispert, Purple 43 out of 299 Wizards. One of the last teams taken. Nice one there, Wiz. And Rudy Gobert. Silver, Derek Rose. James Hardin, Premier level. 25 years, Clay. The Jimmy Butler Scope Concourse for the Heat. And Kari Silver. Sheed Wallace, Trey Mann. Premier level, Bunder. Russell Westbrook. Scotty Barnes, Concourse Rookie. There's a white, Kelly Ubrej Jr. for the Hornets. 133 out of 149. Kauai Leonard. Another auto coming up. Dane Christian Wood. Allen Iverson. 60 out of 99, going to the Sixers. Congrats on that, Philly. Philadelphia is Scott T. Congrats, Scott. That's nasty. AI. Scotty Barnes for Nominon. McCall Bridges. Silver, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Premier level. And Keldon Johnson, Court side. Alfon Shengun. Brandon Ingram. Silver, Ray Jean Rondo. And Paul George on the Court side. What's up, Wolf King? Doing well, man. How are you? I am doing well. Jalen Green, Concourse Rookie. Rockets. Orange, Jared Butler going to the Jazz. 11 out of 65 on the die cut. Nice one there. Chris Thornton, Premier level rookie. Just packed right there. Tricolor, Joe Harris for the Nets. And Al Horford. Got Kristaps Porzingis on the jersey card. Going to the Mavericks. Game warm, nice one there. Congrats, Mavs. Mitchell Robinson-Silver and Jalen Brown. Joe Weisskamp, Kendall Gill. Six out of 299, going to Charlotte on the end flight signatures. Cool vets for getting out of these so far. Nice one there, Charlotte. Donovan Mitchell Scope Jazz and Jalen Johnson. There's Victor Oladipo, Devin Booker. Mobley Rookie, Victor Oladipo-Silver and a Cade Cunningham, Premier level base rookie. Pistons. Grats there, Pistons. He's balling this jersey so good. It's unfair how good he is. Cade, Tony Parker. Tricolor, Chris Paul. And Youssef Nurkitsch. There's a red Brandon Ingram. 182 out of 199 pelicans and Franz Wagner on the Premier level rookie. Silver Phenomenons is going to be PJ Washington. Blue, Darius Basely. 241 out of 249, Thunder. Moses Brown. Silver, Quentin Grimes. And Tyler Hero, of course. Yeah, Stefan, you'll be the first one to go tonight. Yeah, you'll be number one. You will be number one. You're number one, man. Scotty Barnes Rookie. Silver, Joe Harris. And Franz Wagner, courtside rookie, nice. That'll do it for box two. More on to box three. Yeah, it's common, it's common for sure. There's something big common for sure. Gary Payton, Chris Duarte. Tricolor, Premier level rookie. Lanza, Jalen Green Rookie. Trayman, 101 out of 199 for the Thunder. We've got a gold, Marcus Smart. First up, we've got to 99, Evan Mobley on the RPA. Congrats on that one, Cavaliers. Cleveland, Jake H. And then right behind it, how about a gold phenomenon, Zion Williamson. Four out of 10. Wow, monster back-to-back cards. Pelicans, Brad R. Congrats, Brad.  Magnus one too, it was unreal, dude. Kyle Lowry, DeMonte Sabonis on the blue. 193 out of 299 for the Pacers. And Scotty Barnes, Premier level rookie. Filler, Mojo. JT Thor, Silver Rookie. Tyrese Halliburton, second year, courtside. Evan Mobley Rookie. Silver, Desmond Bain, second year. And Malcolm Brogdon, that is Blake Griffin. Scope, and Kaminga, Premier level rookie. There is 47 out of 49. Taj Gibson on the throwback threads. Here you go, Timberwolves. Then we've got a Devin Booker, 55 out of 99. Andrew Wiggins. That Taj Gibson's a big Vaughn card right there. That's Yanis on the tricolor. Jaden Springer, Timberwolves Taj Gibson. JT Thor, tricolor concourse, Zion. Scotty Rookie. Mellow, there's a Keon Johnson going to the Clippers on the draft swatches jersey. Silver, Evan Mobley, Malik Beeson. Last pack of this box. Silver, Bones Highland on the Premier level rookie. Nice one there. And Precious Achua. And Markel Fultz on the throwback threads. That's going to be going to the Sixers. Not numbered on the Fultz. Sett Curry Red, 2199. Alfred Shengun. I think that version of tricolors are only in hobby. I think they have other tricolors that are in retail. Jalen Green, Isaiah Top. Luka Donchich, and Isaiah Livers. Let me take a look, really quick stuff, and it should be. Yeah, I'm only seeing one order for you, Stefan, but yeah, you'll be going tonight for sure. Tim Vaughn bought a Chinese New Year Revolution for Personals, and he goes, I just won the lottery in his order note. That's so funny, Vaughn. I just saw that. Christian Wood, Zach Levine. Yeah, you're going to be going first after a group breaks are over. For sure. Mobley Rookie. Silver Moses Brown, Dayron Sharp. Yeah, tricolors are nice, nice. The numbered ones are very nice. Damian Lillard, tricolor. Bradley Beal, Bill Russell. There's a Devante Graham Purple. 66 out of 99 pelicans. Eric Bledsoe. Got Zair Williams going to the Gris. Not numbered on the Jersey Card. Let me take a look, really quick stuff, and hold on. Yeah, 505 ripped last night. Stefan, and then 565 is ripping tonight. Yeah, we ripped, we already ripped that first one. Should be uploaded to YouTube. I went relatively early, I believe. Silver, Zair Williams, Trayman Rookie. Yeah, should be on YouTube. KD, Christo Arte, Premier level, tricolor. Lamella ball. Gold, you're good, man. We've got Juan Descano Anderson. 