Why hello there and welcome to my YouTube channel. My name is Sandy all knock I'm an artist and today I'm gonna be talking about watercolor and my Overhaul of my palette for 2024 now. I'm not talking about the physical palette This is still my 18 color palette from House of Hoffman. It's the colors in it that have changed pretty radically I've swapped out eight out of 18. That's almost half of my colors are new 2024 a little bit dangerous, but it's been a long time coming Now, how do I know it's time to change out the palette if you start noticing that you have not refilled particular wells of color very often whereas you've refilled the others quite often Maybe just maybe that color is not carrying its weight And I have a number of colors in my palette that are not and there's also some things I wanted to fit into my palette Particular kind of yellow and I needed to get rid of something else to do that So different colors got voted off the island. Sorry to them. There are two things I want to ask of you before I get started one is Don't be that person on pretty much every palette video Who feels the need to say, oh, that's a terrible choice. Why did you put that color in your palette? A person's choices are a person's choices The best recommendation I can make is to subscribe to that person's channel and watch what they paint with that color You might learn something that that is actually a good color in certain uses or certain combinations Which is a reminder you might want to subscribe to this one because I have eight crazy colors coming The second thing I would like your help on is getting some suggested color combinations One of them should be one of the new colors And then the other ones can be whatever colors you think you'd like to see with it And then I'll do a series of paintings in the next month or two With different color combinations Focusing on each one of my new colors So I can explain more than I am in this video in depth What I see in it what I want to explore with it And then create a painting with it as well So leave your suggestions in the comments down below So giving you that heads up before we get started in case you need pencil and paper At the end of this video, I'd like to share a few tips on how you can develop your own palette As well as how your palette helps to develop your voice as an artist So hang around for that. Let's get started swatching Whenever I refer to the big palette, that means this house of Hoffman palette And I have it set up so it's yellows then reds a brown some blues greens and then more neutral colors Including my pain's blue gray, which you see a lot of times around here But I am going to be Swatching out this palette and I took the colors that I'm Removing and put them in a row above just for my own record. So I remember what came out Let's begin with the yellows. I have kicked sadly Oriolan to the curb And I wanted to replace it with something special And so I was trying to vote one off the island the two that stayed Are hands of yellow light and new gambos a warm and a cool These two colors mix well with my blues and my greens to make all different kinds of greens for my landscapes And I also can mix them with the reds to get oranges Lots of different things I can do when I have a cool and a warm in the palette So definitely have a cool and warm yellow The yellow that I ended up switching to was going to be nickel azo You might know my love of nickel azo and the bursting things that it does But the base color is kind of poopy This one is indian yellow and it has a nicer base color to it But it has some of the same bursting types of things that it does and I was excited to see that It's gonna be playing with it In lots of different ways in the future I want to do a whole video just on that color To talk about it more And then this is my You know my same old yellow ochre. I always have yellow ochre in my ballots Here's some of the yellow tests that I had done and you can see there's a value difference in a couple of the yellows, but the Indian yellow and the nickel azo have more value difference So I can get a little more color if I use heavier pigmentation And the color the base color for indian yellow is just much nicer And I I don't like and wouldn't paint with nickel azo on its own But I would use the indian yellow So this one is an indian yellow couple of tulips You can see the slight difference you can get from that and you can force that to be much Stronger same with these yellow flowers The other ones I had to work really really hard to try to get the paint thick enough to do what indian yellow can do naturally. So That's why I chose it I made a pretty big shift in my reds I've had anthraconoid scarlet in my palette for eons and decided it would go as well as permanent alizarin crimson And the permanent alizarin crimson was just never a go-to For whatever reason even though I know it mixes with certain things to make certain colors It just was not a color that I was drawn to so I Evicted it and it replaced it with pyrrole crimson We'll see if that does me any better because there were some things that I liked in my tests that You know, maybe it will draw my attention more And keeping my quinacridone rose for those soft pinks and And flowers that sort of thing Need to have a little bit of that bright color But the color that's going to sit in between them instead of anthraconoid is permanent red deep Now both of these new reds are medium staining Which makes me nervous because I don't like having this many staining colors in my palette But the things that it did on the paper were quite exciting to me Because I've never been happy with a painting of a rose necessarily a red rose with any of the colors I've ever painted because They just looked kind of dead The color just dries a little bit dead And that is by the way my transparent red oxide which sits next to the reds and You know, it sits right in that spot for a particular reason. I'll tell you about a minute But the red tests that I did you can see a bit of a difference and probably more in reality than in video The one on the right is the new colors and it's just brighter colors The roses that I painted there are with the new reds Whereas I get a little bit warmer color and a little deader color with the anthraconoid And then as soon as I switched over to the permanent red deep with the pyrrole crimson I was just much happier with that And I'm going to have to paint some roses and see how I like it It does mix to be a really dark Which is one of the things I used to use alizarin crimson for the few times I did use it So still have that My blues had a complete overhaul and an addition. So starting off with cobalt blue coming out and french ultramarine coming in Partially because I had three tubes for some reason a french ultramarine in my box and nothing in the cobalt So I'm going to try it a lot of artists will use this for mixing their neutrals with a brown And I'm going to try it and see and use up this paint that's here And the next color is jewel chrome cabo blue Which is one of those colors that has some shimmer to it And using it thickly it will do that but you can also drop it into some Really rich dark colors when making say a galaxy and it'll burst out in similar ways that indian yellow will do And i'll be showing you that in coming weeks The color that i'm replacing cobalt blue with some of the things I liked cobalt for Is verditer blue. It's such a traditional blue like look at that blue Look at that bird. It is the perfect blue for that There's a lot of things that verditer blue does gorgeously like look at this sky I just put painted water in there and then dropped color in I love this color. It's got a little bit of granulation to it But it's just really really nice. So here's Using my different blues together. I wanted to see how they'd work together that kind of glowing blue is the Dual chrome cabo blue on the edges. You see some of that bright verditer Goes into some of the ultramarine and then the ultramarine goes in here in the the darkest parts with some paints blue gray I like these colors I'm wanting to paint more seascapes and waves because all of my ocean paintings sold in 2023 So that is a sign. Maybe I should do more And then there was some other testing of colors. I was mixing everything with all the different colors on my palette I also did a lot of tests In reality to see what a sky looks like in all the different blues that I was considering There was some that had just some issues in the the painting the physical painting Um, I don't like the mess that I feel like I get with cobalt teal blue. I love the color But the granulation just feels messy in a painting But king's royal blue is a lovely color. I liked it a lot But it just has these spots where the pigment collects and I could not seem to paint with without doing that So that's where verditer blue came in and rescued me Cerulean blue is beautiful and I can get some lovely edges, but it just has again Ridiculous amounts of granulation. It's not something that I enjoy In my paintings and who knows maybe I'll change my mind someday But that's kind of how I test in real life situations rather than squares of color Two greens got voted off the island And one was green gold because I can mix sap with the yellow to get a green gold And the other was green appetite, which has not seen much use And if it hasn't seen much use lately, it's time for it to make room for something else on my palette I'm keeping two staple greens Cascade green and sap green one is more of a blue green and the others more of a traditional green And I know there are artists who hate these two colors Because they're just so quote unquote boring But I just want to tell you if the color works for you if it mixes well with the other colors you use Just use it ignore those people who tell you something is a You know a terrible color or whatever Okay, ultramarine turquoise. I'm going to talk a little bit more about and show you a little demo in just a minute This chromium green oxide or chromium oxide green. I can never remember exactly what it's called But this color is opaque. I have no opaque colors in my palette But it's got some really fun things that I want to explore with it Lots of this chromium oxide color is in The landscapes. I'm going to show you these greens Which are kind of dull and yet life like I mean they they just look more realistic to me This one has a lot of the chromium green in it mixed with some yellows to get those brighter colors And then the mid tones are almost the the chromium green by itself And there's just something about the light