From London, England, it's the Cube. Covering Discover 2016 London. Brought to you by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Now, here's your host, Dave Vellante and Paul Gillis. Back to Excel London, everybody. This is HPE Discover 2016, and this is the Cube, the worldwide leader in live tech coverage. Paul Gillin and I are here. We're extracting the signal from the noise at Discover. Kate O'Neill joins us. She is the director of marketing for the data center infrastructure group at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. And Antoine Chambille is the head of R&D at ActiveVM. Nice to see you, folks. Thanks for coming on the Cube. Thank you for having us. Good morning. So we're talking about a subject that we've discussed at Wikibon on the Cube for many years now, the intersection of transaction processing and analytics. And in-memory architectures are allowing that to happen, allowing analysis to be done in near real time. And it's really changing the way in which organizations are approaching how they use data and how they make decisions. So Kate, that's sort of my intro, but set it up for us in terms of what's happening in your world with regard to that trend. Yeah, so in the mission critical solution business, we are typically focused on two primary workloads, the transaction, you know, business transaction workloads and the analytic workloads. And for many years, you know, they're vital to a company's success clearly. And they've always been regarded as having to be always on, always available and scalable to handle, you know, the amount of transactions that go on in any enterprise. So we've always developed solutions to handle the availability and scale for those types of workloads. But as we've moved into this new world of digital transformation and a world that's data-insensitive, time-sensitive, there's a necessity for kind of real-time business. And so whereas before there was the transactional systems and the analytic systems that were somewhat separate and there was, you know, the analytics could be done, let's say days and weeks, and that insight shared with the business who could then kind of take action on that insight and weave it into those transaction streams. There's no longer that luxury of time. And so what we started to see is the convergence of transactions and analytics. Analyzing the transactional data in real-time and taking action on that data in real-time in those transaction streams. But before we go there, Antoine, just set up ActiveVM, like give us a background on your company and who you guys are and what you do. Yeah, sure. So I'm myself head of R&D for ActiveVM. And we are global searcher vendors. We really deliver operational analytics solutions to business users who need to make timely decisions on large amounts of moving data. And our product, ActivePivo, is an in-memory analytical platform, right? And in the financial industry, it has become a candle without tool, right? The majority of the large investment banks use it today on their trading desk for market and credit risk, for liquidity management. But this trend is only intensifying recently with the coming of new financial regulations, such as the FRTB, a worldwide new regulation, the fundamental review of the trading books. It's like a new framework for banks to calculate and report the risks and the capital requirement. And the new methods will require them to process amounts of data tens and tens of times larger than before. So it's become a real big data problem. Over the last two years, so much talk about Spark as an in-memory analytics platform. Spark is not sufficient for what your customers need to do. Is that right? You found a corner of the market that open source is not addressing. Yes, I would tend to agree. That's the feedback I got from my customers in this area. You know, for FRTB, if we stay on this example, right? Banks have started to leverage those big data tools, Adoops Spark, with some success for the storage. And for data preparation, maybe. But when it comes to the analytics and the calculations themselves, yes, it's been very disappointing to the business users, right? Some of them even say that they feel sent 20 years back in time. Why? Too slow? I'm sure they exaggerate, but it's not the speed or the slowness. It's the interactivity, right? Batch-oriented technologies go more and more against the aspiration of the business users. For instance, even in the presence of very complex calculations, non-linear financial calculations, a trader would like to calculate on the fly the impact of a potential deal on the capital requirement of the bank. Right now, not tomorrow, not after tomorrow's batch. Or another example would be the risk controllers in an investment bank. They like to play with the parameters of calculations, to see how it goes, to see how it moves. Changing the liquidity horizon, for instance, of a calculation. Or rearranging a booking hierarchy to see if they can optimize capital allocation. And that requires redoing the calculation again and again, interactively, in the hands of the end users, which, yes, cannot be done fast enough, even with Spark.  The practice previously, or historically, has been, I got my transaction system and I have my data warehouse somewhere else. Maybe I have a fast InfiniBand pipe in between, but that's only recently, right? So typically it's I make a bunch of copies, put them into the data warehouse, and I'm working on, I don't know, end months old data. And then I've got a group of people that I have to go to and beg, borrow, or pray that I get some data out. So is that sort of changing? And how fast is that changing? Well, it's changing through necessity, because businesses can only be successful, can only compete if they can start to behave in real time. So if you think of a retailer, they're looking at a promotion that they're running online or in store. They want to assess, in real time, the success or failure of that promotion. It could be a lost leader. They could be putting out a promotion, thinking it's going to drag and attach other products, but they could find that during that promotional time period, it's actually not performing as they expected. So they have to adjust accordingly, or there could be inventory that they were trying to ship to certain stores. They might want to redirect it based on other demands. And so I think there's just the business necessity now for these companies to be able to integrate their analytical data with their transactional data. Now, HP is in the process of getting out of the analytics business now. What special value do you bring to this market? Well, we're not getting out of the analytics business because that's what our customers require. How we satisfy their needs for analytics will be based on the solutions we can bring to solve that problem and partnering with others who can solve the solution with us. I think you've heard through Discover. Meg is very big on that we're a partnering company. There's things we do very well and there's other things that other companies do that we want to partner with. You're getting rid of Vertica. You're getting rid of the analytics business that you have so everything will be done with partners. Is there something special in the hardware that you will bring to bear that will make HP a compelling solution? Yeah, because in our space, in the transaction workload space that we're focused on, it's think of your more traditional workloads like SAP, Oracle, SQL, those kind of scale of workloads. Those workloads, because they have such a huge kind of volume of data, both transactional data and analytic data, we look at how can we satisfy the needs for that volume. To a large extent, we can offer it and satisfy it through clustering of solutions. But in our space, and in the SAP space specifically, there's a requirement for scale-up technology, large in-memory footprints, just the way those workloads are designed, the terabytes of data needed, and then the performance and efficiency needed out of those environments, means you need a degree of specialized solution design to handle it. And so that's why in the Mission Critical Solution business, we're focused on scale-up technology, large in-memory solutions, fast fabric. So some of the machine technology, such as photonics, non-volatile memory, will start to integrate into our scale-up Mission Critical offerings. And the product line that you would use to lead with is what? So Superdomex is our kind of flagship product for these solutions. And so to answer Paul's question, ActiveVM would be the way in which you would bring analytics to that world, and it probably wouldn't have been Vertica anyway. Yeah, maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't, but probably not. Right, right. And so this is a very specialized solution. And Antoine, maybe you could talk a little bit about sort of the architecture that you bring, you know, what's the secret sauce of ActiveVM? Why is it a secret weapon? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, really the problem we wanted to address from the beginning was the one we talked about. The ability to do everything on the fly from the raw data, which is the ultimate solution for real-time analytics and interactive calculation. And for that, we benefited from the power of in-memory computing that's been raising in the last 10 years, and of course, multi-core processing. So our product, ActivePivot, is that it's a fusion between an in-memory analytic database and a calculation engine, both fusion together, right? And it's also built on the Java platform, which makes it very easy for developers to roll out custom calculations that we run at the full speed of the engine, generally. Okay, and so please go ahead, sorry. Well, I wonder why are you at this event? I mean, what did HPE bring? What does HPE bring to your solution that nobody else can imagine? Yeah, I could cite the example of one of our last customers, a large investment back in France. So recently, they were already using ActivePivot in many places, trading desk, market risk, liquidity, with fairly large projects, one, two, three terabytes of memory, maybe, but on standard server. And two years ago, they came to us and they said, we want you, those F4-TB calculations coming in two years. They will require 10 or 20 terabytes of data. How are we going to keep our interactive model? How are you going to help us? And through those two years, we've looked at several options together. We've looked at Hadoop and Spark. We've looked at scaling out ActivePivot on the cluster. And at the end, they also evaluated large memory servers and that was their choice in the end. Of course, it shows the superdomics from HPE. And this partnership with HPE, that's what allowed us to come up with a solution up and running for them, ready for them to start on this new challenge. And SAP HANA has been a platform that you're offering to customers as part of this solution. Is that correct? Yeah, so what we're noticing is kind of a mission critical renaissance, if you like. So these class of systems, these scale up in memory systems, very much are designed for markets like SAP HANA, right? Just because just where that solution offering is going. We've worked very closely with SAP to provide a system that can scale to the terabytes of data that's really needed to handle that. But interestingly, it's kind of exposed us to other adjacencies. And I think that's what ActiveVM is talking about. It's not just kind of an SAP type environment that needs this type of scale of analytics and transactions and memory footprint. As Antoine was saying, in the financial investment banking with the trading books and the regulatory requirements, it's just kind of given them an explosive amount of data that they have to handle and they're looking at solutions such as Superdome X for its memory footprint to handle it. So the reason I was asking this is an interesting subtext here which is that a lot of what I described before is you get the transaction system in the data warehouse. A lot of times that data warehouse in financial services is Oracle. And SAP HANA is obviously sort of the anti-Oracle. So what are you seeing in terms of the dynamic there? Is it correct that there's a lot of Oracle, obviously, in financial services and how is that shaping up? How's the battle going? Well, there will still be a lot of Oracle. It's mostly used for book and record, I would say. Transactional recording of transactions. But yes, when it comes to the calculation and the analytics, new solutions are shaping up the future, I would say. And you were talking about SAP HANA. What's the difference maybe between ActiveVM and SAP HANA if you want to know? It's the ability to do the actual calculations. Not just being SQL queries faster, but implementing the actual calculation that will give you a value at risk, a potential future exposure, or the capital requirement for FRTB. This is what's not addressed yet by traditional relational databases in memory or not. You, HP, making some noise at this conference for the first time about the machine, revealing some details about the architecture, and Silicon Graphics high performance computing. Clearly, this is a strategic area for them. As an R&D person, what excites you about the machine? Well, I spent maybe three hours talking with the engineers of the lab stand, of course. Well, what's exciting, it's two things. First, it will make it possible to run even bigger workloads in memory and in a more cost-effective way, I said. And also what the machine is bringing, oh, I mean, that's what I understood of it, is that the flexibility which will be to instantiate your application. It looks like a big pool of memory and processing where you can start on demand and consolidate your memory workloads. So without having your application bound to a server anymore. So it certainly is very exciting. What orders of magnitude improvement in processing speed do you expect to see from this pooled memory photonics architecture? I would have to run it in the lab myself, but I already know that you can expect a factor 10 in the size of the data that you could put in memory while remaining cost-effective, that's for sure. We are out of time, but I have to do a little more research here because the fundamental review of the trading book as a primary now regulation, you're saying it's global, so that's critical, it's affecting everyone and it's going to be sort of on the minds of folks. But it seems to me that if this is real-time, that the way in which you protect data is going to have to change. That sticking a purpose-built backup appliance with traditional backup methodologies for something that's real-time, transactions and analytics, isn't going to cut it. So how, first of all, is that a correct assertion that the way in which you protect the data is going to change? Is that true or have we not thought that through yet? You know, I think that all the standard ways we've done things need to be kind of looked at, right? Just whenever you do new, you know, find new ways of doing things, you open and expose other risks. And so I think there are all those factors need to be kind of taken into consideration. Okay, all right, great. I have some thoughts on that. Maybe we could talk offline. All right, we got to go. Thanks very much. It was really interesting. So I appreciate your time. All right, keep it right there, everybody, Paul Gill and I'll be back with our next guest. We're live from London. This is theCUBE. This is HPE Discover 2016.