66 out of 10 on the court side. Gold, congrats on that, Warriors. Brad R, again. I got pulled one of these already. We'll do with these. Congrats on that, nice court side. Chris Fall. Silver, Anthony Simons. Lou Will. Yeah, you can get an order in for sure, Gary. Chris Arte, nice. 33 out of 249 on the Silver Auto. Congrats, Pacers. Chen Kai W. Congrats, Chen Kai. IO Desun, move future. Josh Giddy, Premier level base rookie. Scotty rookie. Silver, Nymious Keita. And Julius Randall. Yeah, no problem, Gary. Two boxes to go here. Good luck again, everybody. Some good cards out of this so far, for sure.  Little bit of a color match. Michael Jordan. Yes, yes, Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. We've got Enis Freedom. Going to the Jazz. What's up, Riley? What up? Nice, Enis Freedom. Enis. Nicola Jochich, scope, McCall Bridges. There's Seth Curry on the Tri-Color Concourse. Kemba Walker. Kevin Love, Tri-Color. Do you mind dropping the break schedule? Sean will drop you the break schedule, Trev. It'll take you to the, it'll take you to our main website, and then just click on, well, you'll already be on break schedule, but then you can scroll through, and if you click on a break, it'll show if it has spots available or not. Kispert, we've got Paul George. That's kind of cool. Nice. On the Jersey Card, game used for the Clips. PG-13. Shrey Young's Silver. And Kyrie. And a Pomp Trapp. Silver, Moses Moody. Drew Holliday. Paul George. This is a James Booknight Blue Rookie. 151 out of 249 for the Hornets. Congrats, Hornets. Hit that like button, exactly. Like that stream up, thank you guys. Especially if you're enjoying it. Helps you find us in the future. Shrey Young. The Devin Booker, Premier level, Tri-Color. Steph Curry. Ooh, Redemption. Davion Mitchell. Phenomenon's Rookie. Donovan Mitchell. Good luck here, everybody. Rookie Jersey autographs. Our number nine, James Booknight. There you go, Hornets. Congrats, Charlotte. Charlotte was one of the last teams taken. There you go, nice Booknight. Yukon Legend, baby. Going to the Hornets. Good old night routine of cod and breaks. Dude, that is awesome. Nothing better. We got a tie-dye coming up next. You guys can see it already. Kade Rookie. Tie-dye is Donovan Mitchell. Nice, 15 out of 25 on the concourse for the Jazz. Congrats, Utah. One of the cheaper teams in the break. Yasudo N. You can recap that if you would like. Only if you want. I don't know if I really feel like it. Bones, Tread. Silver Bones, Highland, Premier level. Spencer Dinway. Chaelen Green Rookie. Only the Panthers left, guys, in our first case of black. Kawhi Leonard. Zion Williamson Quartz. Yes, Kobe. Loby-Coby. Yes, Empty. Kaelen Johnson. This is Anthony Simons. Andrew Wiggins. My daughter and I went to Kobe the other night. Oh yeah? Dude, it's so good. Dude, period. That's awesome. Jamal Crawford. Jay Crossover. Going to the Timberwolves. There you go, Harper. Harper's been a Jamal Crawford magnet. That's Anthony Davis. Kyle Lowry. And there you go. 35 out of 199. No, no, he did not anymore. Scotty Barnes. There's some vets in here, though. Scotty. Skolty. Scotty Barnes. Nice. Derrick Rose on the throwback threads for the Timberwolves. Man, that's a bunch of cards in a row going to Harper. Nice D-Rose. Not numbered on the game used. Chris Duarte. Zion. He is an old hat for sure. Tray Murphy. Dallin O'Banton for the Raptors. 59 out of 299. Precious Atua. Zyre Williams. Kaminga, premier level. Silver Demontus Sabonis. Jaden Springer. Oh, Jamal Crawford was awesome, dude. He was so good. So clutch. There's Moses Brown, tri-collar, premier level. Malik Beasley. Tideye. Looks like a Tideye court side. Uh, Blue Hill. Dude, that's sick. Nine out of 25, going to the Hawks. Lou Williams on the court side. Tideye, very nice. Lemonpepper Lou, baby. Frans Wagner. We've got Alfred Shingoon. Nice. That's going to the Rockets. Very solid player right there. Congrats on that one, Houston. Two spots, Panther sold on the sooner. Luzman Karuba. Nice. Beautiful. Nice, just Panthers and Colts in this one, guys. Jimmy Tallin shaking fake. Zyre. Silver Tobias Harris. Jalen Brunson court side. And last pack of break guys. Good luck. Josh Giddy base. Silver Kelly Ubrey. And Josh Richardson court side. That'll do it for the break guys. Do a quick recap here. Alfred Shingoon Rockets. Derek Rose for the Timberwolves. Jamal Crawford, Timberwolves. Paul George Clippers. Enos Freedom Jazz. Zyre Williams Grizzlies. Mark Alpholt Sixers. Keon Johnson Clippers. Taj Gibson, Timberwolves. Kristops Porzingis for the maps. Gordon Hayward for the Jazz. Donovan Mitchell on the premier level. Or the concourse, Tideye to 25 Jazz. James Bookknight, Hornets. Chris Duarte, Pacers. Gerald Wilkins for the Knicks. Nightcards, Gold Zion. Four out of 10 for the Pelicans. Had a purple Evan Mobley RPA, 42 out of 99 for the Cavaliers. And then a lime green, AI. That is numbered 60 out of 99, going to the Sixers. That'll do it for the break guys. Thanks again. Next up, another half-caser.


