I am back from Joe Conn. Even though I am recording this before I go to Joe Conn. When I go to Joe Conn, I'm really hoping to meet a lot of you out there. So if you're watching this video after Joe Conn, even though I haven't met you yet, it was really nice to have met you when I meet you. This week we are getting back into the 90s and we are cracking open a new G.I. Joe subteam, The Eco Warriors, and we have a special guest, Chris Pierce from the YouTube video series Comic Tropes. Thanks, HCC. I'm Chris, the host of Comic Tropes, a weekly show where I look at sometimes good and oftentimes bizarre comic books. We like to take a look at the hallmarks, the cliches that various characters or creators would use in their works. And we like to use that just sort of as an entry point into analyzing and breaking down some pretty strange comic books. But you know what? Enough about me. Like you. I want to see the review. Back to you, HCC. We are going to look at one of the craziest figures from Eco Warriors, CleanSweep. And this is going to be kind of an unusual video. Normally I talk about a character's appearances in the old Marvel comic book series. This time, Chris is going to do an entire Comic Tropes video about a comic book featuring CleanSweep. After this video, go to Chris's channel to get a more thorough in-depth analysis of the comic. Chris will also help with this review, too. Excuse me, fellas. Just play him through. Excuse me? We're trying to do a video here. Wait a minute. Are you CleanSweep, the actual subject of this very review? That's my name. Don't wear it out. What? How are you here? I've had fictional characters show up in videos before, but this is getting ridiculous. I'm just doing my job. Same job I've had for nine on 26 years. Same job I had back in the glory days of the Eco Warriors. I'm cleaning up messes. Back in the glory days of the Eco Warriors, you were cleaning up toxic waste. Now it looks like you're pushing a broom. What gives? Oh, I admit the job ain't glamorous, but Cleanin's my name and Cleanin's my game. I'm battling a couple villains known as Filth and Grun, and when I find them, oh boy, let me tell you, they'd met their match.  Now, I don't want to claim any lofty titles like that. I just do my job and let history decide if I'm a hero. Janitors are unsung heroes. It's an important and often thankless job. But why are you here? I was walking by, tended to my sweeping, but I noticed it ain't too tidy around here. Think I'll stick around just to make sure we don't get a case of the messes. Anyway, HCC788 and Comic Troops present Clean Sweep. This is the 1991 GI Joe Eco Warriors Anti-Tox Trooper Clean Sweep. This figure was available in 1991 only. It was discontinued for the year 1992. Clean Sweep was a member of the Eco Warriors, and the Eco Warriors require some explanation. Despite how it looks, this is not a Monsters Inc. action figure. This did come from GI Joe. The Eco Warriors was a new GI Joe sub-team introduced in 1991. According to the marketing for Eco Warriors, Cobra was attempting to pollute the planet in a bid to bring civilization to its knees. The Cobra Anti-Environmental Faction was led by Cesspool. GI Joe organized the Eco Warriors to combat Cobra's toxic plans. The GI Joe Faction was led by Flint, looking very different in his Eco Warrior version than he did in his original figure. There was one vehicle released in the Eco Warriors line in 1991, the Septic Tank. I have special plans for this vehicle, so I'm not going to look at it too closely right now. You're just going to have to wait for that. There were more Eco Warriors figures and vehicles released in 1992, but that was the last year for this sub-team. In general, I like sub-teams. For instance, I would count the Dreadnocks as a sub-team, and I thought that they were pretty awesome all around. I thought that most of the Ninjas were pretty cool. I liked even stuff like Tiger Force and Python Patrol for the most part when it came out. Looking back now, maybe the color schemes aren't always my favorite, but at the time, I still kind of liked it. Eco Warriors was a time when things started to get a little too specific with sub-teams for me. I didn't necessarily have an easy story that I could envision where GI Joe needed to be getting involved in cleaning up toxic waste. For me, it was more about creating stories of military excursions or building weird dioramas against huge building blocks around the forest. I didn't have any great stories to tell about cleaning up waste. There were earlier environment-focused figures in GI Joe, such as the 1988 Toxoviper. This is the only version of Clean Sweep from the vintage line. There was a modern version released as a Joe Con exclusive in 2014 in Dallas, Texas. Coincidentally, that was my first Joe Con. Clean Sweep's predecessor in GI Joe was the 1985 Airtite. Airtite was kind of like an eco warrior before there were eco warriors. I always had a hard time finding a role for Airtite in 1985, but he would have fit with eco warriors perfectly. Oddly, there was not a new version of Airtite for eco warriors, and I think that was a missed opportunity there. Let's take a look at Clean Sweep's accessories, starting with his Hazmat Protective Hood. It has a blue paint advisor, green outlines and green wires, and it's kind of nice to get paint on the accessories. This Hazmat hood is made of a soft flexible plastic, and this cut-out section here actually fits around the electronics on the front of the figure, and that's a nice coordination between accessories and figure. Now let's look at his pistol, and the card contents don't say what this pistol is supposed to be. At this point, Hasbro wasn't listing the accessories on the cards like they did in the 80s. The card contents just say contents, figure, and accessories. That's not very helpful. It is bright neon green, and it looks kind of sci-fi. Next we have the backpack, and the backpack is a two-piece accessory. It has the backpack, and then it has this control arm that connects to the backpack, and the control arm positions in the front of the action figure. This two-piece accessory is really nicely done. It's the color that is very, very unfortunate. Considering the stamped-out accessories trees that we got later in the 90s, it's nice to see a unique, highly detailed accessory like this. But it's the color that's very, very unfortunate. The green color does match the green on the figure, but it is so bright that it will burn out your retinas. The final accessory, if you can call it that, is the robotic sludge-sucker-slash-neuralizer-gel dispenser. Even though the card contents don't name this accessory, it is named on the file card. It is big and blocky, and even though there is some nice detailing on some of the accessory, there are other parts where it's not very well detailed at all. It has fake treads, but no wheels to roll on, so even though this is supposed to be a mobile accessory, it is in fact static. This accessory has a gimmick. It is a water pistol. The nozzle up here in front has some articulation, and at the back it has a plunger, which you can pull out. To fill the tank with water, just put the nozzle in a bowl of water and then pull back on the plunger, and then when the tank is full, then you can push forward on the plunger to shoot out the water. Clean Sweep's accessories make sense for the figure, but they're a little too gimmicky for me. I didn't need color change features or water squirting action. I didn't need rocket firing springs. I liked just simple things that made sense to make the character feel more believable. Give me a good backpack. Give me a realistic rifle. Something like that I was into. The gimmicky stuff, not so much. With the accessories out of the way, let's take a look at the articulation for Clean Sweep. The articulation that was standard for GI Joe figures by 1991, meaning he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Hold the phone. What's that right over there? Over where? Just off camera. Screen left. Oh, that's just stuff from earlier videos that I haven't had a chance to put away yet. Oh, my stars and garters.  A cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind. You'll clean that up right now, mister. This isn't really a good time. I'm in the middle of the review and that stuff wasn't even on camera until you pointed it out. When I'm continuing with your little home movie, until that mess is cleaned up. Fine. May proceed. Let's take a look at the sculpted design and color of Clean Sweep starting with his head and his head is sculpted to look like a bit of a point dexter. I'm not sure if his hairline is receding or if he just has a really bad haircut and he does not wear that mustache well. And his head has kind of a weird shape too. It's very spherical, kind of like a light bulb. His chest is very yellow, very bright yellow. He has some neon green electronics and hoses on the front and back. And those are well sculpted. He is wearing a hazmat suit, which is designed to seal him off from hazardous material in the environment. Hazmat suits do exist in the real world and sometimes they are yellow. His arms are also yellow. He has brown gloves and he has a patch on his left shoulder. It looks like a world globe with some writing around it. I can't quite make out what that is. Looking closer at the lettering around that globe, it looks like it says Enviro Force. Maybe that was a prototype name for eco warriors, but they didn't change it on the action figure, which they really should have. His waist piece has a neon green utility belt with some pouches and it has a grenade. They just can't help themselves from adding grenades. His legs are also yellow, but this is part of his hazmat suit. On his left leg he has some green electronics and wiring and a couple brown straps. And the brown does add some color interest, but maybe not enough. Then he has some tall brown boots. Like other eco warriors figures, this figure had a color change gimmick. The plastic would change colors upon contact with water. And to demonstrate that, I will dunk this figure in a bowl of water. Let's dunk him in the water and see how he changes. Okay, let's take the figure out to look at the changes. And it looks like part of his yellow uniform has turned to brown. And I have to be honest, it looks like he is covered in s**t. His brown boots look like they are covered in s**t. And now his yellow hazmat suit looks like it is covered in s**t.  You again? Let's clean up that potty language. I expect that out of shipwreck, but we won't have that kind of sailor talk around here. Potty language? It's f**king bleeped out. You are cruising for a bruising, young-ish man. Cruising for a bruising?  This is my f**king show, this is a crock of f**king s**t.   