Hi guys, welcome. We're really excited about the next topic where we talk about impact in startups and what used to be maybe a checkbox exercise for Swedish pension funds or something for just for panels and long discussions has really become front and center for employees, entrepreneurs, clients, LPs, everyone. And so it's great that we're sitting here with two people who have been working on this topic from before it became trendy like crypto and AI. So we have real people here who can really tell you something that matters on the topic. And yeah, we'll do a round of introductions. I'll briefly introduce myself. I started as an entrepreneur long ago and have been in a VC for 12 years, so lived through two crises, which is very helpful right now. I'm with Norseone. We're a large global venture fund, just raised a billion, so we have a little dry powder to go after the current market. And in our portfolio, we see both companies really formatted around impact like an item that's trying to stop cardiac attack in the world or an iron ride that wants to electrify all the fleets, but also big companies like a personio who have raised 100 million for impact and photo that is sort of trying to do sustainable credits for ocean freight. So the topic is really front and center in a lot of the things we do. Willemaine, how about you? I have a very big different background than Mikhail. So I started out from the impact side. I founded an NGO called War Child at the age of 23. And that was a scale up because we grew to 900 people in 13 countries working with a million kids. So it was an amazing ride. And I stepped out. I'm still on the board, but I stepped out because I believe innovation is what really what we need to create impact. And NGOs are not the best actors to create innovation. So I wanted to move to the venture space to find innovative models that are scalable and sustainable. So I first built the Dutch social enterprise network, which is like an ecosystem for entrepreneurs on a mission and how to help them scale and grow. And as part of their mission, it was access to capital. And then I built with an amazing team of experienced VCs because I needed them on board. Of course, we build Ruby Olympic Ventures, which is a Dutch venture fund investing in impact and really take an impact seriously in every step of the investment process. I'm sure we'll get to that. And Emma, you're very well known here to the crowd. Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Yeah, of course. So my name is Emma Lehekoyen. I'm the CEO at Swappy. And my journey with startups actually started here at Slush. I was a Slush volunteer for the first time in 2015. So that's really my first touch to the startup world and kind of how I became super intrigued about the topic that how startups can create impact to the world. But Flash forward, I was doing Slush for several years, president of Slush. And then back in early 2020, I joined Swappy. And Swappy is a company whose mission is to make refurbished mainstream. So we started with consumer electronics, started with iPhones. We basically buy, repair and sell refurbished iPhones. Amazing. And I'm sure there's a lot of customers here in the audience.  So from president of Slush, in my perception, you then have a perspective on all kind of startups in Europe. What made you pick Swappy? Back when I left Slush, and I was thinking kind of what I want to do next, I met our co-founders, Sami and Jiri. And I felt super inspired what they were building with Swappy. I felt like it was such a unique opportunity to join a company was kind of in the high growth journey, but with a purpose that actually matters. And that's how I joined the team. And three years later, it's still here. That's great. So, Willem, there was, of course, always this whole social investing that existed. But you're probably one of the new, the first of the new generation of impact ventures that also believe that they want to make a real return. Can you tell me a little bit about the early days of how to get it off the ground? And how hard or easy was it to get that story across? Oh, yeah. I think for me, it was very evident that we needed to make market rate returns, because if you want to get mainstream capital to flow to impact, you have to prove that impact is a flywheel for success and impact is not a cost factor. So for me, it was evident we really need to approve that companies that are excellent at creating financial returns and impact, those are the rock stars of the future. And that's what we need to focus on. But it was definitely when we started this, a field where that was being frowned upon, you know, how do you, if you found these entrepreneurs, can you actually exit them? Who's going to buy them? And so I think the market has changed in those years. And we see that there's a big demand for especially strategic buyers that want to get into these, find the innovation and get these young impact driven entrepreneurs integrated. But I think for us, it was getting the first LPs in was kind of the early believers. But now we see mainstream LPs coming in. And for us, it was really important that impact is not a greenwashing thing, that impact impact is equally important to returns, which meant that we really had to find a way of measuring impact in an equal way to measuring financial returns. Because how can you be successful in both if you only measure risk of return? So if you want to measure risk, return and impact, you need to quantify impact. And we found a way to do that. And that took quite some time to get that strong and objective. Because if we set our own impact targets and then we perform well, then we could set them very low and always be very successful. That's of course what many funds are doing. And I think if you set targets, for me, for one, this target has to be decided by the entrepreneur, right? The impact comes from the heart or the mission or the activism of the entrepreneur. And so you need to catch what he or she wants to prove. So what is it that he or she wants to change in the world? What's their theory of change? And how can you measure that in one maximum two KPIs? And then the entrepreneur must like to report on that, just like reporting on finance. And then we, as a fund, we use those targets to link our performance, 100% to our carry. And we have a carry link to impact and return. And we need to make both to be able to receive any carry. So for me, that's the way to really structure it in the entire process and make sure that if we're successful, we need to be successful in market rate returns and quantifiable impact. That's very impressive. How do you and how do you do that actual measuring? It is when it's like climate tech, it's not that complex, right? When we talk about CO2, there's a lot out there. And but if we talk about what I call people tech, when it's about education of children or what it's about well-being, mental well-being, it becomes quite difficult because it's not about numbers. It's about whether people feel that they've actually improved their quality of life. And so those things are very hard to measure. So it's kind of qualitative measurements that we need to find ways to do. But so and sometimes, of course, we get it wrong. We invest early stage. So the business pivots three times and then you took the wrong measure. So that happens. But the essential is that you find a measure that really inspires the entrepreneur that he really or she really wants to prove. And then together we can figure it out. And it's like building the plane while flying. And we have a couple of impact funds across Europe that we kind of shared our knowledge with and also our fuckups because, of course, we did some stuff that really didn't work as well. But in the end, it is possible. I mean, people that say that impact cannot be measured are wrong. It can be measured. It can be done. But it takes work. And it is extra time in your due diligence and process. And with your group of early funds, is this sort of your proprietary sauce and makes you special and you keep it to yourselves? No, no way. Or is it something you would share with the world? No, no. My mission in this is I want all of you here, all the investors, by the way, and as well to move into impact. So whatever we can do to make this mainstream, we need to share and how to measure impact open source. I can I talk about this a lot different stages. But I would really love to share. But I think a lot of people find it a little work. And the big confusion is people are confusing ESG and impact. So now we have all these as we are article nine, and then people think their impact for me, that's ESG.  