that I can capture with this color And the way it mixes with other things that I'm really interested to see how it works I don't know what I'm going to do with its opacity. That's just something I'm going to need to play with and explore This one also has a bunch of that chromium oxide in it They wash across the grasses has a little bit of yellow in it and it's just a real thin wash But back there in that center portion in that hillside is more of what that color looks and feels like Uh, just really really interesting The grasses here in the foreground also has some some of the chromium oxide mixed in it And I just like how it's kind of a tamp down green The opposite of uh, tamp down color is ultramarine turquoise really bright really strong And I wanted to see what the range was how light will it go how dark will it go and it gets pretty intense But it's not a staining color. I like that about it. It's got a bit of granulation to it just a wee bit And it's more Greenish than my phthalo blue turquoise. So I get a little bit more of a turquoise flavor Rather than the blue turquoise felt very blue This one has a really great variety in terms of going from really light to really dark So I like having that option it mixes really nicely with my verditer blue To give me that under color in the wave that that kind of deep turquoise And then it gets even deeper when I mix that in With some of the ultramarine blue or a little bit of paints blue gray to just deepen those colors I like the way that these play together So that's something I want to explore But I'm open to other turquoises because I tried a few others and this one for right now has my attention I just want to give it a try for a while and do some more of these seascapes And see what happens see what I can create in terms of color Using it the last section of my palette is not new colors But I'm calling them heroes could have been miscellaneous But I'm going to call them heroes to show them some love One is pains blue gray which serves as a black for me I don't like using regular old black in a palette really And I can mix that to be a black if I need one The other two in this section are lunar blue, which is a beautiful color as is moon glow Both of those colors are highly granulating there. I consider them specialty colors I don't use them in a lot of my day to day stuff I've done entire paintings in those two colors and They are like value studies because they go from super super light and bright to deep dark almost black These hero colors look just about the same on a swatch sheet Like there's very little difference between them They're really different paints and they perform completely differently. That's why I never trust swatch sheets like this I made this just for you for this video I like to actually paint in context to make sure that the paint is going to do what I want it to do When I was painting all of those sample paintings, I was testing to see how does it drop into water What happens when I drop it into wet pigment? What happens when I drop it into thin wet pigment versus thick wet pigment? I mean, I'm looking for lots of different things out of my paints But just making a block of color doesn't really help in deciding what's going to be in my main palette I want things that are going to Have certain properties in them And one of the things I was looking for in a lot of my paints Is having a value range And I was testing out value range Because that's important to me something else might be important to you And I recommend that you actually paint in context Because that's going to help you to see what your colors are going to do when you actually paint with them Now why do you need a curated palette or a main palette? Not your 60 well palette Not your 48 well palette Not your 36 well palette I mean a 12 to 18 color palette And for the truly needy you can go up to 24, but please limit your colors As an artist you need to have a set of colors that you will grow with As long as you have 17 different greens to choose from you will never be forced to try to mix the right green That you need for that painting at that moment And I know it might sound like eating your vegetables But I really believe you need to learn color mixing Even just simple color mixing Using a simpler set of colors a warm and a cool in each of the primary colors As your basis start with that And grow from there add yourself some treats some of your favorite colors or your your colors that have particular properties And then work with those things for six months a year stay with those colors for a while Then as you find that there's certain colors you're not using or certain colors You're always reaching out to that extra palette for Then you can add those in and get rid of something you haven't used There's another side benefit that I discovered when I switched to having a smaller main palette And you may find it as well Which is that I started seeing more commonality in my work And my voice as an artist has started to develop I'm not there yet. I haven't arrived But I'm starting to see those common things that make my work mine And a lot of it is because I have curated my colors They express me as an artist your colors will express you as an artist So when you make those choices, it's going to affect your work I'm a little scared about the color choices that I've made And am I going to undo any learning that I've already had about who I am as an artist? I have no idea What I'm going to find out the only way to find out is to try it So hopefully you'll stick around with me on this journey And maybe together we'll discover what our voice is as an artist and how to even take steps toward that Thank you so much for visiting with me I will see you again when I'm going to show you all of the new Daniel Smith wash colors So a little more swatching coming a little more painting coming I will see you then don't forget to add your three color combinations in the comments And I'll see you again very very soon. Bye. Bye


When it comes to matters of money and banking, all practical political issues ultimately hinge on one central question. Can one improve or deteriorate the state of an economy by increasing or decreasing the quantity of money? Aristotle said that money was no part of the wealth of a nation because it was simply a medium of exchange in inter-regional trade, and the authority of his opinion thoroughly marked medieval thought on money. Scholastic scholars therefore spent no time inquiring about the benefits that changes of the money supply could have for the economy. The relevant issue in their eyes was the legitimacy of debasements because they saw that this was an important issue of distributive justice. And after the birth of economic science in the 18th century, the classical economists too did not deny this essential point. David Hume, Adam Smith and Etienne de Condillac observed that money is neither a consumer's good nor a producer's good, and that therefore its quantity is irrelevant for the wealth of a nation. This crucial insight would also inspire the intellectual battles of the next four or five generations of economists. Men such as Jean-Baptiste Sey, David Ricciardo, John Stuart Mill, Frederick Bastiat and Carl Menge, who constantly made the case for sound money. As a result, the Western world had much more sound money in the 19th century than in the 20th century. Large strata of the population paid and were paid in coins made out of precious metals, especially out of gold and silver. It was money that made the citizens, however, humble their social status, sovereign in monetary affairs. The art of coinage flourished and produced coins that could be authenticated by every market participant. Some present-day libertarians harbor a romantic picture of these days of the classical gold standard, and it is true that it was the golden age of monetary institutions in the West, especially when we compare them with our own time, in which the monetary equivalent of alchemy has risen to the status of orthodoxy. But it is also true that Western monetary institutions in the era of the classical gold standard were far from being perfect. Governments still enjoyed monopoly power in the field of coinage, a remnant of the medieval regalia privileges that prevented the discovery of better coins and coin systems through entrepreneurial competition. Governments frequently intervened in the production of money through price control schemes, which they camouflaged with the pompous name of bimetalism. They actively promoted fractional reserve banking, which promised ever-new funds for the public treasury, and they promoted the emergence of central banking through special monopoly charters for a few privileged banks. The overall result of these laws was to facilitate the introduction of inflationary paper currencies and to drive specie out of circulation. At the beginning of the 19th century, most of Europe, in so far as it knew monetary exchange at all, used paper currencies, and during the remainder of that century things did not change much. England alone among the major nations was on the gold standard during the greater part of the 19th century, and banknotes of the Bank of England played a much greater role in monetary exchanges than specie. In fact a reserve ratio of the bank seems to have been around 3% for most of the time, and occasionally it was even lower. In short the monetary constitutions of the 19th century were not perfect, and neither would the monetary thought of the classical economists satisfy us today. David Hume believed that inflation could stimulate production in the short run. Adam Smith believed that inflation in the form of credit expansion was beneficial if it was backed up with a corresponding amount of real goods. And Jean Baptiste Saye similarly endorsed expansions of the quantity of money that accommodated the needs of commerce. Smith and Ricardo suggested increasing the wealth of the nation by substituting inherently valueless paper tickets for metallic money. John Stuart Mill championed the notion that sound money means money of stable value. These errors in the monetary thought of Hume, Smith, Ricardo and Mill were of course almost negligible in comparison to their central insight to repeat that the wealth of a nation does not depend on changes in the quantity of money. But eventually a new generation of students infected with the virus of statism worship of the state brushed over that central insight and thus the errors of the classical economists rather than their science triumphed in the 20th century. Men such as Irving Fisher, Newt Wicksell, Karl Hellfric, Frederick