Well, good evening, everyone. I'm Gordon Minters, the convener of the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee, and with us tonight are Willie Coffey, who is the deputy convener, as well as Colin Beattie, MSP member of the committee. Now, we have some young people with us. And if I'll just name them and just in the order I have in the sheet in front of me, we have Callum Nimmo and also Brooke Barr, both members of the Scottish Youth Parliament, and they are convener and deputy convener of the Scottish Youth Parliament's Jobs, Economy and Fair Work Committee. Then we have Carl Galbraith, who is a young person supported, I understand, into employment by the Prince's Trust. And Katie Stewart, who is a health and social care project manager at Prince's Trust, Andy Tate from Orkney, currently being supported by employability Orkney. Ben Johnson, who is a 20 year old scaffolding apprentice, who has had his apprenticeship, I understand, paused during lockdown. Then we have Kerry Spence, Community Learning and Development Manager at Orkney Islands Council, and Raman Kaur and Lauren Mwale, who are involved or were involved in the Young Women Lead Project this year in Scotland. So I'll welcome all of you. And if we could then come to questions and perhaps I could start with a question by just asking the young people to come in and give us an indication of how Covid-19 has impacted on your own situation regarding employment or your your plans at present. So I don't know who we'd like to perhaps come in and give us some comment on that. I think I'll jump in first. Yes, Callum. Thanks, carry on. Hi there. So hi, Callum, Nemo, MSYP. I'm the convener of the Jobs, Economy and Fair Work Committee and that organisation. So in terms of the impact on my thing, I'm a university student. I studied at the University of the West of Scotland, currently going into fourth year, studying Computing Science. And I'm also working part time with a small business that sells musical instruments. Covid-19 probably impacted me quite severely. You know, university has been delayed by a month. We were meant to start back at early September. Now we're starting back in October. As far as I'm aware, the university has been sort of like a hybrid session where most sessions are taking place at home. And I think one day a week we're allowed in at the university for face to face lecturing, albeit with social distance measured in place. In terms of work, I was furloughed for a couple of months with only the no top up, so only 80 percent of my wages. As you can imagine, as a young person, I don't have a lot of, you know, savings in the account just because that's me starting to save. So that 20 percent reduction in wages certainly didn't help with that scenario. So I think I am a little bit lucky in a sense that the furlough scheme helped me because without that furlough scheme, I would probably be made redundant being a part time person, small business would just be not employed. And then I would have had nothing. So I'm very, very, I'm grateful for that. That's my personal experience. Thank you. Any of the other young people want to come in on this? And I should say that if you don't feel you've had a chance to say what you'd like to during the session, you're welcome to write into the committee afterwards, and the committee will then take that into account when we're considering what's being said. So don't feel you have to come in on every question or that you won't get a chance to follow it up if you feel there's something you might have missed. So do you have someone else who would like to come in at this point? And I could jump in. Can you hear me? Yes, please do. I used to work part time for my university. I studied at the University of Edinburgh in our alumni core center. And you can't have core centers in times of COVID. So that job has been scrapped for now. And because I recognize that would be a possibility. I've been looking for some other form of part time employment. But what's happening is also I'm being told by the people I applied to because I reached back out and say, oh, can I have feedback? Why wasn't like? Can you explain what would have made me more competitive? And the reality is that whereas a year ago, people are applying for like, you know, these part time jobs would majorly be students like me or, you know, fairly young people, it's now kind of everyone and anyone is applying to be a hostess in a restaurant or a waitress or work in a coffee shop because of the like more external economic factors. So even though like I'm a decent enough student, they're getting, I don't know, PhD students who are applying and I guess that's more appealing to them. They're getting like grown adults who possibly have families to support. And that is more appealing to them to kind of hire and support in that way. So that's kind of competitiveness for part time employment is my newest struggle of trying to navigate and still find a way to find a bright time job for the semester. All right, thank you for that. Anyone else want to come and make any comment at this point? I could jump in. Yes, Kyle and Kyle carry on, I think. So I currently work at Marks and Spencers, where the Princess Trust helped me to get into via one of their courses. And I've worked throughout the whole COVID pandemic, but most of our store was furloughed and only a skeleton staff has been running. But I was I was lucky in that because the way Marks and Spencers did it is if you continued working, we got paid an extra 15% on top of our normal wages for what we were working. So that helped us keep people who were in the work and were at risk happier, so then gave them something to as an additional bonus. But I know a couple of people have had to leave the workplace because they had to either find jobs at more hours because we had to cut back on all of our hours due to redundancies that are having to be made because the business is having to quickly deal with all the issues that covid's brought forward that would have been dealt with over like a couple of years. So like this year alone, I think we're making seven thousand redundancies. So my job's at risk currently because I'm one of the newer employees and I'm one of the less trained. So covid's not given me a lot of chances to be trained as a lot of our managers haven't been in because a lot of them have been often furloughed as well. And that's been my personal experience. Right. And I think it was Ben trying to get in there as well. Yeah, sorry, sorry. I was just going to say, obviously, a lot of that's been like negative experience. I found my experience with like the furlough scheme in that because I'm looking up to be staying at home. I've not got rent to look out for my experience of like the furlough period and covid and being furloughed from my job. As I've seen, especially my folks who haven't had a lot of time, you know, obviously they're busy at work, like they've worked their whole lives. And that that little bit of pressure off for them to get just even stuff done around the house, just the positive, like the positive in there. You know, almost a change in mindset. And I've seen as we've gone back into that. Like I think the break and the pressure off and obviously the without that furlough, without that furlough being given, it would have been a different story. But yeah, I just wanted to jump in and say, obviously, everyone else was a bit negative in that, but my experience was pretty good. I'm lucky to still have my apprenticeship. And I think one of the negative parts for me is that it's been pushed back till next April, so I was hoping to go away to university this year. But obviously, I have to finish my apprenticeship first. I'll be next year before I'm able to do that. All right, sorry. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm just wondering if I wanted to try and bring other committee members in who might want to ask further questions, also bring more of our participants in who haven't had a chance to speak yet. I don't know, Willie, have you got a question you wanted to ask? Sure, Gordon, thanks very much in whole every day. I'm Willie Coffey. I'm the member of the Parliament for Kilmarnock in the Irvine Valley, which is down in Ayrshire. I was pleased to hear Callum is open and remapsed that he's a computer science student. That's what I did myself at university a number of years ago, and I'm glad to hear you're sticking with it, Callum. So well done to you, but I really wanted to ask you, what's your impressions of employers and melt round and opportunities to to use the qualifications that you've worked so hard to get? Are you getting a clear impression that there's just nothing happening? Is it sinking to the bottom? What would you like us as parliamentarians to try to do to help employers to continue recruitment so that when you guys leave university and so on, you get a really good opportunity to start your career? Well, that's a good question. I think for a while, a lot of young people have been finding difficulties getting into that sort of world of work from university. And I have no doubt that Covid-19 is going to make that even more challenging with the more people unemployed, so more people are going to be applying for jobs. In terms of what I think maybe could happen as we actually passed a motion within the let me find it here, it was within the Scottish Youth Parliament and we wanted to see the apprenticeship wages increased because we as a committee felt that if we can maybe increase apprenticeship wages to start off, that might attract more people into that area. Therefore, cutting down the number of people going to universities and then maybe sort of balancing it out a little bit more. Because right now we feel that a lot of people are going to university because of the better pay aspects, the better job opportunities that brings. But if we can maybe sort of diversify things, we thought, OK, well, maybe that'll help out, then there's not as many people applying with degrees and more people are in different areas of work on maybe the same benefits.  