It's just do no harm. And if you want to measure impact is how are you bringing actually positive additionality, positive value to solving a societal problem? And I would hope I don't think every entrepreneur has to have that mission. But if you have it, try to measure it because this is also what inspires your clients and your consumers and your staff. So it's possible. Great. I won't go more into detail. Yeah, yeah, well, definitely. But now I talk to Emma. I can explain how she does it. Sure. Yeah, let's start a little bit on sort of how did Swapy get to get started? Yes, I think it's a great, absolutely great story. So Swapy was started in 2016 by our co founder, Sami and Yuri. And they were serial entrepreneurs back then already. And actually, Sami got scammed when he was purchasing used iPhone out of like this online marketplace. And they started to look into the market. And they realized that actually like only about 5% of the of the entire smartphone market was used as smartphones back then like super tiny portion of the market. And the barrier like kind of keeping consumers from purchasing second hand electronics was not that they would not like the proposition like it's more affordable. It's more sustainable. That's great. But they did not trust the product and they did not trust the way to purchase the phones. So that's how Swapy was started. The idea was that we repair everything ourselves. That's how we can keep the quality standards high. And we can really make sure that the quality is what consumers are expecting. And also we've kind of crafted the purchasing experience. So that it's as close as possible to purchasing a new phone with extensive warranty and great customer care. So how do we create this product and service that would make that kind of switch from consumers to really consider refurbished instead of new one. And I think we've done pretty great job so far. Although we are very early on the journey. I have to have to say still about back. As I said back when back when we started, it was about 5% of the market nowadays. It's somewhere around 10% of the market and growing super super fast as well. And if you think they like take industries like the car industry, for example, it's 50% of the market. So this category can really grow huge. That's amazing. And do you consider yourselves more just a tech company or more an impact company? Or is that the wrong distinction? I would say that we are a impact driven or mission driven tech company. I don't see that it's kind of either or. And how does that translate? How do you measure your impact? We just heard from Milamain that that's really important. We've actually just published our first environmental impact report. So how we measure impact is we take the carbon footprint of new device and then carbon footprint of swap it device and look at the look at the kind of saving that you can do as a consumer when you're switching from new to refurbished. And the numbers are pretty great. You can save 78% of carbon emissions by choosing refurbished instead of new. And how we like measure our impact as a company is that we measure how much savings can we help our customers to or like CO2 savings can we help our customers to make by offering this product taking taking a very conservative estimate on how many people are purchasing refurbished for the first time. And basically that's our that's our handprint as the company. And how much is that in total? Yes. So last year it was about 23 and a half thousand tons of CO2.  Yes. So that would be about, let's say like 5000 cars driving for a year. That's amazing. And I can imagine there's more impact in there because in these new phones, these value chains are very, very, there's a lot of human rights issues in the values changed. Children working in mines and Congo to get materials in phone. So you're you're actually also skipping all of that. So it'd be beautiful to also kind of measure that. But maybe very early. You're hired. It's very kind of early on our sustainability journey as well. So when we did this report, we wanted to start somewhere mess measure the CO2 emissions. But you're absolutely right. For example, the e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream globally. And we need to do something about it. And we need these solutions, for example, refurbishing smartphone and other electronics to be able to extend the lifecycle of those products so that we need to kind of source these rare minerals or rare materials less and less. Cool. And obviously, being a mission driven company has a big impact on the people working for you. How is that at Swapi? And what do you guys do to sort of promote that? Yeah, I'm always kind of surprised how amazing team we've been able to recruit. And I think kind of early on on Swapi's journey, we've had access to kind of people that I would say maybe not all kind of earlier stage startups have, because the mission has been something that the people who decided to join us have related to. And it is something that they want to work with every day. So I think that is really the big, big, powerful competitive advantage for missionary companies that you are able to attract talent that connect with the mission very early on with from these kind of global tech companies, that most startups kind of dream of hiring. And what do you do to keep that sort of alive? Because on the one hand, the overall mission is great. And you measure the CO2 savings. But what else do you do to make that tangible for people? Yeah, yeah. So I think it's like, it's very, very important to like kind of foster the culture that you have in the company, like we're kind of very people first or people driven company. And we want to really focus on that. So it's really not about like, you can tell like, you can talk about like the impact you make, but then day to day, it's really about kind of what kind of culture you have at the company. And that's really kind of to retain the talent. Great. I think it's often very much about authenticity of the drive. If the authenticity of the founders really felt in the company, people can feel it as a driver in the culture of what they're achieving together or something. Yeah, yeah, that's something you can kind of parachute in. And if we look because the other big sort of lever here, of course, is your customers who obviously kind of like a mission kind of driven approach in the companies you're working with Willemaine, or do you have some good examples of why they are winning because of their customer proposal? Yeah, I think the ones that are able to really make a convincing story of why the customers will want to join the mission. One of them, for instance, is Tony Ciacalone, Dutch chocolate company makes lovely chocolate, but I mean, you can buy lovely chocolate any brand. Their mission is to eradicate slavery from the from the plantations in especially West Africa, which is where most of these kids are to work. And so that's their mission. And I have sourcing principles, but they are very, very clear that so even if you open the chocolate bar, it is unequally divided, there's no squares, but there's unequal. So to really understand and make the consumer understand it's an unfair value chain. And if you're buying this chocolate, you're actually helping solve that problem. And that brand has grown extremely fast, even though they're more expensive than their competitors. So you're paying a premium, because it is more expensive to really make sure the farmers get enough money to actually hire staff instead of putting their kids to work or putting other kids to work. So it's extra cost in the value chain. But the consumers have taken this on massively. And the company is growing worldwide this moment and has been the biggest in the Netherlands. Six years after their effort, they found it. So that was really a fast consumer driven success. Great. And the flip side of all of this, because you can have a great mission, etc. Now that impact is so popular. I remember four years ago, I couldn't get a business plan on my desk, and it said AI somewhere in the business plan. Now with impact, you see something similar. And so there's a lot of greenwashing out there as well. Do you guys have some examples? Oh, there's I mean, there's so many of them.  I think the funniest example is BP that changed their name from British petroleum to beyond petroleum. And then had to change it back because nobody kind of accepted that. But I mean, looking from the I'm a duchy. So look at Shell. I mean, they're amazing Volkswagen and that puts bogus systems to. So there's so many examples on big scale on small scale. And it's a big problem because people will no longer believe that impact is real as everybody starts using the words McDonald's creating impact with their similar reusable plastic paper straws that then tend out not to be recyclable at all, and then still make the claims. So there's there's there's so many examples. And I think it hurts the the movement because you need the consumer needs to understand that is authentic. And so that's I think a challenge you have to overcome and the authenticity. I mean, people do there's so much transparency now in the market. So we hope consumers will take the effort to dive a bit deeper under these kinds of Twitter and see what happens. Yeah. And I guess in order for the snowball to keep rolling, we need a lot of people here in the audience to build amazing companies or in the companies they're already building, put an element of impact into it. What what kind of recommendation would you give people that are starting today? Yeah, I really love to encourage kind of young entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs who are just starting out that they look at the kind of impact first or impact driven companies as an as an option to to start from. I think it's really important that you put kind of sustainability or the impact at the center of your business model. It's harder to kind of sprinkle that on on top. But also at the same time, I think kind of I don't see the distinction between kind of impact