Alright, that worked. That's better. Let's keep it G-rated from now on. Now let's take a look at Clean Sweep's file card. And his file card has his factionist GI Joe. It doesn't have any sub-team logos on it. We have a portrait of Clean Sweep, and of course we have his codename as Clean Sweep. There's a hyphen. The GI Joe anti-tox trooper. His file name is Daniel W. Price. His primary military specialty is chemical operations specialist. His secondary military specialty is combat engineer. As a combat engineer, he shares a specialty with a 1985 bridge-layer driver, Tollbooth. These figures have no other similarities, though they could not be more different. His birthplace is Elizabeth, New Jersey, and his grade is E-4. This top paragraph says, once the insidious Cobra polluters have spewed their toxic sludge into a previously pristine environment, there is nothing left to do but call in Clean Sweep. Arriving on the scene with his combination robotic sludge sucker slash neutralizer gel dispenser, Clean Sweep sets his sludge detector slash analyzer computer on autopilot, maintains perimeter security with his laser pistol, and proceeds to clean up Cobra's act. This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says, you might think it's a cushy job, sitting back in a climate-controlled solvent-resistant suit while operating a remote-controlled sludge-sucking robot. But if that robot's tracks get stuck or the sludge pump backs up, Clean Sweep is the one who has to slog out into the toxic waste pool and duck Cobra laser blasts while he's trying to get it going again. Based on his file card, Clean Sweep is the cleanup man. That's all he does. He's not really a combatant. They try to talk him up by making his job sound dangerous and exciting, but they're not fooling me. A lot of his job is automated. The robot does most of the work. If the equipment breaks down, that makes his job harder, but that does not mean his job is interesting or exciting. It just means that if something goes wrong, he has to do more work. But you could say that about anyone's job. Looking at Clean Sweep's appearances in GI Joe Media, he appeared in the DEEK animated series a few times along with other members of the Eco Warriors. There was a two-part story dedicated to the Eco Warriors called the Sludge Factor. Clean Sweep was introduced in Part 1 and was one of the first Eco Warriors to be introduced. In that story, the Eco Warriors are investigating the Super Grove Fertilizer Factory, which is dedicated to turning waste into fertilizer to end world hunger. And that's a noble pursuit if I've ever heard one. The factory is attacked by Cobra, and the CEO falls into his toxic formula and is transformed into the villain Cesspool. He blames GI Joe for this, so he joins Cobra. Cesspool, the leader of Cobra's environmental terrorists, uses toxic sludge to pollute the environment. He also uses his sludge to mutate bugs into monsters and mutate people into bugs. There is a kernel of a good story here, but these are DEEK cartoon episodes. That means they are dragged down by a lot of DEEK cheese. Clean Sweep appeared in only three issues of the Marvel comic, issues number 123 through 125, and I have to be honest, those issues are not good. I do recognize some attempt to innovate. Larry Hama was being asked to integrate weirder and weirder things into the comic book continuity, and that is probably more than any weirder could do. Looking at Clean Sweep overall, if you hate bright colors on GI Joe figures, you will hate this figure. I don't hate this figure as much as I thought I would. Now hear me out, that doesn't mean I like the figure. Bright colors can work well on GI Joe figures. Sometimes bright colors make sense, like with barbecue and airtight, and sometimes they don't, like with ice cream soldier. For Clean Sweep, the bright yellow actually makes sense. He's wearing a hazmat suit, and hazmat suits are often in bright colors, like white or yellow. Clean Sweep's suit is more or less realistic, and it is appropriate for his job. He's not a frontline combat troop. His job is to clean up pollution after the battle. His gun is really only for self defense. As I burning as this color scheme is, it sort of makes sense. Other eco-warriors with combat roles have fewer excuses for their colors. Further, environmental terrorism is a real phenomenon. It would make sense for GI Joe to have a sub-faction to combat it. The timing of eco-warriors was prescient. They came out in 1991. That same year during the Gulf War, the Iraqi army set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields as they were retreating. Those fires burned for months before they were all extinguished. That's exactly the sort of thing that a real eco-warriors team would be called in to fix. The sculpting on the uniform is well done. The accessories are mostly pretty good. The backpack and the extension are unique and well detailed. The worst accessory is the robotic water gun. That thing needed wheels. And even if it had wheels, it's still blocky and not very aesthetically pleasing. There are some objective reasons to like the figure, but subjectively, it combines a lot of elements that I don't like. Yes, the yellow makes sense, but it is a bright neon yellow. The brightness is overwhelming. Yes, Airtight also had a yellow hazmat suit, but his wasn't quite as bright. And it was offset by some army green and black. Clean Sweep suit is lined with neon green. It's one eye-burning neon color on top of another. Some color interest could have been added through the accessories, but they just used the same yellow and neon green. There are multiple gimmicks. There's the color change feature and the water squirting accessory, and I can do without both of those. The head sculpt is not great. He looks ridiculous. He does not look like a member of an elite Special Forces unit. Personally, I never had this action figure. I got into G.I. Joe in 1986, though, and I was a big fan. I came to it through the comic books. I discovered the comic book in 1986, and I fell in love with Larry Hama's writing. I thought he created some indelible characters, some really exciting plot lines, and it was really just a month or two after I started reading the comic books that I quickly started buying the action figures. So I was getting the 1986 waves, and I would visit flea markets and antique stores to fill in some of the ones from before. I was still getting action figures in 1991, but I was starting to get out of it, and the more neon an action figure was, the less interested I personally was in it. So Clean Sweep was one I just avoided. My biggest problem with Clean Sweep is a problem with the concept of the eco-warriors. They could have been an interesting new angle in the fight against Cobra. I don't have a problem with G.I. Joe having a social conscience. The problem is it is not sincere, and the insincerity comes through. The executives who approved this idea wanted to compete against Captain Planet. They cared about market share, and Captain Planet for all its flaws at least seemed sincere in its goal to educate kids about the environment and ecology, but eco-warriors is cynical. It exists to leech money away from a competitor that happened to be popular at the time. If there was a popular cartoon called Captain Feed the Homeless, then G.I. Joe would have had Feed the Homeless Warriors. Also, eco-warriors distances itself from its own reason for existing by fighting against made up comic book-y toxic sludge rather than real pollution. Even the CEO of Evil Corp Toxic Waste Factory would not feel threatened by eco-warriors' environmentalist message. No. These eco-warriors are not fighting against our pollution. This is acceptable. For these reasons, I put Clean Sweep in the bottom tier, and it will be difficult for any eco-warrior to escape the same fate. Clean Sweep. There's one thing I don't understand. Why are you still in your eco-warriors' uniform, and why are you still eco-warrioring 26 years after your figure was released? I don't know what you mean. Why wouldn't I still be eco-warrioring? You do know that the eco-warriors were disbanded after the 1992 series, right? What? The eco-warriors disbanded, and nobody told me? Didn't you think it was odd that there are no other eco-warriors around, and you're the only one still doing that job? Flint, Ozone, Deep Six? They haven't appeared as eco-warriors for more than 20 years. I thought...I thought those guys were all just really late for work. They're not 25 years late for work, Clean Sweep. They all got different jobs. All this time, I've been working for a team that doesn't exist. I've wasted more than two decades of my life.  You've been trying to clean up the world's messes, and that is a noble pursuit. But you probably should move on and get a new job. You are right. Right as rain. But what job should I get? Got any suggestions? What kind of job do you have? Me? I'm a lawyer. What? I had no idea I was talking to such a dangerous person. What are you talking about? How is hooded Cobra Commander dangerous? The lawyer was the most feared weapon in the eco-warrior's arsenal. That's how we ultimately defeated cesspool.  I'm not that kind of lawyer. Honest to gosh, you can clutter up your table and use all the gutta talk you want. Just don't unleash your power on me. What do you think I shoot laser beams out of my nostrils or something?  You know why I gotta be moving along? I just found out I've been unemployed for the last 25 years, so I better start a job hunt right away. Goodbye. Anyway, go over to the Comic Tropes YouTube channel and check out Chris's review of GI Joe issue number 125. And thank you, Chris, for helping out with this review. Thank you, everyone, for watching this video. I do have a website, hcc788.com. You can order a t-shirt and check out all my GI Joe toy reviews. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon. Next week I've got something special lined up. It is July, and that means Cobra Month. I want to see all of you there. Until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe. What do you mean, why wouldn't I still be eco-warrior-re-year-old? I can give it.


Come back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections. And we're going to talk about Gorbachev. Where does he fit in global history? He died a couple of weeks ago. We need to have a retrospective on what he did, where he fit, and the influence he left, the legacy he left, if you will, on Russia and on Russian relations with the U.S. and other countries. For this discussion, we have Carl Ackerman, who joins us from Honolulu. And Rob Matthews, who joins us from Chevy Chase. The two were on a trip together in 1991, where 25 students rambled around Russia with Carl and learned a lot about the Russian people, Russian history, and it just so happens they were there at the time of Glass Nose, which left an impression on everyone involved. Welcome to the show, Carl. Thank you, Jay.  And Rob, of course, it's, you know, it's one of the greatest pleasures in a long time to be able to see you in person and hear you speak. The feeling is mutual. Tell me, tell me where Gorbachev fits on this. I mean, how did he rise to power? What sort of power did he have and what was happening under his feet so that we could have Glass Nose, you know, under him, around him, changing Russia, you know, for a long time, hopefully, forever, you know, and I think we need to know what Glass Nose actually was and what the change in Russia was. Rob, can you talk about, you know, your perceptions of Mikhail Gorbachev and what you found, what you learned, what you know now about his imprimatur on Russian history? Well, to be, to be totally honest, a lot of my perspective comes from my own personal experience, just as a teenager growing up in the United States and spending a surprisingly fortuitous summer in Russia, and experiencing the culture and the people that were there and in retrospect, it's certainly the case that the society that we experienced in those weeks didn't seem remarkable at all to us at the time, but in retrospect, that I think is very much the outcome from Gorbachev's policies of Glass Nose and Perestroika. And this was what, six or seven years into his, his, his transitions. So what we, what I remember experiencing in the, in the city of Sochi was a very, a pretty open and welcoming city and a lot of freedom of movement and a lot of tourism. And I, I feel like certainly in retrospect, that is a credit to his policies in the years leading up to that point. Carl, can I turn to you now or is it soup, is it soup? No, no, it's, it's, it's good. So, you know, this was a remarkable time for Robert and I to be in the Soviet Union along with the 24 of his colleagues. And, you know, it was during the coup. So we actually saw the coup front-handed. Ironically, we're in Sochi and very safe. And because, you know, Soviet bureaucracy is what it is, they flew us right into the middle of the coup in Moscow the day it started. And I'll always remember my Soviet contact saying to me, Carl Leopoldovich, small problem, coup d'etat, as we landed in Moscow. And so, you know, my job was to make sure that these 20, 25 students were well kept, well kept. But the answer question is, you know, what people failed to read, I think they failed to realize this at the time is Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to improve the Sochi Union. Glasnost didn't mean democracy, it meant openness. And he was trying to improve the economic system and Perestroika was just that, a restructuring of the economic system. So he was a party secretary bent on reform. He was a true Marxist-Leninist. And you know, in later years when he went to the West and actually had his foundation, he became much more of a liberal Democrat, small d. And so that's what we have to remember. But still, it was very brave of him. I mean, he did not want to go into Eastern Europe and put down rebellions. And so, you know, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. So Gorbachev, you know, even among Russian scholars, there were people all across the country, especially people on the left, who were saying, yes, this is going to be a great Soviet Union.  