What if I told you the two biggest heel lickers, particularly of a man who fancies himself a good lens flare, were able to get the contract for the single most expensive television show of all time, and not just any television show, but of the second age of Tolkien's master Middle Earth works? You probably think that you were crazy, but that's actually what happened. Hey guys, this is my review for the Rings of Power the first season. Now before we get into all the negativity and everything, I do want to say that for the crew who worked on this show, particularly the special effects department, definitely need the compliments they deserve, as well as some of the acting. From a few characters here and there, Bear McCreary, while not delivering a score as memorable as Howard Shore, definitely gave some good notes here and there. And overall, this could have been a lot worse. The first thing that needs to be talked about is how these two showrunners have absolutely no actual writing experience. They were ghost writers for J.J. Abrams, they were his heel lickers for quite a while, and J.J. somehow was able to use his silver tongue to get Jeff Bezos to agree to give these two mutton heads the keys to this franchise, the keys to this television show. How that meeting went down, I still have no idea. But one of my theories is that buying this was so expensive that they couldn't afford any other actually well-versed, well-trained television show writers. However, if you actually look at the two other projects that were proposed one by Warner Brothers and the other by Netflix, Warner Brothers wanted to turn the trilogy of Lord of the Rings trilogy into a television show. So, yeah, already that's a big no, and especially with what Warner Brothers did with The Hobbit. And then Netflix, Netflix wanted to do something along the same lines of The Similiarion and The Second Age, but they wanted to make individual movies for each character, kind of like the Marvel movies. So again, not good there. So technically speaking, we got the least worst option of the three. But how does the show actually hold up? Now, something I also want to say, I talked to someone in my family who is probably the biggest Lord of the Rings fan nerd I know. He's probably one of the most versed in Tolkien's works. He's read all the books. He read them before there was even films. So he's an OG fan, and he actually enjoys the show. Now, I understand that there are some Tolkien purists who don't like the show. I know that there are some who do, and I know there's a lot that are kind of in the middle. But for my sake, I think this show definitely thinks it's smarter than it actually is. But as a base product, it's still okay, which I guess it's kind of the best you could ask for in this situation. It's not outright trash. It does have issues. It does have narrative issues. It does have character issues. It does have storytelling issues. But there is still some gems, or at least some very dusty scratched ones, in amongst this rubble. The show follows Galadriel quite heavily in a story that's kind of a little bit of a stretch in terms of Tolkien lore about her want to avenge her brother's death, even though he was mulled to death by wolves. But technically those were Sauron's wolves, so I guess you could kind of go with that. Venge him by killing Sauron, who has disappeared, even though that didn't happen either. But what happens is she is so consumed with this journey of vengeance that she comes across people who are willing to help her, and instead of helping them are kind of working together, she is still so hell bent on trying to get back at Sauron that people suffer for her consequences for the most part. And she does get a little bit of humility, admittedly, quite a bit later on in the show, later than one would expect. But that's how it comes to be with the finale, which we'll all be serious here. I think the show writers definitely thought they were giving a few people a little bit of run for their money, but everyone predicted this ending. Some people didn't think this was going to happen because it was too obvious that they, like, no, there's no way. That has to be a red herring. That is too obvious of a choice for these characters to be who you think they are. Lo and behold, they actually exactly are what you thought they were going to be. So definitely points off for that.  His story is kind of prominent until about the seventh episode, and then he's just a sidelined character, even though he is the most on point stoic elf of this whole show. Another part I gotta give credit to is Elron Enduren. These were the best character interactions throughout the entire show. Every time these two were on screen together, whether it was in Confliction, whether it was in Conversation, or in some cases actual camaraderie, especially the camaraderie, those parts shone. There's a moment in the eighth episode where I felt actual emotion, genuine emotion between those two, and it wasn't just delivered through dialogue, it was delivered through looks and the acting and the music. So again, credit where credit is due, that part was great. How Duren's story ends at least at the end of the season, I feel was a bit of a cheap gag. I think they were kind of jumping the gun on that. For those of you who know what I'm talking about, I guess also I will say there will be a bit of a spoiler part at the end of this video, so just keep that in mind for after I do my rating. But now the issues that this show has, it takes a long time for things to get started. That's kind of given with Tolkien's work, but this one actually just goes to a quite lengthy degree. And also the Galadriel character is quite hard to get accustomed to. She's quite difficult to enjoy. Now I know that there's going to be a bunch of the sexists, what not, stuff being thrown around. I don't think it's really the actress's fault, it's definitely the writing. This writing again is written by guys who do not have a lot of experience. They are really good at kissing people's asses in the film industry, but when it comes to writing, actual story creation, the only time that the writing actually all of a sudden jumps up from grade school level to university level is when they are taking lines verbatim from the trilogy books, which that also too has got to be said. Why would you buy the rights to the books, the trilogy, and the Hobbit, but to make a show about the second age? Was that just not in the books? Was the similiarian the fall of Numenor? Was all this just not in the cards? Could you just not talk about it? Why were the unfinished tales off the table? That's an answer that we're still kind of looking around to see, but it seems that the instant that Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien died, his children, JR Tolkien's grandchildren, went crazy and they sold everything off. So that's unfortunately why we get what we get. But going back to Galadriel, she has this dominion about her where she's just confrontational with everyone, and sometimes you get it in that character that's driven by vengeance, driven by this goal blind to all else, but she starts to have arguments and confrontations with people for no reason other than to just have one to establish that strong female, female character rather than a strong female character. But that does change. Once events get along and get towards the end of the season, particularly episode seven, even a little bit of episode six is when you get to see that self-humility, that little bit of development of her character. Does it come way too late? And does it kind of make it seem like you're still wrong to assume anything about the character? A little bit. It's a little bit patronizing.  That's kind of like the Catch-22 of this. When you have writing that's so basic, when you have writing that's so rudimentary, your characters can only evolve as much as the actors can do within the realm that they are being written into. So overall, did I like it? Some of it? I don't think I could rewatch it. Something that some people have talked about is the test of time. And normally TV shows aren't too much of rewatchable. They have a genuine realm of amazing acclaim to them, good ones to think of are Breaking Bad, Band of Brothers, those shows, the Sopranos, those are the shows that really hold up to the test of time. Even if they're not rewatchable, they still are accolated. The Lord of the Rings trilogy obviously is hugely renowned. It's very rewatchable, even the extended versions, and it's held to a higher claim. This show, even though the critics seem to be kind of pandering into the hands and basically spoon feeding goodness about this show, they can't hide that the audience has not enjoyed it as much.  