Aloha and welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kelea Iakina, president of the Grassroot Institute. Today's episode is entitled Civil Liberties in the Age of the Coronavirus. Curfews, stay at home rules, suspension of the state's open meeting laws, and so forth. These are just some of the measures that our local and state government has taken in the name of fighting the coronavirus. But have you wondered about this question? How far should state and county governments go in restricting our freedoms in the name of public safety? My guest today is Jeffrey Portnoy, a First Amendment attorney who frequently represents the media on issues like this. Jeff has called Governor David E. Gaye's recent coronavirus proclamations overly broad and kind of like martial law. Portnoy is a partner in Cade Shuddy Law Firm, a former president of the Hawaii Bar Association, and named multiple times as one of the nation's top lawyers. Many of you know him as I do as a long-term broadcaster for the University of Hawaii basketball team on ESPN 1420. But please welcome my guest today, Jeff Portnoy. Jeff, welcome to the program. Thank you, Kalee. Thanks for the generous introduction. Well, we live in such an extraordinary time. Isn't this an amazing period in which our civil liberties are being challenged? Well, I think they are and I think if you follow the president and then you agree that this is a war, it would give governments tremendous power to limit our civil liberties in multiple ways. I think that there's always the situation where you try to find the proper balance between restricting certain civil liberties during a time of crisis like we are now, but not unduly turning our democracy into literally a dictatorship. And there has been and will continue to be a number of efforts by various governments, including our state and county governments, to limit civil liberties in the name of protecting us from the virus. And in particular, for example, as you mentioned, the stay-at-home orders, the quarantine, the limitation on public access to meetings and to records. And in my view, although some of this is clearly necessary, one has to always remember that this is not a war. This is not a foreign enemy. We're not dealing with spies. We're dealing with a very serious illness, but we cannot allow government to use that as we see in places like Hungary and Moscow, not only to evade our civil liberties, but to invade our privacy rights. Well, Jeff, we certainly, as you have mentioned, have seen an attack upon our civil liberties. And the question we asked is at what price is safety or public order? But I want to ask you to talk about a certain type of civil liberty and that is the right of individuals and the media to know what the government is doing. We've had a suspension here at the state and county levels of our sunshine laws and our open meeting laws. Could you let us know what these laws are and why they're so important in the first place? Sure. Well, we have on our books what's called Chapter 92, and it provides the public and the media as the public surrogate to access to public meetings and public records. And there's always a conflict, even when there is no pandemic and there's no war, between individuals who are attempting to go to a meeting, get proper notice of a meeting, view the agenda, be able to participate in that meeting, and have access to public records to see where taxpayer dollars are going, what public employees are doing. And there's constant conflict anyway, frankly, because even though we have a statute which essentially is designed to provide as much access as is reasonably possible, lots of people in government over the years, whether it be state government or county government, are oftentimes reluctant to go as far as they're required to go in providing access. That's why we have an Office of Information Practice, which over the decades, one can have their own opinion as to how efficient they have been, but they have issued literally hundreds of opinions as to whether a particular request is a viable one under Chapter 92. But it is essential, and the preamble of Chapter 92 essentially says, in a democracy, access to government is paramount. But what's happened in one of the first executive orders that this governor issued was to severely restrict access to records and to meetings. Well, Jeff, let me just ask you, why did Governor Ege suspend our sunshine laws and our open meeting laws? Why did he take that action, and what was he hoping to accomplish? Was it necessary? Well, it's a great question. I think some limitation was obviously necessary. Obviously, there are no public meetings going on, and that is understandable. But the question is, what kind of access should one have, like you and I are having right now, via computer? Should the public still have access to a meeting that may be held by the county council or by the legislature, although, as you know, they're also suspending a lot of what they're doing. But they're also meeting, and many times they're meeting behind closed doors and the excuse is public safety or the pandemic.  And I think what Governor Ege and probably the Attorney General initially were thinking of doing was trying to deal with the pandemic and understanding that there had to be some restriction. I mean, obviously, in these times where so many people in government are involved in dealing with the pandemic, some of the timetables, for example, of getting access to public records probably are unreasonable. You have to give people additional time. They may well have more important things to do. But the initial order, the emergency order issued by the governor just went way too far, as well as some of the county councils. The courts, for example, have worked very hard to try to continue to protect the rights of individuals to participate in public courtrooms without being able to enter the courthouse, being able to listen in on phone or by some type of, you know, video conferencing. And it's a new world, but it's too easy to go after people's civil liberties. As I said, for example, there are apps now that certain governments, not ours yet, are using Look at Hungary, which has suspended their parliament in the name of the pandemic. Well, all it is is an excuse to have a dictatorship back in Hungary after 20 years of a democracy after communist rule. Moscow was thinking of requiring every citizen in Moscow to have a cell phone that tracks their every movement. I mean, the easy excuse is all we need to do that in order to understand who may have the disease or not. I think, obviously, you really need to try to balance. And yes, some liberties, you know, martial law, there are people in the US Justice Department that want to do with habeas corpus, which would allow them to imprison people without notice and, you know, without going through the formality. So, you know, yes, we're in a terrible situation as a pandemic, but it is a too easy excuse to limit our rights and liberties. One of the things I hear you saying, Jeffrey, is that if we give the government an inch, they'll take a mile when it comes to taking our civil liberties, particularly when it comes to practicing government with sunshine coming in so that the public can actually see what's going on. What was the condition of transparency for Hawaii government even before the coronavirus episodes? I know you've been involved quite a bit in terms of defending the rights of the media to get information and so forth. How would you assess our situation before going into the coronavirus crisis? Most national groups that have looked at our government as it relates to public access have given it very poor grades over decades. And I think all you have to do is look at the number of lawsuits that have been filed by the media, by groups like yours, by the League of Women Voters, by civil beat, by individuals who have been frustrated in their efforts to get public records or get appropriate notice of public meetings. The legislature in particular has been brutal in access issues. They've exempted themselves from chapter 92 while they've included other governmental entities. We have had mixed results depending upon who the governor and attorney general is. We've had mixed results depending upon who the mayors are. So I don't want to indict any particular person in office now. You've mentioned virtually every branch of government already. So you're not inviting any single individual, but it's a very odd squad. I'm sorry, Clare, I'm not inviting any particular governor or mayor or council, but I will tell you it has been a and continues to be a struggle many times to get access. There are all kinds of devices that some government entities use to try to limit people's participation to try to decide things in ways that are not permitted under our law. Allure is great. Chapter 92 is one of the best in the country, but it's only as good as the people who are willing to comply with it, and that's been a mixed bag. Recently, Common Cause, and you mentioned other groups as well, wrote a letter to the governor challenging his suspension of the open meetings laws. Grassroot Institute of Hawaii and other organizations, up to about 40 of them, signed on as well. And one of the things that we were asking the governor to do was simply allow groups to meet as necessary, that is allow agencies to meet to conduct necessary business and employ technology. I know you mentioned a bit about technology being used across the world. How appropriate do you think that call is to allow agencies to meet and use technology to ensure the public to have sunshine in those meetings? Well, let me ask you a question first. Did he ever respond? He did respond, and we are taking that response into consideration. Questions were raised in his response as to the efficacy and pragmatic ability to use technology at this time. Well, I don't know, that may tell you about the ability of this government to be where they should be. If you just look at the unemployment situation in Hawaii and all the breakdowns of the computers that I hear on the news and people's inability to get their claims in, you have to wonder about how far along the state and local governments are. Look, nobody expected the pandemic, and clearly it is necessary for the government to engage in much of what they are trying to do to try to protect us from getting sick. But it's a balancing act, and I think it's a little bit ironic that one of the first things the governor did in dealing with the pandemic was literally to suspend Chapter 92. I mean, why was that one of the first things that was done when there were so many other things like testing and social distancing that needed to be addressed? So, look, I'm not saying there shouldn't be some restrictions or some modifications. I'm just saying we need to be very, very careful in a time of crisis that civil liberties doesn't become a victim. Well, we're going to take a quick break now, Jeffrey. This has been very fascinating, and I appreciate your insights. And we'll come right back and continue our discussion on the topic. My guest today is Attorney Jeffrey Portnoy. We're talking about civil liberties in an age of coronavirus. I'm Kaylee Akina with Grassroot Institute on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. Don't go away. We'll be back in just one minute. Aloha. I'm Christine Linders, a physical therapy specialist and the host of Movement Matters. My show is designed to teach you the simplest and most effective treatment strategies to get you out of pain and back to doing what you love. If you or someone you know is having pain in a certain area of the body, it would like a free assessment in treatment over media or in person. And then come on the show to talk about it. Email us at thinktechmovementmatters at gmail.com. Or if you have a topic you would like to know more about, please email us. My goal is to decrease pain all over the world, inspiring people to take better care of their bodies to enjoy life to the fullest. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for sticking around and welcome back to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm having a fascinating conversation with Attorney Jeffrey Portnoy about the loss of civil liberties that can take place either deliberately or inadvertently in the name of handling a safety emergency, the coronavirus pandemic in particular. We've been talking a bit about the actions of Governor Ege and I welcome Jeff Portnoy back to the program now. Jeff, during this time, what could the governor do if he wanted to backtrack a bit from his proclamation that curtailed sunshine laws and open meeting laws? What are steps that could be taken to ensure that the public's right to know is honored? Well, let me back up just for a second because, you know, a lot of the governments are looking at a United States Supreme Court case 1905 called Jacobson versus Massachusetts, in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the right of the state of Massachusetts to order people to take the smallpox vaccine. And that case, which has probably been dormant for 115 years, is now being cited by governments to give them cover for limiting civil liberties, for ordering curfews, for all of the things that we're seeing. Now, you know, fortunately in this country, even though that case is around and is 115 years old, it still shows you to the extent that at least our Supreme Court 115 years ago believed that a government could intercede and impose upon an individual their right or their refusal not to take a smallpox vaccine. So we're a long way away from that now. I mean, imagine if Governor Ege would have ordered that every single citizen here take an antibody test. I mean, could that happen in the United States in the next three months? I don't know. It's not beyond the realm of conjecture that that could theoretically happen, either on a state level or on a national level. Now it'll never happen because there isn't enough testing material, but just think about it hypothetically, if three weeks from now the governor were to order every single person in Hawaii to undergo a COVID-19 test or an antibody test, could you fight that and prevail based upon that 1905 decision? So, you know, look, I think people understand, most everyone understands. There have to be some limitations. For example, the governor's press conferences. I got a call from a radio station on the Big Island claiming that they were being frozen out because the governor was only allowing, you know, a certain small number of people into the press conferences and the rest had to participate by phone or by video and they weren't being allowed to ask questions and I think they had some legitimate concern, but not that they had everyone had a right to show up in the governor's office when we're limiting people's interactions to groups of 10 or less. But as you point out, there's plenty of technology. And I don't understand why, for example, everyone can participate by video conferencing in a governor's press conference or why people should not be able to participate in a legislative hearing by video conferencing. Now, what are the reasons? Well, let's go through them. One, they don't want anybody to participate and this is a great excuse. Two, they don't have the technology. Three, even if they have the technology, they don't want people participating and this is a great excuse. So, you know, or there can be certain discussions which understandably need to be kept secret at least initially. The problem is finding the balance and finding people in government who not only are looking out for themselves so they don't get embarrassed or that their deliberations are not unduly looked at and judged by social media, but they have not only what they think is best to be done to protect the public, but always remember we still have a constitution at least until we get into a war and habeas corpus is suspended. Over the past weekend here in Honolulu, we instituted a curfew. Basically, the roads were to be cleared of any cars or vehicles between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. for the evening to Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the government is looking at that as well. Maui instituted a curfew. Kauai has had a more draconian curfew for about a month already and now we're starting to see at least in Honolulu County the drones flying around over the beaches and other areas giving warnings from the city government. What are your thoughts about these measures? Are we going a bit too far? Are we looking at measures that may be taken and not reversed after the coronavirus? Do you have concerns? I do and I mentioned this earlier. We've been talking about civil liberties, but let's talk about privacy rights. I mean drones on the beach are one thing. Beaches are open. They stretch for miles. Everyone can see what everybody else is allegedly doing on an open beach like in Waikiki. But what if they flew the drone over my house and watched me to make sure that I was in my backyard or I was in my kitchen? How far are we willing to go? I talked about that 1905 case enforcing people to take the smallpox vaccination. I've talked about what's going on in Moscow where they're thinking of imposing on an app or in China where the government would know where you are every second. You think we're too far away from that? I don't know. What if the governor would decide that everybody that has a cell phone in Hawaii, assuming this could be done technologically, or by Google or by Facebook, would let the government know where you are every second of every day to know whether you are violating the social distancing? Would the public tolerate that? I don't know. I mean it is a tough decision. Do we lose our right to privacy? So drones, I think it depends on where they go and what they do. And also you know the police are being very careful that all the drones are not taking video. You heard that, at least I did on the news, that they're just announcing things. But what if they were taking video and not just of a public place? But my backyard or your backyard or my office building, just to tell the government where I am. I think it's a slippery slope but I think that's something the public has got to deal with. Again, I don't think we're in a time of war. We're not dealing with a foreign enemy. We're not dealing with spies. We're not dealing with nuclear secrets. We're dealing with a pandemic, a disease. And I think we have to balance what's appropriate. Now you mentioned the curfew and this is just a personal opinion. I think you can impose a curfew. I think it's been imposed at least on Oahu in a very willy-nilly way. I know that's not very legal. 11 to 5, who's out 11 to 5 anyway in Hawaii? I don't want to go into the people that they would probably be at the bars and the bars are closed. Kauai 9 to 5, maybe a little bit as you say draconian, but it may make sense. My daughter lives in Bermuda. You know they have a full-time 24-hour curfew. You're not allowed out of your house unless it's for very, very limited situations like going to the doctor or picking up groceries and then only one person is allowed. So you know, there are things that are done for political reasons. There are things that are done for reasons that are questionable. And you know, I don't get the 11 to 5 curfew. You're going to have a curfew make it realistic. But anyway, I think you do have to be concerned about your privacy rights in a time of stress like this. Jeff, do you think that some of these measures such as drones that only make announcements or limited hour curfews are being instituted to condition the public for a further loss of rights? No, I don't. But I think you raise an interesting point that are we going to get conditioned? You know, is the next thing that happens which may not be this serious going to cause the government to impose the same restrictions and we kind of shrug because we've just been through it. You know, I don't think that's going to happen. I mean, World War II, we had lots of restrictions. During the Civil War, we had lots of restrictions. It's been for, you know, for our generation, we haven't experienced it. Our parents' generation did. I don't know. I don't think that's going to be an issue. But I do think the more people get accustomed, if that's the word, to things like drones going over the beaches, I think there's a reason to be concerned. But I don't have any reason to think that those kinds of measures are going to become the rigor. I think they're being used for the proper purpose. I just think there are certain things that we need to be very careful that don't get imposed upon us in the name of safety. Yes. Is there any precedent you're aware of that could be used against government overreach during this time of coronavirus response? I think you could try. But I don't think you're going to find a very sympathetic court. You know, and I don't think the public is going to be all that concerned. I think it's one of those things where actually the government probably is going to get a more sympathetic view of this than they might otherwise. Yeah. I mean, I think you could try to challenge an emergency proclamation that there isn't sufficient reason for it. I don't think you'd get very far. I mean, I always advise my clients in the media, yeah, you may have a technical argument that there's been a violation, but how does the public feel? I mean, let's assume, let's take a totally unrelated issue that you wanted to publish the name of a rape victim, which legally you can do, but most media won't do.  Where do you think the public would come down? They'd probably say, no, we agree with that rape victim that her name should not have been published, even though constitutionally you have every right to do it. So you have to pick and choose. I think right now it would not be wise, I think, to challenge where we are. If it goes beyond it, if they start flying drones over my house or they tell me I got to put on my app where I am every second, I think you'll see some lawsuits. Well, Jeff, you've alluded to the public a couple of times in terms of the reaction to the loss of civil liberties. Do you think that we in Hawaii are too tolerant and do you think that that would perhaps leave us open to the further loss of our civil liberties? No, I don't think so. I think the governor's proclamation on access went too far, but the social distancing and the testing, it's all voluntary. That's all voluntary. Some of it isn't, right? I mean, if you're out on the beach and you're not in the water, you're going to get cited now. And I imagine, by the way, police, some people are going to challenge those citations. It's going to be interesting. We haven't heard the last of this. People are being arrested now, and I think some of them are going to defend on the basis that it's a violation of their constitutional rights. It's going to be fascinating to see how it plays out. There's going to be a toilet to get off the plane and are not going to go to a hotel, and they're going to be arrested, and they're going to defend themselves on the basis that they have a right to walk the streets. I don't know if they'll prevail. I think they probably won't, but I wouldn't bet on it one way or the other. Well, we certainly will be watching how this unfolds, and we may be talking with you again. Jeff, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate your commitment to civil liberties. Thank you for being on the program. Thank you for inviting me. Be safe. My guest today, Jeffrey Portnoy, an attorney who deals in civil liberties. We've had the privilege of hearing his insights. I'm Kili Iakina with the Gratitude Institute. Until next time, on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together, aloha.