And there was one professor at Berkeley named Martin Malia. And Martin Malia wrote a piece in the New York Times called Z, you know, to kind of refer to the X document that appeared by George Kennan during the Cold War, which is, you know, absolute deterrence.  But Martin Malia wrote this piece called Z and it was in the New York Times. And what he said is he can't reform a totalitarian system. If you open it up, it's going to fall like a house of cards. And indeed, Martin Malia was right. And Martin Malia was always sort of center right. And he got this one right. And I'm not trying to advocate for the right or the left here. I'm just, you know, trying to tell you what happened. And I'm going to embarrass my student now because when we got on the bus and we were going to our hotel, and then we took a tour during the three days with the kids eating, you know, McDonald's hamburgers, because Gorbachev had let a lot of different things in. But when we got on the bus originally, you know, there were tanks surrounding us. And it was a very difficult situation. And of course, I stood up in my colleague Gail, who was my co-chaperone. We told the students not to do anything crazy. So anyway, to end this story, Robert, who had just a, you know, just a wonderful sense of humor. And while I can't say he was a favorite, I had to treat all the students carefully. I really admired his humor. And he stood up as if he were in the Wizard of Oz and he was Dorothy. And he clicked his heel three times standing up and said, I wish I were home. I wish I were home. I wish I were home, which brought down the house on the bus because you can imagine these tanks were passing us. We were on the Ring Road.  So anyway, that's, Rob, you saved the day in a sense because you made people much more relaxed. Rob, you want to do rebuttal on that? No, but, you know, as we were talking it, and specifically, you know, thinking about the cultural differences of the glass nose period versus the more totalitarian state, it made me realize that the morning that we were supposed to fly back to and just supposed to and did fly into Moscow, you know, the night before everything was quote unquote normal. And then I woke up that morning with my bags packed and ready to get on the plane and fly to Moscow. And the host brother that was part of the small family that I was living with, he came into my bedroom, which was really just like a three season porch. I was sleeping on a couch for the few weeks that I was living with them. He came in and he said, Gorbachev is very sick. The news has gone off the air and he has, he has retired or resigned. He said something like that. And sure enough, everything that we had had experienced, you know, on that morning, it all changed. And suddenly, you know, I did witness what it would be like in an environment where there was no television, there was no news. It all switched to classical music. And and we, I remember standing on the sidewalk waiting to get on the bus to go to the airport and no one had any idea what was going on. None of the kids, we didn't get a whole lot of information from our guides because they didn't have a whole lot of information to give us. And so we just piled onto the plane and landed in Moscow. And suddenly, as Carl mentioned, we were driving around Moscow with big tanks and armor personnel carriers all along the highways and on all the corn, street corners and the next day we went on a tour of the museum at the Kremlin. Not to be deterred. So what is it with the coup? What was, what happened in the coup? Who was doing what and what was the result of it? Well, basically what there was, you know, a right wing in the in the Politburo. And I'm trying to remember whether it was Gorosimov for or not the general that was in charge. But they planned a coup against Gorbachev. They arrested him, you know, in his in the Sochi area in the Crimea actually wasn't so she was in Crimea. We were in Sochi and and there was an attempt to move Russia in a much more right wing direction and replace him in the Politburo. And, you know, what was supposed to happen is according to the coup planners is they were going to take over everything, you know, fire on the crowds. And, you know, it was a case like the Russian Revolution of February 1917.  But it was it was a failed coup d'etat because the right wingers did not have enough enough support. And one of the ironies of life is that this entire trip for us was sort of a crazy trip because as Robert will tell you we were supposed to be in Almata and Kazakhstan. That was the original destination and suddenly we went to Sochi because, you know, the Soviet inter-system there was a glitch and so we ended up miles away. We weren't in Kazakhstan. We were in Russia. And then while we were in Sochi there was a tornado. There was an outbreak of cholera and then there was a coup.  And, you know, the kids were staying as Robert said in the longer kids I may add young adults were staying in host families. And so they got a really good look of what Soviet life was like even under the Gorbachev period.  And so there were lots of different cultural things that the that our students had to realize. And of course Russian students and Russian kids, you know, from a pretty young age are able to drink and they learn not to drink, you know, in great quantities. But, you know, the kids that were in the homestays, you know, had access to alcohol too. And so that was another thing because, you know, American students are taught not to drink alcohol at all. And so when exposed to this, most of the kids, you know, kept their wits about them, but there are a couple kids that I had to go in the middle of the night and, you know, detoxify them because they had been offered too much liquor by their host families. You mean vodka? You mean vodka? Yeah, it was, it was well, it was Georgian wine and it was it was vodka and it was, you know, and the joke about vodka is the word for water in Russian is vodka. And you know what vodka is, of course.  That's the kind of funny phrase. So Rob, let's unpack some of that. You mentioned before the show that the Russians liked Americans, that they were friendly to you and so forth. And that's really important. And there had been no, under Gorbachev, there had been a kind of enlightenment, a move to be more liberal, more accepting from the Cold War. Because remember, you know, the U.S. and Russia had been in the Cold War and now it was somehow softening with Gorbachev. Just to say, as Carl said, that it was a failed coup, not a successful one. And he came back, although not for all that long. But my, you know, my question is, you know, how did the Russian people that you interacted with feel about Gorbachev? Was he a statement of the future for them? Or did they see him as a somehow retrograde? I honestly don't remember having any direct conversations with the Russian students about Gorbachev or any specific politicians on either side of the Cold War. I remember speaking to them and having conversations with them about more general kinds of conversations about, I remember having a conversation with somebody, I think we were at a tea plantation, Carl. And I remember we just sat down and we started talking about, you know, they had no real idea what it was like to live in America, not surprisingly. But for me, as a 17-year-old kid with very little world experience, I was sort of surprised by that. I just kind of assumed that everybody knew what it was like to live in America. And so they asked questions like, would Americans be willing to help us move to a market economy? And I thought, of course, how could you question that? Of course, there are Americans that would want to help you move to it. Optimistic, this whole conversation.  But that was a moment in time that I will distinctly remember. And this is, of course, a couple of weeks before the coup actually took place. So everything seemed very, very normal to everybody around. No one had any indication that this was about to, that everything was about to end. Was they unwilling or perhaps unable to talk to you about Russian politics? I don't really know the answer to that. I don't. We certainly had some conversations about bureaucracy and the kind of the Soviet system in very general terms, just kind of like the jokes on the street kind of thing. I don't remember ever having any specific conversations about what the political system was like for the kids. Because, you know, for the most part, they were, my host brother, who I lived with, was only 15. So they were all about the same ages as we were. They weren't really out in the world themselves yet, either. Stay in touch with him? I stayed in touch with him for a little while, but 30 years is a long time. I've lost touch with him since then. I'll go with that. You learned that here on Think Tech. 30 years is really a long time. And Carl Ackerman can help us understand that. So Rob, you know, you apparently jumped up and down and said, I want to go home. Why? Why did you do that? Probably just to make people laugh. I mean, I actually, I was really enjoying being in the thick of it. And I was not eager to go home. So I was not, I was one of the more careful students in the group when it came to, while we were, I remember driving around, some of the students were kind of waving at the soldiers. And I thought that was probably pushing the envelope a little bit. But yeah, I, it didn't seem all that dangerous to you. I didn't, I didn't think that we were in any real danger, but I also didn't want to poke the bear. So that's the story Carl told about you, but what's the story you were going to tell us about Carl? Uh-oh. Uh-oh.   But the following day we went to the Kremlin Museum and we toured Moscow and walked around the streets and bought things on the streets, just like we were regular tourists because I mean, we went to, like Carl said, we went to McDonald's. And the story I remember is that on one of our little excursions as, you know, we kind of broke out into groups and let people wander around the streets a little bit. And me and a friend of mine were walking along the sidewalk and Carl told us to stop and he walked further down the, the, the, the path and talked to a uniformed individual in front of the door somewhere. And then Carl came back and it brought us over and he said, I just told this guard that you two are the children of diplomats. And so he is allowing us to go into this cemetery. And it was the Novodetsky cemetery. And we went and visited Khrushchev's grave. And Carl told us, given the moment in history that we're at, I felt it was important to go visit Khrushchev's grave to whatever degree we could. And so the guard was more than willing to, I suspect, take some money and believe the story that we were diplomats. And I guess we looked Russian enough that we, he let us through the door. And so that's our, that's my story of how I got in to see Khrushchev's grave on August 20th, 1991. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Carl, you said that a third of the group were Japanese. No, they were, you know, they were heavily kits mostly from all over, from all over the United States, because it was an American field service trip. And, you know, as I recall, we may have had some training in upstate New York before we left, but in other words, they were kids from all over the place. And they were, they were kids from all over. And just to add to that story, no money exchanged hand, but, but, but, but. It's a better story with money exchanging hands, Carl. We're leaving it ambiguous.  