Bendison, Gustave Castle and especially John Maynard Keynes set out on a relentless campaign against the gold standard. These champions of inflation conceded the insight of the classical economists that the wealth of a nation did not depend on its money supply but they argued that this was true only in the long run. In the short run the printing press could work wonders, it could reduce unemployment and stimulate production and economic growth. Who could reject such a horn of plenty and why? Most economists point out the costs of inflation in terms of loss of purchasing power. Estimates run as high as a 98% reduction of the US dollars purchasing power since the Federal Reserve took control of the money supply. What is less well known are the concomitant effects of the century long great dollar inflation. Paper money has produced several great crises, each of which turned out to be more severe than the preceding one. Moreover paper money has completely transformed the financial structure of the Western economies. At the beginning of the 20th century most firms and industrial corporations were financed out of their revenues and banks and other financial intermediaries played only a subordinate role. Today the picture has been reversed and the most fundamental reason for this reversal is paper money. Paper money has caused an unprecedented increase of debt on all levels – government, corporate and individual. It has financed the growth of the state on all levels – federal, state and local. It thus has become the technical foundation for the totalitarian menace of our days. In the light of these long term consequences of inflation its alleged short run benefits lose much of their attractiveness. But the great irony is that even these short run benefits in terms of employment and growth are illusory. Sober reflection shows that there are no systematic short run benefits of inflation at all. In other words whatever benefits might result from inflation are largely the accidental result of inflation hitting a particularly favourable set of circumstances and we have no reason to assume that these accidental benefits are more likely to occur than accidental harm. Quite to the contrary. The main impact of inflation is to bring about a redistribution of resources. There are therefore short run benefits for certain members of society but these benefits balanced by short run losses for other citizens. The great French economist Frederick Bastiat made the quite general point that the visible blessings that result from government intervention into the market economy are in fact only one set of consequences that follow from this intervention. But there is another set of consequences that the government does not like to talk about because they demonstrate the futility of the intervention. When the government taxes its citizens to give subsidies to a steel producer the benefits to the steel firm, its employees and stockholders are patent. But other interests have suffered from the intervention. In particular the taxpayers have less money to patronise other businesses and these other businesses and their customers are also harmed by the policy because the steel firm is now able to pay higher wages and higher rents thus bidding away the factors of production that are also needed in other branches of industry. And so it is with inflation. There is absolutely no reason why an increase in the quantity of money should create more rather than less growth. It is true that the firms who receive money fresh from the printing press are thereby benefited but other firms are harmed by the very same fact because they can no longer pay the higher prices for wages and rents that the privileged firm can now pay. And all other owners of money, whether they are entrepreneurs or workers are harmed too because their money now has a lower purchasing power than it would otherwise have had. Similarly there is no reason why inflation should ever reduce rather than increase unemployment. People become unemployed or remain unemployed when they do not wish to work or if they are forcibly prevented from working for the wage rate an employer is willing to pay. Inflation does not change this fact. What inflation does is to reduce the purchasing power of each money unit. If the workers anticipate these effects they will ask for higher nominal wages as compensation for the loss of purchasing power. In this case inflation has no effect on unemployment. Quite to the contrary it can even have negative effects namely if the workers overestimate the inflation induced reduction of their real wages and thus ask for wage rate increases that bring about even more unemployment. Only if they do not know that the quantity of money has been increased to lure them into business at current wage rates will they consent to work rather than remaining unemployed. All plans to reduce unemployment through inflation therefore boil down to fooling the workers a childish strategy to say the least. For the same reason inflation is no remedy for the problem of sticky wages that is for the problem of coercive labour unions. Wages are sticky only to the extent that the workers choose not to work but the crucial question is how long can they afford not to work and the answer to this question is that this period is constrained within the very narrow limits of their savings. As soon as a workers personal savings are exhausted he willy-nilly starts offering his services even at lower wage rates. It follows that in a free labour market wages are sufficiently flexible at any point of time. Stickiness comes into play only as a result of government intervention in particular in the form of a tax financed unemployment relief and of b legislation giving the labour unions a monopoly of the labour supply. Since we are not concerned here with the questions of labour economics we can directly turn to the connection between employment and monetary policy. Does inflation solve the problem of sticky wages? The answer is in the negative and for the same reasons we pointed out above. Inflation can overcome the problem of sticky wages only to the extent that the paper money producers can surprise the labour unions. To the extent that the latter anticipate the moves of the masters of the printing press inflation will either not reduce unemployment at all or even increase it further.


What's good Josh the ball Ross back again with another video. So I'm here with my preview and predictions for elimination chamber 2022 man, we will be live streaming it on the main page So be on the lookout for that Saturday morning. It should be a good time Hopefully we'll see how all the matches play out But I'm gonna give my preview predictions as I always do right before the pay-per-view So let's get this started some of these matches. I didn't even know what were happening because once again I do not watch Monday Night Raw or SmackDown like that I usually just watch the clips and highlights because overall shows not that good and No, so let's get right into this So we got the Miz versus Ray Mysterio didn't know that was happening. Do I care for this match? No, who do I think it's gonna win probably the Miz most likely only because the Miz has taken I believe two losses to edge. So he's already lost a few so I'm sure the Miz I guess can use a win I really don't care for the Miz. I love Ray Mysterio, but I do not care for the Miz I think the business is just kind of boring to me. He has great Promo skills, but I just don't care for his matches. So yeah, I think the Miz will win there Then we got Drew McIntyre versus mad cat Moss falls count anywhere course Drew wants to get his revenge storyline wise They took Drew off. Well, they you know put them on the shelf for a few weeks per storyline wise So I could see this happening. Will this be a fun match? Maybe maybe entertaining match It's I can see it being somewhat entertaining. I have drew winning this day Obviously need to build up drew give them some momentum more momentum So I do have drew winning this match we're flying through the smackdown tag team championship the usos versus the Viking Raiders I think this match will be good. I think this will be something a little bit of a nice little fresh up Fresh tag team match up I'm going with the usos retaining. I think it just makes sense for them to still retain the championships But I do think this will be a solid tag team. So tag team match I'm gonna go with the usos here. It just makes sense for him to have them for them to have the belts The only time I see them losing the belts is when Actually, that's when you start to see the downfall of the bloodline I don't see them losing the belts any time soon It makes sense for them to have the belt because they're part of the bloodline So usos will pertain smackdown championship Ronda Rousey and the Naomi versus Charlotte Flair and Sonya Deville Her name Naomi had a fantastic match probably one of the best matches in her career on I think it was last week's smackdown Last I'm not sure I heard she had a fantastic match. I believe it was getting Charlotte Flair. I'm not mistaken, but I Have Ronda and Naomi winning this do I care for this match? Not really.   I just don't care But I do think Ronda and Naomi will win and hopefully Naomi is able to have Put on another another great show a showcase and I didn't get a chance to watch the match I may go check it out But I heard a lot of great things that Naomi really showed out So hopefully she's able to really put on a good show and it's a nice rub with her and Ronda Rousey Teaming up and you know, you never know Maybe Naomi will get a bigger push sometime later on this year. We'll see but I have Ronda and Naomi winning this match now we have the Women's Elimination Chamber live Morgan Rhea Ripley Bianca Belair do drop Nikki ash and Alexa Bliss Alexa Bliss returns Without the fiend gimmick, I guess she's you know, she's been having them therapy sessions And now she's getting better or whatever. Do I really care? No The only person I want to win this match is obviously Bianca Belair That's the only person I want to win this match Bianca Belair she needs to win this match so she can go on to face Becky Lynch At WrestleMania this year because I do think Becky's gonna retain against Lita But Bianca Belair needs to win it so she can go face Becky Lynch and get her title back Or what is technically not her title because they swap titles But get her win back that she also deserves. I want to say Charlotte and Becky ended up swapping titles But either way she needs to get that win back from SummerSlam because that was atrocious So I'm looking forward to that I think Bianca Belair is gonna have a great show in so I'm all for that and then of course raw women's championship Becky Lynch Versus Lita You know who's winning this match. I don't even have to tell you.  