But no, I think it is really, really a tricky situation. And I couldn't answer how that thing. I think that's up for the people in power to maybe make that decision. What about the rest of you guys? What do you think? Do you think do you get the sense that employers are just switching off opportunities that you might otherwise have expected to be there for you? Could we do more to work directly with employers to encourage them to continue their recruitment programmes? Can I just jump in and say that I'm employed through employability restart, aren't I? We are Scottish CGS Community Job Scotland funded. And I cannot fault them one single bit. I was meant to be job was meant to end in the middle of August. But I got a three month extension through a covid with us being shot. Not only that, but we got full pay right throughout lockdown. And it's obviously the difficult. Yes, you know, me. There's not that many jobs going at the moment. But it's just trying to keep your options open, trying to get more training in place at the local UHI or through modern apprenticeships or apprenticeships. It's just obviously difficult in these times to try and find find something that will work for everybody and trying to find the jobs in the local area, say, moving away down to San Bernés or Aberdeen or anything like that. And could I just come in? Yeah, please. Can you hear me? I've had problems with these earphones all day. So yeah, if I cut off, let me know. The I think personally for the industry, I'm in investment banking and it's always been quite a difficult industry for people to get into, especially from a kind of when you look at statistics wise for women and also from people from a black Asian minority community, it's always been an area that has been massively underrepresented. And I think that there is a lot of programs going on right now where employers are looking at themselves in that area and seeing what can we do to get people in and a big thing that they have highlighted, which was also part of our inquiry as young women leading also as part of another movement in Seek Women's Speak that I'm currently involved in and the employers really felt like they didn't have much support in actually getting in touch with schools and getting in touch with kind of colleges and things like that to get people more interested in that industry and then through making that initial contact, they felt that that brings people into as a point of interest. Then through their kind of looking at work experience and internships and I know personally in my school did a work experience program and it's in Armadale and West Lothian and they on their work experience list of people that were providing it was, you know, the Royal Bank of Scotland there, which is where I went and that's actually got into this industry. But they were the only bank or kind of professional organisation that looked at that kind of program. So maybe there's something there that the government can do in trying to link employers to schools and other areas. OK, thank you very much for that. Any other comments from our other guests or will we hand over back to Gordon and Colin to come in? Hi, sorry, I just wanted to add a little something in there. So I guess my experience of this is I suppose kind of maybe slightly from the other side. So I work for the Prince's Trust and try and link up young people with employers for some of those training programs. And it feels at the moment that there's just real hesitancy around being able to make that commitment and it feels like a lot of employers at the moment just don't know what the next six months are going to bring and it is really difficult, I think, for them to be able to then forecast and, you know, like we've heard from Kyla and redundancies with Marks and Spencer's and what is the kind of the greater workforce going to shape up for them anyway, before they then start to consider taking on new recruits. And even things like kind of the sort of the I guess sort of festive workforce, if you like, kind of for Christmas recruitment and stuff in retail, you know, is that going to be at the same scale as it has been previously? Everything just feels really kind of uncertain, I think, with a lot of employers. And I think for those reasons, that's why we're not getting so much engagement. And I think things like the the kickstart and youth guarantee will help significantly towards that and giving employers a bit of reason and some rationale to be able to recruit new young people into their businesses. But on the same token, I'm not sure that it's going to be right for all young people because it's kind of capped at 25 hours. And, you know, there's lots of kind of things within it that might mean it's not going to be the right opportunity for a lot of people. So it's potentially for me, I think, you know, if there's kind of something to do about it, it's maybe looking beyond the kickstart and youth guarantee. I think those will be massively helpful, but I think it's looking beyond that and looking at what else could we do in that space and helping even more young people. I think as well, you can probably looking at broader sectors, like financial services is probably, I don't know, is that one that will opt into youth guarantee scheme or is it going to be more around retail hospitalities? It probably needs to kind of be a bit of a cross-cutting examination on some of those things, I would say. OK, thanks for that. Kerry, your name is obscured by the panel I've got on my screen. Oh, sorry, Kerry. Is that right? Thanks. Thanks very much for that, Gordon. Just hand it back to you. And I find that that's very interesting, the different points you make. And I'm wondering whether or not, although, I mean, I think there was a comment about experience being perhaps valued more than people who are younger with less experience qualifications. I'm just wondering how all of you find this sort of internet experience the way because of COVID, a lot of things have to be done like this on Zoom. Does that give you an advantage as younger people over people perhaps my age who are not as good at the technology? If I can put it that way, or do you find it quite difficult in terms of looking for jobs or placements or your next step in life because of the sort of screen interaction the same way that others may do who are perhaps not as young as yourselves? Anyone, any comment on that? I don't mind coming in again. Raman, yes, thanks. I think person has made it a lot easier for me because it means that, like, specifically for jobs. So I feel my friends have actually, but also in the finance industry, have been looking for jobs. It's been an area that's actually been recruiting quite normally. It's picked up again and they found that they can actually go and get access to jobs that they normally wouldn't have because now they'll be working from home. So it's actually meant that it's worked out quite good for them in the sense they don't need to do this, you know, think about commuting and moving homes and things, they can actually just go for a job based on where it's going to take them in their career. Good. Anyone else want to come in on that at all? Or I think Kerry Spence wanted to come in. Kerry. Hi, yeah, yeah, sorry, I'm pushing it, not really a young person anymore. But just in regard to the kind of use of technology and stuff, I think we maybe need to have to catch up a little bit in regard to things like we've been talking earlier about work experience. You know, a lot of people that are doing like employability fund courses have to do work experience as a key element of their course. And if they haven't done the work experience part, they don't pass. And that's obviously not been an option during covid. But actually, I'm sitting day after day now in meetings like this, you know, doing my work through technology. So really, we have to be a little bit more innovative on ensuring that young people or whoever we're giving work experience to, that they're also, you know, that we're looking innovatively about work experience, about opportunities and how, you know, we can do virtual work experience and pulling them into different things. So it was just a kind of linked in element on technology. All right. Thank you. And Lauren. Speaking of maybe like trying to get internships and things like that, myself and a lot of my friends applied for our internships and hopefully secure positions for this summer and like covid happened and some companies made them virtual and still paid people. Other companies gave virtual experiences without paying. So I think an interesting experience for people who are doing these like pre-employment, pre-graduate position, looking for that kind of experience is that lots of companies are because it is a lot of efforts to have an online internship, I'm assuming. So they're kind of doing this other thing where you can have like three days of panel discussions and maybe you get like a like a dummy activity to do and be like, oh, everyone's going to make slides to pitch a stalk or whatever that might be. If you think of like a finance example, because that's where I was applying, my friends were applying and they don't actually add up to like an experience can put on your CV and say, oh, I've done this. And more and more companies are kind of going this route of here, let's do like a virtual series of events in a virtual conference and not necessarily kind of go that the infrastructure to have virtual placements because I guess they're waiting covid out, which means that we might have like a skills gap or qualification gap in relation to having like pre-employment experience, which will be detrimental in a year or two. And I like graduate instead of applying for jobs. Good. Thanks for that. Maybe we'll move on to Colin. Colin, do you have some questions or questions you want to put out? Yes, thank you. I'm quite interested in sources of information. You know, we've been through a very peculiar period of a few months. And during that time, there's been a massive amount of information that's made available to a plethora of sources. And I'm just wondering which sources did you go to and find the most effective, the most useful consistently? Well, I thought that you got done really well with producing information. It was more useful to raise more people than anything. There was a lot of people given and they were always to be, you know, so I thought that was quite useful. Mm hmm. Was there any other sources that you kept tapping into? Not that I can recall. No. What about the others? You must have been gathering information in from somewhere. So which ones were the best, Ben? My employer actually is going to find job at most, update, send out an email to us. But it's not really answering the question, but I've found obviously been on social media the sort of the amount of different, not reliable sources, the amount of stuff where it's just people's opinions are. And I think if you didn't have that, I was able, I was shown by my employer what actually was fact and what wasn't. But I think it'd be quite easy to find to the trap of not knowing what was going on just due to that unreliable information. I don't know what could be done about that. But I decide. Were there any government sources that you went to that you found useful? Or did you rely on your employer all the time? I relied mostly on my employer and also I live with my mum. She's working in the council now, so she was pretty up to date on that as well. But as for me, partially seeking out government sources, I didn't know. Thanks, Ben. Good man. Hi, I actually used government sources and I found it to be very confusing, especially when looking at this particularly as it was very good to give you an overall view of what was happening on and it was mainly the daily briefings because I didn't find the the material on this government website wasn't very accessible. I could see in the phase plan, but it just seemed quite like it. I mean, if I felt like I was reading something as a report, it was quite kind of and I didn't feel like it was something I could just pick up and read. And then it's particularly with social information around the reopening of religious places because I often go to the Gordwara in Glasgow and I felt like the information on actually how that was going to open and what places of worship were allowed to and what weren't because there was some kind of disparity between churches and mosques and then Gordwara's were still open. It was all very confusing. So I think maybe if there was something more kind of categorized, you can go to that particular area and find out exactly what's happening because I know then there was some despite between some areas that are just people confusing themselves and going off and doing their own thing. But I found it to be quite difficult. Was there any government website that you found useful or reliable that you made use of or whether websites outside or sources outside the government that you found useful?  