There was more people positively reviewing this show than there were review bombing it. The numbers can show on IMDb, which by the way, that whole fiasco where Amazon, who owns IMDb, were preventing people from being able to see any reviews about the show that were less than a six is some bullshit. That's an hypocrisy. That is some sauron level control there. They eventually changed it because of how many people were getting pissed off about it. And that too. If you look at any of the acts, like the external media, the interviews that have been done by the actors are especially the writers who have now somehow associated people who are critical of the show with fascists, that's not going to help you with building the brand. But I'm trying to look at this show from just the show itself. The only thing I take into account external from the actual show itself is the writer's lack of experience. But when it comes to how this season comes to an end, I feel it has room to improve. If they take a lot of the notes that have been said about this season and they put them into season two, I think that will work. I did have some moments. I did have some eye rolling moments. I did have some genuine fun moments though. So we'll see. How each episode costs $25 million, the only one. Like it is a complete bafflement to me. The only one that I can suggest that actually makes sense to that is the episode where a certain thing explodes. And the special effect slash set deck slash production design on that episode made sense. That made sense to me. The visual effects, sure they would have been high too, but not $25 million each high. I just watched the first episode of The House of Dragon. First take this. I'm not including all of the intricacies of the stories. Obviously there's a lot more detail. There's a lot more expansiveness to Martin's stuff than Tolkien. Tolkien is a little bit more of a fantasy era. Whereas Martin has fantasy but with real life elements like politics and whatnot. And then also the maturity. I'm taking that out too. Watching the first episode of The House of Dragons felt like watching something written by a university student. Whereas quite a few of the episodes of Lord of the Rings felt like it was written by a seventh grader. Not bad. Just incredibly simplistic. Incredibly easy to follow. So when it comes to the ending of the show where they think that they've taken the whole audience for a loop and there are some articles out there that are just thumbing this episode's twists. They were so clearly obvious that no one didn't think they were coming. They actually overthought it. I overthought it. I actually couldn't think. I was thinking, no there's no way this is actually going to happen. My final rating for Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power, the first season is a three out of seven. I was kind of veering on a four because again it's not as terrible as people are making it out to be but it's just not good. And I keep on reflecting back to the person in my circle who is a huge Tolkien fan. Been there before the movies were even conceptualized. Like read these books back in the day without the ability to look up the lore on the internet and all that stuff and he's enjoying the show. So I have to take that into account. I hope that the second season takes a lot of these notes and they take the fans actual genuine, the ones who are actually wanting this to be a good show and they take those notes to heart. But now talking about the spoilers. It was kind of a bit maddening to me that one Sauron, bad boy Sauron, was who we all expected it to be and his reveal was not as big of a woo as the writers thought it was going to be. And then the fact that Galadriel still agrees to making these rings, which doesn't make sense because aside from this, the only reason why it's attempting to make sense is this whole illness, this disease of the world is trying to kill off the elves immortality.  And so she still agrees to do it and they make them themselves. It's so much of the writing in the last episode is so on the nose. You've still written quite obviously a Sauron, but he went from being pretty obvious Sauron to Palpatine episode three level of obvious evil. Just every line that comes out of the guy's mouth in this last episode is just, yeah, he's evil.  I loved the scene between Duran and Elrond though in episode seven. That was my favorite part where Duran is just so heartbroken that he can't help his friend, but then he sees that the leaf is healed by the Mithra, which another, like that aside as well, like, ugh. And the call for Elrond, Elrond! And you know he's going to help his friend. That part was great. I hope we get more moments like that in the next season. But anyways, guys, that's my very long winded, very long winded. I brought this out. I don't even know if you saw the smoke from it, but this is a really cool pipe. It's from a Queens pipe if you've ever seen one. They're really easy to put together and I actually really like them. But yeah, if you guys are let me know what you guys thought of this. Now, like, let's be, you know, kind of kind in the comment section because, like, this show just instantly brings out the urr, the aggression in people. If you have a disagreement about the show, that's fine. But let's talk about it in a civil manner, right? Let's try and discuss and see where we can find the things of what they could do better, like something like that, like does the hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. What's something you think had a good idea or could have been a good idea, but they didn't do these proper steps to make it good. If that's going to be some kind of your complaints. But if you also like the show, that's great too. Talk about what you liked about it. Anyways, guys, that's all from me. Sorry for the long winded review, but I pretty much got my point across a lot faster than the show did in the first few episodes, but we'll see. Anyways, guys, that's all from me. Hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, leave a like and if you're interested in more subscribe. Otherwise, see you guys next time.


Welcome. Welcome to day 29 of the agronomy challenge. It's now 29 days since we transplanted. We're here on January the 18th, and the main task today is top dressing. We're going to be applying urea fertilizer at a rate of 45, 180 kilograms to the hectare. No, 100 kilograms to the hectare. So 29 days after transplanting, it's on the early side of the typical window for top dressing, but it's what the nutrient manager program is suggesting we do, particularly with a hybrid. Now let's go and look at the crop as it stands after 29 days. Now what we see here is the crop is fairly well established. There's the odd section of the field that doesn't look so good, but mostly it's quite uniform. In fact, if we hark back to 12 months ago, it's a lot more uniform than 12 months ago. We don't really have any problems. There are very few weeds to be had. The pre-emergent herbicide is still functioning quite well. There's the odd small weed coming up, so I suspect we'll have one more herbicide application in a few weeks. What worries me most is the prevailing conditions. It's quite cool. It's been cool and wet for a good 10 days now. It's somewhat typical of last season. The solar radiation is quite limited. I almost need to jump it today, which is quite unusual for the Philippines. What worries me most is with the cool conditions, we already have quite a wide row spacing with the rice. It's generally accepted here in the tropics that you should have a row spacing of 20 or at most 25 cm, and here we are at a 30 cm row spacing, which is wider than what we want. But with a mechanical transplanter, we had no choice. But now we have a wide row spacing. The plants are spaced fairly wide apart. They want solar radiation to grow for the canopy to spread and to get their photosynthetic process going, and we're not really getting it at the moment. And that has me worried to a degree. Then again, worrying won't change the weather. So the one thing we can do is apply nitrogen fertilizer a little bit sooner rather than later, so that when we do get some solar radiation, it's got thorough nutrition in which to take advantage of that solar radiation. So we'll be top dressing our 100 kg to the hectare of Urea this morning and applying water straight thereafter. The field is mud. It's been mud for the last two days, so it's starting to dry and crack a little, so it's ideal for a fertilizer application.