Hello, my name is Robin Lloyd and I'm here with Jerome Lepani and we are going to be looking at a new special tape by Breton Puppet and Peter Schumann. We are both aficionados, I would say, of Breton Puppet over the years and this most recent one was produced just in September and it is quite unique and interesting. So I would like to ask Jerome, who was a videographer, how long have you been involved with taping Breton Puppet and why? Why are you so interested in Breton Puppet Theatre? Well, I've been an art activist my entire life, my entire career, for 55 years. I first met Breton Puppet way back in the 60s and I have followed the career of Breton Puppet for a very long time. I also, in the late 60s, I joined the Living Theatre and traveled with the theatre to Europe and the Living Theatre is a very serious theatre but also a great friend of Breton Puppet. It so happened that Judith Molina, the founder of the Living Theatre with Julian Beck, gave Peter Schumann a first rehearsal space in the early 60s on Mondays when the Living Theatre was not using that space. So there has always, because of that, there has always been a relationship between Breton Puppet and the Living Theatre. I have loved that history and my filming of Breton Puppet over the last 10 years, of which I've made about 70 films now, that are on my channel, Jerome Lipani, YouTube, has been my way of manifesting that bridge, the cultural bridge of an activist theatre between Breton Puppet and the Living Theatre. So I try to shoot the work of Breton Puppet as if through the eyes of the Living Theatre. So there are many points of relationship actually and we will see some of those as we move through our list of clips. I will be able to show you some of the directorial, some of Peter's direction that mirrors the work of the Living Theatre and that will come up at the same point. I will just say that viewers, if they want to see some of my documents of Breton Puppet, it's at GreenValleyMedia.org and what I have done has been filmed very sort of carefully documentary image of the pageants, the pageants of the 90s. One of them was Convention of the Gods. These were such huge dramas that took place in the meadow up at Glover that I just felt were always astounding to choreograph. They were always astounding and to see that ancient sand quarry, amphitheatre filled with 40,000 people at its height, you know, by the late 90s, amazing, just amazing and wonderful. Yeah, the last one was 1998, was the last big pageant, I forget the name of that last one. But let's move on then. Had you filmed that one? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Gates of Hell. That was the name of it. Gates of Hell was 1998. Quite dramatic. So we're going to look, we're going to start now with the first clip, we're going through different clips and this introduces what this short 30 minute video document of the show Apocalypse Trauma. So let's get started with that. Yes, now we should also notice that this image of distressed humanity has its fist raised in the air, a defiant fist, revolution is necessary, is what Peter is saying. That huge paper mache image gets moved later to a corner of the theater and the people acknowledge it and come and give a bassence to it in a way. You know, something I really want to point out is the amazing atmosphere that this play takes place in and this is called The Barn at Bread and Puppet. Well, it's not really called The Barn, it's called the dirt floor cathedral. Oh, okay. It's almost like a barn. But it has those images, those small, you know, it's not like a religious building, but it has an austerity of something sacred there of really such amount of work and love and humanity going into all the figures that are on the wall there. So please take note of that ambience and I think we could look at the next image. The precision dance. And now, and I did my best to frame the images so that we could often see this fist raised in the foreground. So, this is an example, one of the examples in this piece of Peter's anti-dance choreography. He was interested in dance from the very beginning and I think people don't realize they think of him as a puppeteer and an artist, but dance was always integral to his work. And it's a strange kind of dance, no ballerinas. No ballerinas, no. That's why I call it anti-dance. Yeah, yeah. Now she's pouring, we don't quite understand what that's about. Everybody. Everyone. Yes. Now this is the dance of everyone jumping around in this interesting way. But then they just said, at the end of that, they said, our apocalypse, which is also printed at the top, it's written on the top of this image of the bedsheet, one of Peter's bedsheets, of which he has been producing so many lately. Yes. They, yes, over the last couple of years, I've had a hard time in keeping up with documenting them, in fact. Yeah, he has a studio and he sets up those bedsheets and you know, these are the beautiful sort of wet dreams of the bedsheets. Or the transfiguration of the dreams that people might have had in the hotels. The bedsheets themselves were donated to Peter from an old hotel. A friend found a way to give him those bedsheets and they turned out to be an incredibly productive medium for him. Well, could you talk a little bit about contissori, that's a term that has been used in bread and puppet a lot. And usually it's in a small screen, it's called a cranky. And images are cranked around in a kind of a unique setting. But this is contissori of a different dimension. Yes. Contissori, as Peter talks about it, that it comes from a long tradition that's both an eastern tradition and a western tradition. Even from China and from India and from Tibet, they were creating images and setting them up in tents so that the monks could teach the illiterate population. They could teach them the dharma, that on the eastern side. But in medieval Europe they were set up in front of the cathedral square and used in that way. They were also meant to be a teaching method and or plays could be played right in front of them, small plays could be played in front of them. Peter has revived this idea. Even in the Germany of his youth he witnessed those contissori being played in the cathedral square. And also when he went to Italy as a young man, when he was very impressed by the street theater, the street religious theater in Sicily where they were also carrying huge puppets that were representative of the saint or of Christ and the virgin etc. in religious processions. But Peter's and Elka's spirituality became a much more imagistic translation of a defined hierarchical spirituality because as people who have deeply socialistic, communistic integrity, they needed to express a spirituality that was without a particular object. And that is what we find in the dirt floor cathedral. We find all of these images that Peter has put around that have been made in Papua in a way that express many different facets of humanity. It's a kind of paganism I think. And a kind of paganism but also a kind of transcendentalism in my eyes for sure. And I think in many people's eyes I think that's one of the reasons why we are so attracted to Brett and Puppet's work. You know, for example, Peter always says the reason why the word bread is first is because it's more important than the puppets. So that distribution of the bread after performances was something that Peter and Elka started in the Lower East Side in the early 60s, 1963. So distribution of bread after the performance. Yeah, and you mentioned the word communism. I think it's interesting.  And it totally changed her life and changed the life of her whole family. She was a peasant and she became I think a medical person or at least an active in an institution in one of the big cities. And we forget about the positive things that the Soviet communism gave to people. We remember here all the negative things. What did positively impact lots of families in the Soviet Union? Yeah, Stalin definitely changed the entire thrust of the communist revolution. I'm a Trotskyist. In fact, with Dragon Dance Theater I played Trotsky. It was one of my favorite roles. I look a bit like him. When I have round glasses, they're perfectly good disguise for Trotsky. Okay, let's go on to number four, Strength and Determination Contest Stories. So this is a new bed sheet coming out from behind. This is a big one. Strength and Determination. This is based on a quotation from Eldridge Colby who was part of the Council on Foreign Relations. And it was said at the beginning of the Iraq War. And Peter quotes this several times in this place. To choose to fight a war. An aggressive world war needs to be prepared. So here Peter is talking about the military-industrial complex. And how when it predominates in a society as it does in ours, the build-up of the armaments themselves is going to end up. Those armaments are going to end up being used. They are not simply a defensive weaponry. They become an aggressive weaponry. And they terrorize the populace, which is what we're seeing here. And what is that music being played? And this music being played by Edith Corman is by Cautchitorian. He's by Cautchitorian. He was a Russian composer. I think he was a Russian composer. To choose to fight a war. To be prepared. Now they're begging the audience to wake up in a way, I would say. They're asking for people to have understanding about this. I certainly interpret it that way. Peter doesn't like to give interpretations of his work. He wants people to come to it themselves. He wants the work to have the impact that will reach people's hearts and minds. The actors are expressing the horror of the attempt to deal with this. To deal with this terrible syndrome of endless violence that is perpetrated by this country. So he uses these very simple means. Almost primitive means of people coming out with a decorated sheet. But to my mind, especially watching it all the way through, I invite everyone to go and watch the tape and see the whole thing. And perhaps we moved like I was at seeing it, which caused me to want to invite you and us to talk about it. Maybe we could go to the next one, which is the blah, blah, blah contissori. Yes, the blah, blah, blah contissori. And this, of course, is a quotation from Greta Thunberg. When she appealed to the environmental conferences to please do something besides more blah, blah, blah. So that has references to the modern ecological movement in which we do not want to see the destruction of the Amazon, in which we need to preserve the forests and allow ourselves, allow our country to build old growth