companies and tech companies so big, like for example, us, the day to day, we're, we're building e-commerce, we're building the operations, we are hiring talent. We're doing marketing. And these are lessons that whether if you're an impact entrepreneur, you can kind of take from both other impact entrepreneurs, but also every like tech entrepreneur that has been successful. Great. And what segments do you see kind of taking off right now, Willemand? What is from an impact perspective? Let me first reverse the question to you. Which ones do you see? Because you're an investor, you're getting every ambitious entrepreneur will end up at Norso and at some point. What do you see happening? I saw first of all a wave, a long wave of people doing carbon accounting. And obviously the first time you see it, you're like, oh, wow, we really need that. And then after 72, you're like, maybe we don't need 72. What I find really encouraging is that there's real room for technical innovation. So we're seeing smart energy plans, some of them purely based on software and calculations, some of really kind of innovative new materials. We're seeing material sciences kind of picking up. We see image recognition play a large role in a number of fields. And I like the fact that it's not just on the sustainable end of the spectrum that we're seeing on the people side, access to markets, access to education takeoff, which I find very encouraging. But what about you? I find that last part is, but that's a personal passion, right? I see it happening in every segment. But I'm personally passionate about people. So I love the fact that with edtech, we can actually reach kids in parts of the world that have not have access to any kind of education or talented people in Africa that get access to jobs internationally that they never used to have access to. So I'm really excited about the opportunities we can create to really get people out of poverty and into development through edtech. But also, I mean, one of the major issues now is mental health being not just among people, I think 50% of people within companies have mental problems, the mental problems since COVID in schools are on the rise over the board. So the amount of tech solutions and bringing mental health solutions closer to individuals and really using tech to try and battle that kind of epidemic that's reaching us all, I think is very important. So I really try to look from somewhere I would love to see the innovation take place. Yeah, that's I think always a good question to an investor is that sort of you look at one of these amazing business plans and are you then enthusiastic about it because you think it will work or because you really want it to work? Yeah, now, of course, I think as an as an investor, you may want to make sure that it will work. And as an investor, I mean, we know exactly in every impact area where we would like to invest. So which where we believe the largest impact can be made. So we know we're targeting but we come across a lot of entrepreneurs who are activists and I love it. But some of them are really believers in wanting a radical change to happen. Yep. And that doesn't always mean they have the means in the business model to make it happen. But so and but as with impact entrepreneurs as with any of them are nine out of 10 fails, which is fine. So because they need to dream big. Otherwise, it's it doesn't work. There's so many issues that we need to solve yet. So let's come up with these unreasonable ideas and let's hope we get some of them to really scale. Yes. You're we're talking about saying, hey, you can do something really good and be financially successful. And, you know, for the reasons of having great employees and customers caring about build a really big business. But what now if you build a really big business if Swapy is super successful, and all of a sudden, you can sell the company and you can sell it for $2 billion to someone who really believes in your dream and your mission or for $5 billion to Amazon because they think it's a really good model. What do you do? Yeah, I think kind of when choosing any company kind of to partner with, I don't think it's super black and white that there's this let's say impact companies and then there's these evil companies. But it's really about kind of how can, for example, we as at Swapy, we can like establish our mission that is making refurbishment stream. So it's really not just kind of working together with the impact companies. But it is taking everyone on the ride. We have so little time left to solve this issue. So we really need everyone. So like, I think from a very practical standpoint, like, would partnering with someone mean that we can actually make more impact and scale further, and so on. But that's the win-win. That is a win-win. And that's an easy answer. It is a discussion we've had a lot, right? There's a question we get a lot from LP. So what happens? For one, you got to if we only invest in aligned models where the growth of the company leads to growth of the company. So that's the impact. Second, we will only invest if the company really puts their impact mission in their deeds of incorporation, which means and also in their shareholders agreement. So all these shareholders need to agree whether they're impact investors or not that this is relevant and this is going to be part of the exit conversation. It doesn't mean it's the only part of the conversation, but it has to be part of the conversation. And then, of course, I mean, we're minority investors. So the entrepreneur needs to decide where they want to go. And then it is actually never black and white. But if the company has a choice between a company that will pay half and a company will pay double that, but you know in that company that they will just kind of try to question you because you're trying to, you know, you're trying because their business model might lose out to you. So that would be a reason not to do it. We've never come across that. So we've always been in the win-win up till now. But it's a difficult discussion. But it's a discussion that is really important to have with the entrepreneur, even when you invest. So where do you want to exit? Where do you want to land up and make sure as an investor that you can help them land to that next step? To the right place. We don't have much time left. But let's talk about now we're facing a recession or we're in the middle of a recession. Does that mean anything different for impact companies? Is there special superpowers that can help you go through it? Or you're facing the same weather as everyone else? I think kind of everyone is feeling kind of what's happening right now. But I think companies that first of all have a product that really resonates with customers, whether it's businesses, consumers, etc. Those will be the companies that will thrive also next year. So for example, for us, our product is not only about sustainability, but it's really about affordability as well. So we think that kind of if we take the long term long term view, people will still be interested in purchasing more affordable and more sustainable smartphones. Yeah, I think it's it's the same for any entrepreneur. I think, for instance, the ones that are in in climate tech solutions, they will not have the most of them don't have a lot of problem. They will actually grow faster in this because this the urge for these solutions to grow to scale is much larger now. So there's a lot of opportunity for those. But then for others, it is more difficult to make the ones that are dependent on high electricity bills for the production there. I mean, so that's the same for any entrepreneur. And I think from a venture from an investor perspective, I see a lot of opportunities. I mean, we're in there for the long run. I don't think we're doing a lot of big exits next year. So but I think what we are intend what we intend to do is really create value in the long term and great amazing returns. And I believe these companies have that value and we will be able to prove it after this crisis. And as you said, you started this session with you've been through two crises. Yep, as an investor. There's like the question. No, exactly. It's it's you have to do the right things now. And then there is light at the end of the tunnel. And I much rather be in a nimble startup that can really take all the actions needed. Then at Unilever, where the storm hits you and you just can't move in any direction. So it's not going to be easy. But I think we'll be we'll be okay. Thank you very much. I think you shared great experiences with us. I've also heard that it's important for you that it's not that you guys are successful, but that you touch a lot of people and that they follow your success. So I kindly invite anyone who wants to know more to contact you guys directly and spread the good words and and thank you everyone for your attention. Thanks.


And so, I feel good, not because of the technology, not because of anything, but because of you. The sailors that man our ships, the sailors that man our equipment, the sailors that turn that, put the lifeblood into our machinery, and fight it. And so, that's what's so exciting for me to be able to be on board for these couple of days, is to be able to be reinvigorated by sailors, and the lifeblood of our Navy, and we should all feel good about that.


Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica and today's video is day four of our Back to School week. I am collaborating today with Abby from Rooted in Rust and we are going to be bringing you our morning basket plans for the upcoming school year for 2020-2021. So what's great about us collaborating again is that I'm a very relaxed homeschooler with an only child and she is a Charlotte Mason homeschooler with four kiddos. So you're going to get two very different types of morning baskets and you're going to get an idea of some very different things. Now, before I tell you what our plans are from this upcoming school year for morning basket because it is going to be very different, a little bit different anyway. I want to go ahead and link all of our past morning baskets up here. I have a morning basket every month for the past two years, I believe. So there are tons of ideas if you are looking for some, you will find plenty there. This year, I am actually relinquishing all morning baskets over to Emily. So we sat down and after she did the June morning basket which was our summer Marvel basket, she begged me to do more. And when I took over and did July's basket, she was super sad because she missed it. So we all sat down together, we talked about it and Miama has been decided that this would be a fantastic opportunity to do what we love which is follow her lead and do some interest in follow learning and she is going to be completely taking over morning baskets 100%. We are going to help her, going to guide her, we are going to support her but we are going to let her do everything from picking the topic if she chooses to do based off a topic which she has kind of told me that she wants to do to planning the contents that go within it, within reason, I'm gonna show you guys what I mean by that in a moment. She is going to be able to film the video, she will be learning how to edit videos and then she's also going to be learning how to write blog posts. We are also going to be helping her learn how to do things like use the library database to put books on hold. We are going to be allowing her to shop on Amazon within a specific budget and we will change that budget every month depending on the topic that she's chosen, the things we have on hand, the longevity of the topic. Like obviously let's say if she chose unicorns, we have tons of unicorn stuff and that's not necessarily a topic that we're gonna be revisiting educationally so her budget would be less than let's say if she was to choose space. Main space is something we're gonna revisit a lot and while we have a lot of stuff there's still a ton of stuff we could add. So the budget is something that we will sit down, we will decide based off of money we have available, based off of the topic that she's chosen, based off of just different things we're going to give her a specific budget that she has to stay within every month. What I am so excited about is that by doing this she is going to be practicing math within her budget, she's going to be practicing writing because she's gonna have to write down her plans for what she wants to do. Typing because she's gonna be helping me write the blog post, she's gonna be doing videography with filming and editing. I mean all of these really, really awesome things that I probably would not have made a point to teach her in our home school had this opportunity not presented itself. So I'm going to show you, I made just a really quick kind of form or template for her to use every month to kind of keep her on specific steps and make sure she's staying within certain guidelines because obviously I don't want our morning basket to just be full of just a bunch of games. Although I love games, I wanted to make sure there's a few other things. So she has four basic things that can go in the morning basket and those are read alouds, mad libs and or trivia, hands on activity and games. Now everything that was important to me that I wanted to make sure was in our basket and being done every day no matter what, I have moved to our bedtime basket. So our devotion, our journal, anything that I wanted to make sure that was being done every day and I wanted control over, I just simply moved it over to our bedtime basket and you can see more about our bedtime basket up here. So that's what I did with those things that are not getting done, they just shifted. That way she can have more control and a little bit more freedom during our morning basket time. Because honestly for us, morning basket has always been a way to start our day together, connect, laugh, kind of start off on the right foot. It sets the tone for our whole day. So if she has more of a say in it, I mean she's gonna be happy, I'm gonna be happy that she's happy and it's just gonna make our days go that much better. So it's gonna be great. What I am doing is for our August morning basket here, you can see I just gave her four simple steps to do each month which is choose a topic or theme, search the house for items that we already own because obviously I want her to start there, check the library database online for books and then shop on Amazon for items within a maximum budget of, and this is where we'll write that maximum budget. Then she will write down her topic and she will just fill in the four boxes that I have given her for guidelines which are read aloud books, mad libs and or trivia, hands-on activities and games. And those are things that we sat down and decided that we wanted in our morning baskets and we wanted to make sure we're happening. She loves that I read aloud and give her the chance to do stuff with her hands while I'm doing that. Mad libs are a great way to practice grammar and parts of speech, so I absolutely love that. Trivia is a fantastic way to just test your knowledge on tons of things and learn new things and then obviously you guys know we love games and I love making sure that we're playing a game every day no matter what and games are her love language so starting our day off with that just always makes us set this up for having a better day. So that is the plan for the upcoming school year. Obviously again I will update you guys mid-year and again at the end of the year on how this is going. I hope that this is okay with you guys and you're not going to miss me although I'm going to miss you. The morning basket was one of my favorite things to do each month so relinquishing this to her was extremely difficult for me but I'm also very, very excited at the prospect of how much she is going to be learning by taking over this one simple thing and seeing the passion that she has for it and how excited she is to work for the Wallach Way and share her ideas with you guys has just made me so excited to see where we are at at the end of the year. So I hope that you guys enjoy what she has planned. I will tell you I know that she's already started planning her August basket. This is a duplicate copy because she's already started filling it in and what she has so far is really exciting. So I hope you guys are excited to see it and if you have already planned your morning basket for the upcoming 2020, 2021 school year let me know in the comments down below what you guys are going to be putting in it or what your plans are for morning basket time. Today's giveaway is for a Wallach Way homeschool planner of the winner's choice. To be eligible to win, you must be a subscriber. Like this video and leave a comment.