And so, you know, I told us white lies in order to get these kids into to see Nikita Khrushchev's grave, which is, of course, was just so apropos given his attempts to reform Russia himself during the coup with Mikhail Gorbachev. And, you know, Jay, this is what Rob said has particularly a particular significance for what's happening today. Remember, he talked about his host brother coming after watching the television and still most Russians have one, you know, have a television and they get most of their news from that and they reflect that news the way people do sometimes by only watching, you know, either CNN or Fox News, they don't try to get the, you know, the alternative opinion and they, you know, especially people in our country that, you know, listen to sort of craziness, you know, on either far left or far right, you know, podcasts and stuff like that and they take that verbatim. In Russia, you know, the Russians, at least I give them some credit because that's the only thing available. That's why Vladimir Putin is being able to do what he has done. But I have to say about Rob and his 24 colleagues, they were really good. I mean, you know, it was, it's because I immediately called our embassy and they couldn't get us out before the date that we had to plan, which was three days later and by that time the coup was over and Mikhail Gorbachev was restored and back in Moscow. It was a pretty, for me as an adult, it was pretty frightening and we were taking the subways and I always remember these young guys with bull horns, you know, who were leading the movement, you know, the student movement, of course they could have been shot like, you know, at Tiananmen Square and things like this because it was a Marxist regime. But, you know, people had seen the flowering of Glastonost and Perestroika and even though under Gorbachev a lot of, people had a lot of problems with getting goods and services and of course originally he put a ban on vodka which is, you know, you don't do that in Russia. So people were complaining about him but they appreciated the kind of freedoms they had and a lot of people weren't scared anymore.  How important was he in turning the country toward Glastonost? How important was he in enlightening Russia because that happened right around that time? Was this his intention? What was his philosophical, you know, orientation here? What made it possible for this to happen under him? Rob, I'm going to let you take a crack and then I'll take a crack. Certainly my impression is that it's entirely due to him. But there were, my understanding is that there were, there were some shoots of reform that were trying to poke up through the bureaucracy and the system before he took over. But it was, it was his entire personality, his motivation, you know, everything about him was dedicated to that prospect of reforming Russia and within the system, as Karl pointed out, he didn't, he was not trying to institute a democratic system at the time. But he, it was, it was his, it was really his show. Okay. So he's really important in understanding modern Russia because of, you know, the huge inflection point that Glastonost created or reflected. And here we are 30 years later and we have Vladimir Putin there, Putin who was, as I recall, he was in East Germany, East Berlin at the time the wall was taken down, trying to protect KGB documents and the like. That, you know, the story about how he prevented the mob in East Germany from tearing down the Russian embassy there by speaking to them in German because he does speak German, the whole thing. He was instrumental but very loyal and faithful to the preservation of, you know, of the USSR. Okay. So how, what's the connection between Mikhail Gorbachev and Glastonost and Enlightenment or reform to the extent it happened in Russia and Vladimir Putin, we need to connect it somehow or not. Would you say that Vladimir Putin liked what Gorbachev had done for Russia or was he unhappy about it, Karl? You know, I would say that, you know, the response and I agree with Rob about, you know, it was Gorbachev. You know, he's entirely responsible but he was reacting, you may recall, that the United States had just launched this kind of missile system called Star Wars under Ronald Reagan and he needed to reform his country in order to even compete in the Cold War. So that was his motivation. He wanted to make the Soviet Union stronger so that's why he launched Perestroika, well first Glastonost and then, well, first Perestroika then Glastonost. But the connection is that Boris Yeltsin who took over after Mikhail Gorbachev was still a pretty reforming guy. I mean, he allowed democracy to flourish. He allowed lots of different thick journals to be published, you know, one was called Spark or Gun Yoke. And there was a lot of Democratic fever going on or fervor going on in Russia. The problem was that, you know, Boris Yeltsin was older and he was drinking a lot of vodka and they wanted someone new and vibrant. And so he turned to this young guy who came out of a fairly liberal cohort in St. Petersburg, Lettingrad initially and then St. Petersburg. And then, you know, people thought of him as sort of continuing the reforms even though he had been KGB because he could be part of the government and still be liberal. But as it turned out, you know, they didn't know enough about Vladimir Putin. And of course, he has almost a psychosis as Macron said the other day on CNN about the Soviet Union falling.  I don't think either of them would have been for that. But under the current conditions, I think both men would have reacted much differently. And I think what they failed to realize, so to put it in sort of a historical perspective, Mikhail Gorbachev was a westerner going back to the 19th century. And these guys always, these politicians and philosophers always looked to the west and saw the west as a beacon of light. And there was another group called the Slavo files of the 19th century. And they thought of greater Russia and only great Russia can do this. And we have our own morality and stuff like that. And actually Vladimir Putin fits right into that. And so did Boris Yeltsin know this when he appointed Vladimir Putin? Probably not. He didn't think that Vladimir Putin would be the kind of guy that he is. So that's my sort of elusive way. How do you think that Boris Yeltsin and for that matter, Mikhail Gorbachev would approve of what Putin has done since and what Putin is doing now? Well, I think that although, at least in that the things I've read about Gorbachev in the last few weeks or so, it's clear that he was disappointed in the way that Putin had been directing Russia away from his reforms. And I have to believe that because it's my impression of Yeltsin is that he was an even stronger reformer in that way. I think that he was much more of a Democrat, lower case Democrat than Gorbachev was. And so I think that both of them, I mean Gorbachev was, I don't know, maybe he wasn't explicitly, I don't know how verbal he was about it, but it seemed like he was pretty obviously disappointed in the direction that Putin had taken the country and my suspicion is that Yeltsin would have been even more so. Looking back at your trip 30 years ago, actually a little more than that, and then integrating that with what we read in the newspaper these days, especially over the past five months, would you go back to Russia now? Even if Karl asked you nicely. My family and I have had a pending trip that we have been hoping to take for the past two, three years, maybe even longer, where we would take the Trans-Siberian Railway all the way across Russia with some of our Russian friends. That has been postponed for various reasons. I would love to go back, assuming that it's safe to do so. I would love to go back and see Sochi again, see Moscow again, see how things have changed and things have not changed. They say that the Trans-Siberian Railroad is only terrible if you spend your time on the vodka. I'd rush back to that, or I'd rush back to that, never mind. Karl, let's try to make sense of this. What, if any, influence do you think that Gorbachev had now that he's dead on the Russian people? For example, is it a sad moment that he died? Did they miss him? Was there a big funeral? As I recall, Putin did not attend the funeral. He had something else on his schedule that day. But, you know, query, what do the Russian people feel about Mikhail Gorbachev now that he died? It seems to me a mark in history, but maybe a lot of people don't feel that way. And what influence do you think he had on today's Russia, today's Putin? Well, I think that, you know, he was admired by many people who admired democracy in Russia. And remember, it was just a brief experiment.   So I think that to answer your first question, it was a well-attended funeral. Vladimir Putin came earlier with flowers, but he didn't attend the official ceremony. So I think that people have mixed reactions. Most Russian have mixed reactions about Mikhail Gorbachev. It was a time of economic problems. So they remember that if they're old enough. Younger people probably have great enthusiasm for him because they're the ones that are developing their capitalist interests and, you know, they're used to the new philosophy and if they remember him at all. But, you know, people liked that sort of liberal flowering, but they also had problems with his economic policies. So I think that sort of puts it in perspective. And I think that, you know, his legacy is this, I think, is that there is a democratic movement in Russia, and I think that's his legacy. That's his long-term legacy. And whether it turns out to be the kind of, you know, Republican democracy that we have in the United States, we'll have to see. Because Russians tend to like, you know, because of the century of very strong rulers, they tend to like, you know, as they say, Sylvain Chelevec, a strong leader. And it was interesting that they really liked Kennedy during my early years in the 60s when I was there. And they thought of Kennedy as a very strong leader. And of course, he was the main enemy of Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. So I thought that was interesting, but it shows where they gravitate. And I think a lot of people in the world today, if you look at Italy, are gravitating towards, you know, some right-wing dictators. Of course, the German example is just the opposite. So in any case, I think that the legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev is the democratic spirit among the people, the Russian people. And you can see what's happening now. And of course, the other legacy is that, you know, he did not invade. He didn't invade Germany. He didn't follow the Brezhnev doctrine. You know, the Brezhnev followed in 1968 under, you know, when Czechoslovakia wanted to go a little bit more liberal. So, you know, the Russians, for the, you know, for the most part, do not want war. They learned in Chechnya that they're going to have, you know, their Russian children come back in body bags. So I think the two legacies of Mikhail Gorbachev are peace and also the democratic spirit. Okay. I was going to ask you, you know, what Vladimir Putin would say about the influence that Gorbachev had on him. And I think that speaks through the fact that he really did not make a full, a full attendance at Gorbachev's funeral. There's a statement there. What do you think, what do you think he would say? What do you think Putin would say about the influence on him of Gorbachev? I think that, as Karl pointed out, I think that he, that the psychosis, is that the word that you refer to? I think that that's fairly true. I think that, that through that lens, you, I mean, whether it's just the psychosis or if it's just simply a fixation through that lens, you can sort of explain away a lot of what Putin has done over the last 10 to 15 years, trying to reclaim the glory of both the Soviet Union and the emperor, the imperialistic Russia before that. Yeah, so he would not be too happy with Gorbachev. He was trying to reverse what Gorbachev had done. I do think that that's a lot of what motivates his, certainly his foreign policy, is directed at restoring that, that position in the world that Russia apparently, at least in his mind, once had. Rob, I want to ask you one more question. You were 17, you were impressionable. You were, you know, how do you define a 17-year-old student? And you got, you know, you had a lot of surprises. The trip was filled with surprises of one kind or another, thrills and chills all around Russia. You know, you must have talked about it for months, maybe longer than that. And of course, if you have a trip like that, even without the surprises, it helps you appreciate a place. It helps define that place in your mind and memory. And of course, I would expect that you have followed the events in Russia more than most people, more than people who've never been there, for example.  