forests again. I love this segment with these three singers because the kind of singing is, I don't know, it's a kind of chanting. But the three voices are, they work together beautifully. Yes, and I'm not sure what language this is in, but it could be in Palestinian or Lebanese language, it could be Arabic. Now, and here they are apparently making obeisance to this figure of distressed humanity. Now, what can that mean? They are not thinking of this necessarily as this image is a godlike image. I think the way I feel about it is that they are attempting to appeal to the courage, to an inner courage that distressed humanity has got to find. We have got to find that courage in ourselves now in order to be able to survive for this planet to survive, for humanity to survive, for all of the animals in the world to survive. We have to sort of live through the grief and through that begin to take action. The peace movement has to grow in America, let's put it bluntly there. Yes, yes. So the next image is really interesting because it's students, these are images of students at the so-called defunct university of all. Let's see the next clip here. An amazing contissori bedsheet, a donkey and... And a squawking duck and other monsters. Yes. So they are repeating the essential words that we find there, including all. Peter has been very much into expressing in his paintings of the last few years, all, the all. Now here we see an example of what I was talking about before, of the particular stage movements that came into being in the late 60s. For example, that the Living Theatre used in Paradise Now, for example, the very famous play of the Living Theatre in the late 60s. I mean, we don't think of that as dance, but it's people moving, it's a dance. Yes, yes. So one sees the echoes. This is one place where there's a bridging place for me between the Living Theatre and the Bread and Puppet Theatre. Now, you know, we see this very clear scene of chaos and horror of the political, socio-economic, psychological horror of the moment that has to be faced. How do we face this? Peter is trying to help us to face it. And the actors themselves are expressing their own agony that they experience in their own lives here. Yes, students, not just college students, but high school students, even elementary students are suffering more than we did, dealing with the crises they read about, the climate change, the violence. And Peter has effectively done the best, done a wonderful job at evoking these images. Yes, Peter is trying to say, this is real. This is pervasive in our society. Yes. And we have got to understand this. You know, in modern psychology, the talk has been about trauma really over the last 25, 30 years. I worked in mental health, so I got very much into the trauma theory. And it has been being expressed more and more. It has become a societal trauma effect that we are now facing. How do we face this with open eyes? Yeah, yeah. I think that's the big question that Peter is raising here. Yes, well, the next segment, the next bed sheet is quite a complex one and a beautiful one. It's called the Wind and Angel Contestoria. And so let's start that one. And part of what I like about it is it brings up behind a wind figure. There he is. She is. He is. And I'm remembering, again, one of the pageants. It was called Convention of the Gods. And wind seems to be one of the gods that Peter evokes. And what do you think he means by wind? I mean, is this change, maybe? Yes, change. The wind of time, perhaps. Yeah. Now, here we begin to see a series of improvisations that happened four times in this series. So each of the actors will do their own improv in relation to this angel figure. And here we have an overt spirituality. You know, it's angel number one. And the angel cries out with a loud voice to not harm the earth or the sea or the trees. And I love the way that this contestoria, that this huge bedsheet is being turned around. Yes, graphically. It's totally unique. And then the horns blow in and wind appears again. Yes. That was the beginning of the fourth improvisation, the fourth dance improvisation. Yeah. Now, is there one more of the improvisations of this? I don't know if we're going to see it or not. We could. It's in the film. That's a rather longer sequence. Yeah, maybe we want to move on to the they say contestoria. Yes. Where we have an actual quotation from the Bible that becomes a song, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not. You'll see that coming up. And I hope that we'll be able to hear that song. And here again, they're pointing to very important statements that need to be understood by all of us globally, internationally, not just in this country. It's a global crisis we're in now. Who is going to respond right of the dirt floor cathedral? Yeah, and I take that as a deeply prophetic statement. Peter has a very prophetic streak in him. He is often able to say the most astounding things that are an integration of the political and the spiritual and the transcendental. That is what is so marvelous about his work and has always been there. And it gives it so much power and so much profundity. Yes. And sometimes you have to work to put it into place. But I think in this contestoria and this play, it's pretty clear. I think he's really crying out to all of us. I can't think of any other artist in the United States at this time that is dealing so openly with the grief we feel of what's happening to the environment and the violence that surrounds us. Yes, yes. And ultimately, all of the statements are beyond words. What we feel in our hearts, finally, is not something that we can really articulate. And I think that Peter, in the movement of the puppets, in the use of the contestoria and the raising of these questions, he's leading up the public to that realization that we all must experience this on the insides of ourselves or we're not going to be able to respond to this current crisis. Well, we need to feel it really deeply. There can be all kinds of climate deniers, can't they? Even liberals and progressives, upper middle-class people in this country, it's uncomfortable for people to think about what we need to do. How are we going to change our energy system? It seems so impossible for people to be able to contemplate even. Yes, you know, earlier in the summertime, Peter Schumann came to Burlington and did a short piece called Bread Knot Bombs. And this was about the Ukraine. He is very disturbed, as I am, about the amount of military aid that is going to the Ukraine, which will lead to more deaths, although the people who are receiving it feel it will liberate them. And he is saying what Ukraine needs is bread, not bombs. Yes. So should we see the next one? This is really the culmination. Bread not bombs means mercy, doesn't it? It means mercy, it means compassion for other people. It means that we need to have compassion in this world for each other and for all the creatures of the world. And bombs are not compassion. No. Okay, dominance, full-spectrum, cantesoria. Here's the next one. You see, there's this state of attempting to grasp onto something and then being repelled. And afraid. Yes. Suddenly we have these flames up here. The planet is on fire. And she says the word nuclear. Nuclear, yes. Can we envision actually a nuclear exchange? Right. That's how we just fold up in horror. The memory of Hiroshima and how it has extended into our day. There we have the action of the military. It's hard to know exactly what is meant here. We haven't figured out some parts of this. I dare not put an interpretation on this. I leave it to people to wonder about it. The theater at its height in the late 90s, when I used to sit in the audience with 40,000 people, I would be hearing around me. What does that mean? What does that mean? And I would think, hey, people, you're not... No, wait, here she's telling. ...being informed. That was the quote from Colby. That was the quote from Colby once again that an aggressive war needs to be prepared. And is being prepared. Yes. And right now this week, the Germans and the Americans are moving more tanks into Ukraine and the British as well. And the idea that the more weapons you make and the more weapons you disseminate, it's proven through history they will get used. And we are making more nuclear weapons now as well. And what is the point of that if all countries have taken a vow to never use nuclear weapons and yet they're making more and more of them? Is there not something very sick about that? Yes, there's something very schizophrenic about it, isn't there? Yeah. So they're very schizoid about it. Yeah. Okay, we have here the last image which is very beautiful. The wind of defiance which will blow away the man-made apocalypse. The wind of defiance. Therefore, to blow away the man-made... I'm so glad I was able to frame this image with the fist being raised. Yes. I mean, in the pageants and at the end of most of the big theatre pieces there is always a... It's an earth mother often with huge arms that reaches across the meadow and people enter and join the embrace of the arms. And so this is a new version, a version crafted for exactly this cathedral. I love those little twigs, branches, also painted white. It's just... The speeders often done that, painted the branches that he uses in the pieces. Ultimately we have to work together, we have to come together. The embrace, the opening up, yeah. Yes, because ultimately it seems there has to be love. There has to be love. It's the only answer to the dilemma. And love has to have a certain power. The power of love. Working together to make it spread, to communicate it. Yeah, yeah. It certainly seems that that is the intention. That is here. So that's the end of the Apocalypse Trauma Theatre piece that was performed in September of this year. And do you have comments about the whole thing now? About the piece itself, about the Apocalypse Trauma piece. Well over the last few years the circuses have been called the Apocalypse Defiance Circus, the Anti-Propaganda Circus. You can see these, you can see them on my website at Jerome Lepana YouTube. You can see those productions. That has been going on for a while. The last few years have been, Peter has been particularly focused on that. How are we going to turn around this Apocalypse? That we have brought about ourselves. Yes. Well, okay, I hope everyone has enjoyed. This has been a sort of experience through this theatre piece and us talking over it sometimes. So I hope you will go to Jerome's website and watch the whole thing. And so we thank you for joining us today.