This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Hey, we're back. We're in China now. We're in Beijing. This is Think Tech Asia, Think Tech Global. And we're talking today about moving 21.7 million people a day across Beijing, a city larger than the size of the state of Connecticut. And to have this discussion, our regular contributing guest host was Russell Liu. He's in Beijing. Russell, it's so nice to see you. Where are you in Beijing? Well, Jay, it's nice to see you. I'm actually at a coffee house in the second largest publishing company in China, next to the University of the Beijing Foreign Studies University. And I'm having a real cappuccino, real cappuccino. 15 years ago, you couldn't get this. You do get around, Russell. So why don't you introduce the subject to us? I mean, I remember when 9 million bicycles in Beijing was a lot of bicycles, but we've changed that now. We have more people in Beijing. We have more development. We have a huge, big economy in Beijing. And that means transportation issues. Can you talk about it? Well, Jay, Beijing has 21.7 million. And now that two years ago, it was awarded the bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Well, actually, this city is going to get huge. It's going to be a mega city. It's going to be now 82,000 square miles in a few years. And it's going to be bigger than the size of Connecticut. It's going to be bigger than the size of Kansas. And it's going to hold a population larger than a third of the United States. Imagine this is quarter. So the transportation is critical. And the city is wrapping up its transportation in these days. Well, Rob, but I remember you used to walk around with an attaché case that had a gas mask in there. And I know that there's an inversion issue around Beijing with the perimeter roads and all that. And the mountains outside of Beijing, it tends to fold in on itself. And you get a lot of problems with the air and breathing. 21.7 million people are going to be comfortable. And if you make it a third of the population of the United States, that could be less comfortable, what do you expect is going to happen with the air in Beijing? Well, Jay, it's interesting because the motor transportation had been bicycled. I mean, bicycles are making a comeback as part of the green movement in Beijing. But I think the roads and cars are a big thing to try to. And the infrastructure is really very good. And I think I've got a video just to show our viewers out there what the road looks like on a clear day in Beijing, sunny skies, no pollution, but cars. OK, let's take a look at it. OK, that looks like an American city except that row of huge residential condos or apartment buildings on the left-hand side, that's a lot of units. And I remember when I visited you some years ago, you took me through a neighborhood like that. And there was an awful lot of big buildings just like that. And it was impressive. You could find that in an American city, but exactly in Beijing, it's bigger than an American city. Yes, Jay. In fact, that's a shot of high-dead, which is where a lot of the technology companies are. This is where the technology workers live. This is where all the major universities of China are located, the high-dead district. But this is kind of like on the outskirts, not in the main government area. But you can see how modern Beijing is. You can see how good the infrastructure cars are. But it's really worse than that. Let me add one thing, Russell. Let me add one thing. No potholes. I looked at that video. I look at that clip. I didn't see any potholes at all. So the Chinese have really got it over us now on potholes. No, you're exactly right, Jay. You had a great observation. That's what I wanted to show. No potholes. They do a meticulous job of having roads that are well-maintained. It's so clean. You won't even see any rubbish on the roads. So it's credible. We go back to this major problem. It's the China dream. Everybody wants to own a car. And so transportation now for the last 10 years, maybe seven years, we have 300 million cars registered in China. That's more than US. In 2013, China had 20 million cars versus 15.6 million in the US. Now it's up to 300 million. Beijing alone has 5.6 million cars in Beijing. And a population of 21.7 million in a city that's larger than Connecticut, 6,000 square miles, and a population density twice as that in New York City. So as you can see, transportation is so important, Jay. Yes. Yes, I mean, if you get locked up in a city that size, the city stops functioning. The economy stops functioning. And people can't really live. So for a quality of life in a city that size, you really must have transportation. So let's talk about it. What have you got available to get around? What facilitates your ability to get from one side, the city, to another? You know, Jay, let's take a look at, I've got a video here just to give our audience a flavor, an introduction of what's it like on a Saturday afternoon. It was a little bit busy. Let's look and see what the street looks like with cars. And then we can then introduce our audience into some of the modes of transportation. Yeah, this is you. Just this past Saturday, 48 hours ago, right? That's right. As you can see, it's, I'm all dressed up out there. I'm out in the pollution. I'm out in the streets, right on round zero. I almost got hit by a car, but let's take a look. I'm Russell Liu, ThinkTipGlobal. And we're here today to look at China's transportation system. In 2014, there were 300 million registered drivers in China. And I think that number today has eclipsed the number of auto drivers in the US.  Although the show is on a Tuesday morning, I wanted to give you an idea. This is gridlock transportation. You have cars of all sorts, double-decker buses. So how do people move around here? With a population of 20 million people on any given day, Beijing still has to move around. Here are the sounds and sights. And we're going to take you to explore and examine the Beijing transportation system.  I mean, you've got to appreciate Hawaii. We don't hunk our horns that way. But New York does. And I guess Beijing does too, eh? Yes, I love to be in Hawaii when I consider the streets here in Beijing on a crowded day like this. Lots of pollution, but you can see how people live. They love their cars. But the government is getting cracking down on this. So what's happening, Jay, is that now you have to win a lottery. You have to actually win a lottery to be able to get a permit to register and to get a car. And you can wait two to three years. I have friends that have waited two to three years. And God knows when they're going to get a car. Allow them to be registered. Well, that's actually great. As far as I'm concerned, I think you've got to limit cars. Otherwise, you get everybody congested all day long. And frankly, in Hawaii, we should have limited cars in Honolulu a long time ago. We'd have a better quality of life here. And I think the Chinese are very smart to put that kind of limitation on things. Yes, Jay. And so then the question is, if they're going to limit the cars, we've got the bikes that's the green movement. But we talked about that in the previous segment. But a couple of years ago, Jay, you may recall. I believe that you came with me. I think we jumped on a bus. And I kind of want to show the audience what the Chinese bus looks like. Now, this is a double-decker bus. I had to do this in a day when the bus was not crowded. Otherwise, I could not walk through crowds of people. But we're going to take a look at the bus. And like you say, people, Americans are afraid to get on the bus. They don't get on the bus here. They're afraid. But it's dirt cheap. It's about too quiet to rent and be for about 30 cents. And the bus can literally take you right around the city, right around this huge, Macaulay City. And in fact, it's sort of like riding the bus. But let's take a look at what a bus looks like. Yeah, great. I'm on Beijing due to catch the bus. As you can see, the buses are all sorts, double-decker buses. There are buses that come on time every few minutes. So you never will miss your ride. And it's very easy because all it takes is one of these cards. This card will get you the bus. And it'll get you also the subway. And a bus ride, typically, it's about too rent indeed, too quiet. So it's a very affordable means of transportation. 21.7 million people. Many ride the bus. I noticed a lot of people on that bus had their cell phones. And we're tweeting or doing social media, one kind or another. I suppose that's universal these days. But it wasn't crowded. And it was clean. And the whole thing looked like a pretty good experience. And I say to myself, gee, why can't Honolulu have double-decker buses? Isn't it easier to have a double-decker bus than one of those long connected two bus in a row things? Again, they really have their hand on how to do this. And I really like the notion that you can always get a bus. You don't have to wait very long. So that could be a favorite way to get around the city. Jay, it's interesting that you point out these buses are very efficient. They actually are very, very efficient. If you miss a bus, you want to catch a certain bus. It's like two minutes later, another bus comes in and you can catch it. And what you didn't see on this bus was something that's standard in all the Beijing buses, especially the long committees. There's a TV. There's ongoing commercials and TV running. And so it's really interesting how they work this in. And it's usually one person who's a conductor. One thing they must be missing though, and I'm sad for them, is that on the TV they have on the bus where you sit and you ride on the bus and you watch the TV, they don't have Think Tech away. They don't have Russell Liu talking about transportation in Beijing. You've got to speak to those people, Russell, and we can give you all kinds of footage they can include on their buses, don't you think? I think that'd be great. And they don't have Jay Fidel on the bus.  