So I looked at that and tried to kind of figure out exactly what was opening when. And I used sources from mostly from the BBC. BBC News has been my main kind of place to go to see what's happening in Scotland and then the figures as well of like death rates and new cases. All of that I use new sources and I didn't really use the government website. Did anyone else use any of the the government sources and find them useful? What about educational establishments? Were they useful in putting information out? My university was that. I think they'd done like a weekly update. My university constantly kept us in the loop because it was shut down just at the near end of term where exams were. So they kept us in the loop on what's going to happen with exams. I've not sat when this will be if there's going to be a delay. What do we do if we like need a reset or whatever? They were very, very good at that. The only criticism I would give them as time developed, that sort of slowed down. That pace of the slowed down. Came from like weekly to maybe monthly. And then I think I don't know if it's maybe went in my junkie meal. But this is personally, I think one month I just never sent an update out. But that was I think during the reset. So maybe it wasn't applying to me. But my university was quite good at the very start with that sort of weekly update here's what we're doing. Is it possible? Is it possible that towards the end? I said the end of the lockdown, that there was less information required to be put out because there was maybe less change that affected you, or was there change going on all the time? And they just didn't communicate it? I couldn't answer that fully because I'm only going for my personal experience. It might be different for other people that might have had things on. But my personal experience was never communicated with me after a certain period of time. So I couldn't possibly answer that as, yes, and I've communicated at all because they might as well communicated well with people that needed it. Brooke, you heard something that say. Yeah, so I am currently in my last year of school. So before lockdown, I was set to be sitting in my higher exams. And for the most part, my school was, to be honest, awful at giving support or letting us know what was happening. And I mean, obviously with the work aspect, constantly handing out assignments, which was great. So that was really like into doing their work. And they were concentrating on everything. But I think for like myself, the school wasn't useful. It could give me any kind of information as to what was happening. Like exams, what was going on, and all just in a way. So given your experience with the government information coming out, did any of you actually, one or two of you have mentioned this, but I want to gather it all together, what government services did you actually make use of? Leaving aside the information sources, did anybody use any of the government services? No? OK, let me hand it back to you, Gordon. That's an interesting question. And I mean, Raman did comment about certain issues and in places of worship, slight confusion for people about when what would be open. And I think that also carried over potentially for some people into issues which related to work because how social distancing rules applied in individual job situations and that. But I'm just wondering how many of you, I mean, I suppose to a certain extent, everyone involved in this situation with with covid. There can be guidelines or information provided on a government website or by the BBC or whoever. But to a certain extent, everyone has to try and think for themselves as well, how it is to be applied in their own personal circumstances. So I'm just wondering, I see Callum nodding, perhaps Callum, if you have any comment on that or others as to how easy or otherwise you found to fit what you were doing into the guidelines that you that you did have or how much work you had to put into that to try and work it into your own situation. Yeah, I think the sort of information that I saw was, you know, very suited to my sort of situation. But that, again, is just personally me. Some people might have really, really hard time with all that information. Some people might have, like myself, have a better time. Obviously, I was in university and part time work, my work was great. They kept me in the loop with sort of the situation with furlough, all that kind of stuff. So I didn't need to worry about work. I knew I was getting some sort of wages in from that furlough scheme. So that made me kind of, you know, relaxed and feeling a wee bit better. University, as I said, they kept me in. I was still doing exams. They mentioned about here's what we're going to do for this year's exams and any other information, you know, maybe guideline changes. I'm regularly on Twitter and I think that's a really, really good place for that, regardless of who it is. I think sometimes any government, be it the Westminster government or the Scottish government, they'll put up reports they're not as useful. I find the sort of animations that they maybe do, the wee short snappy. Here's what's happening. Things that even some local authorities have done. They're a lot more useful. All right, so short and snappy is perhaps the answer. And I think Kyle wanted to come in. Yes. So at Marcia Spencer's, we they constantly are in contact with the government. So we are always very up to date guidelines. But it was very, very confusing experience for the first couple of months, because we basically had to completely change how we run the store. So we had to implement the only systems. There's the face masks with the count. It's that counting how many people are out. It limited a lot of what we could do. So it was quite a big change and it was relatively difficult to adapt to. But even now, we're always changing one or two small things to try and always stay in accordance with government guidelines or guidelines that the company have agreed with the Scottish government. Right, Roman, I think you wanted to come back in as well. I just have to back what Kyle was saying. I think that's quite interesting how much kind of obviously communication was going on between Marcia Spencer's also being a big corporation in the government. And my parents run a small convenience store. They found it very we found it really difficult in trying to incorporate the guidelines, especially when looking at where to put masks, gloves, everything as well as screens around the tills. Like for a small business, that's quite a big thing to have to organise. And I think there could have been more support from the government. And actually they did give the grant, the government grant, which we took advantage of, which was really good. But there was no hands on actual help around even giving people names of places where they could go to get these kind of things like screens and PPE, things like that. So when there was a shortage, that meant that we were also having quite a big shortage. So I think there needs to be more consideration for the small businesses. And we also seen a huge influx of people actually using small businesses at this time because they didn't really want to go to the supermarkets. So we were coming into contact with a lot more customers too. Let's see. I think Ben wanted to come in. Did I miss you out there, Ben, at some point? No. Could I just jump in, guys? The with, well, what a furniture shop up in Orkney that I work for. There was what I've attained to put a one-way system in the shop to meet our guests and see what we're sticking to. But it's the main problem we found to start off with. We reopened just to start off to start with to get used to working with a minimum number. We then opened up middle of July to the public. We'll mark some of what is it for in the shop at the moment at once. It was a nightmare trying to figure out what we can do because obviously it's what we do should deliver and collect bits of furniture. The main problem with that was the fact to start off with we couldn't run the van due to social distance and restrictions because we wanted two people on the van the whole time to left the furniture. The other issues and still are that we have to wait three days before we obviously we get a donation in say on a Monday morning, we can only put that into the shop on the Thursday or Friday due to the 72 hour restrictions in place. The screens are fantastic for government guidelines have been clear, but there are just a few things that I feel like haven't been as clear environmental health, we're trying to keep on top, keep up to date with them on what's happening. But no, overall, I think it's all right. It's just obviously there are a few points I feel like could get be made a bit clearer for the likes of what we can do in the way of taking furniture donations into the shop sooner or whether we have to wait that 72 hours and all that sort of things. All right, thank you. And I think Willie Coffey, you wanted to come back in again. Thanks very much again, Gordon. I was just want to ask everybody to see the time that we're in just now. Is there an opportunity to to think about using that time to to learn new skills to give you a new opportunity for employment when the economy does begin to pick up? And what would that be? What would that look like? No, man, you were talking more about could we see some more internships? And Callum, you said, can you put the apprentice wages up? What would be your asks, your wishes of employers or government to to give you a better chance to get into employment when things pick up a little bit? Is it new skills? Is it more as an experience in doing internships? As Raman was saying, just what is it you think you need that would help you most? Do you think to get into employment once this picks up a bit? I think personally, for my situation, obviously, I'm studying computer science, so I'm only going to go into that sort of those areas. But I think a lot of employers are looking for that sort of double barrel of we want you to have a degree, but we also want you to have like some sort of experience. So I think what would really be helpful to me is what my university has been doing is they've been given a sort of chances of going into like employment for like some terms and giving us like credits towards there. The only downside with that is it's sort of like a lot of areas. We'll do things to sort of unpaid sort of things. So you're doing like a full time hour basically and you're not getting paid for it. OK, it's going towards your university. So you are achieving something. But I think if you were maybe to sort of incentivize that a little bit more, maybe more people would sign up for it. So then therefore, when they leave university, they've got something. They've got something related to the area that they're in. If they want to go into sort of retail or whatever, then their part time job might be helping with that. But I think it's very, very difficult for some areas of university to get like a part time job to build up your experience while you're getting your education for that area. Yeah, yeah, good, good. Well, Andy, what about you? What kind of help do you need to bridge the gap