most of think tech Hawaii's law across the sea program. Today I've asked Valeria Camphouse to share her personal insights and knowledge of the current Russian-Ukraine crisis. Valeria came across the sea from Ukraine to the United States. She is an American of Ukrainian descent and a Russian-Ukrainian, Russian interpreter and translator. And she works as a court interpreter for the Hawaii State Judiciary. Valeria is proud to be a US citizen. And the insights she shares with us today are her personal opinions based on her own life experiences having been born and growing up in Ukraine and her observations of the recent events based upon her own intimate background knowledge of Ukraine and Russia. Welcome, Valeria. It's good to see you. How are you? Thank you, Mark. Thank you for a great introduction. Aloha to everybody. I'm doing good. How are you today? Okay. I wanna ask a couple background questions. You are an American of Ukrainian descent having been born and raised in Ukraine and eventually moving to the United States and becoming a US citizen and now living in Hawaii. Briefly, why and how did you come to the United States and end up in Hawaii? Well, there is nothing very remarkable in my story. 16 years ago, I met an American guy, fall in love, we're married, we had kids together. We moved initially to Germany. We stayed for eight years in Germany until one day he came over. He said, I got a job offer, which is very hard to turn down. We are going to Hawaii. I said, okay. So here I am eight years after having to start the life twice from scratch in a different world, learning the different way of living, enjoying it and appreciating it every day. Okay, now, going back to your birthplace, Ukraine and let's put up a map of Ukraine. Where were you born in the Ukraine and where did you live in Ukraine? Well, I was born in Eastern Ukraine actually as their hot zone, I would say today. I was born a little bit like 20, 30 miles away from the occupied, Russian occupied territories. I was born in Krasnaya Liman. My parents were both doctors after they graduated medical school, we went up North. So in the North in Ukraine, I spent the first 10 years of my life, I believe I started my elementary schools there. And then I moved to the southern Ukraine to Odessa and I lived there for the next 20 years until I moved with my family to Germany. And I see on the map, Odessa is down at the bottom towards the left of the screen a little bit on the map. Yes, that's right on the Black Sea. It's one of the largest Black Sea ports in the modern Ukraine. Okay, now, I want to dive into these issues. And I know from talking with you and exchanging correspondence, 30 minutes is not enough time to talk about everything, but I want to talk about a few things that have appeared that we've been hearing and also I want your insights and your knowledge. I've heard the word hate used many times in the media to describe the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. Why?  Well, hate is a very strong word, like we talked about this before. And I hope we're not there yet. I hope Ukrainians are not completely irrevocably hating on Russia yet, but definitely what's happening now causes a lot of pain and animosity between the two nations and definitely does not help to build, like, friendship, friendly relationship or any type of brotherly relationship. And despite the fact that most Ukrainians would either have a family member, a relative, a friend on the other side of the border or a partnership of business in any ways, the facts are so that Russia kills Ukrainian people, kills Ukrainian civilians, bombs, residential quarters in Ukrainian cities and nexus territory invades the territory, violates the treaties and various international agreements. So, yes, naturally they are not very loved among Ukrainians and in Ukraine. Yeah, so the, yeah, all right. So there is this history in this background. Now, I wanna now dive into the present. And that may be hard based on our discussions, but what are the issues that have created the current Russia-Ukraine crisis in this winter of 2022? Well, it's hard to look at this winter 2022 as an independent, like separate event. There is a chain of events that is taking us to the 2022 and that started at least eight years ago in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine, when Russia annexed Crimea, when Russia killed Ukrainian soldiers, when there were massive disinformation wars, cyber attacks, hybrid wars, a lot of propaganda that Russia's been generating through all these years. And 2022 is not a separate event. It is just another escalation and another level of conflict among the conflict and the wars that's been going for eight years. This is not this year's event. It's a long lasting war conflict that started from Russia and that has been brought to a worse and more and more serious level, significant level with every year. So the official pretext right now is that Russia is using, is there concern about the NATO border coming closer to Russian border, which they allegedly consider as a threat, kind of doesn't make sense to me regarding that geographically, this is good thousand some miles from Moscow and in reality, they have just another NATO states among the Baltic border and that's two hours drive. So they have NATO literally two hours, three hours drive from Moscow, but they are concerned about NATO coming closer on the southern end. It doesn't make sense. So, but yes, this is what they use officially as a pretext, they are feeling threatened. They are feeling that the ethnic Russians within the territory of Ukraine and Russian speaking people are being threatened. And this is the reason for their escalation on the border. Well, okay. So, and I hear what you're saying that this is not just 2022. And this is a longer experience that has been going on for eight years and the 2022 has just been coming up in the news now. I mean, the gathering of troops. Now, when did Russia start gathering troops at the Ukraine border? And did that happen before 2022? Of course they did almost every year. We heard those stories about the escalation in 2014, 2015, there was actually the regular Russian troops crossed the border of Ukraine in the East before. And that's when the Minsk agreement was actual that resulted in Minsk agreement that was happening in 2018 and it's happening now in 2021, 2022. Yes, it's, I mean, they always been there. It's just the amount of quantity of when they bring more is when they take some more away. And so it's always been happening for many years. And but we hear about it now. It's bigger in the news, it seems to be impending. And why do you think, based upon your background why do you think that Russia wants to invade Ukraine? I heard you talk about NATO and that type of thing. But I mean, that's, it sounds like Russia wants to invade Ukraine. Why do you think Russia wants to invade Ukraine? Well, like I mentioned before, I'm not an expert and it is hard for me to see the global picture and the mass picture. But I strongly believe that, and Putin many times he mentioned that in his own words, he considered that collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties as the major geopolitical catastrophe of the modern time. So they have always claimed that the Soviet Union fall was a big mistake. And they, in my opinion, are trying to recreate Ukraine the Soviet Union commemorating it to by the way, 100 year anniversary which is falling onto this year. The Soviet