I just don't care. I Don't give two F's Will it be good? I hope so. I'm hoping it you know surprises me surpasses my expectations, but Going into this match with a meh. I Know who's gonna win it? You know saying so I'm gonna give this to Becky Lynch Obviously she pertains and hopefully we get Bianca Belair and Becky. That's the match I'm most excited about happening potentially at WrestleMania. Please WWE do it, right? All right Let's go to the men's elimination chamber Bobby Lashley Brock Lesnar Seth Rollins Austin Thierry's Riddle and AJ Styles man in the men's elimination chamber for the WWE championship I'm not gonna lie to you Do I think Brock will win? He's in the match Possibly most likely a lot of people are embedding on him. I can see him winning I'm gonna have to switch this up Who I want to win who I think is gonna win who I want to win would be fucking AJ Styles I think that would be amazing to tell AJ Styles winning the WWE championship once again and then having feud with Edge at WrestleMania take my motherfucking money Take it or you can go Matt Riddle granted I wouldn't put the title on him so soon because you know he would feel with Randy But I wouldn't put it on him soon. I would wait to probably Summer Slam probably to do that, but I Think that would be the better better route have AJ win the elimination chamber No one would expect it have AJ win then have him face Edge. I would have Edge win Just one more time because I think this is the best run edge has ever had like in my opinion a long time Like he was fantastic when he was a heel feud with John Cena But this the older grizzled edge coming back This is easy one of his best runs, bro.  He's been killing it in the ring since he's been back. I love it I love this version of edge and I would love to see him get one more title opportunity one more title shot one more go with the WWE Championship and then You can drop it to Matt Riddle have Matt Riddle beat edge and the story is there because Matt Riddle beat Randy Orton's old tag partner Matt Riddle was able to do something that Randy Orton couldn't do and That would be that would be a great story to tell Y'all can't tell me the the long-term booking of edge winning the championship Defending the championship on Monday night raw and all this other stuff Matt Riddle gets the opportunity to face him some point This year Matt Riddle gets the job done And maybe you can have Randy Orton not so sure if he can do it because he knows edge and Matt Riddle gets the job done Maybe there's like a tournament style set up and Matt Riddle is the one To beat Randy Orton to face edge for the title and then have edge drop the title to Matt Riddle And then have Randy Orton just pissed about it. That would be great to have Randy turn on them Oh my god, that would be entertaining as hell long-term booking I'm just saying coming down below if let me know if you y'all would like that idea But that's who I would want to win who I think is gonna win Fucking Brock because they're going with this title versus title match. They've been teasing it They've been talking about it too many times. They're going with this title versus title match I think Brock is winning it. My only issue I have with Brock winning it Why in God's green earth did you have him lose it? In the first place, you still could have had the title versus title match. You want it And then whoever won the Royal Rumble they get to they get to chew You had the title versus title match happen night one and maybe night two whoever wins the Royal Rumble faces the winner from night one You could do so many things or you can have the person who won wins the Royal Rumble face both of you guys So it's a triple threat title versus title match There are so many ways There is no reason that you wasted you wasted a spot in the Royal Rumble To give the opportunity to Brock so Brock We know is facing Roman for him to get another opportunity To face to get the title back You might as well just kept the title on them.   Roman gets it up and send this nigga packing. That's it.  There should be no Brock interference. There should be no interference Nothing of the sort if this motherfucker loses this match To Old Berg, bro, I don't even want to think how upset I'll be because it is dumb And it doesn't make sense his title reign should not be given to him No No No, I'm sorry The bigger match is obviously Roman versus Brock title versus title. That's the bigger match Goldberg does not need to be involved in that at all. So Roman squashes Goldberg We go home. That's it. That's my preview and predictions for elimination chamber 222 Comment down below. Let me know who do you guys think will win? Who do you guys think will lose? And also what you guys think about my my booking my fantasy booking of AJ Styles winning the WWE Championship to face AJ WrestleMania Edge winning the WWE Championship And then ultimately dropping the title to Matt Riddle which ultimately Creates a feud between Matt Riddle and Randy Orton. What do you guys think about?  So comment down below Let me know but I appreciate all the love you guys have been showing we're almost at Sandy Kay Thank you guys so much for all the love and support. Appreciate y'all kicking with me. I see y'all on the next one. Peace


Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Savvy Entrepreneur. Today we'll be speaking with my very good friend, Ashley Vaughn, who is the controller of Capital Medical Group in Bakersfield, California. She's going to discuss how COVID-19 crisis has impacted her office and the community. So Ashley, thank you so much for joining us today. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about what you do as a controller? Sure. Yeah, I think sometimes that means jack-of-all-trades, but I handle a lot of the financial reporting where it closely would be accountant to handle the bookkeeping. I do a little bit of the account payment and manage the financial resources of the office. And I'm also involved with some office management and HR issues. So yeah, I feel like it's hard to nail down. It would take me a long time to write out my full job description, but I do a little bit of everything with the office.   I mean, this isn't just like Joe Schmo's dentist office where there's a full practicing dentist.  Gosh, we have 19 dentists in our facility, 89 employees. Yeah, it's a big facility. I want to say we have 36 treatment operatories, but I might be getting that number wrong. It might be 34, but it's either 34 or 36 treatment operatories. We have four hygienists working every day of the week, seeing patients. So we're open seven days a week. So yeah, it's a big operation. And you're one of the top three largest practitioners in the area, right? Oh, absolutely. In the area, we are the largest single private practice. So how are you guys attacking this COVID situation? And can you tell me about what you guys are doing to make sure that your employees are taken care of in this difficult situation? Yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately, we did have to lay off about 90% of the staff. We were able to luckily maintain the benefit, the medical dental vision, entire benefit package of all staff, even the ones that are currently in a layoff period. And with the staff that's remaining, we have gone above and beyond. We're constantly monitoring recommendations for personal protective equipment. And so we've been able to obtain N95 masks for the staff that are remaining. And we're trying to keep everyone who's still in the building, which is very limited as safe as possible. Of the nine doctors in our practice, there are four of them still working, and they're working two to three days a week each. So when before March, we were open seven days a week and had four providers in the office every day and four hygienists. And now we are open five days a week for about six hours a day and have two doctors working, seeing emergency only patients. And so unfortunately, every day we open our office, even with our skeleton staff, we're running at a loss. You know, there's still the supply costs associated, the remaining staff costs, and we're not really able, for everyone's protection, of course, to do anything that would generate the revenue we needed, even to break even. So yeah, it's been a very difficult time for the business. For the audience that aren't familiar with how menacing works and how billable codes work, can you give an example of two procedures and how they're completely different in terms of what you guys receive in terms of compensation? Sure, absolutely. Are you looking for two procedures? You know, one that might be an emergency procedure and one that's an emergency procedure? Okay, so if you needed to have a crown done, for example, the billable code for that's a 2740 or 2790, and that has a fee associated with it, ranging somewhere between $800 and $1,100, depending on your insurance company and the type of crown that you need. A limited exam, which is the treatment most people are getting at this time, is about $75 billable, could be less, again depending on the insurance company. And something like an open in med, which is used to treat an infection in a tooth and get somebody out of pain without doing the full root canal post and crown that they would need, that's going to run $100 or less per patient. Unfortunately, even though the patient needs, you know, the root canal and the crown, eventually, in order to do that type of procedure, we would have to use air. And when you're blowing air in someone's mouth, you're aerosolizing saliva. And so that's something that we try to avoid when at all possible. And oftentimes in open in med, we'll get someone out of pain and hold them over for the next five, six weeks, however long this process takes. So most patients that are coming through our office, you're seeing a billable amount of $150 or less for everybody. Well, so that's 10% of what you're usually seeing in terms of billable codes. That's a huge hit on your business. Of course. And again, we are not even able to see as many patients as our facility has capacity for. That would be dangerous to have, you know, a congregation of that many people in the building. And so although the demand is high, we have a lot of patients calling us that are in pain, and we're trying to get the men as quickly as we can. Doctors are only seeing one patient at a time. Patients are waiting in