Anyway, that's really nice. And so is that your favorite way of getting around on the bus? When you and I were together in Beijing, when I visited you, you took me on the bus and it was an easy way to get around. It wasn't the only way though. But Jay, what I want to get to the main meat of this today's topic is the really efficient way what they've done is the subways. Now, the subway is very critical because moving people off the cars, getting the subways and literally a huge city. Just a business district is like one end of LA to the next. And I want to give readers a glimpse of what the subway looks like before, but let me give you a background. Now, do you know what city is the largest subway in the world in terms of miles? London. No, not even London. That can guess. New York. Okay, fair, all right. So a few years ago, it was purported that Shanghai had the largest number of miles for tracks in the city, 240 miles, but today Beijing has 357, it might have, I'm sorry, it has 430 miles in the city. And now it is, I believe the largest subway system in the world. London has only 250 miles, New York has only 232 miles versus 430 miles of subway line miles. And there's 19 lines, 19 lines, 345 stations. Can you imagine that? I think there's a map, you can take a quick look what the Beijing subway looks like. Just looking at the map. You want to show the map? Yeah, I'm showing the map now. It looks like a New York subway map as a matter of fact, with the color coded lines and the 19 lines and all that, going out into the suburbs. And it sure looks like a lot of options and a lot of crisscrosses where you can transfer and move from one line to another. It looks complex. Russell, do you get lost with so much subway? Well, Jay, it's actually, once you get the subway, it's seamless. I jump in a subway, I can get clear across city. Never popping out to smell the pollution or see the pollution. And I just transfer, I use a card, which allows me swipe it in to go in. And actually now, if you have an Android phone, you can actually use your phone to swipe in at the subway toll gate. Not only that, currently there's about 12 million people who ride the subway daily, 12 million people. By 2020, the city ridership will be about 19 million people, but it's really big. So let's take a look at, and let's go down the tube. Let's see what it looks like. I got a video on that.  That's why people can appreciate going down the tube all the more when we come back from this break. That's Russell Liu. And we're talking about the Beijing Transportation Blues. He joins us by Skype from Beijing, and we're moving 21.7 million people in the city larger than the state of Connecticut here on ThinkTech. When we take a short break, we'll come back, and we're gonna find out what it's like to go down the tube. This is ThinkTech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I'm a firefighter. A teacher. I'm a farmer. I'm a barber. A waitress. A mom. We're all part of your community. Every day we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our everyday. Some are good, others not so much. But that's life. It's when you experience a moment of uncertainty, something or someone's behavior that doesn't seem quite right. These are the moments to take a pause. Because if something doesn't feel right, it's probably not. It's not about paranoia or being afraid. It's about standing up and protecting our communities. One detail at a time. Because a lot of little details can become a pattern. We. We. We. We trust our instincts. Just like you should. Because only you know what's not supposed to be in your everyday. So protect your everyday. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. Okay, we're back. We're live with Russell Yu, who joins us from Beijing live by Skype. And he's been giving us these videos from over the weekend showing us all his adventures and taking various transportation modes around Beijing. It's really impressive.  But if you look at Russell's videos, it's modern. It's one of the most modern cities you can find in the world right now. So Russell, can you take us down the tube and show what it's like in the underground of Beijing? Yes, Jake. Let's go down into the Beijing Tube, the largest subway system in the world. We're gonna catch the Beijing Rail subway, one of the most efficient, largest subway systems in the world. And see and experience what it is to ride the subway and to see how fast the subway will take and how comfortable it is where we're gonna travel clear across the city many, many miles. Think of Beijing like Los Angeles. If you went from the top of Los Angeles to the bottom of Los Angeles, it's a very far distance, but we're gonna show you how efficient travel is in China. Time to get off the station. This is the Beijing South River Station. This is the Saturday afternoon in China. The gate's out here. And as you can see, people lining up. Simply, they will go to the gate with their tickets. They will catch the escalator down right to the platform. And it's very easy to catch a train in Beijing. Again, Russell, from the Beijing South Railway Station. That's really impressive, Russell. It looks like a convention center. It's brand new. All those signs and colors and animation. And it's a very pleasant place to be. It's obvious that Beijing, the city of Beijing, the country of China, has put plenty of bucks into that to design it and make it so spacious and comfortable. I'm really impressed. I mean, a very few subway systems look as good as that one. And frankly, New York subway doesn't look anywhere near as good as that one, sorry. So I guess they're really invested in it. And I guess for a good reason. So how do you avoid getting lost? How do you avoid getting lost in the subway system that size? You know, Jay, you don't get lost. Everything is done intuitively. Every subway car, there's a map and it shows you the connection points. And every subway station, you can find maps all around. And better yet, Tim Cook at Apple are happy. Because you know why? Everybody downloads. I've got like four different apps for the subway. And it shows me the map of every place. And I can plug in with my iPhone and I can say, I'm gonna go from this station to this station, what's the best route? And it will pull up and tell me what's the best route? It will actually pull it up on my Apple phone app. And not only that is foreigners like to ride the subway. Why? Because of WTO, everything's in Chinese and English. So all the announces are not only in Chinese, but in English. So if you go to some of the other Asian cities, I don't think you have bilingual aspect. And it's amazing. Everybody can speak English to young people. So if you get lost, you just ask people, where is this place? And it's great because when I go out, say, across the city for dinner to meet somebody, I ask the restaurant, what's a subway exit? My standard lie, they tell me exactly which exit A, B, C, or D, and how far from the subway. So it's incredible. It's amazing how transportation is done here in Beijing, China. Yeah, smart, good planning, investment of a lot of money, I'm sure, but it's a worthy cause with a city that's size which requires this kind of transportation. Do these apps work on GPS? I mean, will they tell you where you are at a given moment in the system? I'm sorry, Jay, I must have missed my line here. Okay, will the apps tell you where you are at a given moment in the system? Well, yes, I have my smartphone. And it will tell me exactly where I am in the city and I never get lost. And I can find out how to get to the subway lines very easy from there. In fact, I have a Garmin watch and I actually downloaded the Chinese map in here so I can get on my phone and figure it for my Garmin where to get, it'll show me the actual walking route or the route that I drive on. So we talk about modern day world. It's a global world with technology and it's amazing what technology does and how the Chinese have leveraged it to make life easier, make life better. But as I say, Jay, not only for the Chinese, not only for you, who lives there, but for visitors and Americans and tourists from all over the world, it sounds like it's really easy to get around. This is a great advance, not only for the local people but for everyone who visits Beijing, yeah. Yes, Jay, and it's amazing. I've been here now 15 years. When I first got here, Jay, I actually rode those mini buses. You had one subway line, two subway line, buses, not as many, but I rode the mini bus.  