Union was created in 1922 which was exactly a hundred years away. And at that time initially that was Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Transficatia, which is the territory of the present day Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Caucasians, Caucasian mountains region. So, Putin is very symbolic. He likes all type of parades commemorating immortal Italians and so on and so forth. So I see, I believe there is a lot of symbolism, you know, that it probably would happen this year. But like I said, that's my guess. Nobody really knows what Putin wants. I wish I knew. Well, and I hear what you're saying is that, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like what you're saying is that Putin would like to recreate the Soviet Union and have a country that incorporates all these other countries again. And so, is that correct? Is that? I believe so. Nobody knows for a fact, but logically, I mean, that's what he's been hinting on and pointing out many times. I mean, they want the former powers, they want the former territories. They always wanted it. They never actually denied that. And the hundred year anniversary is very interesting. It's sort of symbolic in a way. It is a coincidence, but it doesn't look good, I tell you. It doesn't bring any calmness to realize the sad anniversary is coming this way. And you talked about Ukraine being part of the Soviet Union Russia at some point. And does Putin really believe? I mean, wow, I know you can't tell me, but is that your impression? Is that there's this feeling that Ukraine is part of Russia? Well, I mean, they say it out loud that Ukraine is not a country. It's a territory that this is not a full, I mean, full scope nation, that this is one nation, Russians and Ukrainians and Belarus are one people. They keep saying that all the time. That's not a guess. They keep stating it. And indeed, Ukraine and Russia have a lot like over a thousand years of history. That's not the point. And there was a certain time when Ukraine signed a particular treaty with the Russian Empire, looking for some kind of protection and an ally against the Poland, Lithuania and Commonwealth, which ended up in just another treaty broke and Ukraine forcibly joined to the Russian Empire and becoming a portion. And the people were persecuted and the language was forbidden and the schools were discriminated and so on and so forth. So this repeats in the history all the time. So through the timing, at least the last 400 years, yes, Ukraine was forced to be part of Russia. And yet Ukraine was trying to free themselves and trying to keep their national identity and the language and the history and the culture. So it's not just happening in the last eight years that are in the last hundred years and so on and so forth. Okay, so that's a background that we don't usually hear about. Now, you mentioned a little bit about what Putin was saying or I guess that's the Russian government. What are they telling? What is Putin or the Russian government telling their own citizens about what's happening in the current crisis? Well, they've been saying a lot of ugly stories. There is a lot of horror stories that they are bringing to their television. There were stories about Ukrainian army crucifying kids in the Eastern Ukraine. There were, that just recently there were there were stories about Russian insurgents, pro-Russian insurgents in Eastern Ukraine finding the mass graves with thousands of people buried there. You know, allegedly ethnic Russians that were killed by Ukrainians. There is a lot of conversation on Russian television about the fact that Ukraine actually doesn't even live with the mind of their own. They are being told what to do by the Americans, by NATO and this is the cause of hostilities. They say Ukrainians wouldn't be so hostile to us if it were not the involvement of the West. So there is a lot of lies that is going on. In the recent days, there is a lot of horror stories again about the fascism in Ukrainian society. I believe they are kind of heating the conflict up and preparing some kind of information, information influence on the population. But yes, like I said, I mean, I lived in that country for 20 years, for 30 years. I frequently go and visit. My family lives there. They are not true. It is not true, the lie. Oh, okay. Russia is attempting to vilify Ukraine and Ukrainians. Do you have any understanding what, I mean, do the Russian people believe this and do they really want to invade Ukraine or is this just Putin? Can you, you have an opinion on that? I know it's hard to know all the facts, but... Well, I do not know the firsthand knowledge of what Russian people think because I cut a lot of contacts with Russians in regards to the conflict. I want to believe that no sane human being would be willing to go to war or would be willing to live in the war zone. This is simply unnatural. I can't believe there is a sane, healthy human being that would want to go to war. So I understand that when you have, I've been there. I grew up in the Soviet Union. We only heard the Havana side of story and we didn't and we had limited access to the sources outside. So it is very easy to believe a lie when this is the only alleged truth that you receive and this is the only source of information you get or it's the only source of information in your language and you just don't speak any other. Okay, and it sounds like Putin has a goal. He has a propaganda and I doubt if people are going to vocally disagree with him. That's something, right? I want to believe in the good and the people in general, but so far I've seen a report of one human being, one female in Russia in a one person protest against the war. You don't hear the news from Russia that the population, the nation is coming in the streets protesting actively advocating against the war with Ukraine. And that's a fact. All right, now, you talked about, you still have a lot of contacts in Ukraine. What do the Ukrainians want? I mean, what is their position in all of this? We really don't hear that. Well, it is, we actually do, we just don't pay attention, I think. Ukrainians have clearly expressed their intentions back in 2013. They clearly expressed that they want to be a European nation. They want to eventually be ready and join NATO because they want to live in peace and they understand they have a nasty neighbor. They want to be a democratic society and they have done a tremendous past, tremendous work towards the democratic process in the last 30 years of the country's existence. They want to be able, they want to be an open nation with the open borders. They do appreciate the fact that they are welcome in Europe and they are very welcoming people by themselves. So I strongly encourage you, but when peace finally settles in that land, please go visit, I'm sure you will love it. It's a beautiful country. Okay, now, one thing we've heard about a lot of leaders talking with Putin, but we really haven't heard about Zelensky, president of Ukraine, talking with Putin. Is there a relationship there? Is there a problem? Is there any respect between them or is a chance they could meet and work this out? Is that a realistic or is that an imaginary idea? Well, thank you for the question, by the way. My opinion, again, not as an expert, right? That there is very little to talk about because first of all, these are two nations at war. Second, because Zelensky simply doesn't have anything that Putin wants to offer. He cannot offer