and get into employment? What can I extra skill say? Do you think you need? I don't know, to be honest with you, it's just I'm trying to get into admin office work, basically. The main issues I feel like at the moment, as most employers are potentially looking for a HNC, I only hold an NC and I've spoken to the college in a few occasions about doing a HNC and they were reckoning that I wouldn't or not they wouldn't. They think they would struggle to do the HNC with a jump in the levels between them. Other thing is there's not that many big major companies up here, up in Orkney. There's obviously the council and the NHS, but that's mainly your big, you're too big an employer. I'm waiting for, there's obviously developing the unworked force as well. Let's run, I'm waiting for an interview back from them. Chubby applied for back in March, just her last week that the interviews should be taking place shortly. Obviously, I would just mainly say that it's where we're at remotely. I would say it's about when I show. But with others, what kind of things do you think would give you the best chance to bridge this gap into employment? What do you think you need that you maybe don't have access to at the moment that would make the difference for you? Is RFA coming? I think then she'd like to come in. So Ben, first and then Roman. It was just it was just about obviously I'm doing my apprenticeship. And I got grades at school and I got my hires and stuff. And since I've been doing this apprenticeship, I've been down and I've noticed with the coursework. It's been a lot of rain. I'll say I've run more for my apprenticeship on my scaffolding than I did through my whole probably not five and higher English portfolios and probably exams combined. So I work with a lot of folks. Obviously the older boys, I didn't have to go through the same apprenticeship. That wasn't so much like coursework for them. And there's folk that are more practically like practically minded, I would say, who would struggle to get through the written work that like I struggled with some bits of my coursework with my scaffolding apprenticeship and I got quite good grades in my English. So for folk who maybe aren't so academically minded, I think it's a shame because there's a lot of there's a lot of young folk that I think won't be able to afford the opportunity to get their apprenticeship based on their academic learning to fulfill that side of the course. So maybe just making like apprenticeships more accessible or different routes through it. So yeah, yeah. Roman, do you want to come in, Roman? Yes, so I think my best friend might be able to tell me something. I was just going to say like there is programs that I think that would would really work, especially in the industry that like for finance, it's only basically talk from there is a big focus on having a two one and such and such to get in, but there's I think there's programs that could be done where you do start off as an apprentice and then there's assisted kind of education so you can do a part time university course. So I think there needs to be more like work between, I think particularly JP Morgan does a program for apprentices. So they take kids, well, young adults, 17 years old and from straight from the final year in unit in school and then they can come and work in JP Morgan as a full time employee, they get full wage and so that helps as well when you're looking at kind of costings and things and then alongside that they can do a qualification and investments. So that kind of thing works quite well because you're doing the practical stuff and you're also getting education and you're getting paid while you're doing it and it's something you can do in your own pace. So maybe just having a conversations with companies on that level would be quite good to see. Encouraging that. Kerry, is that your hand up there as well? Sorry, yeah, just two really quick points. One is in Orkney, we notoriously lose a lot of our young folk. So they go off to uni and everything, which is great, but we very rarely get them back. So doing stuff that we can to attract young people back into good jobs would be really good, graduate apprenticeships, things like that would be really valuable. But also we have to be really careful that we're not losing those that aren't going off to do degrees or anything, those that are staying home. We've got a lot of people who really rely on the tourist industry here as a seasonal job, young people who are going on to do it and maybe a different job or want to go away and get a career somewhere else or want to go off to university. Now, this year, they haven't had a summer job. They can't afford that. They're not going to university, their whole, potentially their whole life future has been changed. And whether we get that back, they've had to defer going to uni because they didn't get enough money this summer to afford it. So things like that. So we have to be really astute and make sure that we don't widen that gap even more. Sorry. Yeah, thanks for that. Any other contributions on that subject from your guests? I just add to my point as well, I forgot to say, obviously, I think well, since we're still in the furlough period, we've got a lot of apprentices or young folk who are still on furlough. And I think like I'm not sure what's going to happen with the redundancies in that later on. But I think there's going to be a lot of skilled tradesmen who have already passed their time, who have made redundant. I think employers are going to be looking more so to employ these people who already have the skills that they can rely on. And I'm not sure maybe not, but it seems like the opportunities for younger folk to get into an apprenticeship will maybe be, you know, lessened by the fact that there's already these skilled people already with the skills ready to go into work. OK, thanks very much for that. Back to you, Gordon. Right, thank you. There's someone who's typed R in the chat box that it's not only the name. So if you wanted to come in, you haven't yet on that, then please just say so now. I think it was Ben typing it twice, wasn't it? I was it right. No, that's fair enough then. I just didn't figure out who it was. So I think we've we have a few more minutes. I'm just wondering, does everyone had an opportunity to say what they wanted to? There's other aspects of some of these issues about how covid's affected you, your employment or your future education or training that you want to make to the committee. Then please, please do take the opportunity now to do so. And is there anything we haven't covered that anyone would like to make comment on or give input to the committee? Christ, jump back in again, guys. I would say the one thing that would be useful or government could look into or continue to do, I would say, as the community jobs, Scotland, the funding that you guys provide for jobs is absolutely fantastic. I would. Fair enough, I've only got I was meant to be 12 month contract at the moment through you, but it's been extended for 15 months. I would say it's mainly just a struggle, the worrying concern about what's going to happen after my employment at the moment due to obviously redundancies in the furlough scheme ending comes October or getting wound down comes October. But no, I would mainly say to try and get it or at least try and keep the funding there for the opportunities that you guys have given me this past year. And other youngsters work alongside me, we work colleagues that have been funded through Community Jobs, Scotland. All right, thank you. Anyone else? Any final comments from any of our guests? OK, and I don't know if my fellow committee members wish to come back with any final points they wanted to ask about, Lily. Just a final question to Andy up in the morning is Brinkie's Braestill there. And some of that, it's there, I think. Good. Well, it's encouraging to hear that some things that are good don't change in spite of current circumstances and the difficulties we all have to face. But I think in that case, we'll probably end the session now. The committee will continue to look at the COVID issues. And in fact, we've got a panel of young people as well tomorrow morning speaking to the to the committee. So we're continuing to listen to a variety of people from business industry and the different agencies that are trying to assist in current circumstances and also wanting to hear from young people. So you can write in if there's anything that you think of after this event, as it were, because it's always difficult when you're put on the spot to to think of things sometimes it comes later. So feel free to write in. I see that Rahman would like to come in with last points. I think I think we have time for that, Rahman. Can I ask the committee actually, do you feel it's easier to do these kind of things virtually than it was previously when pre COVID? I'm not sure who wants to answer that. I personally, I mean, it can be helpful to people are very far away that they don't have to travel in particularly in current circumstances. So there can be benefits to it. Personally, I find it less good because I think the sort of interaction between people is more difficult on a screen. And I think some people are better at doing that and being able to interact and get the full benefit of, for example, speaking to people yourselves online and others are perhaps less good at that. But personally, I find it's I think better in person, although it's obviously better this because we can see each other, see each other's expressions than if it were just on a telephone line, for example. Right, Kerry, I think wants to say something. Sorry, I know I know you're wanting to go just to say, well, I live right beside Brinkysbury. I'm not putting it every day. It was just a kind of shout out, obviously things like this are really, really helpful for people like up in Orkney, obviously, because we wouldn't be able to attend some committee meetings, but they don't tend to work in a blended approach. So if you were all sitting in Edinburgh and we were coming in three of us from Orkney, that doesn't work. So it's all or nothing for me, I feel. But just one kind of plea is all these government and employment schemes that are coming out. It's really important that you remember the Highlands and Islands. So the co kickstart, for instance, and the 30 placements, that's huge. 30 placements is absolutely huge for Orkney. So even consortium bids, so I sometimes think that the Highlands and Islands are maybe forgotten about in the bigger picture of things. So it was just one thing I'd like to to leave on before I finish. Thank you. I mean, that is a very important point, because although the committee sits in Edinburgh, we do try to make sure that we as much as possible bring in the different areas, regions and parts of Scotland as much as we can. And that's that's one of the reasons we've got quite a wide spread of of you tonight, and we put it that way. So rest assured, the committee will try to continue to bring in people from the different parts of Scotland and try and take into account those factors, which is very important. All right, I think that is then our session for tonight. So thank you to all of our guests for joining us and also to my fellow committee members. So thank you very much and all the best at this time. OK, thank you and goodbye. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Cheers.