You'll see people in little mini bus all hollering wearing green jackets and a cold winter day, trying to make it from one end to another in a city, a short route. And today it's amazing what has happened. Modern infrastructure, modern roads, no potholes, as you notice, and the subways are great. But the big news is 2022 with the Winter Olympics in China, Beijing's gonna expand and it's gonna grow six times greater. And the new thing it's gonna be is the train lines, not subway train lines, to connect this vast region. And one of the next shows, we're gonna take a look on China's high-speed rail. China has now the fastest high-speed rail in the world and the ride is fantastic. And we would like to take a look and see that. What is it like to ride the rail? I have friends that last night took the high-speed rail from Beijing to Shenzhen and they're gonna cross over to Hong Kong today. And it's gonna be six hours. Wow. Okay, let's take a look at that. Okay, we don't have a video on that. But I'm really impressed with that because otherwise it would take all days to get down to Hong Kong. And now you can go from Beijing, which is in the northeast quadrant of the country all the way down there in six hours. That's really remarkable. That's gotta be one of the fastest trains in the world, President. Yes, Jay. And so the rail, which is another motor transmission which we'd like to have feature is incredible because now the One Belt, One Road project, China is gonna connect all the way up through the Middle East, up through Turkey, up to all these places, all the way to Europe. About a few months ago, the first train, France, Canada, went from Yiwu, China, which is near Shanghai, all the way up to London, all the way into 12 days. So we're seeing how the Chinese are making transportation work for them economically as well as making it convenient for people to live. So what's happening is that in Beijing itself, people are starting to move away from the city to being able to afford housing because the transportation system works here. And it's a miracle. So it's part of China's central planning. They've done a great job, as I've seen over the past 15 years and things are gonna get even just way out of scale. We'll see in the next few years. Well, I have to visit you again, Russell. Maybe I'll take the Chinese train from Europe all the way across Russia or the soft underbelly there and arrive and find you in Beijing on a fantastic train ride using the Chinese train, One Road, fabulous. And it's gotta be a huge leverage for the Chinese economy, for the Chinese image in the world, for the Chinese connectivity with so many other places. So smart. Gee whiz. I can't wait to do it, Russell. So what would you say to summarize all of this? What would you say it means to you and to us? Well, I think for our audience in the US we just need to become more global. We need to use the technology. We need to dream a little bit, you know, and we cannot be afraid of it because this is what's happening. And this is an example of how the Chinese is technology, how it makes them more global and how it makes life much more easier to live in. It's much more convenient. And hopefully we'll get the rail or the mass transit line and how to little working and we'll hopefully at least experience something like that. Yeah, well, we can learn a lot. So are you gonna see Donald Trump when he comes around on Friday? Well, we hope to see Donald Trump. I understand that he's coming on Friday, but the traffic's gonna be a mess. I may not be able to get out of the subway after US Embassy. Thank you, Russell. It's always great to talk to you. Thank you so much for those video clips and I look forward to talking with you again soon. That's Russell Liu, an American lawyer living and working in Beijing on Think Tech Global. And he's talking about the Beijing transportation blues and successes. Aloha, Sijin, Sheshe, Russell. For the audience. They do. You're getting better at figuring them out and being in the right place and all that. So all in all, I think that was a great show. So what are some more interesting things? I think the big...


It says I was poking around for a way to schedule send, schedule sending text messages like you can for email. And although I'm not there yet, it led me down a rabbit hole to a pretty geeky tool that seems perfect for cool stuff found it. And it is data jar for shortcuts. This provides persistent storage for shortcuts. It's an app, you download the app onto your phone and then you use shortcuts to populate data into it and pull data out of it. It's synchronized using iCloud. So it's now on all of your devices. It understands JSON, which is a very standard way of sending data around. And it's built for shortcuts and it works fine right inside your shortcuts. It's got integration there. It is free with a tip jar. So if you download, I would say download it, mess with it, and if you start using it, well, by all means, send them some coin. And it is because it syncs with iCloud, it's sort of naturally built to support offline storage. So you have access to your data even when you're in airplane mode or otherwise not connected. And then as soon as you're connected, it'll sync and push what you put in there up and grab what other devices have pulled down. So yeah, if you're doing stuff with shortcuts, data jar may well be the magic little thing here.


Hymars destroyed Russian Strela-10 anti-aircraft system. Fighters of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the southern front adjusted the Hymars' multiple-launch rocket system against the Russian's Strela-10 anti-aircraft missile system. While conducting reconnaissance on the southern front, the crew of the UAV of the 73rd Maritime Center of the Special Forces found a Strela-10 anti-aircraft missile system which the enemy uses to observe and destroy air targets at low altitudes. The Special Operations Forces fighters adjusted the Hymars' fire of the rocket troops and artillery unit of the Defense Forces of Ukraine to the enemy target. As a result of the attack, the enemy's air defense system was destroyed. On the 2nd of January, fighters from the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with the 140th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, used Hymars to attack a Yastreb AV, the most advanced Russian radar system. While conducting reconnaissance on one of the southern fronts, a UAV crew from the 73rd Naval Center of the Special Operations Forces discovered a 1K-148 Yastreb AV artillery reconnaissance system. Special Operations Forces operators, together with the unit of the Defense Forces, the 140th Separate Mechanized Brigade carried out an attack with Hymars. As a result of the fire damage, the enemy's Yastreb AV system was destroyed, Special Operations Forces said.


that sounded nice um so it's just running just as the crystal and I don't know if you can hear that but it's pulling through a radio station on that band it's going to go through quickly because really I think I'm still supposed to use in day mode I've actually switched a little switch that's on here from light to day and it does say that it's that it's just on the crystal when it's on night and in the daytime it's using the heaters the the tube here so I don't understand why I still get a bit of a station or a station I need to understand it so there's not a lot but there it is there is a there is on the on this one up here band one and that has got a bit more power to it than what it had um before with the other diodes so now I'm going to switch on the main power so I'm just gonna well that makes absolutely a difference because that's the power gain is there isn't it so that it's just definitely been amplified from the lamp here so I'm going to switch now take that off there connect it onto power run day mode flip the power supply okay so that's on that's on full on there that's just about off there I tell you what you know when I turn on this cheap power supply on top of my other one listen to that send it back off again I think we're going to get a bit of interest from the light there's not a lot I can really do about it convince so not a big selection of stations just go back in case I missed something yeah I'm just on about halfway and we've got to remember that this is a lot of this is about the area the antenna and it doesn't have really the correct one this is just a bit of magnet wire going off to the radiator and I just sanded down the the pipe on the radiator and wrapped it around that's all very nice thing I don't know I do what they're talking about but there is definitely there's definitely an improvement in power and for the stations and what there was earlier but we are I mean it's what time is it 7 o'clock at 7 so we're getting to evening time I suppose not that's terrible with the light off we can't actually see to change the oh no that light's on yeah that is that's my little Edison bulb comes in handy when I don't want the fluorescent that's what I thought as well mate that's exactly what I thought of course the main thing is with this it's not what it does with the tube here it's what it does just with the crystal itself so then you can just have the earpiece in no batteries or anything and be sticking it to the man when that one to pay the ridiculously high energy bills yeah before we get a copyright for the G there's a lot of a see a lot of it's about the air because I'm just touching the aerial of it and it's doing that so there's quite a few you know things that can be played around with and it's changed on this not so much on this itself but I mean with the aerial that's one thing I've done I've made a square aerial I've got the calculations wrong because I didn't actually check and I'll check I realized I got the calculations wrong but that actually works quite well as well it works better in this but it takes up too much space and but yeah I'm gonna put my little LED in now my little yellow one just so it's got that nice little warmly glow glow move from underneath it