But how do you feel about the country today? How do you feel about what is happening in the protests in Moscow? What is happening in the Russian, the young Russian people? Some of them who might be your age right now today who are trying to get out of there any way they can, including a lot of software developers like you, I might add. How do you feel about Russia in the, what do you want to call it, Carl referred to this, in the transformational transitional times between when you were there and now? Certainly the current moment is fairly disheartening. Leading up to, I would say, leading up to probably the, shortly after the Sochi Olympics, it seemed like there was still optimism and that spirit that I remember from those days is still present. And there are certainly pockets of that, and I certainly know people who have more direct experience who still share some of that optimism. But overall, when I open up the virtual newspaper every day these days, it's like a real flashback to those final days wandering around Moscow. Talk about flashbacks, Carl. 30 years later, what do you think of Rob looking at him today versus as a 17-year-old on the trip with you? Well, the interesting thing about Rob, and this is also true of my Milani and Punahou students, is their faces don't change all that much. They just, people get taller. The kids were from 15 to 17, and they were mostly Rob's age and stuff like that. And Jay, the thing that I wanted to convey is that when we landed back in New York, the parents were there, and of course the parents had no idea what was going on. We barely could get information out. Luckily, I had a friend in the State Department, and he tried to do wonders, and he lives in Honolulu, by the way, in Hawaii. Jay, just for that information. But it was, the students were remarkably resilient. Let me also ask you, finally, one last question.  My answer is not today, but sometime in the future, and maybe I'll join Rob in his transcibility and railroad venture with my family, because my girls want to go, and they say, Dad, we have to go before you get too old, because you can still speak a matter of Russian. I hope you go, and I hope you come back, too. And I hope you join us for another retrospective on life in Russia as a student group, observing what is happening around you. It's really fascinating to consider all the changes. On the other hand, when you consider those changes and you compare them to the changes in this country, we are no less full of surprises. Well, thank you very much, Carl. Carl Ackerman. Rob Matthews, really appreciate you coming around and talking about the good old days. Aloha. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.


a fossil day. Hey, I'm almost a fossil. You know what? When I think of fossils, we've got about a minute. When I think about fossils, I sometimes wonder where everybody else is because fossils are very rare. The circumstances to create fossils are very rare, and yet we have a lot of the National Geographic magazine. I'm not, you know, I'm not advertising it. I just, I like it. It has a great article on what we know about dinosaurs these days. And they're very different from when I was young. And it's because we're filling in the fossil record quite well. Okay, it's time to start. If you're new to, let's see, I haven't looked through the names, but we've got a pretty good crowd today. And first thing I'd like to do is say, welcome to the Science Circle. And if you're new, we try to go for about an hour. Now, that said, please feel free to ask questions, comments, all that stuff like that, just like in class. I hate to just talk to myself. So welcome. And I'd like to talk to you today about some of the exciting technologies that will help to change your future. And so let's go on, or let's start, is I've entitled my presentation today, Emerging Technologies. The future is here. And yeah, over there too.  And since our presentations kind of have focused on science and not technology, I'd like to provide a bit of background about what technology is, particularly emerging technology. I have eight exciting technologies to share with you. And you've likely heard of them, because that's one of the characteristics of emerging technologies. It's just that you may not be as acquainted with them as people who actually work in the field. Nonetheless, they'll probably all impact you. So it's wise to learn about them now. Okay, so let's take a look at what I plan to share with you today. First, like I said, I'll give you a little bit of background of what tech is, what kind of tech we've had in the past, emerging tech, and at the end some conclusions. And I'd very much like to know what you think along the way. Okay, so a little bit of background. The first thing is what is technology? Well, I've kind of defined it loosely as anything you have that you weren't born with. That would mean anything from fire to pens to, yeah, okay, to, you know, to what brings us here today. Well, okay, I know there's always definitions really you have to define a little bit more than just that, right? Okay. So yeah, no, but maybe what cuts your beard, if you cut your beard, certainly is part of it. But that's just a loose definition. In other words, the idea it's not just computers. You're winning charming personality. Well, is that, I won't ask how you got it, maybe technology. Okay, so why do we use it? It's software or wetware as they call in computers. In other words, when you talk about people, it's wetware and then software is things you write and blah, blah, blah. Okay. So why do we use technology? Well, it helps us to do things we normally do only better and easier and some things we can't. In other words, I can't see the microscopic world. We can now see down to atoms. We can see billions of, in other words, we can enhance our senses that we already have and we can do things that we would like to do if better. Okay. So that's kind of these, here again, these are all kind of loose ideas. If you have a slightly different way of looking at it, please. So emerging technology is that basically it's tech that you may have heard of, but you don't have it yet. You can't just order it online. Okay. Okay. So technology is part of STEM or STEAM. Now, I don't know how universal that is. I decided to spell it out here, essentially, to put it in perspective. But we've been studying, most of the presentations are on science that is study of the physical world.  That's, that's right. We're so downed up in technologies and stuff. We tend to think of them as almost an extender of ourselves. So technology is the physical application of science. We'll be talking a bit about it. Yes. Actually 5G is one of the, is the very first one that we'll be talking about. Okay. Engineering is how to create the technologies. Art is, in other words, a lot of technologists like to make things look nice and have aesthetic qualities to them, instead of just functional. And math, of course, is a precise language for the whole thing. Language of relationships. Okay. So let's take a look then. Now, whether you believe it or not, when you use technology, you're basically saying, I trust science. I trust in science. You can't use gas or electricity or whatever without saying I trust in chemistry. You, if the reason that you probably don't have a lot of diseases is because or infections. Remember that, of course, life expectancy, now that's average life expectancy was very low even 100 years ago. And it's still low in many places because they may not have quite the access to medicine and stuff. But basically, you don't have measles monthly polio, smallpox, whatever, because enough people use vaccines and we have medicine. You trust your life every time you fly or drive. And you trust computers to communicate and do almost everything. We've just mentioned that. Well, and that's the irony, of course, tagline is they use that and then they are actually saying I'm trusting in this to be able to get my word out. Okay, now there's a there's about four little videos that very small between say two and a half to three minutes. And yeah, well, but the problem with that synergy is that for anyone that makes those type of arguments, you can't reason with them because it's not a rational argument. That's one of the things I've had to learn is down the nabby. Okay, so every technology has been new. So what I would like you to do and I'll do it too is it's now seven minutes after this is about three minutes and 30.  In other words, go there, take a look at it and look for why and reactions and social issues. Okay, I'll be back in about three minutes and 30 seconds. Okay, hope everybody's had enough time to yeah, it's it's very interesting is help everybody's had enough time to take a look at that. Let's see just hook up the bugging or well cry of a banshee absolutely. We're gonna talk about that here just a second. In fact, the first thing that I would ask is why did they want to have a telephone? In other words, let's see my slides starting to clear in there. Okay, so why would you want to have a telephone? The other thing is why you're kind of writing a couple things there about why you'd want to have a telephone, although I actually put the answer unfortunately. Well, but what about communications face to face? In other words, why why telephone? Well, they needed long they needed operators for long distance for quite a while, you're right. And there was a five in the United States, there was a five to call the housekeeper in London, right? Actually, the very first, of course, this is now you're now trading on my field. This is my my prior expertise, but the first phone lines in the United States were between rich people and their debt and their doctors in Connecticut, first phone book. And so there were limited connections at the very beginning, the same way as perhaps there's limited places for electric cars to refuel all these sorts of things like that. Yeah, so there's lots of reasons for it. And the idea is rather than to be there in person, it would be like think of what think of how difficult it would be is if you had to travel somewhere in the world to attend these presentations, obviously that would be prohibited. So the other part of it, though, is what before I put it up there, what kind of reaction did people have to the telephone? Just one one reaction that you've heard. And one of them was like, Clive of Anshi. Yeah, besides the, in other words, reactions, talk loudly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, not too many of my friends who needs it, all that kind of stuff like size. This is this is kind of what I saw is one it's not a toy. Of course, this is kind of generational differences. In other words, if you actually look at a kid and give them a piece of technology, they'll be right at home with it.  