Today, the EMCDDA launches its European Drug Report 2023. As Chair of the EMCDDA Management Board, I welcome this annual publication, which is an essential resource for gaining strategic insight into the European drug situation and its implications for public health and security. Based on data from 29 countries – the U27, Turkey and Norway – the report delivers the latest overview of the drug situation in Europe up to 2023, exploring long-term trends and emerging threats, echoing the use-balanced approach to drugs the report explains drugs use and supply with additional analysis on drug-related harms and treatment. I am delighted that this flagship publication now follows the EMCDDA's digital first approach to delivering products and services, an approach which is an integral part of its new business model initiative. This year, the report offers innovative ways for audiences to explore and interact with the content, access underlying data and visualizes trends both at European and national level. The launch of the European Drug Report 2023 comes at a very special moment as the EMCDDA prepares for a new mandate and a new future. The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union are expected to adopt a new regulation for the European Union's drug agency either in the coming weeks. We look forward to the implementation of this promising new mission, enhancing our partnerships, promoting co-production and pursuing stakeholder engagement will be crucial to our work as we expand our monitoring, boost EU preparedness and help development competence for better interventions in the drugs field. I am confident that this will increase the agency's added value in helping European and national policy makers and professionals in the drugs field to tackle the causes and consequences of drug use. On behalf of the Management Board, I can affirm that the EU Member States fully support these developments and welcome the entry into the application of the new regulation in mid-2024. Finally, I would like to convey my special thanks to the EMCDDA Director and to all to his staff for his high-quality new look report. My thanks also go to the National Focus Points, to the EMCDDA Scientific Committee and to all national, European and international partners who contributed to this analysis. Thank you for your attention.


When we talk about allies, particularly out here in the west of Pacific, what it does is it prepares our young Marines to work shoulder to shoulder with everything we do with the Japanese Self Defense Force counterparts. So Keen Sword, it's been an exercise that the U.S. Armed Forces have done since 1986, but let it essentially boils down to it's an opportunity for us, the Marine Corps and other portions of the Joint Force to train alongside our partners, the Japanese Self Defense Force, refine that relationship and improve the way that we can operate together with one of our more significant allies. Keen Sword, a lot of it was really about planning and it was about how helping the Western Army and their junior units understand how the Third Marine Division envisions and plans to flow in in support of 15th Brigade who will have the first obligation for defense. Here in the western Pacific is the American-Japanese alliance, that's black and white. So what I would say for any potential adversary is if you think you're going to just fight the United States or just fight Japan, that's not the case. Our relationship is close. We are in supper. Any adversary that would want to jeopardize the security, the stability, the economic growth in this region has to look at both of us as one.


I started my career as a pediatrician in a problem neighborhood in one of Germany's biggest cities and joined the MCDA just after it opened to work in the area of substance use prevention. Thanks to our work, drug policies in Europe are now more data-driven, public health-oriented and pragmatic than in the past. And in the area of prevention, great progress has been made in delivering interventions that are responsible scientifically sound and rooted in clear concepts. Working here has helped me understand the complexity and diversity of these continents, countries, systems and cultures and above all has shown me how science can be transformed into better policies and interventions. I feel fortunate to be helping to develop a professional prevention workforce that values prevention science and is trained in and knowledgeable about approaches that are tested, safe and likely to yield results.


What's up guys it's your Val here and in today's video I want to tell you all about our new VFX pack and show you guys how to use the different elements like fire, smoke, dust, particles to really enhance your footage and make it look amazing. I'm also going to share with you some practical tips and tricks and walk you through a few techniques to really blend these elements in and to posit them into your shots and make them look real. So let's watch the trailer for the VFX pack which also includes the final shots that we're gonna be editing today and as always we're also going to have a giveaway at the end of this video so make sure you stick around but let's first watch the video and then we're gonna jump right in. So we're in After Effects and I want to start off with a pretty easy shot and a very quick and easy way to make your shot look better using the VFX pack so this is gonna be a simple example and then we're gonna move on to more complex things. I'm just gonna drag one of the elements in and you're gonna see how immediately without too much work it's gonna really enhance the footage and just make it look way better and more interesting just with a few clicks so let's go for that. So we have this footage of this couple just this bone file there they're kissing and now I'm gonna go and search for embells so let's go into the VFX pack folders and I'm gonna go into embells so we have a bunch of these and I'm gonna go for embers number five I'm gonna drag it in I'm gonna scale it up and I'm gonna go into the blending mode and go for screen and let's play the final result as easy as you like just drunk and drop change the blending mode and there you have it a beautiful shot. So this next example is also going to be pretty easy but we're gonna take it a step forward I'm gonna show you how to color correct the elements to make them blend in more with the original shot and it's just gonna give you the tools to really play around with the elements and just make them look good in any scenario that you're using any footage any element any effect that you're trying to achieve I'm gonna show you some tools to help you do that so let's go. So we have this shot of the girl running let's watch it all right looks nice and I really want to enhance this footage make it look more interesting just give it a little bit more of a pop so a very easy thing that I can do is just go over to my VFX pack I'm gonna go over to smoke and we have four smoke elements and I'm gonna go for the first one so I'm just going to grab it and just like that drag it into my timeline over the clip that I already have and as you can see the smoke is on a black background and it's like we can't see the footage underneath so all we need to do to fix this is go into our blending modes I'm gonna change the blending mode to screen which basically eliminates everything that is darker so we're only gonna see what slider which is the smoke and as you can see now we can see the smoke over here so what I want to do now is make the smoke bigger so I'm gonna press S on the keyboard to bring up the scale and I'm gonna go for something around let's say 250 maybe so already it adds quite a lot but it doesn't look really good because the smoke is white and the whole scene is more orange and the smoke that we already have going on is orange as well so we're gonna try to match that to basically make this look as if it was really there when they shot this so I'm gonna use a bunch of different color grading tools to help me kind of get this to look the same as the original so I'm gonna go to my effects and I'm gonna type in curves and that's gonna be the first effect that we apply and let's go to red first and let's try to play with that so that's looking already pretty nice now let's go over to the blues now let's try the greens and something like that I think looks pretty nice let's play it and maybe I want to drop the opacity just a little bit maybe somewhere around 80 and yeah that looks pretty nice very quick very easy and one thing I forgot to mention that I did is I actually sped up the smoke because it was going pretty slow so I just went right click and time time stretch and I put this on 75 which basically made this go a little bit faster which was more suitable to my shot so this is another tool that you can use you can make the elements go faster or slower depending on your needs and on your shot and I think that's pretty much it for this shot we just dragged in the smoke I put it on screen made it go a little bit faster scale it up and we also used curves to color correct this and make it blend more with the original shot so let's just play the final result again so for this next shot I want to show you guys something a little bit more complex so we have this shot here of this car burning and there's fire on the right side of the car and on the left side a little bit and the center is feeling a little bit missing I want to have fire in there as well so I'm going to use the fire assets on the VFX pack to fill in the frame and like get more fire in there make it more impactful so I'm going to go into fire in my folders and I'm going to look at the different ones that I have maybe I'll start off with fire number three I'm going to drag it in and again the background is black so I'm going to change the blending mode and I have a feeling that ad is gonna look better with this one but let's try screen at first so you can see the difference like this looks nice but it doesn't have that kind of glow effect to it so I think ad is gonna be better so let's see that yeah so this is a screen which is a little bit like more transparent and ad is just a little bit brighter looks better for this scene and there's still quite a lot of work to do on this one so let's start by scaling it down I'm gonna position it somewhere around there and now obviously this doesn't look good yet but before I go into color correcting again what I want to do is actually motion track this you can see that the footage has some movement and if I play it you can see that the fire element is staying stationary and the footage is moving so it's just not staying in place so I want to fix that and we're gonna do that by doing some motion tracking so I'm gonna try to motion track it manually and let's see how that works so I'm going to press on p to get to my position I'm gonna click this top watch to create a keyframe and now let's move a few frames forward and let's see position fire and we're just gonna keep on doing the same thing so we did a pretty nice job with motion tracking this and fire looks like it's pretty much staying in place together with the footage and that's what we wanted and now that we have it motion tracked I want to start color correcting it and just making it look more like the fire that is actually in the shot so I'm gonna go into my effects again and I'm gonna type in glow I'm gonna drag that into fire three and let's start messing around with the settings so I'm going to increase the intensity and the radius and the threshold so this is a pretty nice start this is with the glow this is without the glow but it's still not doing enough so next up we're gonna go into curves again and I'm just going to raise this up and then I'm going to go into tint and that already made a pretty big difference just the amount of tint I want to bring it down maybe something like this because I do want to keep some of the color because it is yellow but as you can see the real fire is like almost pure white it's completely blown out so that's what I'm trying to go for here now I can see that the fire that we added is just it's too sharp compared to the real fire so I'm gonna go into Gaussian blur and let's start blurring this up and this is already looking much better let's see everything that we did so far so this was before and this is after so quite a long way but we still can make it look a little bit more real if I look at the fire on the left here you can see it's it's very blown out and our fire is still like it has too much detail so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna go into brightness and contrast let's just bring this up so that's looking already better and then back into my curves let's try to get the color just a little bit more into the yellow side and then just to really dial this in I'm gonna go into you and saturation and I'm gonna go for reds, lightness I'm gonna bring this up I'm gonna take the saturation a bit down and then I'm gonna move this wheel over maybe something like that and I'm gonna take this saturation down again and you can see that brought us like very close now I think it's a little bit too blurry so I'm gonna take down the blurriness and yeah I think that looks pretty nice let's play it so yeah I think now it's blending in very well with the original fire it doesn't look fake so it looks really good and it really added to the shot and now we can go ahead and add maybe another fire on the other window and we can basically do the same thing again so drag that in put it on add scale it down and then I'm just gonna copy everything that we did with this one and there we go we have another