their car until they can be seen. We've closed the waiting room for everyone's safety. We've spread the two doctors that are remaining on the totally opposite sides of the building, and they're only working out of one chair each. So not only is it, you know, less money you're seeing per patient, but additionally from a business standpoint, you're seeing, gosh, I mean, 5% of the patients used to have come to the building in a day. And even though, you know, we're one of the last offices open, and so we've gotten a lot of calls for two fakes, we can't. We couldn't even allow all those people to come through our office in one day for safety reasons. That's really scary, thinking about the fact that if you guys are forced to close, where would people receive their treatments? I don't know. I mean, I do know that there are patients coming from surrounding areas because they're not able to find dental care in their area. There is, from what I hear, you know, other practices that are open on a very limited basis. You know, if you get in touch with your doctor, he might meet you at the office for very limited treatment. But yeah, if we're not able to keep our doors open, that's a big concern for us is being able to stay open for the community because we are one of the last holdouts, at least in our area. You guys are really doing great work. Now, luckily, the government has some programs that are meant to help businesses like yours. Can you talk to me about the procedure which you have to do in order to apply to the programs that you apply to? Yeah, absolutely. So early last week, I submitted our application for the SBA Disaster Relief Loan. The PPP Loan program, their application opened on Friday. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get our application in until Monday. But I applied for both loans. Just in case, for some reason, there was a problem getting one or the other. I know that you cannot take funding on both loans, but I put in both applications just to be prepared to go either way with that. The SBA Disaster Relief Loan is incredibly easy to apply for. I'm not sure if you've talked to anyone who's gone through that process. It's online, a very, very short process. Not a lot of intimacy to it at all. The PPP Loan program was a little bit different, of course. What did you need from the PPP program? Well, there's the regular loan information that you would need for any loan. On top of that, you need a detailed payroll data on every individual employee. Unfortunately, our payroll program didn't break the data down in exactly the way the loan wanted it broken down, so it was a manual process, which you have to have the information for any employee that you've paid in the past 12 months. And so if we have 89 employees now at the time that this started, I mean, we did have natural turnover. We don't have a lot of turnover at our organization, which is fortunate. But with natural turnover being what it is, I need a detailed payroll information on about 106 people. They have you break the payroll down, you know, what types of wages they're getting, bonuses, etc. In addition to that, you'll need all of your corporate documents, so incorporation documents, etc., when you did our DBA. They ask for bank account statements. They ask for the prior year's tax return. Oh gosh, now this is Monday. At seven days later, I'm trying to remember everything that that they require, but it was certainly far more important than I've needed for other loans. And it was just additional documents on top of what you would expect for a normal loan process. Now, I know you've done kind of research on these programs. What kind of new news have you heard about the funds that are hopefully going to be distributed to you? Well, actually, I've been a little bit surprised by that. Early this week, I had the understanding, and there's been several articles posted early in the week about some concerns about the funding. From the very beginning, they made it clear that this was a first come first serve loan program, and they were providing $350 billion in these PPP loans. Several different outlets have published articles indicating that $350 billion based on how they know businesses have been affected and the needs of small businesses today would not be enough. They did stress that it was first come first serve, which caused a lot of people to make a mad dash. Early in the week, Wells Fargo and Bank of America both reported that based on the information that they had, and the applications they'd already received by Monday, their available loan funds were exhausted. I don't know if there's been a response yet from the federal government on whether there would be any expansion of that so that more people could get the help that they need. I know that banks have continued to take applications, and there's just basically, from my understanding, not been any new information on how that's going to be handled from here on out. Yeah, I have the same experience. The banks that I use for my businesses, they sent me initial information, and then 24 hours later I got another email saying, oops, that was wrong, and then 24 hours later I got the new information, and I'm just waiting to see whether tomorrow they're going to send me another email saying, oops, that was wrong too. Yeah, yeah. No, it's frustrating. Initially, I went through our corporate bank to submit the initial request, probably similar to what you're talking about, just expressing a desire to apply for the loan. And still, had I continued to use that same organization, I would not have been able to apply for the loan because I, as of yet, have not been contacted to submit the actual application. But we ended up using a different company to get everything pushed through. Luckily, you have that connection and be able to get your accountant to help you with the application. Yeah, like I said earlier, our accountant's been an amazing resource, so I hope that all small business owners are reaching out to their accountants to see if they can also be a good resource to them, finding out where to go to get these things done. Speaking of tips like talking to your accountant, do you have any other tips for small businesses in doing this arduous process? Well, I mean, I would say, of course, start the process as soon as you can. If you're not making traction with your bank or the bank that you're trying to use, know that business owners are able to get their applications in. I was able to get my application in on Monday, so it might be time to look to other resources and maybe using other banking institutions if possible, but get everything done as quickly as you can. And if you go online, you can easily find the documentation that's required for the PPP loans. And I think that that's something, like in your case, you're waiting for your bank to contact you to get all of that data in, I would have it all together because it does seem at this point like this is a time of the essence right now on a first come first serve loan situation. Yeah, I've talked to a lot of business owners who haven't even really done any research yet because it's such a new program and they're so underwater with all the other things that are coming at them at this moment. So I really do hope that the government extends this and makes this a more robust program because, you know, if the money was exhausted 24 or 48 hours after the program started, that obviously means there's some of the funds, right? Right. And I know that in that article, Bank of America had indicated, you know, our loan funds are exhausted as of Friday. So we've looked to the government for guidance and I expect that that guidance will come. They've made it clear that you can apply for a PPP loan all the way up until June 30th. If truly, two days, two business days into the process, it was a done deal. I mean, obviously, that's just not going to work. So I think we are going to see some changes and some expansions and some modifications and everything. You just have to take it on a day by day basis. But definitely my advice would be regardless of hoping for that to happen. I would get the loan application in right now. If you haven't done it yet, do it right now. Great advice. And on top of it, by putting those documents together, you will have a better and easier time filing your taxes. So it's a tutor. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And I will say, the way that they had me break down the payroll data, which is not a way that we currently break it down, it was very informative. So it was an eye-opening process as well. But I'm just glad that the application's behind me. I actually did hear from the bank today. And it looks like our funding is secure. Congratulations. Yes, very exciting. Now it's just a matter of when you actually see that funding hit the account. I don't know. And they don't know. So we'll see moving forward how that works. So they don't have the funds yet? Well, I think that the banks must have the funds for loans that they've secured funding on a loan as soon as they have the funds. And I'm not a banker. But I do think that there is still so much information as far as regulations that banks are waiting on from the federal government that until they have it all put together, you're not going to see those funds released. But until that's all hammered out, I mean, I don't think I'll see funding coming through. But I do know that other small businesses have already received their PPP funds. So yeah, it's possible. Well, that's very encouraging to hear that some businesses have received their funds. And, you know, I'm very glad to hear that you were able to get your funds because you guys are doing such great work for the community. And I think that if any business should be getting those kinds of funds, it's the businesses like yours that are doing such great things to help people in dire need. Well, thank you. Yeah, I think that everyone at my office has been really focused on patient care during this time and just taking care of the community. So that's been a positive thing that's come out of all of this. You see that everywhere you look, I guess nowadays. Thank you, Ashley. That was very informative. And I really appreciate you taking the time to share all of these things with our audience. It's very informative. And I hope that if you're a business owner and you're watching this, you take the initiative to apply to these programs and take Ashley's advice where you prepare all your documents ahead of time. Even if your bank isn't taking applications yet, be prepared and apply as soon as you can. Thank you and stay savvy.


Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Hawaii, the state of clean energy and much more in the way of innovation. What energy and what innovation it looks like for 2023? What innovations can we expect with Richard Ha, our old friend in Hilo, and Brittany Zimmerman, our new friend in Hilo. Okay, Richard Ha and Brittany Zimmerman, thank you very much for joining us today. Richard, I want to ask you if you wouldn't mind introducing Brittany, would you do that for me? Yes. Brittany Zimmerman is CEO and founder of Yamai.com and she's a high-level person that worked in the space industry. And when she looked back at the earth, she just couldn't stay there anymore. She came back and started to figure out how can we make life better here on earth. So essentially, and she can explain all this, but essentially what she does is a negative life cycle analysis approach to the way she does dealing with carbon. But I'll say that much and Brittany can explain the rest. Yeah, we're going to need to have your explanation, Brittany. We have to go further to understand what you've been doing. Tell us. Awesome. Yeah, of course. Thanks so much for having me with you today, Jay. Love being here and Richard for bringing me with. Yeah, my background, like Richard mentioned, is in the space industry. So I'm an innovator in that space. Originally through mechanical and aerospace engineering, graduate work focused on bio-regenerative physiochemical hybrid life support systems for long-duration spaceflight. So in my house, we talk about little else at dinner time. Wonderful. Fantastic. Yeah. So really what I do is I bridge the gap between the NASA scientist approach, which is nature-based solutions, R&D, and more of the NASA engineers approach, which is rotating machinery, chemical reactions, filtration systems, things along those lines. But it's my responsibility to keep humans alive in outer space conditions. So a lot of space suit, space station, spacecraft, and habitat design. So did that for a long period of time. Very early in my career was selected as the youngest NASA principal investigator and really leveraged that, brought in large amounts of funding and led teams through the development of different technologies from TRL, which is the technology readiness level one, which is just an ideal concept, and then maturing that all the way through the development cycle until something is integrated and commercialized. So did that for a great deal of time. Technologies on the International Space Station, the Artemis programs developed some habitats that are slated for visits to the Martian surface and a whole slew of stuff for the Department of Defense. And like Richard mentioned, had a pretty big existential shift and wanted to start bridging the gap between the technologies that we developed for outer space solutions and make sure that we bring those solutions here to Earth for terrestrial commercialization, right, for human betterment applications here on our own planet. So that's kind of the genesis. Wow, wow. So when you were up there in space, as Richard said, and you decided to come back down, came back down to Hilo. And why Hilo? And what are you doing in Hilo now that makes it special for Hilo? Some people say that Hilo is the center of science in the state. But I'll let you discuss that.  Yeah, yeah, it's good water. Fantastic. Yeah, so when I had my big existential shift, I decided in fact to step away from the space industry for a little while is a pretty big deal. I had a lot going on as being groomed as the CEO of a private space organization. And so with that, I brought a lot of really impressive individuals who decided to take a step forward and wanted to come with on this new initiative to focus on some of the existential issues that we're facing as humanity here. And yeah, that was extremely exciting for us. We've come together. We've grown a lot. We're over 300 graduate level experts for more than 50 different countries as a group now. And yeah, we target rebalancing carbons as our first existential issue. And we do that in some pretty innovative ways. So we extract greenhouse gases directly from the environments. We pull out CO2, CH4s, knock socks, other particulates. We do that atmospherically and oceanically at the same time. And then we also bring in waste feedstocks. So we bring in municipal solid waste. We can bring in agricultural waste. We can bring in cesspool waste, metals, plastics, glasses, agricultural waste, construction waste, industrial waste. Anything that has carbon and its molecular chain is fair game for us. That's really what we're working on balancing. So we have waste as our only input to the system. And then we do some nerdy stuff in the middle, which is mostly electrochemistry and organic chemistry. But we break those carbon chains down. And then we utilize all of those building blocks that we pulled apart to build those back into sustainable commodities. And so, Jay, are you familiar with the term biomimicry? Yes, I am. How do you like that? Yes. Yeah, I like it a lot. So that's what we do. So it's a biomimicry technology. We looked at Mother Nature and we said, Mother Nature takes waste and breaks it down and produces minerals, soils, atmosphere, and water out of it. Is there any way that we could replicate that so that we don't have a waste treatment we're producing of our own? And so that's what we do. We produce four commodities in our system. We produce a mineral, which is a net negative alternative to concrete. Pretty cool stuff. Let me see. I usually have some here. All right. So we make some of this. This is entirely made from on island waste. Nothing mined, nothing imported. Really beautiful stuff. No release of any greenhouse gases in its production. And its mechanical properties are the most, if they're far superior to traditional concretes. And you can build houses with it. Houses, roads, tarmac, sidewalks, precasts, block, anything you traditionally make with concretes and cement products right now. So it's really, really good stuff. We've been working with some of the DOTs and some of the leading industry, ACI and other folks in evaluating a lot of these materials. And it's really exciting. We went through trial mixing. And it's actually the strongest material that they had tested at that particular DOT in terms of pavements. So it's really, really beautiful stuff. Cool. Richard, how do you keep up with Brittany? I'm having a little trouble doing that today. But how about you, Richard? Well, I just see the big picture. I don't understand all this stuff. But when she talks about lifecycle analysis, and it's really common sense for the average, for me anyway. But yeah, hard to keep up with the technical stuff. I can't do that. I got him to admit it. He keeps up better than he likes to let on. I know. That's the story of Richard. That's why he's so lovable. So Brittany, what's the common denominator, the secret sauce that flows through all of this science and technology you're talking about? Is it the biomimicry or something else? What is it that enables you to do this, this, this, this, and this? Right. So yeah, this, this, and this. We make the concrete, make a bio to our product. We make green hydrogen. And we also make potable drinking water. Those are the four byproducts of our system. And really, I would say the secret sauce is a system of systems approach. My background being in the space industry, when you're on a spacecraft or you're in long duration spaceflight, every single molecule is so precious. You can't jettison that or lose it from your system because you don't have the ability to rendezvous or get a lot of those materials back. So you have to put in the resources and the time and the energy and the innovation to figure out how to really respect those and recycle those things. And so we've applied that same methodology here and really modeled it as a closed loop system. And we think every single molecule in the entire system and our system is the whole planet Earth, right? Is extremely precious. And so we take care of all of it. We don't optimize off of one specific parameter. We look at all of them simultaneously. So it's a way of thinking. It's a way of seeing the world. It's a way of seeing the universe, which is interesting. And once you adopt that way of thinking, you're really expanding the universe or at least expanding your way of looking at it and you're expanding how you apply the science to it. But let's go to you and the big island and Hawaii in general. Where's the intersection between the things you've been doing in the space industry and the things you have identified here that need the technology? Yeah, absolutely. So when we piloted our facility, we did that on the continental mainland and honestly, Hawaii wasn't really in the vision at that point in time. And when we realized how effective what we had developed was, as you can imagine being from 50 different countries, I was pulled in a lot of different directions. Everybody had a really good reason why we should develop the full scale system in their particular country. And so in order to remain a contiguous and pulled together team with a common vision, it was really important for us to come together and decide that we would allow it to be a data-driven decision instead. And we built up a tool and that tool evaluated a whole bunch of things that we thought were really important, right? We looked at the socioeconomic impact of developing different technologies. Is this a software tool? Yeah, we built it up. It's a GIS package. It's a software tool. It's software built with GIS. Yeah, and a decision down select matrix pulled together, that's correct. It's not like a wrench or anything. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yes, it's a software package. Okay, okay. Custom design, that's right. Got it, got it. It was a magic Ape ball, I guess. So yeah, it was really important for us because we looked at the cost of energy in places worldwide, right? We looked at places that were dealing with a lot of water poisoning issues or access to clean water. We looked at places that had a very fertile soils historically that had been depleted, right? Things along these lines. And so we built it up. We built all the mathematics into the tool and we said, you know, we're pretty sure, everybody's pretty sure their country was gonna land at the top of the list somewhere. So we shook hands and we ran the analysis and the results came out and we thought the tool was broken because the top 70 some locations were all islands. And so we tested the tool. We tried to figure out where the break was. Turns out the break was actually in our minds. It wasn't in the tool and just how we perceived the world around us. So ended up being correct and that was a really big eye opener for us. And so we started focusing specifically on how we could bring the solutions to islands which meant we had to change what we had been working on a little bit to be more compatible with island implementation. And so we worked on that and I had two folks on the team who had been with us the entire time and they grew up in Hope IE and they made a really strong case. Jay, they said, you don't need a visa to travel there so you're not limited by time. You understand the language. You understand the banking system, right? You understand the law and the corruption that does or does not exist. And all of those things will be issues in a lot of the other places that we decide to build but at least they won't happen, you know at the same time as we're working on building our full scale implementation. Well, let me ask you two questions about what you said. Number one is you talk about a team and it's the donning on me that the team is not necessarily in Hilo. The team is everywhere. You're covering a lot of countries. There's almost 200 countries in the world. How many of them have your team members in them? Between 50 and 60. Wow. Yeah. Are there scientists? All kinds of things. Scientists but also non-technical as well. We have a lot of people in policy and education in equity and culture studies in business and strategy and finance, all that stuff. We're talking about ambitious projects here. No kidding. The other thing you mentioned was something about islands, you know and we know that Hawaii is a special place because it is an island and it's a great laboratory. Emphasis on the word laboratory because you have a sort of controlled environment here and you can study things here, you know within that controlled environment and learn faster and better and more and so forth. We haven't talked about it in a while but this has a lot to do with the science at UH treating Hawaii as a laboratory. Is that what you've found that islands yield special venues for science for this kind of technology? I think it's easier for people to conceptualize a closed loop system on things that are physically isolated in the way that an island is isolated. So I think that helps, right? When we look at designing spacecraft, for example it's very easy to isolate the system because you have the vacuum of space around you. On earth, right? Really the Karman line and the differentiation between earth and space is really our boundary but that's bigger than a lot of us are thinking often. So I think the island provides a really nice analogy for that that makes it easier for us to kind of think about closing the loop and really look at what the inputs and outputs are and what our boundary conditions are. So I think it provides exactly that Jay, a really nice maybe it's a laboratory but maybe more of a demonstration than anything else. Okay, okay, thank you for that. And you talk to them, you talk to them all the time. How do you talk to them? And do you have large groups, small groups, combination? You've got to strap your brains together in a project in an approach like the one you've been describing. How do you strap the brains together? Yeah, so we work mostly virtually, right? Because we're in over 50 different countries so we come together. We have things we call subsystem teams or concept breakout groups and those are of all different sizes. Really depends on the things that people are ambitious about and passionate about and how many people it takes to tackle a lot of the things that each of those subsystems are doing. So we mostly communicate, we have different platforms, software packages that we communicate through but we also utilize of course a lot of Zoom, telephone and email as well. And if it's real time, it means you have to cope with time zones, right? Yes. How do you do that? A lot of our meetings are duplicated so we have a meeting that is great for the Eastern Hemisphere and one that's really great for the Western Hemisphere. And it's all in English, am I right? It is, primarily in English. We do have a French club though or a philosophy club also but a lot of French speakers. Well, that goes back to my last question based on what you were saying a minute ago and you described the problem that you had some kind of barrier and you realized that it was a thought process barrier that you were missing something and you had to figure that out and then you got past that. Can you give us a little detail on what the barrier was? Why it was stopping you and how you managed to get past it? I think it is an organization or as an individual of anybody who's trying to solve issues. It's the responsibility of the captain of that specific ship to foresee a lot of obstacles and make sure that those obstacles are removed or at least small enough to surmount right once the team gets there. So we have a pretty interesting way of tackling different problems on the team. So one of the ways that we particularly do that is we look at what issues we're facing whether that be financial whether that be technical whether that be social and we start having conversations with people who are the best in the world about it. So we reach out and we contact those individuals and we usually have a few of them who end up joining the team and spearheading those efforts for us. So instead of trying to gain the new skill in terms of trying to tackle something we haven't tackled before our philosophy is really bringing people in who have the expertise who have tackled similar issues in the past. So we do. The term multidisciplinary applies here. This is really talking about all the disciplines, aren't you? Yes. Yep. Okay, I mean, that's pretty interesting and I am wondering how you apply that to Hawaii but before we do that I wanna ask Richard a question. Richard, how is Brittany doing? It's, I think she's doing really well. Yeah, so, and you know with our focus being on how can we make life better for Kierke and Malia to publish today 25 years in the future. And what she's doing is in parallel with that to our efforts. So it makes life better for them. So I think she's been great. Hey, how am I doing in forming questions for her? Hey, you're pretty good, man.  So Brittany, let's talk more about the intersection. You know, what I get from this discussion is there are, you know, you could solve any problem is I don't know if you've had contact with Stanford and design thinking, you know, it's your thought process and takes you into solving the problem. But the first thing you have to do is identify, accurately identify the problem. Yep, correct.  And I'm thinking that from the discussion so far we're talking about energy, renewable energy. We're talking about carbon, of course. We're talking about climate change. We're talking about global affairs and you know, global collaborations, global science, if you will. And I suppose we haven't even scratched the surface here by identifying those things because if we sit sort of like the Stanford design thinking and we try to identify the problems there are so many problems in the world today. And my personal view is that we can solve them all or at least we can make advances on them. And the secret is, what I'm gonna call it, sincere technology, you know, altruistic technology, which I think I hear you talking about. So talk about the problems, you know, like that you could identify in Hawaii, like energy, like how the thought process and technology could help the state of Hawaii in terms of its aspirations to get to clean energy by 2040. Yeah, that's a great question, Jay. So we're very circular, right, in terms of what we're trying to do. And so when we started tackling how to balance carbon, we realized you can't actually turn the knob that adjusts carbon without affecting water cycles, without affecting agriculture, without affecting energy, right? All of these things are very intertwined. So that's why you see solutions that are really system level approaches, touching all of those arenas, because we're taking all of them into account. So right, as the first problem we were trying to focus was identified as balancing carbons, right? We have excess carbons in our atmosphere, but we need those carbons in our soils, right? They're fantastic for us in our soils. We're a carbon-based life form. So it's not a war against carbon, it's just, hey, we've put some of them in the wrong places. Let's see what we can do to put them back where they need to go. In doing that, right, we ended up developing solutions that help with affordable housing, that help with sustainable building materials, things along those lines, right? As a sequestration methodology for the carbons. We ended up producing our biochar material, right? Our biochar material is about 88% carbon, and that really helps sequester carbons in the soils, which is where they're needed, but additionally helps with food security, reducing our reliance on synthetic fertilizers, heavy chemicals, things along those lines, reducing, making other crops more drought resistant, things along, you know, things in that arena. So that's more of in the food sector. So we really target a lot of that. And then additionally, we do water, right? That's a byproduct. So that starts tackling a lot of the problems that Hawaii is facing in terms of replenishing and recleaning a lot of the waters that have been damaged due to many different human activities, and also working through water treatment, desalination, things along those lines. So the sea levels rise, and as our production of gray and black waters increased. We also then finally touch, well, not finally, I guess there's two more. We also touch more of the green energy side of things as we produce very, very large amounts of green hydrogen. This is very important, right? Cause we do it very scaleably and we can paint with 30 hydrogen prices in the production of the green hydrogen. So that helps a lot. And our process is also auto-thermic. So we're an off-grid solution, right? And in the breaking of these bonds, we produce a lot of heat, right? Exothermic heat. And we do co-generations. We're actually translating that excess heat into electrical energy, which powers our entire system. So it's renewable in a different type of a way.  