Don't hurt it. A self consciousness. Yeah, that sort of thing. Okay, first class difference. In other words, that the headbuttner was the one that's, you know, that kind of stuff. I was actually told when I first joined. Well, when I was in the first joined the military back in the 70s, is I started using the first word processors, these big eight inch floppy drive things. And my boss said, officers are not supposed to use them. Those are for the enlisted people. So obviously he wasn't a very forward thinking. So yeah, alarm over rapid change, acting defensively, alarm over the unfamiliar trepidation overuse, all of that stuff. Now, what kind of any social up, there we go, social behaviors, that some of the social issues I caught on was, you know, who can you call competition peer pressure, saying things online that you wouldn't impress like we do now, telephone voice, all of that. Now, in a later episode, or I'd heard about it was essentially much like social media today, they said, we'll forget how to talk face to face if we use the telephone. So, you know, there's lots of different ways and it really hasn't changed over. I frankly don't think it's changed over a century, as far as our reactions of things. Okay, so who creates technology, I'm going to run through here, because I want to get to the technologies. But let's take a look through here. First of all, people with money and a reason to do so. So you've got the government universities, businesses with money who create it. Why? Well, in some cases, why not? In other cases, unfortunately, a lot of our technology has come from war or health situations. You know, right now, they're scrambling to try to get a vaccine for the virus, SARS-2 virus, unexpected gain or reputation. Look at us, you know, as far as technology and what we're doing and using, et cetera, new and improved. Okay, yeah. Okay. So then the other one is who gains from it. Well, hopefully, people that can use it, unfortunately, where somebody was talking about the disparities between haves and have-nots earlier. Yep, if you haven't tried the phone can with the tin can and the string, and then the vibration of the wire, that's a really good way to understand what's going on. I'll have to remember that from my telecom class. Yeah, I've got, by the way, I'm a kind of a tech quarter, and I've got collections of stuff from decades. And so I've got one of the old dial phones from the 40s, and I've got a whole bunch of other stuff all the way up through the thing. Okay, so let's also take a look at this then. Who knows Gartner, the Gartner group. Anyone familiar with that group or have heard that? Okay, so in what instance? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, so they're the world's largest as far as I know, consultant over technology, and a lot of other trends. And they track about 3,000. Yeah, it is. They track about 3,000 technologies at any given time. Now, all technologies kind of go through this cycle. There's the common production cycle, which you see, yeah, this election. That's kind of, by the way, that's where we are, Second Life is, if you want to think of it. We're down and there. Up at the very top, it was 2007 was where virtual worlds were all the rage. And now it's particularly because of the recession and all that stuff like that. But I never understood quite why virtual worlds didn't get further along except for some of the technology being server driven, etc. That's right. But whatever, these are a couple of the cycles which technology goes through, I'm going to continue so we can get to the technologies themselves. So the cycles are basically, there's people who are into this stuff all the time. And well, I think they have a great advantage over Zoom myself. I mean, you could do a lot and it's more interactive. And so and faster and stuff. Okay, well, except the lag, okay, but that's part of the problem is and the propriety. In other words, if you ever got it to where it would work on the web with no lag, you'd make a money. Okay, so first innovators play, they basically play with it. And then you have these inflated expectations. In other words, oh, virtual worlds. If you remember back in 2007, 2008, there were business, every business you could possibly imagine was in Second Life, looking for new customers, not realizing that, oh, by the way, the new customers are actually real people. So, you know, real on look at the thing.  Okay. And the reason being is it's server oriented rather than basically console oriented of things. I'm waiting to I'm going to download the big Microsoft flight simulator, really like to reproduce some of the early flights across the US and Lindberg and around the world and over the poles and all that kind of stuff like that. But that's that's about 100 gigabytes or something. It's really very large, 100 to 200 gigabytes to download. Okay, so in any case, you had these over inflated expectations. And then for people that actually like us, that although some people are coming back to Second Life, the people that have remained in it, they look at, you know, they work out the bugs, look at how it's where it is useful, that sort of thing. And then it becomes more mainstream, you know, it goes from the whatever happened to to the it's in the stores. Okay. So that's kind of an introduction to technologies. Now the actual technologies, I just I got these off of that exact graph that I just showed you, there's about eight of them. And a lot of them have to do with extended what I would call extended communication, but I'm going to start with 5G because it's kind of the key to a lot of it. And then the other parts have to do with machine intelligence. Okay, so let's go ahead and take a look at then the emerging technologies that are out there today. And you might be surprised at what is going on with them. So the first is 5G. Now, based on what you see here, what would you say 5G is? What does 5G look like? That's kind of a thing. Big brother? I don't know more than, yeah. Well, I'm going to talk about why it's called 5G, but causes COVID. Yeah. So did telephones, by the way. Telephones caused the 1918 pandemic. If you believe that, then you've fallen for propaganda today. Okay. So, well, but what do you see in there? What's all this stuff? Yeah, you're absolutely right. I wouldn't go running out and buy the very first thing when it first comes out.  It's not going to have much security. There we go. Cast got it. Internet of Things. This is the wireless communication technology that connects everything that we want to connect. It's only big brother if you think you're important enough for somebody to hack into it. And if people do. Drills are not unless you've got an antenna on drill if that's what you're talking about. So let's take a look at what it is. Well, the first thing is why do we call it 5G? And you have to go back to the late 80s early 90s. So 1G was essentially, hey, it's a mobile phone. It's this big battery and phone that's in a car that, yeah, and I put want. Okay. So it's this big battery and stuff in the car and the very first actual suitcase phones. That's after actually the car ones where it required a huge battery and stuff in the back, the suitcase phones. And the very first ones were actually back in the 70s and then 80s, that sort of thing, 90s. Now, once it went digital, and I think you're talking about the 90s now, is digital is less noise. Well, that would be that would be 60. Neuro implant. Okay. We'll talk about that actually in coming up. Okay. I think we're done. Okay. So 3G was in the early 2000s where essentially, hey, I can do email. I can see the web. Okay. But you couldn't see videos or like the Downton Abbey and stuff like that until 4G came along toward the end of the 2000s, toward the end of 2000s, early 2010s. And the fact that there are smaller and smaller devices and so you actually can have a chip that's implanted in your back of your neck or something. But what is 5G? Okay. It's the Internet of Things, but what is that? Okay. Let's take a look. Well, let me give you a couple examples because then that will make more sense. One of the things about 5G is it's fast. Okay. But that's not the most important part. We're talking about 20 gigabits per second. So essentially, it's like G, even if you don't have a good connection, 5G is like instantaneous type of connections. Well, not necessarily the end of stuff because we still have, I mean, email is invented in the early 70s, and we still have a need for that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, connect. Well, only if you want to connect your phone. In other words, not everything has to be. It's the same way right now. You don't have to have any technology if you don't want, just you wouldn't be hearing this if you didn't. But let me give you an example. And you guys can tell me which one. Okay. Does anyone like traffic lights and speed limits and stuff like that? Anybody not like them? Anybody like sitting in a traffic light and you like them? Okay. So any case. Well, okay, now that's interesting. Mike says is because essentially what you're at speed limits, I love order. That way I don't get into an accident. Okay. But let's let's say that your cars, okay, but hang on a second. Let me let me tell you what 5G can do. Let's say your cars are all connected to each other and same thing with the traffic light or whatever it is at an intersection. So what happens is the intersection keeps track of who's coming and toward it and at what speed and it can easily make the calculations for and it can easily make the calculations for when somebody will be in the intersection, when they won't, you could it could slow the car a little bit down. You don't have to have traffic lights. In other words, essentially, it will allow people through and then without hitting and it knows exactly all of that sort of stuff like that. Tailgating will be the optimal because the cars are talking to each other. In other words, they're not not looking or reading a text message. They're talking to each other. And if somebody's over in the left lane and they need to get off the freeway, then all the cars will be cooperate and let them get off and you can go, you know, 80 miles an hour close to each other and all this stuff like that. So traffic lights will be a thing of the past because it's really because the intersections will communicate with the cars and everybody will be able to do it safely. Okay. So that's one of the examples of how this can work. The but the most important part about 5G is the immediate response. In other words, this split second decisions, you can't have a leg if you're trying to get through an intersection and with split second timing. Okay. Well, you know, you could always say that the telephone does that too. In other words, you can get paranoid. Frankly, one of the tricks to not being paranoid is to realize that no one cares.   Okay. So, well, there may be also health monitors and stuff. So that if you're having a problem, your car can go your heart rates rather high.  Or I said, you know, that kind of with the steering wheel. Okay.  Okay. Refrigerator can go, Oh, I see that you have blah, blah, blah. Here's some recipes for how to vital signs. All that. Okay. Now. So here's ingredients that you have. Here's some recipes for Oh, by the way, here's a recipe. And have you thought about this alternative in place of this? What about nutrition? So what if, you know, you need a low sodium diet or whatever? Can I order this for you? I see you're low on milk or something. Can I order it for you? 5g helps make this stuff possible. But you're not only talking about refrigerators. You're talking about lights. Why have a light on when you don't need it? In other words, you walk into a room, the light goes off.  Has two cameras. Well, I have a, yeah, now I have one in back. I don't have one that tracks the closest. But of course, that's next. In other words, we're slowly moving toward, by the way, one of the technologies that I will talk about is autonomous vehicles. So hang on for a second on that. But what about doors and windows and internal and external lawn and plants and stuff?  But not just houses, of course, but everything and inventory with intelligence on it and suggestions, habit things and communications and all this stuff. That doesn't mean you have to. Well, it can if you wanted to remember, this isn't somebody controlling your life. This is someone helping you to live better. Okay. Yeah, your door. So hi, welcome home. Go away. You know, whatever. Yeah. You know, whatever your house. Hey, I'd like to control the voice on say the door and the door greets me in something like, Hi, how's your day? You know, no, only depending on what the mood is, right? Okay. Now, of course, there's the big one here. There is artificial intelligence.  