fire in there and obviously we want to motion track that as well and another quick thing that we can do with this shot to really add a lot of depth is create a new solid and I'm gonna give it a yellow color I'm gonna press okay then I'm going to create a circular mask something like this then I'm gonna feather this out quite a lot maybe something like this I'm gonna change the blending mode to add and I'm gonna put this underneath the fire and I'm gonna drop the opacity way down let's try 10 percent yeah something like that we can even go 20 and you can see it's just adding like kind of this atmosphere glow around the fire and the same thing that we can see happening with real fire and we have like smoke and the car so in real life it would emit kind of a glow so it's looking pretty nice so just a quick little thing that can add more depth and make this look even better and in general we can spend at least like 30 minutes on even an hour or more tweaking this to look just perfect but just within a few minutes this is looking really really nice and I like the results and the fire elements really helped intensify the scene and make it look even more powerful than it already was so that's the power of these elements so let's go on to the next example so for this next shop we have this couple sitting together in the rain and I think we could really spice this up by using some raindrops so I'm gonna go into the VFX pack folders and I'm gonna go into raindrop and I'm gonna choose raindrop number two I'm gonna drag it in and now you can see that if I choose something like screen then it gets rid of the black but this is not really looking good because all of the raindrops are white which they shouldn't be because in real life it kind of catches on the color that is already there so the blend mode that we want to use for this is color dodge because when we do that you can see that now all of the colors are coming through but we're getting the raindrop texture so I want to make this a little bit bigger and I also want to drop the opacity and now you can see that we have a little bit of a problem because the shot is moving in and our raindrop is just staying the same so it doesn't really match up so what we want to do is actually motion track this but this time we have like a forward movement and we also have like the x and y movement so I do want to motion track this using the after effects tracker and not manually like we did in the previous shot so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go into the tracker here and if you can't see this then you have to go into window and check tracker over there so I'm gonna choose the base layer or base footage I'm going to hide the raindrop for now and I'm gonna select track camera and I'm gonna basically let it finish tracking so the tracking finished and you can see that now we have all of these tracking points over here and they're all pretty much the same in this instance so I'm gonna go for this one right click create solid and camera and now we can see that this solid is actually moving together with the footage so what I'm gonna do now is I'm going to right click and I'm going to pre-compose this I'm gonna double click that and I'm gonna change the composition settings to 4k which is the size of our raindrops and footage and now I'm going to delete the solid and I'm gonna copy all raindrops into the composition then I'm gonna change the composition here back into color dodge and now you can see that our footage is actually motion tracked and it's kind of going together with the original movement of the footage and now I just want to add a little bit of a cashew blur just a touch so maybe something around like four yeah that looks pretty nice and the main takeaway that I want you guys to understand from this example is that we used a different blending mode within your screen or add because those just made the blacks disappear but it didn't like made the colors come through and that's why we used color dodge and depending on your footage and what you want to achieve and the kind of element that you're using there's like a lot of options here for different blending modes there's dark and multiply color burn soft light so just experiment with all of these and kind of see what works in like your case and your footage and the effect that you're trying to achieve so just be flexible and try to kind of stay creative and just experiment so that is all for this video I really hope you guys enjoyed it and the key with this pack is really to get creative and use the different elements and different tools and techniques that I've showed you to really make your vision come to life and now let's talk about this video's giveaway one of you guys could win a free one-year subscription to the artist music catalog and the VFX pack all you're gonna do is comment down below which video would you like for us to make next here are the three lucky winners from our last giveaway congratulations to you guys until the next one stay creative


I'm a playologist. I'm from cohort one and I'm here to show what happens one year later and I'm here to say thank you Kira and how proud I am to be a part of an organization that has influenced me and my team and potentially influenced my industry in a way that I don't think anyone has ever thought of before as a playologist I'm also an inventor and I vent really big things like the size of theme parks And so I take my knowledge of play and how to bring people together I use my inventor brain and I come up with attractions that are actually facilitating interactivity and immersion between each other So I get a really good landscape to work from I get a good sizable Feasibility and financial support to play around with people's minds monies and hearts to bring them together To do something positive So when I was a psychologist doing it in a room with a family was an honor But doing it with millions of families through the same techniques that were healing and helping actually provide support solving problems and creating unity So I've been on a little bit of mission. Oh, there I am. Oh, hi So last year I started infinite kingdoms and the reason why I started is time to invent again So I took my ideas around creating Gamification it's like fortnight Come to life But you are the avatar in the middle of a real-world experience and what I tried to do with it with the magic wands is to make it more physical and digital at the same time and so I actually came up with technology this last year in which I'm using high-end image recognition and prop recognition so that I didn't have to embed things I can basically make anything you have on you come to life and then Digitalize you into an avatar that would roam around the park with you That is being released in the next week and I'm really really proud of it So instead of you staring at a little screen being absorbed into this little world You go to big world instead Play with your other you and become powerful together lots of collaboration family involvement Experiences and basically getting out of the house and playing So that was part of the inventions of my last year and bringing to one of the largest parks in Germany a Full-on experience that makes you feel like you don't know who's real and who's not So part of the fantasy of that digital being or is it a real being and then they step through the door and you go well That's real I showed this to the youth This is my newest invention. I got some feedback from it's called magic campfire What this is is coming from my grandson when I took him he's now three years old to a movie for the very first time We sat in the movie and stared at the screen and I spent 50% of the time going like this Did you like that was that fun? I said whoever came up with this idea to sit and watch something shoulder-to-shoulder When the origins of storytelling was around the campfire What so I said I think I have an invention here and I went back to the traditions of Campfire and literally build a platform from the home experience all the way to the live immersion Now building a campfire is not that hard But making it smart and digital and capable of telling stories instantly is hard But I'm halfway there. I've got many clients interested in bringing this to life in their resorts in their museums Just imagine everything that you can do real content. Now. Here's a fun part You know how like you go to an experience and you want to personalize it like social media and you want to make it happen Instantly well, you can have a log that log will know you know you stories And you basically walk up to the campfire that's glowing and technology and projections and you log in and when you log in and When you log in it actually starts telling your story So imagine how we can listen to the stories of others not shoulder-to-the-shoulder but in the round So a little bit of the trick of my play is that I'm getting people to not only go and enjoy Entertainment but look into each other's eyes Across the fire the glow of the human spirit between each other Making stories and worlds come to life in real time with real heart And I love this invention and I'll tell you a little bit more about what I'm looking for from all of you So last year it's my cohort I Was very humbled Because I sat here with my inventive mind and everything that I do as a playologist and said Why am I here? I don't understand and I don't practice Sustainability like I should and I the shame of not being able to give the way I wanted to give and I I was not feeling like I had it going so I said this is where I put my hat on and I invent and I use the energy that I got from EHF From the money and to listen to what my teachings were and not just be 55 years old at that time And not ready to learn but open myself to see what happens as an inventor It hit me within a couple of months So I build large-scale water park attractions out there in the big open world Where everything is right there for it to play with and I decided That after all these years of creating these kinds of attractions That I was going to not only make the purpose to bring people together but to actually put play with a purpose and And a suddenly I was able to think through a mission to create the world's first Sustainable attractions combining solar Wind hydro and play to reach zero net How about that? I'm so excited you like it So next week is my largest trade show in the industry where 40,000 people will send to look at new attractions and I will be proudly telling about how we EHF has inspired me how the money has inspired me to do one very important thing So when we do this as a team I bring my experts together We came up with the solution model and this is the first time anyone is going to see it So I look forward to you as the release of impact attractions Whereas energy collection energy renewal equals zero net Kids today are friends with the Earth and they love to play together. Isn't it time we invited the Earths to play too? Solar panels, wind turbines, they are being put into parking lots on roofs and in a lot of places What if instead we creatively designed them into our parks? Wouldn't that be a great conversation starter with our kids with our parents with everyone? That's why we've designed a renewable energy water play system with a net zero energy impact This first of its kind multi-generation system is powered by sun wind water and play I work by the way Figure out how to get the solar panels on the above anyway What's immensely incredible about this is already is the industry knows that we're doing this Instead of providing the problem I'm just handing them the solution and Instead of it being behind in the parking lots where they don't get to show their energy Resources and what they're doing I put it right in front of their guest base And now they get to watch and play and see how it really works They can learn and experience in a for-profit water park, right? This is big when you think about the access to the minds and experiences the money and the support It's just the way to make things happen sometimes that you got to start on the runway that lets you get there Now one of the things that we do when we build attractions We have to count the people the capacity of people that come to play So I made the decision that when I built these structures that I was actually going to have 200 people being able to come and play on a unit like this at one time Plus one and this is where I am grateful to the Iwi and teaching me to respect the earth as a person And so in all of our advertisements even when we show who our company is There's a picture of the earth as a co-creator who provides her Wonderfulness to us to play with so in the beginning of the video the little slight hint of the girl looking up into the sky The Sun was inviting her the earth was inviting her to come play So we were thinking even in a way of grabbing the market. We would do that now speaking of Grabbing them all of you to help me play. I want you to help me I am looking for you to support I'm looking to actually engage. This isn't just volunteers, but if you want that's great I'm ready to teach and share my knowledge. I want you to join me in these exploration I've got a runway. You want to come fly with me? Do you like the digimi? Do you want to create digital characters that come to life and follow you around an experience? Do you like the magic campfire? Come get my card.  I'm real


The electric bus is more quieter than a fossil fuel. With a fossil fuel you have the possibility of intake and fuel. That's more clean because it's electric obviously. Which is better for the environment.