but I think that's pretty good that's going to give me lots of fun just playing around with that and I can't wait for later on when I can have the earpiece in and have it just on the crystal set and I can actually play my little crystal sets as well with the earpiece now because I didn't have an earpiece but this set comes with an earpiece and these are like quite hard to find for less than three or four pounds so I'm quite shocked I think the overall value for money here you got a tuning capacity you got a bait light knob it's a nice one as well it's a nice finish very smooth no disfigurements whatsoever you've got the tube a little up um yeah even though it would choke here you buy one of these uh little 10 millihenry which that is and well I bought a load from china because I needed a couple and it worked out to be better to buy 50 from china than what it did to buy just two from the uk here so uh yeah I think uh I think the money's worth so 19 pounds all in uh 19 pounds yeah 19 pounds all in shipped in it's kept me entertained all day pretty much apart from from a couple of confused ever but it's it's kept me entertained all day it's great that's to be fantastic uh trevor well done mate bye y'all there we go you know let's I put in a little uh a little uh orange yellow light now doesn't that look cute it came with a blue one and that just looked a little bit too uh not authentic that looks cute you can see in the inside you know about the argument over the sign uh and it looks like it's all little pretty much from the inside so it's going to go back into this one which I'm sure he will I'm sure he'd want to go in on his own turn that's the way they do it and they break you down they already pretty much just around you and then you know you're on my job and uh I just get the thanks for watching


I appreciate all those ones who organized the event. We have time for one person. In two next places, we are here. Yeah, in 2018, December, that was kind of our last one, because we were here, and we really miss you, so much, so much. So for me, I was welcome, then we get to the best. We are going to get to the best. I am not sure of things about what we look at, some of we are happy for the first time, but we have to help one of you. Okay, that is simple, I assume you guys are familiar with this. So, learning using the page we voted, in front of that, you have something that you're passionate about, you want to talk about, or you want to teach people, you can't do that, and one person is very interested, and you can't do that, you can't do that, so you have to learn to do something about the expression of the environment. For example, I want to inspire, I want to share stories, I want to share experiences, in a way that can help you, help other people learn, if I do that through, growing, and growing low, people are able to see, are able to learn, is that, they are able to get, and understand what you want. Using other mediums, because I don't have a medium with a hosting company, hosting guys, you have to read more about it, then once you have a medium, you can set it up, so right now I want to help you guys, set up a blog, using one person who did that, so it's okay, I'm not going to do a presentation, I'm going to show you, this is my computer. You can see, you can see, but you can't do it, you can see in my view, you can just leave on your side, and I'll have it, I can't do it, but I'm very sure these two guys know the best, so the best of them, the best people, they believe that these two don't know how to create a question, how to create this, like I think they did, and hold it, that's in their life. So maybe that's not the best way to do it, but I think that's the best way, so why should you write your content? Why? Why? Why should you write your content? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? But then, the mere fact that it is our space, it's not ready to be up here and there. So you find that it helps them to go back into their space. It puts a very little experience. I mean, so I love reading. I'm one person out there. One has to go out there. I like it. I like it. I guess you miss it out there. So have a look at it. They are people who write. They are writing. They have to write again. So they have a good structure, like I said. They write a little bit of international. Have a wedding. Then, for the best thought, where it's a bit too cold, too cold. And it's not even possible. But it's very cold and too cold now. I just don't know about it. Time is up. This is the best thing. I need to find a job when I need to find out about you. When I search, where do you want me to go into? When I need a job to find out. I need to go through that. I need to find a job. I need to find a job. I need to find a job. I need to find a job. I need to find a job. When I need to me. Find a woman who has the gold... in different places. Like your husband, he's the one who owns that job. And that's because he's complicated. We don't just write to fantasy. We come from both sides. Each one of us thinks that who is the best current person that will goods us. When we are just putting the money in those files, we submit them, As your land were decided to open, most of its friendship reached to you in the same way that I advise you to have this theory. I know some of you have already taken the land in one place, but if you don't have this theory, go and do this theory. You don't have this theory, I must find a foundation in the web, then you come and then you go to meet the workplace. Because if you don't have this theory in one place, that's not what I can expect from you. With your ability, such a good content, I hope you'll try to help us. Thank you for the conclusion. Now, this is the test. Can you tell me about me? Can you tell me anything about me?


don't want to draw people's criticism. In fact, quite the opposite. I would really like people to like me. I would. So, since I know I have this trait that I can't change, that people don't like, I go to great lengths to develop all the other traits that people will like. So, I put a significant amount of time and energy into being, well, likable. So, that when discriminatory things happen, maybe I can turn it around. The decision every day to come out or not at work, at home, at PTA, at music, at soccer, it's exhausting. If, for example, I'm on a plane and somebody comes up and I've saved a seat for Sandy, but she's not there yet and they say, is that saved? And I say, yes, it's for my partner. And they say, oh, well, then could you please move so I could sit there? Or if we're at a store and people want to know if we're sisters or cousins or friends and I have to decide every day if I want to come out everywhere I go and take the chance that somebody will have a hostile reaction or just go there and buy the microwave we went there to buy without having to go through all that again. Remember the first time I met Sandy thinking that she was maybe the sparkliest person I ever met. And our friendship became more and more. It became deeper and deeper over time. And after a few years, I began to feel that I might be falling in love with her. And how did she feel about you? She told me she loved me too. We will be asking her to verify that. Okay. When I was 21 and she was 19, my sister was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. The summer I graduated from college, she died. I was the only biological child my parents had left. Losing Karen changed us all. Not necessarily for the best. We all fumbled through the sadness for years after that. It really felt like we'd be devastated and broken forever. My 20s were so wrapped up in grieving and healing, but I eventually came out of it. And when I did, I felt crystal clear that I wanted a family. I wanted to give birth. I wanted to feel connected to my kids the way I had to my parents and Karen when she was alive. I was unequivocal, unequivocal in my desire to have kids and bring the best parts of my sister, our family, and our future together. The rest is pretty typical. My partner of seven years and I started the process of learning how to get pregnant. Yes, lesbians have to learn how. I went to a considering parenthood class for lesbians. We chose a donor. We started inseminating. And after a year and a half, I decided to use fertility medication. And that's when it worked. I got pregnant the spring of 1994. I was eight months pregnant on my 30th birthday and bigger than our little house. You boys were born at UCSF on October 30 by C-section. I will not give you the OR details. But you were not accidents. You were not irresponsible. You two are about the most responsible, important, meaningful things I will ever do in my whole life. And don't you ever let anyone ever make you feel any different. You got it.  Fine, tacos, take out whatever you want.


Kabul's acting mayor, Abdullah Nomani, says work to beautify the Afghan capital is underway. Nomani said he started working as soon as he was appointed the mayor of Kabul. The acting mayor said, though the work stopped at many places, but cleaning and maintenance of greenery, improvement and traffic control had been his priority since taking office nearly a month ago. He said they had cleared the barricades in the central city and would continue to remove barriers from different places in the city to maintain the traffic flow. The Islamist Taliban took control of Afghanistan last month, oisting a U.S.-backed government as U.S. and other international forces withdrew after a 20-year mission.