Of course, I'd like to have an artificial intelligence and helping take out the trash. But you know, yeah, it's not so much. It's like social media. So we're already, we're already letting things, so to speak, manipulate us. So it's just one. Well, yeah. Okay, so let's take a look at this. Artificial intelligence is a very interesting one. Well, what I get concerned with is like Alexa coming on and going, Oh, I don't, you know, I didn't know that or some other thing like that. By the way, is Alexa a male voice in the UK or or Siri or one of those I think is a male voice in the UK? Somebody might want to verify that. Yeah. Okay, so in artificial intelligence, yeah, yeah, we get we have this.   We weren't talking to you. Okay, so any case. Now, let's take a look then at what artificial intelligence normally is. Is that in the old days, artificial intelligence basically was these things here. In other words, here's some choices you decide. In other words, why do people get paid? Maybe tagline can, whoops. No, if you've given stuff, like, it's not a surprise to say that you're a doctor. Okay, so but why did doctors study a lot and get paid a lot? Because they have to know a lot and be able to make decisions and be able to distinguish things from others and all of that stuff and keep up on information.  And that's only part of it, of course. But in a decision support system, you're essentially the computer is helping you to see, okay, these are all the different decisions you can make. And so you decide now in an expert system, basically, it's saying this is how an expert would think about this. So the computer then actually acts as if it's an expert in that area. Neural networks then are a way for computers to connect where it's more like a brain rather than a flat piece of machinery like you have in computers and such like that the way they do now. Okay, so let's take a look then at where we're going with artificial intelligence.  Okay. How may a machine help? In other words, what's a machine do that a human can't? And one is, it can do faster searches. So if you're, I mean, that's what you look at Google and Google is a entire form of just thousands of servers and stuff all working together. And they can easily come up with a billion responses in a fraction of a second. Okay, so faster search is more accuracy. And then more memory. So let's look at exactly who's heard of Watson. Anyone heard of the IBM Watson? Yeah, okay. So how'd you hear her? Have you used it or have you heard of it? Jeopardy. Okay, yeah, that was quite a step back about what nine years ago or something where it where it basically beats. It can be used as a teacher's aid. Absolutely. It could be as well chess, it can chess, but chess would be easy because, you know, IBM big blue actually beat the world's champion and chess back in 95, I think. And then lately though, one of the computers beat people in the game of go, which is much, much more difficult. But let's take a look at what Watson actually does. If you actually look at what it does inside, yep, neural networks are set to learn. So basically, and got a lot of good stuff going on there in chat. While they learn from their experiences, not just humans, I mean, they can learn from humans, humans can then evaluate what they're learning and input there. But it's kind of a cycle type sort of thing. And then humans can see how they're learning and such. Okay, so in any case, what Watson does is the first thing it does is what you're doing right now. It translates from what I'm what you're hearing to your own language. And so in case of computer, it has to translate to machine. It has a search engine to go, oh, they just said this, let's go look up everything there is possibly to know about this. It's got a huge memory and data sources that it could look up. And then it goes, okay, they just like a jeopardy, you can look at a clue. And it goes, well, what if I say, hey, what could that mean in context? Is it, is it, hey, is it, hey, is it, let's say I don't know how many other haze, but whatever. In other words, which of those are the correct context? Hey, yeah, that kind of stuff. So, hey, you know, in other words, those are all different contexts for the same word. But what as a machine like Watson can do is look at all of these stored contexts, all of everything else that's involved and then come up with a candidate evaluation, and then basically go, okay, if I were an expert, how would I handle this? So it's a very fascinating machine. But remember, it is a machine. And so where could we use Watson? You're talking about teaching, you could use it in ones. Yep, now the bias there when you're talking about bias, whether it's bias against women by minorities, it's because of programming. In other words, who are the programmers. So that's, of course, another good reason to have programmers and users and testers and stuff who look like the world rather than just part of it. Okay. So in any case, healthcare legal professionals make decisions based on evidence, complex systems, hurricanes, climate change, financial trends and teachers, and then of course, controlling and predicting many, many variables along the way. So that's kind of where artificial intelligence can help. Okay, that's one thing. It can also, of course, use evidence to help find criminals. Now another one technology here is 3D printing. And 3D printing can be like what you see on front here. In other words, it can print complex objects to see what they look like, like for example, if you're or and then use them as a hologram sort of thing to be able to like for surgery and such. But let's take a look at 3D printing in some of the types of ways it's used. One of the first ways it's used is what's called rapid prototyping. In other words, just like you do mesh here in Second Life, if you use some sort of a 3D blender or other types of software, then you can then render it as an object so that instead of having to draw that object, you can show people. Because in the old days, you used to have to draw three, in fact, I taught a class back here the 20 years ago on a 3D drawing class for engineering. Yeah, 3D printers are cool. Now, 3D printers can be like the one up there where you see the little orange finger. That's just a quick rendering in plastic. But you can render things in actual human compatible substances. So for example, human organs, one of the first ones was here because that's basically carton, that sort of thing. And so let's take a look then at the house. Okay, now what I'm going to give you is I'm going to give you another video which I'd like you to go take a look at real quick. And this is about three minutes. You don't have to do the whole thing, but this is about three minutes. And it just gives you an idea of what you can do. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm listening to the video. If you can take a look at the video, and then I'll come back. Okay, so essentially, you get the idea, you don't have to necessarily do the whole thing. So they're going to try to do it in different places. Now, by the way, for somebody who said where's electricity and plumbing and stuff go, is that homes have them in the walls, but ships don't. In other words, there's nothing that says you have to have it in the walls. All of the piping, all of the electrical lines and stuff like that are outside the walls. And of course, there is a space there for insulation and things. Okay, that particular company, well, solar of course would make great on the roof. And so that takes care of stuff like that. Okay, so the idea, so there's a lot, but I'm glad that you, Deckard of Plumbing, Plumbing is art. Absolutely, why not? Okay, so let's go ahead and take a look at some of these other ones. I'm just watching my time a little bit, is that besides printing plastic or concrete or whatever, is that there are lots of different substances that you can use. NASA is using printed food. Actually, you can go on YouTube and see a printed taco, for example. But in this case, there's a video on a printed pizza for astronauts. Now, what's very fascinating about this is what does it do? It means, and this is if you get nothing from this other than this, what the most important thing about this is you don't have to take it with you. All you have to do is take a set of plans and then take a 3D printer. In fact, actually, a 3D printer can build a 3D printer. It's essentially, you just have to have a printer that can handle different materials so that it can then make a home, like on Mars or the moon, that actually adapts to the location and all of that sort of thing. That's what this really would be helpful for space travelers and stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Plus, you can make anything you can dream of, just like in Second Life. The other thing about 3D printing, and this is very interesting. I don't have the video, excuse me, the link on this, but this is really exciting in my field is that essentially computer chips have been created in essentially the same way, using something called photomicrolithography since the 1970s. And it has allowed chips to get smaller and smaller and smaller because actually the transistors are smaller and smaller. But there's also a limit to it. So essentially, since around 2000, the limit has been, so in other words, computers have gotten, they haven't gotten faster necessarily since early 2000s. What they have is they've had multiple cores, which then allow them to work with each other and so-called think-bed, much like AI. Yeah. And then AI, and then of course quantum computing and stuff like that. But using 3D printing, there is now nanoscale, meaning billions of a meter scale. And there's a great video, I mean, I don't have it here, I'll have to catch it. But it can do a thousand times faster than currently and much better than we can do right now. It's a great leap ahead. Okay. Now, how about this one? Brain control interface. Who knows about this one? The Borg. It depends on whether you want it to be the Borg or the matrix or whatever. Although remember, the matrix is essentially what we're doing right here, second life, right? I mean, is it real or is this, once you connect them? Whoops. And my phone was going to do something. Okay, so any case, let's take a look at this. Here's a quick video. It's only two minutes and you don't have to do a whole thing. It's about two and a half minutes. And what I'd like to show you is some early stuff is about, even a monkey can control things. Sorry, monkeys, I don't want to disparage you. Monkeys are great. Okay. But a monkey's brain can control objects and people's brain can too. So take a look at that. Watch this. Go ahead and watch this video here and see what you think about this. This is actually old. Some of this technology was from Willow Wildback. Okay, so hopefully you're finished with that one. This was in 2008. So it was a Wildback and actually since then, in Japan, if you've heard of exoskeletons, in Japan, they made an exoskeleton that allowed people to, well, you know, they made an exoskeleton that allowed people who were paraplegic to actually be able to walk. Now here, by the way, you're talking about the chip. Hey, it's here. This is, here again, you can, you can take a look at some of the, I put the YouTube video links on here, but due to time, I don't want to show all of the videos. So if this is being video, if this is being video, then you can take a look at the, or look these up. In other words, this is Elon Musk, and we can understand how the brain does these things. And so essentially what you're seeing there, and this is on attempt to talk, and what you're seeing there is Elon Musk, that's a surgical unit that attaches a chip inside your brain mechanically with that surgical unit. So current tests are underway for human tests to do this. So, you know, the future is here in some of these cases, the neuro link. Okay. Now, what in being serious, one of the things that you can do then is basically, like I said, is that first of all, if you're paraplegic or whatever, you can use a suit to enhance, or yeah, like a cochlear implant is essentially you can enhance your movement. Even if you can't move your arms or legs, you can do that astronauts military physical labor. In other words, how about being able to lift 200 pounds anywhere you want with no effort, that kind of stuff. It's not limited computers. For some period of time, of course, people have been able to control wheelchairs, they've been able