This Korean influencer joins a live stream and the interaction goes sideways. Yeah, we gotta talk about this because this has 40,000 comments on the internet, guys. No matter how silly it seems on the surface level, clearly it is causing some major, major engagement and controversy. Long story short, Gemini Jury is a streamer. She joins these two Latina girls stream from Dallas and everything just goes crazy. Let's run the clip. Hello. Hello. ¿Cómo estás? Can you speak English? You don't sound fluent. A little bit. You don't sound... You don't sound fluent in Spanish, so... So why did you join us? We don't want a bout of you. Me? Yeah, you. Okay. Okay, bye. Okay, bye. Annyeong. It's been 20 years out of here. Jesus Christ. Bye. Bye for the snakes. Bye. All right, everybody, if you're ready for us to break down what the comments sections say and also our own takeaways, then please hit that Like button and check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys. David, in general, I just feel like it got off to a weird start. Yeah, I mean, I think she enters the girl's stream, says Hola, ¿Cómo estás? The girls, they're sort of like thrown off by that. That is definitely a weird way to start the interaction. A bit of something. It kind of snowballed from there. They're getting catty. They're firing shots back and forth. It's awkward. It's cringe. But then it ends off with the girls in Dallas doing the eye pull. Yeah, in my... I would say both parties are at some fault. I think that the percentages are different. I think that one side is more at fault and ended off the interaction in the worst way that they could or one of the worst ways. However, I mean, you know, jumping into different streams, I think when you meet random people and you have open streams and you're joining streams, I just think you have to assume that some of the interactions are going to go very well. I feel like that world is like that. Yeah. When you look at Omegle clips or you look at... I mean, I think different platforms have different reputations, but it just seems like I've seen a lot of these in modern day 2023. I don't know.  I don't know what type of battle this is because I think the tone of the battle is a rap battle or a roast battle where you just get at each other. But anyways, guys, moral of the story is don't pull your eyes back on the internet. It's the wrong move because you will... the internet will come after you. Let's get into the comments section. Somebody said, I thought the eyes are desired in 2023. So why are people using it to mock people and why are people being ashamed of their own features? I just don't really understand it. Yeah. This one's really out... The jury's out on this one where it's like, are the eyes attractive or not because a lot of models in the fashion world, they try to do the fox eyes, but that's for like a fashion reason. And also, are the fox eyes only good on Western people who don't normally have fox eyes? But if you're naturally born with fox eyes, then it's not cool. I just think the eye thing always reminds people of how America sees us as perpetual foreigners and as aliens. And it's like, no matter what you do, you know, Gemini jury, you could be this pretty girl, Korean... Rich, whatever, right? Twitch, Streamer, whatever, but you're still... Gotta take your face, you know? No, it feels like sometimes, and I'm not saying for sure this happened in this interaction, but it feels like when somebody is losing an interaction and it's interracial with the Asian, the final thing could be like, basically like, you're a whack Asian. And that ends it. No matter... Even if you were beating me the whole time, I can pull this out and it's like, yeah, but at least I'm not a whack Asian. Yeah, just you're Asian and that's just bad. That's how it felt. I'm not saying she meant it fully like that. When she did that, I'm just saying that's how it felt. And I think that that's why those girls got flamed. Some people said too much, some people said the right amount. Anyway, you guys let us know in the comments section. Somebody said racism is usually parenting most of the time and some people seek more into it as they get older, but other people regret it as they get older and grow out of racism. Mm-hmm, yeah. Somebody said we should all have to join the military because this person that you hate is gonna risk their life for you even more than some of your best high school buddies. So that's what's going to break down racism. I think what this person's alluding to is that a lot of Americans are not united by really any single common goal.  So no war can't unite all the men and women in this country under one goal, you know, because we don't have a common enemy. And I don't know, it's like a really complicated question, but I do think that there's just not enough bonding agents here. Yeah, also I would say that who's to say that if you didn't put them in a room for a few hours that they wouldn't be able to make up like adults. You know what I mean?   I mean, Gemini, she's recording the stream. She's looking for interesting interactions. And I guess she got one. For sure. There are a lot of unspoken aspects to this. Somebody said, and this is probably the comment I saw the most, Andrew, they were probably jealous because of how much prettier she was. Her webcam was better. She looks better. Everything about her is better. So these other girls in Dallas were jealous of her. In my opinion, Andrew, power dynamics, whether spoken or unspoken, always come into play. Whether we're talking about looks, power dynamics, which is huge for women. Racial power dynamics. Socioeconomic power dynamics. Educational dynamics. There are a lot of dynamics that make up a reasoned pizza. There's a lot of slices. Somebody said, mocking is usually due to internal security. But also maybe some people are just me and spirited and think it's fun. Yeah, I mean, I would say in different cultures, perhaps teasing about stuff is more acceptable. You know what I mean? Talk to Andrew. A lot of people don't want to acknowledge this. I used to live in LA and I feel like Latinos and Joe, I can't say a specific group of Latinos, but they like to joke and I really don't think it's mean-spirited when they do that. Now, this girl, it had a tinge of mean-spirit, but I'm just saying people do joke around. But since they're not established friends or on a team together, I think it's different. So it was kind of wrong. Somebody says it was totally the Korean girls fault for entering their live stream and speaking Spanish to open it up. It really got the whole interaction off on a wrong foot. And of course, it snowballed. Ultimately, the Latina girls were more wrong, but they both were wrong. Yeah, I think this whole stream of comments here is kind of like pointing out how the Korean streamer entered their chat and then kind of started off with a weird phrase and then they, and then she didn't leave. And then like, I know, like I said, there is blame to go around. Actually, Andrew, this thing got so big that both parties have already issued reaction videos. The girls in Dallas, the Latina girls, they issued an apology video, but also Gemini, jury, she had to make a video explaining why she opened up in Spanish. So clearly, like I said, silly thing, but somehow we're all in the principal's office in the court of public opinion. We're all privy to all these things playing out. Somebody said they both just want Clowen to be famous, man. Nowadays, everybody will do everything, even if it's divisive, racially. God, everybody just wants to get Clowen.  It's true. It's true, man. It's true. And listen, I didn't fully want to make this video, but we're talking about this not because I just want to get like your clicks because you're going to click out in like 10 seconds if you don't see Gemini, Jerry, Popo. But basically, I want to talk about this video to have an actual conversation about it and to add value to the convo and not just leave and just like go on one side or the other. Somebody said, man, all this news nowadays, all this playground stuff, why is this even news and going viral, man? This is just dividing us as a country when we need to be coming together. I mean, I definitely think it's both. It's yes and no because obviously, think about it, Andrew, the news outlets, if they see 40,000 comments on the engagement section, that's newsworthy by the amount of people who want to demon newsworthy. However, you could also say why are we posting the most playground, juvenile, middle school tier reactions and then having this divide people emotionally. You know what a lot of people are forgetting? Is that the internet, it's global. It's global now. There is no American internet. Right, because a lot of people speak English at a fluent enough level to consume American internet in 2020. The internet does not cut off on America, American borders. You don't just leave the coast of LA and then it just shuts off. No. Somebody said, this is just the movie Idiocracy, a play, man.  