Good day fellow investors. Now I have been mentioning here and there that I think real estate even now is a great risk reward investment. However a lot of the comments are what if interest rates go up, what if real estate prices fall and that's the key reason behind this video. There is a huge difference between investing in real estate and speculating in real estate. When investing you look at what is your investment and what is your return on investment coming from the cash flows from the real estate and so on. When you speculate you look at current real estate prices and then hope that it will go up 5, 10, 20% in the next few years. Then what are you going to do? Sell or be afraid that it will fall. So it's a terrible way to look at real estate and I think the speculation part, the behavioral part really deters investors from looking at real estate now because real estate prices have searched in the past and it's immediately a bubble don't invest. However if you look at from an investing perspective you will see what are the benefits of diversifying your wealth, your portfolio with real estate. I'll first show a financial example of what does investing in real estate mean and then I'll go through five tips on how to find good real estate investments that I have applied to my investment and it works very well for now. All right finances as we are value investors we always look to find an investment that has a lot of value with a margin of safety so that we can't lose much but the upside remains unlimited so that's the essence of a value investor. Now if you take cash and if you invest in real estate the return on that cash is small. However I found extreme value in mortgages because of their extremely low historical interest rates. Interest rates haven't been so low in the past 500 years so as value investors we should take advantage of the historically low mortgages. Now I know the question will be what happens if interest rates rise your mortgage will be fixed and your tenant rents will rise or even if real estate prices fall because of higher interest rates the rent the tenants are paying will remain the same because it will always be in relation to the yield on investment so higher interest rates it means also higher rent yields on the price so you are always covered there. Your main concern as an investor is to cover for the mortgage payments that's it so if you find an investment a real estate property that has sufficient cash flows to cover for the mortgage payments over the long term then you are set then that's a good investment and that will lead to amazing returns in the long term with low risk no matter what happens in the short time with real estate prices no matter what happens with interest rates no matter what happens with inflation so you try to protect yourself first as always. If I look at current mortgage rates for an investment property they are around 4% 4.5% in Europe 4% in the US so extremely low so the point is to find real estate properties that will cover for both the repayment of the principal and the interest rate thus we are looking somewhere at the 5.56% yield from real estates which is very possible if I look at the median price in Boston is 561 000 while the median rent is 2700 which is a 5.7% yield which is enough to cover a 4% mortgage with a 20% down payment so let's look at the finances to buy the median price in Boston of 561 400 dollars you need a mortgage of 450 000 with the 20% down payment of 112 000 at 4% fixed interest rate 30 year mortgage the payment would be around 2150 which is lower than the 2700 let's estimate there are some additional costs you have to cover for the vacancy months that will inevitably come here and there refurbishment so let's say you don't even make a cent per month on the investment in 40 years you just repay your mortgage so you invested 112 000 as a down payment and after 30 years even if home prices don't move don't go anywhere you get a 561 000 property 100% owned so the investment is just north of 5% per year which is not bad now let's imagine that real estate prices double in the next 40 years will they double well if inflation is around 2% and you can expect real estate prices to double in the next 40 years that's the minimum if there will be higher inflation which is a possibility i'm talking about three decades here and in the three decades you still get your fixed mortgage rate so if real estate prices double in the next 40 years the 560 000 home in Boston becomes a 1.1 million home in Boston while your mortgage payment is still the same and it becomes an 8% return over 40 years and this not even calculating the increases in rent alongside inflation the funny thing is that after 30 years let's say rent also doubles then you get a 64 800 rent income per year or a yearly 54 percent return on your down payment this is how investing in real estate works i don't care what will happen with prices in the next few months in the next year all we care is that i have tenants in my apartment that pay for part or most of my mortgage so that's investing that's it let's go on the five tips that i want to share with you that might make you find it easier to invest in real estate the first thing there is difference between investing in real estate and stocks because when you invest in stocks most of your competition is from speculators everybody looks at prices go up and down prices are very volatile when you invest in real estate your competition comes from people that buy their homes to live thus it is very interesting how that works when prices go up they rush to buy in fear that prices don't go higher when prices fall real estate prices fall everybody is scared to buy because they are in fear of buying and seeing prices go even lower because even these people that are concerned in buying their home are always speculators everybody loves speculating in real estate so take advantage of their behavioral fallacies running into a hot market and going away from a falling market when foreclosures make those who took too high mortgages sell so when you can't buy in foreclosures really look and dig deep into that because you might find real bargains secondly and the most important thing with real estate which is today very difficult to find with stocks real estate still have a moat you cannot increase the number of apartments in historical town centers you cannot increase the number of beachfront properties in that cool area that everybody likes so a lot of real estate has really a moat and that's what you need to look when investing in real estate don't look at hot trendy spots or something like that look at real estate with a moat where the rent will cover your mortgage rate even if it's a little bit more expensive than the cheapest real estate there with the highest yield look for real estates with a moat old houses that cannot be destroyed old neighborhoods that have to look like that for the next 200 years will always have their appeal because those can't be replicated and demand will grow grow grow so you have fixed supply and growth in demand the best investment opportunity there is always look for a moat number three stocks we like to see a bit what's going on invest put our money see what happens take our money out and and then redo the same process with real estate you have to invest a lot of time in the beginning a lot of time in research you have to turn around 500 000 real estates to find a few interesting properties on which you will make an offer and then on that offer perhaps one will be accepted because your offer will be ridiculously low that's how you invest in real estate and then you have to okay manage so you have to put some effort constantly over the long time but there is no more excitement however people usually look at two free real estate properties and then they invest i when i bought my last real estate properties for one year i have looked approximately at 50 60 real estate properties per day online and then me and my wife thankfully she was helping with that we looked at about 10 properties per week for about eight months and we found three we made three offers one was to my surprise accepted and that's how we found our real estate bargain so really dig into research before buying learn about the market learn everything you can know about the specific local market where you think there is a mode a long-term mode and where the rent covers your mortgage then you are really investing for the long term you buy once and you forget about it for the next 50 years number four what i showed you about boston there were medium prices and as we have learned in our video about extremist time and mediocristan the median statistic is made of large differences there are different prices different real estate properties so really try to distance yourself from the median by buying below the median price with a higher rent always with the mode and everything with a lot of effort you can save yourself a little bit of capital in the beginning and have a higher yield higher rent there are some kinds of properties that yield better yields or give more stability and so on and so that's all you will research if you follow the previous tip so the more research you do you really have to be an expert on the area you are researching you need a few months to become an expert but it is worth it you will see later why just on a financial example let's say we lower the price of the property from five hundred sixty thousand in boston to five hundred thousand and we find it with a higher rent of three thousand now the monthly payment for the mortgage is nineteen hundred and the rent is one thousand one hundred above that does and when we add the cost we might even get a five hundred dollars per month cash return on the investment or six percent on the down payment at the six percent on the already above mentioned inflationary eight percent which is really to be expected that house prices double in the next 40 years and you find yourself with a 14 percent annual return that will probably only increase with higher rents so 14 percent return from real estate with let's say low risk i find it one of the best opportunities the current market offers however you really have to put a lot of effort into investing in such a thing it takes as i said research maintenance land loading tenants and everything involved with that however it really pays with a small down payment you can provide yourself passive income for the rest of your life so really think about it number five to conclude don't speculate with real estate you hear a lot of stories of people that speculated with real estate some do good some do get do bad but when you invest in real estate that's a completely different story don't take credit card debt to pay for the down payment that's crazy and that's speculating always keep a margin of safety so that no matter what happens you can always pay the mortgage even if the vacancy is a little bit longer than the average expected in the area so really think about lowering your risk keep your list low and leaving that as an investment for the very very long term if you can reach a return of 14 15 percent it is much better than any stock will ever offer you and with the current low mortgage rates it is really possible to reach such a return i'm talking about 14 percent per year growing alongside the growing rents and fixed costs over the next 50 years so imagine what would a part of your portfolio the risk because it's in real estate returning 15 per year due to your financial well-being in comparison to what you're doing now or what you have been doing in the last two three five ten years with stocks depending on how much you are investing that's my message for today really think about diversification that doesn't have to happen now as you're probably following this channel and you will make a lot of money on stocks in the next year two three years you can also diversify when you have enough for a down payment however i would really advise to diversify from stocks when you make a lot of money on stocks into something stable that will bring you yield a cash flow and passive income because you never know what can happen to stocks and even if stocks double in the next three years you can lose 80 percent like that in a market crisis and i'm really looking forward to the comments about speculating and investing how do you feel about investing in real estate if stock prices fall let's say in the next two three years and do you think that that fear of stock of real estate prices falling sorry hinders you in making investment diversified rational decisions for your portfolio thank you i'll see you in the next video