Putin once Ukraine as a territory. As a province of Russia, of the Russian Empire. And this is not, and he doesn't want anything less than that. And Zelensky will not be able, no president will be able to offer that. The people will not let them do that. So on top of that, I believe Putin is a type of their leader, of the country leader, which understands two languages. It's the language of money and the language of power. So I do not see him having a serious intent to speak to the president of Ukraine unless he absolutely has to, he's forced to. And unfortunately that only be achieved if the third parties like the European Union, United Nations, United States will get involved in this process. And that's the only times when it was happening before. Okay, what, you know, it doesn't sound like there's an opportunity to talk and meet and work something out. But so what are the Ukrainians thinking about? What's the atmosphere based on your discussions with your friends and relatives in Ukraine? First of all, how will they respond? And what do you hear from your friends and relatives about that? Well, this is the toughest question probably of all you've asked me so far because it's a very personal questions. And I do have a lot of people I potentially can lose, which is the worst possible scenario I can see. My husband and I would offer all of them a safe home in case they want to come. None of them is intending to leave the country. They say, this is my home. And as long as Ukraine exists, this will be my home, this is where I'm gonna leave. A lot of them are willing, I know a lot of my friends were actually preparing to join or joining the territorial defense. And a lot of my family is supporting the troops today. In one way or the other, they've been doing that from day one. They all at home, they all very calm. I tell you that there is much more panic here in the United States that I see than back in Ukraine. They have toilet paper and water and food supplies in the stores. They celebrate Valentine's Day today. They sing songs yet and they are trying to cheer each other up, but I do understand everybody's very stressed and very concerned. Mental is they are prepared for the worst and they do not plan on just surrender. Nobody's talking about surrendering. It's, they are very brave and strong people. And it also sounds like they've been at war. I heard you use those words for several years. I mean, we don't realize that maybe, but really what's been going on is they've been at war. And so they're maybe are more used to what's going on and they're not surrendering. Right? They are at war. You are absolutely right, they are at war. They've been in war since 2014 when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. When Russia invaded the eastern part of Ukraine, the Donetsk area, it never ended. Okay. Now, you are now a U.S. citizen. That's correct. But you have a background in Ukraine. You know a lot about it. You have family there. Oh, you're proud to be a U.S. citizen. I know you've told me that. But what as a U.S. citizen of Ukrainian descent should the U.S. do with respect to this crisis? What why? It is hard for me to say. I have very little background in the international politics and conflict resolution unfortunately, but I understand your brain needs friends. They need a lot of guidance. It's a very young democratic nation, which is at war with a very big authoritarian country. So it is natural that Ukraine needs the military support. It is natural that Ukraine is incurring huge financial losses right now. This is understandable. Economically, it is affecting Ukraine to a tremendous extent. It is affecting Ukraine tremendously. So of course Ukraine will need financial support and economic support. I do believe what the United States of America is doing for Ukraine today is tremendous, is really big. And every Ukrainian knows that. Every Ukrainian knows who is a friend and who is an enemy with little exceptions of course. Every nation, every society has exceptions, right? Every rule has exceptions. But I really hope that America will still be there, will still be an ally, a friend of the Ukrainian people. And I hope that Ukraine will remain independent, free nation, which will remain American ally and that will remain like that for years. So you think America, you want America to continue to stand up for Ukraine and Ukraine is facing a totalitarian enemy in set war? Yes. And do you want that support? Yes, I wanted to bring that up. I understand we're running out of time right now. But one crucial thing I wanted to say, especially considering what our politicians, the Hawaiian politician, the politician Tulsi Gavrid said the other day, you know, why do we have to get involved? Ukraine is not even a democracy. And I mean, Putin has a real deal on, Carson said, Tucker Carson said the same thing. Putin has a reasonable concern there. It's his fear of activity. We just need to give them what they want. No, this is Iran approach to, I mean, this is, it is a very big misconception to think that even if Putin takes over Ukraine, he will settle down, get satisfied. He said, okay, I got everything. I want it, are we good? No, this is far beyond Ukraine. And I'm glad the Americans understand that. This is far beyond just taking, grabbing that territory. The Soviet Union is coming back. Putin has done a lot to bring it back in the former might, in the former sphere, territorial presence. And he wants the power. He wants the former powers, the Cold War era when he could, when he had to say, not just in Eurasia, not just in Europe, but all over the world. And he will be attempting to achieve it whether through the energy dependence, whether through financial dependence, whether through military presence, whether through nuclear power, let there be no doubt. It's not just about Ukraine. So given him that what he wants right now is kind of 1939 approach. So there's a greater, there's a greater threat to the rest of the world and other countries from all of this. I haven't doubted that. In order to close this off, are there any relevant, positive Ukrainian words that you can translate for us and share with us that might help us? I might need another hour for that, but still. So like I said, Ukraine is great. Ukraine is an absolutely unique nation like nothing else probably in the world. And right now they have a lot of things changed in the last eight years for them. There is a very special word that you might want to try and remember, Ukrainians, besides saying hello today, they really meet and greet you with Slavo-Ukrainian. Slavo-Ukrainian means glory to Ukraine, which is actually a Ukrainian, somewhat Ukrainian way of aloha. It's not just a hello or goodbye or thank you. It's a spirit. It's a spirit of resistance. It's a spirit of hope. It's a spirit of strength. It's the way of belonging. Slavo-Ukrainian, glory to Ukraine. And you will always hear Yeroyam Slava. Glory to your heroes. We remember our heroes. We remember our history. So this is a way to say hello. And at the same time tell Ukrainian, I stand with you. I support you. I know what you're fighting for. Okay, Slavo-Ukrainian, something like that? Slavo-Ukrainian. Slavo-Ukrainian. It may take me a while to get that, but how about aloha? Aloha, Heroyam Slava. All right, thank you very much. It was my atmost pleasure. Thank you, Mark, for having me today. Darya, thank you for being my guest today and sharing your personal knowledge, your personal insights. Aloha.