This is the downfall of America. And somebody said, well, clearly I don't agree with you but there's certainly some class warfare here at play. I mean, yeah, I do think there was a lot of power dynamics like I said to my previous point, they go unspoken because they're too difficult or people cannot articulate them but they're certainly here at play. Someone blamed it on them being from Texas. Texas is known for basically excusing narrow-mindedness but the thing is the South Korean internet is absolutely relentless. So basically these girls did get a lot of online bullying afterwards especially I believe her name was Isabella. She also has a baby.  For sure. Let's be honest guys. The internet is going to overreact especially defending Gemini jury for a lot of reasons probably because of how she's looked, she's Korean. You know what I mean? There's so many reasons that go into this guys. Somebody said, you know, I'm central and South American myself and I have to admit we tease and insult and mock people for things that are considered un-PC in America.  Yeah, yeah, and here's the thing. They're not friends so that's why it's wrong but I do understand I've seen friend groups that I've seen even Asian friend groups namely my Filipino and Vietnamese friends go at each other, girl versus guy, teasing them about all types of stuff that would be considered very PG-13 if not R-related. Right, for certainly it varies culture to culture. Some people joke about things that would be considered off limits of people of another culture. It's friend group to friend group but the truth is they are not friends yet so then therefore the internet, you can't have that in play. All right guys, I'm sure we could go through all 40,000 internet comments. I do not want to. Let's just get to our final takeaways Andrew. Why is something as silly as this getting 40,000 comments of engagement? Because there was way, way, way, way, way, way way bigger stuff happening on the earth and the planet, even the Asian community than to focus on this but this gets all the attention. You know it's different if these were different characters in this situation and it happened somewhere else in different contexts like in real life like not over the internet. Then I think the internet's reaction is even different but since this was on a platform which I'm actually not sure which platform it is whether it was TikTok or Omegle but it was like it's on a platform that a lot of young people use so now they feel like oh my gosh are these the type of interactions I can expect as an Asian person moving forward.  If you are going to put yourself out there you have to have thick skin. That's like us who used to do the videos like a man on the street interviews we used to interview random people on the street. Sometimes some people would turn us down or some people would wile out at us we had a guy who almost tried to smash our camera one time because he didn't want to be on camera I just had this guy the other day who said he wanted to fight me because he thought I was filming him so I'm saying like we have to if we're carrying a camera around and you're meeting random people and you're recording stuff you have to be thick skin. By the way that guy who tried to smash our cameras was just in the background we were not recording. Right I want to be clear. I want to be clear. Anyways but yeah what I'm saying is people you don't know how people are going to react. Yeah I would say long story short to sum up this micro interaction between Gemini Jury and the girls in Dallas I would say the girls in Dallas were 60 to 70% at fault Gemini Jury was 30% at fault but because the court of public opinion was so heavily weighted on Gemini Jury side I would say the other girls took 100% of the L or maybe 95% So I think there's a lot of dynamics that play into why that is though. For sure. Like who does the internet like more who is prettier, who is more powerful obviously like I said anytime you make it racial though you lose the moral grounds.  I do not think she will ever do that again ever maybe to anybody at least on camera. Anyway let us know what you think in the comment section below guys let us know when do you think this is news worthy or just some internet stuff let us know what you think of it and let us know what you think of our analysis keep it civil until next time we'll hop out boys we out. Peace.


This video will talk about Peacewise Function Applications. So a local gas company charges 75 cents per therm of natural gas up to 25 therms. Once the 25 therms are exceeded, the charge doubles to $1.50 per therm due to limited supply and great demand. Write these charges for natural gas consumption in the form of a Peacewise Defined Function, C of T, where C of T is the charge for T therms. Let's see what we have. The first part says that we have 75 cents up to 25, and it says once 25 is exceeded, then it changes. So that means it's going to include the 25. So we have 0.75 times x, that would be the 75 cents per therm, but the domain is going to be from zero, including zero up to and including 25, and then it says once it is exceeded that, the charge doubles to $1.50 per therm to the limit. Okay, so now for the second piece, we know it's going to be $1.50 per therm, so it's 1.50x, but we have to consider that we have all this, we started, so we have to take that out. So if we take 0.75 times the 25, we're going to end up with 1875. So the most you're going to pay for 25 therms is 1875, so $1.50 times x minus to 1875 will be in the domain of x is greater than 25. Okay, so they want us to graph this. I'm just going to do a real rough sketch here. So I've got my C of T and I've got my T, and I'm going to go to my calculator. Okay, so I have these two equations in here, and I know that at 25, they actually should have the same value. Let's do this first part then, from 0.75 times 0 would be 0, be 0, and if I had up to 25, put that here, I'm going to have 18.75, and that goes here, and all of that is included, lying between the two. Now if I go back to my calculator then, I can see that these are going to be increasing for me, but how do they increase compared to the other one? So I look at my graph, this was Y1, this was the first part of my graph right here. So this part right here, we drew, and now it's going to be steeper as we go from that point on. That's really all I wanted to know. It's going to be an open circle, but it's been closed in from the first part, and then I've got to have a steeper looking graph going on forever. And then the last part says, find out when it's 45 therms, how much it's going to cost. It's going to be in the 1.50 times X, so X is 45, and then minus my 18.75, and if I use my calculator again real quick just to do the calculation for me, I can do second window, 45, and then second graph, and it's going to tell me right away that it is going to be the second piece, so it's 48.75, $48.75 for 45 therms. Alright, let's try this one. Missions price at Welling's Wet World are as follows. Infants under two years are free, then admission is charged according to age. So let's see, it asks us to write the piecewise function, so let's just write that as we go. So this is admission, so we'll call it E of T, T being age, and we have infants would be zero to two years, be free, but then the next one says children two and older, so this is up to but not including, so it's $0 for anything between zero and two but not including two. Children two and older but less than 13 pay $2, so then we've got a two, and that's from two including, up to 13. Teenage is 13 and older, but less than 20 pay $5, so we got a five here, and that would be including 13, up to 20, not including, and adults 20 and older but less than 65, it's going to be $7, so that's our 20 inclusive, and then less than 65, and then senior citizens 65 and older get the teenage rate, which the teenage rate over here was $5, so we go back to a five here for including 65 and greater. We've now written this and we've gotten all the domains for each piece going on then, so sketch the graph and find the cost of admission for a family of nine, which includes grandparents who are 70, they're going to be $5, two adults, and that was $7, and three teenagers, which are $5, and two children, which is $2 and one infant, which is $0, remembering what we had here, let's draw our little graph, this is going to be age, and this is going to be our output of age, so from zero to two, but not including two, it's going to be the x-axis, then we go from children who are two up to 13 but not including 13, so this is two, this is 13, it's going to be $2, now includes two but goes to 13 and doesn't include that, and then from children we went to teenagers who are five, three, four, five, and that's 13 up to 20 but not including 20, then we have $7 for adults and that was, seven was from 20 up to 65 but not including 65, and then we had senior citizens who were 65 and they started that back down at teenagers, which is five, so we come back here up here at five, close the circle, and then have an arrow, and now to figure out what we have to evaluate, we have two times five, plus we have two adults which is two times seven, plus three teenagers which is three times five, plus two children which is two times two, and then the one infant is zero, $43 for that family to get in.