to interface with computer, all of that sort of stuff. So this is a serious thing that is used for people and here, like every technology we've shown, it's a way to extend what we naturally do or can't anymore. As you know, by the way, and this is kind of a lead into immersive spaces as the next technology, is you may be aware that there are a number of people in Second Life who use Second Life to lead a normal life of communication who may be in a wheelchair or otherwise mobily impaired. And there's other people that use Second Life for lots of other purposes. And so we already know that immersive spaces can do that. Now immersive spaces can be used in business. In other words, down at the bottom there, essentially, you've got a squad of military people using a simulation. It can be for collaborative work purposes like a nuclear reaction simulation, like is depicted up on the top. And then, of course, we all know about, but very few people perhaps out of Second Life know about the uses of Second Life, where you can control your identity, where you can be in imaginative worlds that may be very real looking or may be completely imaginative. And so it's only left to your brain as to what your actual world looks and sounds and feels like and such, which we're all doing right now for collaborative social purposes. I mean, I really know of no other technology right now that compares to this for a collaborative social purpose, international type collaborative social purpose. I think it's rather phenomenal. Now, speaking of which, of course, now we get one step further here where we've got augmented and virtual reality. And so let's take a look at that and those technologies and what we did. Now, some of the earlier, well, that's our choice. In other words, we don't, like I said, technology is what we weren't born with. If you choose to use it, you choose to learn, you should learn about it and use it wisely and responsibly and socially constructively and also know about what, how people can use it otherwise. As I like to tell my students, fire can be used to cook. It can be used to light. It can be used to sterilize food. It can also be used to burn down a house or something. It all depends on our collaborating to use technology in socially constructive ways. So augmented virtual reality. Let's take a look then at virtual reality. Some of the easiest, excuse me, augmented reality is essentially where you're either, either because it recognizes an image or geolocation or a little IR blip or whatever, you can put it over an object and then it will give you information. Like, for example, the painter and then information about them, maybe a little video that you can watch to enhance your learning. It may put together a 2D blueprint into a 3D image. So you can visualize things like that. If you look then at virtual reality, essentially now you've got, instead of a screen, you've got a 360 in all directions. So now that you're, now you're within it, much like using VR in second life. And so that is a HoloLens up there. We have a class in virtual reality at the university and a, someone who really knows what they're doing on this. And so our students get to take a, yeah, full pi, let's see, wow, that's a big, okay, Tron, Lawnmower, man. Okay, but let's take a look then at the last, I think this is the last technology, we've got two minutes to the hour, is autonomous transport. And let's look at some of the types of things associated with that. One is a varying degree of control. In other words, by using speed cruise control, or backing up and stuff like that, or even brake control, you know, automatic braking sort of thing. We're slowly letting the car enable us to use it better. And so you can augment certain types of tasks, like say for example, driving on a boring freeway somewhere, and then you could take over if you want to at town, those sorts of things. So personal systems kind of give you more time to do stuff. Right now, you could be watching second life while driving, okay, you could be reading or taking a map or in other words, you could be using that time more productively than just driving down a road, unless of course you like driving down a road. Okay, and you can drive longer. There's no reason why someone who does have diminished physical or mental abilities cannot drive. So you're giving people a lot more freedom to do that. Now public systems, I want to ask, I'm going to go over slightly, not too long, but I'm going to go over slightly past the hour. But I want to ask which one of these would you be most because I've got robotics coming up. Which of these would you be most comfortable doing a large truck train or airplane being autonomous? By the way, I hate to tell you, but a lot of airplanes today are almost completely autonomous. Well, yes, there is a hacking thing. There's always a hacking thing or kidnap. Yeah, I know we're very paranoid people today. Trains, of course, yeah, because they have a track. We are electric bikes, sensors. You know, if you're in Singapore, they already have a lot of autonomous taxis. None of these both. Okay, yep. Well, you know, you don't have, Second Life can be hacked, too. I suppose you're, you know, anything you have today can be, if you really think you're so special that people should hack you. That's kind of the way I looked at it. So any case, so public systems, in other words, planned routes, higher productivity, for example, in a in 18 wheeler trucks, people can't drive for more than 10 hours legally without getting to sleep. Well, an autonomous truck can care less. They can drive 24 hours. So as far as, so basically a double productivity. Some riders are hacks. Well, I agree with that, too. Okay, so robotics. Now my last technology is robotics. And so let's take a look at some of the, yeah, and they probably will. Okay, so now robotics can be used in areas that are basically make it safer for you. So for example, drones can go to places that are dangerous. Robots, if you recognize the one down on the bottom, that's a IED, searching robot for the military. But they can also do regular types of things. Now, I do have one more robot here, which I'd really like to show you, because it's fascinating. I think you'll get a real kick out of this one. And it has to do with, let's see, where's my little, okay, go to this one here. I'm going to give you a quick video on here. This is not a short video. In fact, actually, this one's not very long at all. But go to here, because it's the little robot that you see on the right. It's really quite fascinating. I think you're going to have a good, I'm going to have fun watching this one here real quick. Here again, it's only a couple of minutes. In fact, it's one minute and 30 seconds. And I guess we're done with the video there. I thought it was pretty cute. There's a lot of different types of robots, but it kind of gives a, well, they can if they have their program, you know, anything with a gun can kill or a bomb or whatever. Yeah, there you go. Okay, so well, not only that, but you can have what, a robot flying reindeer and Santa can be replaced too, huh? Okay. So any case, what I have up here is a couple of examples, because industry robots have been around for a while, particularly in the 80s in Japan. Roomba, I have a Roomba. They're kind of fun. And then autonomous tractors that both sow and also harvest. And so these are ones which work for you. And so in addition to that though, where we can look at robots in the future, somebody mentioned space exploration. And so there's that. And then, of course, not only semi-autonomous robots, but then robot assistance that can help us with, say, space missions, doing the dangerous work, stuff like that. Of course, we did talk about ethics, right, in science a while, a couple of weeks ago, I think, for a panel. And so you're going to have to then think about the ethics of robots. Well, I'm certain there's robots in the sense that there's robot arms and stuff like that. Okay. Like what Sissiji was saying. So you're going to have to talk about the, so sooner or later, as you get a combination of AI and robots, somebody was mentioning that they get, somebody got upset when somebody shot one of the Boston Dynamics robots because it becomes more thing. And now becomes more, we identified with it, which by the way, hang on just a second, that's coming up in here, another slide. But essentially robots can assist us with work environments. Like right now, think about it, with the coronavirus, a robot can then help handle samples, forms, do things where people don't have to get near other people. So robots can come in handy, disaster cleanup, research work. Absolutely. Underwater, all kinds of stuff like that. I don't know that somebody did, but somebody mentioned that. And caring for the elderly. Absolutely. In fact, actually, that brings us to kind of the last slide here, is that for the technologies. And that is there is this concept of the uncanny valley. In other words, a robot on the right, robots can look like whatever they want. Yes, you're right. And I had read long ago that essentially that's going to be a big industry coming up there, isn't it? But you've got the robot on the right, which then appears to be compassionate, we have to promulify some, absolutely. And so it appears to be more compassionate or at least not threatening. Whereas what about the one on the left? Which one of those looks kind of creepiest to you? Which is the ones that do you trust the one on the left or the right? And we can make our robots look any way we want. Yeah, that the two human one, the two human meaning the uncanny valley effect, absolutely, which I've got up there. Where they're too close, because they, you know, they're not human. So they begin to look creepy at a certain point when they look too. Okay, so those are the eight technologies today. And I'm going to make some conclusions here and see if you have other conclusions to add is essentially one is remember the technology extends what we already do and the new technology is just new to whoever hasn't done it yet. Tools by themselves are just tools. It's the programmers or users who can use them for socially constructive or socially destructive manners. They can be used to change their lives, but they can also change the job market. They can be scary to people, they can be abused. They're most likely inevitable. And they're less scary when they're understood, which is why I have shared this with you today. Okay, so thank you. Enjoy. We've got lots of good stuff coming up. Take a look at the next weeks. We're interested in where I got some of the information. I've got plenty of references and stuff for them too. So just let me know. Okay, otherwise, take care. Have fun. Have fun. I'm saying nice things about robots that way they worked out. Grace, gracias. Have fun. You know, I don't analogy things being causing cancer and doing, you know, that's just to me all scare tactics for people that don't know anything about technology. For Shiloh and other people asking about some of the slides and things, I'm pretty sure if it's being recorded, we'll have either the PDF or the video or something up online. And if you want a copy, just let me know and I'll see what I can do or send you an email address or something. Well, you know, we use 3G, 4G right now. So 5G, you know, as far as computers, obviously, what's the impact on the environment? It's all the little parts of the computers and throwing the computers away. And the amount of electricity you use by computers. That's as far as it's, oh, good. I'm glad seven and more. So I don't see that 5G is any more scarier than any other G. It's just going to have a lot more uses. It's the next evolution. Have fun. I think I'm going to wander off to, let's see, how are they fit in society? Well, you know, that's a problem is with the more technology and the more detailed and sophisticated and stuff, in some cases, the more expensive and the more it's going to be difficult for the have nots to have access, unless there are people like, frankly, the, you know, Bill Gates, Bill and Melinda Gates, who are, help subsidize some of the technologies and medicines and stuff. Okay. Okay.  Thank you. Take care. Namaste.