I don't really understand why there's nothing to understand We took the motors we flipped them over and now we're gonna see what happens So this is our standard to seal to five inch freestyle drone built up with the DJI 03 air unit and we're gonna convert this into a pusher drone So right now these props are on top of the motors and they pull up on the motor Instead we want the prop to be on the bottom of the motor So if you flip it over and if the prop was spinning the other way and pushing up on the motor That's a pusher and that's essentially what we're gonna do here is we're just gonna take our drone flip it over and Reverse the things that need to be reversed might be asking why do this one? I'm just interested to see if it flies any different, right? Yeah, so I've seen a lot of these little cinder whoops like the sub 250 gram Where they've flipped the motors over and they've got pusher I think there's some benefit to that as far as stability at that small size mm-hmm I don't know that it's really gonna do anything for us on a five inch I'm just curious. It's just fun to play with things and try things the other reason I wanted Experiment with this is because with the 03 air unit it's become really popular to use The FPV camera itself as your recording camera that presents some problems because now any frame or props that you see in your FPV feed are showing up on your primary recording these Camera mounts that we use on the cl2 they're reconfigurable so right now they are rear set into the frame We're just gonna provide a little bit more crash protection, but you're gonna see some of the frame in the camera view So we're gonna flip these camera mounts around the camera is gonna sit out front here And that's gonna get our frame out of you and push the camera a little bit forward But we're still gonna have the props in view the way that most people are handling this is doing a dead cat Configuration we do have dead cat arms available for the cl2 So you can swap it out to that the cl2 air and that's gonna get the props out of you But what I'm curious about is can we maintain the true X configuration and by flipping it to a pusher Might that also get the props out of you because if you think about it the camera is up here And it's pointed upward now relative to the props with the camera having some up tilt You're more likely to see less of it, right?  I think the dead cat configuration flies great Personally, I couldn't really tell the difference Okay, but I do think there are people out there that just don't like the idea of a dead cat and they really want that true X configuration or a wide X configuration, which is really common for freestyle and they just maybe aren't comfortable the dead cat if it Ends up doing something awesome or if you guys end up interested in it Maybe there'd be a whole new official variation on this frame or a whole new frame we could design. Let's just see what happens This is melting my brain a little bit. I gotta like put the drone upside down Yeah, look how much up tilt we can get The last thing we need to do is flip the props and our drone is upside down in our model. We are showing Looks upside down, but we need beta flight to think that it's actually right side up So we just go to configuration 180 degrees on roll for the board alignment save and reboot. Let's try that Okay, it's it's weird. It looks backwards to me, but this is actually correct I think we might need to change the motor direction. I don't know. Let's just take the props off James Can you bring up a battery? We'll do motor Reorder this was motor one Is motor Direction, right? Okay. Yeah, it's spinning the right way. So this goes here. Yeah, this goes here Let's tighten up these props. It does look weird James and drew made this weird upside down drone I don't really understand why there's nothing to understand We took the motors we flipped them over and now we're gonna see what happens What are you expecting to be different about it though? So the first thing I expect to happen is if you put it down like in the grass or something It's just gonna get caught up. Yeah, I'm gonna take off. So you have to put it. Oh, what are you platform?  Yeah The pusher configuration has been used on Different drone platforms before the avada in fact is a pusher drum So this means because it's pusher it better. Yeah, if you guys says it's better Listen to China what they're talking about going into this. I thought we're like we're gonna fly drone It's gonna be upside down. Oh my gosh, but like it we're actually like testing pusher. Yeah, okay This is R&D. This is R&D. It looks like people because I was gonna mess a battery on here Yeah, you put the battery there. It looks like it's flying upside down Do you know why they do the pusher style on like the the little cinema quads like the 2.5 inch I think it's to help get the the props out of you I think it pushes the props down like cuz then there's think about the normal Cinewop style drone you've got these ducks pointing up and when you make it pusher the the rim of the duct goes way lower Relative to the camera lens. I'm curious. I wonder if there might be a thrust advantage, right?  So is one better than the other I don't know. I would think it would be pretty equal. Yeah Sean's always building the stuff for us and then we get to fly his stuff Let's take what you did. We built this Hey, thanks guys. You should break it. You should just destroy it. It doesn't like that's why it's responsible They're telling me not to break it They're telling me They're telling me not to break Whoa All right, what was that? I think that's just oh three area in it. Oh my goodness. Oh, I just because it's like ultra-wide Feels kind of normal. Let's see flip it's underpowered. Is it just me or is that a four cell battery or six cell? Oh, I'm used to six cell. This is a force out. No, it should be six cell. Those are six cell mothers Okay, yes, you don't have really underpowered. Well. Yeah, you're running. Yeah for us. Yeah, bring it Let's put a six cell battery on it three two one armed here. We go. Hey Oh, that's okay. Now I'm used to the wide angle so everything's good now more power Yeah, that's better. Okay. Now we got real power I'm curious how it handles prop wash I have too many variables to consider because I haven't been flying with the o3 area unit much It's very windy as well. Yeah. Well the o3 area unit has this Ultra-wide field of view when you're flying. That's really wide Whoa, so do you see props in V right now? No, I got zero props in Oh, yeah, I just like see them. I see them. They're just dark. So they kind of blend when they slow down Yeah, I mean so in terms of the flight characteristics. Is it just like a lot more than me? Yeah, it seems normal I don't really see any feel or see any difference that I can think of Okay, let me try to hit some gates and see because when you're hitting obstacles Flying out in the open is not the same as actually going through gaps Feels normal. Everything feels totally normal. I don't feel out of place like How about when you fly alone? Oh Yeah, that's actually true. Oh, here we go. Let's see So the only thing that I can see that Immediately is a downfall to me is like I love to skid Yeah, you can skid but Prop nuts might get a little messed up motors are gonna kill but You don't care about your shaft Exactly, I mean, I don't think that we're looking for like much like difference in how it flies We're looking for the actual benefits of like what it's good with a pusher and freestyle So props out of use first thing we're seeing that's good downfall could be But it didn't get props out of you. I feel like I've got less prop in view though Well, so here I guess but okay The other thing is is that we didn't completely put the motors on the bottom of a regularly designed quad The arms are still pretty high because it's been flipped if we had the arms at the very bottom And then put the motors on the bottom The motors will be sticking down a lot further and the props might be out of you at that point So basically you're saying if we built the drone up normal the way but just put the motors on the bottom Oh, yeah, I think so too because yeah, when we just put the whole drone upside down We're bringing the camera. I think it definitely changed the center of gravity relative to that to the prop line So like this is really just a one-to-one pusher versus standard configuration. That's really all this test I think there are more things and I think like with the avada Drone like the camera is more on top of the pusher arm So you're getting that advantage and that's how it gets the the props out of you but So you just mentioned the prop line. I didn't realize it's way lower So it's like it's not in the middle where it should be Actually disappointed that I didn't break your drone. I'm nice to these guys. I don't even break their stuff That's how it should be done, right? Who's next? How did you have this like that point it up like that? Huh, huh, okay It feels different like it doesn't feel like my regular huh Okay, it's like I feel like it's pushing the quad But it I feel it I feel it like when I'm flying it right I Know but you said you didn't feel any difference like I can definitely feel a difference. Yeah, yeah like sugar pills were really working Yeah, I don't know how to describe it like it feels floatier No, no because it doesn't feel like it's but like so normally if I take a GoPro off on six S I have harder time managing the throttle like the it doesn't bobble at all like you can just rest the throttle and It doesn't want to like drop or like just like it's just locked in. Yeah. Yeah, I feel more stable I mean absolutely. I mean like if this drone is tuned. I know you're flighty Like I just don't feel the like the quad pulling it's only like pushing itself.  