Welcome back to another video if you're new here. My name is Cara. Do not forget to like comment in subscribe So it's been a minute since I did a sit-down video and girl we are coming hard We are gonna be doing a summer perfume haul and in the summertime girl I love smelling juicy fruity like florals, but still a little bit of us if you know me, you know I love a good Mustang so if you want to see my summer perfume haul Just keep on watching before we get started into this haul I want to give a huge shout out to rebel sense for sponsoring today's video If you aren't new here, you already know I use rebel sense all the time And if you are unfamiliar rebel sense is a luxury perfume website Well, they make it so affordable and so easy for you to access high-end luxury perfume So you'll be able to check them out at rebel sense.com and on top of them being affordable I love that they make it so unique for every girl to find their scent because they have a perfume a quiz or you can take on Their website and there's a perfect scent for every girl They do offer Colerna on their website, which is a four-interest free payment plan that is charged every two weeks So yes girl, they make it so affordable and on top of all that you'll be able to use my discount code I'll have it right here on the screen. So you'll be able to shop rebel sense.com Thank you so much rebel sense for sponsoring today's video and we are just gonna have a right to it We started off strong, bro. So the first set I'm gonna put y'all on is this L. Incente. I think that's how you say it I'm not sure it's French girl, but y'all this This smells like a seductive Peach and if you aren't new, you know my love for high quality good peach scents and y'all This smells so good and surprisingly this does not have peach notes in it because I read the notes when I first Spray this and I'm like, oh my god, this smells so familiar and No, it doesn't have peach in it So I'm just gonna read the notes off to you guys so y'all can see what's in here So the top is black currant. The heart is airy florals The base is but musky blonde woods and I think that I like this so much because it does have the musky blonde woods in There and I really like that note Peach is my favorite fruit to smell like because I don't like to smell like citrus or like oranges and stuff, but This one y'all gotta try so I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing it wrong, but Girl, it's L. Incente and you can get this on represents for $45 so affordable The bottle is so big and you're gonna smell like that girl this summer. So make sure you check this one out This is another one. I've been loving this summer I've owned Versace bright crystal and I was like, let me just check out Versace yellow diamond First of all, let's talk about the packaging. I love the yellow diamond. It's so cute girl It's giving what it needs to give a luxurious sexy Looking at this is giving like money and baby This is giving if you have not smelled this yet you need to run Girl, I'm telling you luxurious Sexy it's just that girl And I know this is gonna be like my summer go-to. I've been spraying this like crazy girl This one is just a perfect summer it grossing notes in here are lemon bergamot neroli The middle orange blossom mimosa lily water and the base is amber musk and wood y'all This is such a beautiful scent and please get a hold of this one Please get this you feel like it's gonna be perfect for layering this summer Girl you are gonna be smelling like that girl This is definitely a shelf stopper. So make sure you check this one out and then the bottle is just it's just so cute I just love this this Versace yellow diamond retails for $82 can get this on represents for $54 at 99 Talk about a discount baby. You know this next one. I was really shocked. I've never Seen this before I never came across this never smelt it and what really was drawn to me about this set is the minimalistic bottle. I really like how It's just simple straight to the point But this is Dolce and Kabada in parties and girl if you like exotic I've never Smell something like this before watermelon is in the notes I was like watermelon. That's crazy because I'm like I'm smelling something exotic But it has a must eat sandalwood scent, which I do like I like the mix of the fruitiness and the sandalwood This is different This is very exotic to me and I really like this I really like pairing this with other woody sense if you are a woody girl But you don't like to smell like a fruit, but you still want a little bit of like that summer touch This one is for you with the top notes on here are kiwi pink pepper The heart is watermelon jasmine the base is a lemon tree musk and sandalwood This is just a beautiful combo. This retails for 82 dollars and you can get this on rebel sense for 45 dollars $45 So this next one is for the girls. I love to be a show stopper. This is a Valentino born in Roma Girl, it's so sweet, but yet so sophisticated and classy perfect for summer always felt this on other people I would ask them like hey, what do you have on there like Valentino born in Roma? I'm like really so when I seen this on rebel Sense, I'm like, oh baby. I gotta have it. I gotta have it. This is for the girls I really love to grab attention love the compliments This one is for you and I really this is gonna be like my perfect date night Going outside saying like I feel like this is very even though it's sweet. It's still giving like that That warm it's like a warm sweet You're gonna get so many compliments when you wear this the notes on here are black current work of my essence The heart is Jasmine this retails for a hundred and thirty eight dollars, but you can get this on rebel sense for one twenty nine Ninety-nine this next one is Definitely the egg roll for the pretty girl for the girl that's put together on her green smoothie I'm going to Pilates. This is for that girl. This is the Delina This has been all over the internet and I'm like, you know what? Let me just see what this well Let me just see what this smell like it's on rebel sense is This is the perfect Leechy if you love a good leechy note in your perfume. This is the one. It's a very strong rosy leechy Saying you just get in dress up and you want to just feel pretty and so feminine This is the ultimate feminine saying the notes on here are bergamot leechy Nutmeg the heart is Turkish roast and the heart is cedar wood and the bottom is a vanilla Muzz definitely the egg roll perfume of the summer. No, they have two versions They do have the other version on rebel sense, but it's so out sadly I definitely got a cockpit once it's a back in stock, but make sure y'all check this one out because Girl all he says gonna be in good rotation this summer, so make sure you check this one out So this next thing this miss beauty is another rebel sense exclusive It's giving very much mature Fruity woman a girl that's wrong very wrong, but still wants to smell Sweet it's a rebel sense exclusive.  You know what I'm saying top note is mandarin red screws and violet The heart is rose jasmine and the base is amber tonka and must it's on rebel sense for a fifty-five dollars fifty-five Dollars girl. Like I said, this is just smells very mature wrong woman Definitely a girl that's on her ish Look at how cute. This is look at how cute this packaging is. Oh my god, and this drives So beautiful on the skin girl This is smells like the clean pretty girl the clean pretty girl Polished But sexy the misty or blooming bouquet the top notes are Rose of Burkinaht the middle is peonies and the base is white must retails for a eighty eight dollars But you can get this on rebel sense for eighty seven dollars for all my pretty girls all the girls I love the clean girl the clean girl aesthetics Miss Dior blue bouquet. You need to see your collection. This smells so good In the last thing I want to put y'all on is one of my faves I just love Gucci fragrances because they just smell so clean and effortless and this just brings me back to memories It's just a youthful fresh and Just nice saying especially for daytime the notes on here are citruses Mandarin orange the heart is rose and the base is sandalwood patruly and pink Pepper and this retails for one or two, but you can get this on rebel sense for eighty eight dollars This just brings me back to my childhood. It's just smells so fruity and fresh and clean and effortless And like I said very useful and Gucci fragrances were like my first ever Fragments is to add to my perfume collection. So like I said, it just brings back so many memories crazy And it will always be a classic in my perfume collection throughout every season. So So good So bomb that is it for this video. I hope you guys enjoyed Let me know down in the comments on which sense you will be picking up for this summer And make sure you tag me once you place your summer orders on rebel sense.com. I love seeing the tags I love seeing which I picked up make sure you follow me on Instagram at Cara I'm unique and thank you so much rebel sense for sponsoring today's video. Yes girl We gonna be smelling like that girl this summer. Okay, period. So I love y'all so much and I'll see y'all next month