Right? Waste management is a really big problem on all of the islands that I've visited. So having a place that can't, all of that waste can be diverted so that it's not being buried, leaching, having to be shipped off islands, all of these things that we're currently doing as quote-unquote solutions. Unfortunately, we're doing a lot of incineration also, which releases additional toxins into the environment. This provides a methodology and a mechanism to help alleviate the concerns in all of those places and all of those arenas simultaneously. Richard, did I mention about the pop quiz at the end at the end of this program? You might be wondering what my function is here, and what it is is I advocate for the rubber slipper folks. So I wanna make sure that the folks are being considered and Brittany can give you an idea. You know, like for example, she spent a lot of time in many different places on this island. If she explains that to you, you get a better sense of her attempt to make sure it's a bottom up approach as well as a top down approach. Yeah. Well, what I get is it's taking a look at the entire environment, taking a look at the elements of our lives together on the planet and rebalancing them.  So in one case, it's too much water. In the other case, it's too little water. And as the science would have it, you try to rebalance that. So you have the right amount of water in the right place. And then you can do better agriculture and your cities and towns aren't destroyed. And that may be adaptation, which isn't necessarily a solution to climate change, but at least it makes life easier for humanity. And so, I mean, I think I hear you saying rebalancing, identifying all these elements that may be too much or too little, or that can connect and collaborate with each other and make life better without any risk. And so in Hawaii anyway, we do have energy issues. We do have aspirations of clean energy. We do have energy that's too expensive, even in the big island, we need to make a decision. I'm just presenting problems to you, all that Stanford design thinking. Are these all within your wheelhouse, Brittany? Can you provide science that would address all of these things and agriculture? Don't forget agriculture. We need to grow food here. Richard knows, he's a farmer in his heart and soul. He'll never stop. But Query, does your science address these things and connect these things and give us solutions on these things? Yes, Jay. And so very simply, we process waste and we take that waste just like Mother Nature does and we break it down to do very simple things. We clean the air, it cleans the water. It gives us a place to recycle the waste without a waste stream being generated. It helps provide energy and it helps make extremely healthy soils. So those are the things that we do. That's the simple version of the science all kind of tied up with it. So where are you on the continuum? I imagine you have a website, UMet, is it? Did I pronounce that right? UMet. UMet, it's French. I'm good, I'm like French. UMet.com. Yes. OK, well. That's correct. And so I could look at that website and I could see some of the discussion around these ideas. But how far down the track are you? How close are you to making working models that actually effectuate these ideas on the planet? And how far are you from commercialization where you can make them economically sustainable? Yeah, absolutely. So we've already piloted the facility. We're past proof of concept. We ran our MVPs. We third party verified everything. We're already producing material, all of the materials. So we make, I don't know if it's biochar. This is biochar called black gold. So we produce all of the stuff already. We do it at a smaller scale. So what we're working on right now is more of the commercialization scale here in Hawaii. We've been working with the local communities, the state and with the county here on Big Island to find specific locations, make sure any issues are addressed, that the communities involved start having conversations around that. So that's where we're at. We're right now finalizing a location and looking at what permits need to be held and doing what we can in those arenas to address the problems for all the different communities. Because like Richard said, I've visited a lot of them. I've lived in almost all of the cities, making circles around the Big Island here. So just trying to make a solution for everybody. Now I want to ask you a question where you have to whisper the answer. OK, I'm ready. You have patents? Yes. Tell me. International patents, yes. International patents, are they provisional or are they final patents? They're PCTs. Visional patents all within what, two years old and all that? Yeah, so it's past provisional. It's not provisional anymore. So after you go through provisional, then you go to the next stage, right? And so the next stage for us is in the international realm. So the PCT is that international protection. So we essentially have 18 months and we have to decide which of the countries we want to be doing business in and operating in and protected. So that's what we're doing. Well, do you like all your patents? Because sometimes people take patents out that they find out. We love them. You love your patents, OK? Love them. Have you hoped your patent today? Yeah, I have a little shrine. Give my offerings each day. So what about affiliations and connections? And for that matter, media. Because it's not essential for what you're doing, because you already have a global network. But it's probably helpful if you want to advance some of these ideas and projects here in Hawaii and to have a network in Hawaii. And that means what? The university? It means media connections? Appearances like think tech. Are you laughing, Richard? Stop that. So how far down the path are you with that? Because we want to know more about you and we want the state to know more about you. Well, thank you. Yeah, we don't do too much on social media. For us, we really love organic relationships. So that's why I'm boots on the ground. I spend most of my day out in the community meeting new individuals, business owners, community leaders, visiting as many different places, like I said, on the island as possible to get a good feel for what the issues being faced are. In terms of affiliation, we have relationships with, are doing work with, or at least in communication with, a lot of different groups here all the way from the universities. So we do some work with the UH Hilo, the extension programs, UH Manoa. Just started relationships up and spoke with the community college here also. And then additionally, working with the NRCS offices, the USDA offices, more on the agricultural side of things, working with the Hawaii DOT, as well as some other state DOTs. We are working with some of the local nonprofits, building relationships there, some of the conservationist groups, local construction groups. I could go for a really long time. Yes, affiliations and partnerships are important. I have about 500 people I'd like you to meet. Wonderful. I would like to meet all of them. Are you publishing? Pardon? Are you publishing? Publishing what? Books, articles, white papers. The answer is probably on all of them. Good, good, good. Yeah, you have anything that I could get on your website? Should I go on Amazon? Where do I read your stuff? I can send it to you personally, Jay. So I would encourage anybody to reach out directly to the team. There is a contact form on the website. But I am the most communicative both through email and through LinkedIn. So if anybody utilize just LinkedIn. And my email address is my first name, Brittany at YMAYUMMEG.com. So easy to find. And so Richard, I asked you earlier to introduce Brittany for the show. Now I'm going to ask you to make a summary, a summarization of all that we have learned with her and from her today. Go. Yeah, well, what impresses me about what Brittany does and I'm looking at it from the point of view of a farmer, yeah? And also representing Rob the Slipper folks. And she does that in a really, really good way. So it's easy for people to understand what it is she wants, is trying to do. Because this can get people lost, yeah, this whole thing. But she does a really good job of explaining it. And that's why I'm so committed to supporting her. Because like I said, our mission is to make life better for Kiyuki and Malia, one generation from now. And that's what she's doing. Yeah, your treasure for us, you've got to keep going. One thing that strikes me, though, is that, assume for a moment with me that in some ways Hawaii is a laboratory. And what you're learning and doing here would be useful, say, on the mainland, where they have grouts and floods and the like and agricultural problems and what have you. And Richard doesn't know this, but they also have Rob the Slipper people on the mainland. And I have you thought about taking the benefit of your labor, the fruits of your labor, through the mainland and trying to help people there in the same way. Once you've established the systems you're talking about here, Hawaii. Yeah, and not just the mainland, but the entire world, Jay. So really focusing on Hawaii being the first place so that they can be the leaders in sustainability. We're working on a scale right now that would actually remove more greenhouse gases from the environment than the entire island actually emits. So being seen as the first modern civilization that can operate in a negative fashion in very short order could be a very big light, not only for islands in the United States, but for groups worldwide. So we're really looking at bringing that to as many places as we can thereafter because with between 40 and 50 locations worldwide, we could actually be removing all of the anthropogenically released carbon dioxide or all of the CO2 that humans emit. So that's what we're shooting for. Well, OK. I mean, it sounds like saving the world or at least going in that direction anyway. And I hope we can get there, at least in substantial part, in the near term because we are very threatened existentially by climate change. But once you do that, once you save the world, Brittany, OK, and it's clear, more than most people I know, you are going to do that. Are you going to go back to space? I think as a team, you've decided we will tackle whatever the next most pressing existential issue is. So we'll see what that happens to be. If it's space related, then yes. And if not, then I'm staying here. OK, well, first the world and then the galaxy, Brittany Zimmerman and Richard Hart. Thank you so much, you guys, for coming on the show. Really appreciate the discussion. And speaking for Richard, he really appreciated the discussion, too. Right, Richard? Oh, absolutely. Yes. Thanks for being here. OK, Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.