Yeah, no I love your time for you to fly Loady it's I just don't see the great thing about this this drone. I'm not trying to push this on you I'm trying to push this Just worth trying it flips slowly is that just the rates, but I fly defaults it feels that's why it's not default That's slower than default. It looks funny in the air. It looks it's falling upside down Okay, so when I slam on the throttle like normally you would it would kind of like jump up a little bit Huh, like it's got a like a slower Punch to it We should do some tricks. What should we do? Do the do you want to break it before you guys can try it? You need to start with a rubber tube Or just go straight for the trippy. I love that in 2023 Trippy spins are like the thing we start with. What do you matter flip? So it definitely flies different it you feel the pushy-ness of it I think it flies more stable like I think if you were trying to get cinematic footage it could offer some like benefits, but I don't know if they're enough to Like when I'm flying flat it feels great I mean, I guess maybe there could be something too like When the arm is under the prop then the air coming out of it is gonna be dirty And if the arm is above the prop it might be a little bit more turbulent coming in, but it would come out Yeah, like might be more clean coming out even if it's okay, let's try to get some prop wash Yeah, I really push for prop wash. Yeah, it like bobbled, but it didn't like So when we refer to prop wash It's when you quickly turn the drone around and the drone goes into the turbulent air coming out of the props It usually creates a disturbance and you'll see the drone maybe react like a little like a shimmy That's something you can test for in a tune or in the characteristics of a drone How does it handle that kind of worst-case prop wash scenario? It's it's very difficult to have a drone handle prop wash Well, so like how does this do like if you really just kind of like whip it and put it in that dirty air Oh Thank you. I told you. I told you I was gonna crash it. There's no landing here Yeah, I don't see any benefit for freestyle at all. Well, I think you need to try it. I'm gonna try I think I should try first. He's so anxious to try this.   I honestly don't know if I would know the difference Hmm, if this was a blind test, I don't know if I would I can definitely tell it the props are in a different position In the screen than where they'd normally be They're lower they're lower they are lower, but they're still in view So it wasn't low enough to get them out of you. Okay, but yeah, I gotta say this just feels like a normal quad to me He's doing shredding It does shred though CEO flow here Shreden You could actually cut the grass if you like I feel like it's really on point. I don't know. I'm just really feel this right now, but I just feel like I Don't know if I would know there's a difference try to do like a juicy flick little What oh god? No, your arm switch Damn it It's a good turtle test. Okay, so I'm back up right now. Try now, but now your props are right in the ground No problem. Oh that that's actually really surprising man. I just whoop-odd right into the disarm zone Okay, you will find that it's gonna try this again. I know I was like what just happened. Thank you When you said you felt really locked in I kind of felt like that too like I was really in the zone when I was flying it Yeah, I'm like I'm having a lot of fun Bro will pod the arm switch you want to see something we're gonna do a little These are slow rates is this stock. I don't know it's supposed to be stock. There's no way it's supposed to be I don't know it maybe it is slower You just got to do a little No, I was I was throttling up No upside-down is it's an upside-down drone. I saved it. I was expecting a bigger difference Like I was expecting to feel push you don't feel it at all So Sean didn't you didn't feel the difference. You did feel a difference. I didn't feel a difference.  It just flies What I thought it was ripping. I was shredding with that thing. I don't think it's so shaky Well, the wind picked up by oh, yeah, the wind rolls per hour. Yeah, we got a hurricane So like when you throttle up over the top of the tree Do you feel it does it feel any different like is it? It's I mean so I don't even know This doesn't feel Doesn't fly very good use your words, but it doesn't fly very good. It's really bad. I think this is a like I don't know why Maybe when you crashed it something got messed. Oh Wait, it's like I'm gonna check something What's wrong, baby? I thought one of the drones didn't have stacks Bruce. This is the least reactive I've been into a drone in a while. I don't know. Um, I Mean, maybe you just hate that you can feel a big difference It just it feels underpowered for what it is, right? Yeah, that's what it you feel that too, right? Yeah, yeah Like when you go to roll it feels like it's like kind of like I guess Like I'm more used to it because I'm usually fly for us So, I mean, I Feel I fly a heavier set up My setup is more underpowered than yours and my setup still feels more responsive more powerful than this can't even think of feeling So it doesn't feel like it's missing a gopro, right? Like it should feel Amazing because it's success no gopro super lightweight like I wonder if the arm I wonder if the arm blocking the airflow into the prop disc is cutting your power seems like it might be but Maybe the trade-off is it's a little bit smoother because I felt like a really smoothy movie, baby I don't feel smooth to me. It did feel smooth, but I thought it Rates, I don't know like do you feel like it's still smooth by me or it just flies so bad I can't even say it feels smooth like it's just shaking and vibrating so much It's so windy right now it does not help at all. Yeah, the wind really picked up for you Okay, so I don't know anything about like weight lifting But is it like harder to lift weights up then to pull them up or is it the same effort, right?  Yeah, what is it voltage at 21? Try good try one of these GNB HV 1300 ma 6s packs. It's booting up. Oh I'm actually not much better It felt like it did you the sound would like it flies the exact same as it did just I can just tell us a newer battery Right, so when you just like Pop over the tree like you can feel that it's like a little bit like it's working for it a little bit, right? Yeah I Think I don't know we're feeling the same thing But I kind of see what you mean when you're when you just say pushy if that's the thing I Don't know. I don't know it feels like it's lifting you from the bottom instead of from pulling you from the top Yeah, pushy. I Mean, I think for me.  Don't burn it easy Yeah, no, I don't know what I think about it. It's uh, I see what you mean though Like so you guys could both feel a distinct difference. It's different, but I don't know if can't really just feel slow That's the cl2 that you flew last time with O3 or unit. It's the same drone. It's so different I don't know what happened. It's literally the same drawing all we did was put the normal arms back on and Yeah, flip it up to that drone flew really good Yeah, so it's you you flew this exact drone just a few weeks ago in its normal upright configuration So we just flipped it over to make it a pusher. I don't know what's wrong with me Then I just couldn't feel it so now that we're comparing it to that the old other one just felt pepier Yeah, like when I was success that you're talking about like you run for us normally and so a success that doesn't fly Well, yeah, I feel like success. So I mean I I guess I couldn't really say what the science is behind it But it just seems from experience that Something about blocking the air going into the props really reduces its responsiveness versus Blocking the air coming out of the props for you at least I don't care. I'll rip anything Great time, but me so I think it's a rip it I don't think the benefits outweigh the negatives at this point. Yes, I think a dead cat would fly way better Yeah, yeah, yeah, so and I've got my frame coming out soon with dead cat as well So this is probably not the way to go Yeah, I mean it was really fun to try over the years what we do with FPV drones He's gotten like really refined and we've kind of boiled things down to like a pretty standard recipe But it's fun to kind of go back to how it was in the in the old days 2014-2016 when we were just throwing stuff in a while and be like yeah I mean all of it got great because of all the experimentation that we did in the beginning And we're not saying that this hasn't been tried before I just think it's been a long time since it's been visited on modern electronics with modern, you know flight controllers and FPV systems, so it's really interesting to revisit it, and I think we're done with it Happen to be part of the experiment, but okay moving on we were split on this side you and I felt it You and Drew did not feel it. So I'm really interested It's a simple thing to flip the motors over flip the whole frame over and then just flip the cam Yeah, let us know in the comments if you think this is the way to go for the future of FPV freestyle Tell us if you can even tell a difference tell us if we're lying if they're lying half of us are liars And we need to know who it is tell the truth if you're bored one day looking to spice up your drone life I guess you could try you know flip it things around and see if you like it But you know flip it or rip it flip it and rip it guys. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time on road


A sheep pie? More like, I s*** die, am I right? Dear Mr. A sheep pie, I hope your day is as horrible as you are on the inside. And that actually equates to having your entire family burned to death in an oil fire in the middle of the ocean.   It is time for the internet once again to be driven by engineers and entrepreneurs and consumers. Rather than lawyers and accountants and bureaucrats.  I'm not trying to insinuate anything, it's just if anyone watching has a death note or anything, it's a cool idea. Trust me, this guy is the one you want to be making big decisions for the internet. The same one during the Harlem Shake in 2017. These bozos fail to understand that the interests of the citizens lie in net neutrality. There was even a bomb threat and dogs were sent in. And to be fair, the dogs deserve significantly better treatment than risking their lives to protect these meat socks. December 14th, 2017 was a pretty dark day in American history. And if Star Wars The Last Jet I wasn't premiering in my theater that night, it'd be a pretty terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. What can you do as an American citizen? Well, call your representatives, boycott, corrupt carriers, run for office yourself, obtain the means of production, overthrow the government and let the snow run red with the blood of the freshly decapitated, elitist pigs from the oligarchical regimes. Net neutrality is good. This guy doesn't think so. His crumpt friends who are getting a really nice payday don't think so. Your president apparently doesn't think so. And these guys could care less what you think. Who needs public opinion, am I right? Ajit Pai, I hope your foot gets run over in a parking lot. I hope you get locked out of your car in a snowstorm in your underwear and outside of phone reception. Where is Verizon to save you now? I hope you get the new Star Wars movie spoiled for you. I hope your phone screen breaks. I hope your mailbox gets hit by a car. I hope you drink spoiled milk this morning. I hope your favorite band breaks up. I hope your garden dies.  I hope you read a really mean internet article about yourself that hurts your feelings. I hope your favorite character in a book you're reading dies a horrible death. I hope the lifeguard doesn't see you as you're flandering for air in the wave pool.  And I hope you lose the suits. Ajit Pai, Trash Man, your literal human garbage wasting natural resources that could be used to sustain an EA executive. Hey, that was my video. Please like, subscribe, and call your representatives. That's really important. Yeah, legit videos are coming. I've been teasing the MCR video for like ever, but it's taking me forever, because I'm taking it too seriously. Peace, love, dead musicians.