In previous lecture I have been discussing about determination of shear strength of soils and one of the most simple test which is normally performed to obtain shear strength parameters as we mentioned C and phi in the last lecture is direct shear box test. Sometimes this is also known as box shear test. There are different types of boxes which are available and you can make your own box also in fact for R and D purpose. What I have been discussing in the lectures is a direct shear box which is of size 6 by 6 centimeter cross section area and height of the sample could be 25 to 30 mm. For research purpose people use 10 centimeter by 10 centimeter cross section box and for field engineers sometimes particularly if you are trying to create in let us say rock core dam or if you are testing bigger size aggregates even 1 meter by 1 meter or 1 meter cube box is also sometimes used for getting the shear strength parameters. IIT Bombay had this type of a setup long back now we have dismantled it because of the obvious reasons difficult to maintain such type of setups. So in today's lecture what I will do is I will continue with where I left in the last lecture that is the analysis of the test results which we obtained from the direct shear box test and we will also talk about the disadvantages and advantages of conducting direct shear box test and from this point onwards I will touch upon the theory of shear strength of soils. So if you remember just a quick recap what we do is we apply normal stress on the sample in the box and we measure the shear stress and this shear stress would tend to shear stress at failure tau f failure is the one where I showed a peak or sometimes a residual strength. So this could correspond to tau peak or tau residual and sometimes we also we have denoted this in fact as tau control volume and what else we require to analyze from this test is I am very eager to know how the volumetric deformations occur when you strain the sample when you shear the sample remember the whole response of the material is during shearing not under the static condition. So what we want to obtain here is delta V and delta H so this is the vertical deformation of the sample and this is the horizontal deformation of the sample as a function of shearing is very important. So the moment we say shearing the rate of shearing is the first parameter which governs the shear strength of the soil alright and rate of shearing is adopted in such a manner that you want to simulate the response of the drainage conditions alright that is the response of the material over a period of time. So time is included in this time history of shearing the obvious question is that why we are doing all this as an engineer we want to characterize the soils as a technologist we want to you know dictate with the material we want to utilize the material in the best possible manner that is the whole idea and that is the reason we are trying to simulate these conditions to obtain the response of the material when it is getting sheared. So the peculiar response of the sample we call it when you shear it would be as I discussed in the previous lecture if I plot shear stress in some units KPA whatever and this is epsilon A percentage axial deformation. So if this is the box to begin with or if this is the sample to begin with this happens to be the cleavage plane we have two halves of the sample after shearing this is the situation alright and this is the this is how the sample looks like. So there is a vertical compression delta V and there is a horizontal deformation delta H and this is the plane of shear we call this as the shearing plane one of the disadvantages of these tests is that the plane of shear is predefined you cannot alter the plane of stress plane of shearing so this is one of the disadvantages but advantages very simple test to do very quick ease of doing testing and it gives you the parameter which are going to be upper bound maximum parameter because this is a two dimensional situation correct. So this is what is going to give you the maximum possible capability of the material clear now as a captain you have to utilize what fraction of this should be utilized to design the systems and we will talk about this slightly later. So this is a peculiar response of a dense soil particularly sands I would say direct shear box test is normally done for granular materials alright particularly sands fine sands at the most sills it is never done for clays why the reason is clays are mostly prone to development of pore water pressure and one of the limitations of the direct shear box test set up is you cannot maintain the pore water pressure you cannot measure them because this is a preliminary test it is a very simple test. So for research purpose of course you can modify it and you can measure it but truly speaking conventional direct shear box test set ups were not used for measuring the pore water pressure. So if I do a slow test and if I allow pore water pressure to dissipate slowly and slowly alright still I would like to know the pore water pressures if I do a fast test I am not allowing any pore water pressure to develop to get dissipated even then I am interested in noticing down the pore water pressure. So the limitation of this test is not done for clays fine grain materials silty clays we will never perform a direct shear box but a sandy silty material of course yes boundary case condition otherwise it is quite useful for fine sands and coarse sands gravels will also not be falling in this category the reason is a particle might get trapped between the cleavage alright and then when you are shearing it it might get crushed. So rather than getting the shear strength of the material you might be getting the crushing strength of the particles so these are the issues which force us to adopt something better than this we will talk about this later on. So this is the dense sands and this is going to be the loose sands yesterday I discussed about this that this type of a characteristic curve is normally utilized for characterizing the soils as an engineering material. Now what I will do is corresponding to these two I will show you how in the previous lecture I have depicted compression and dilation otherwise. Now if I measure let us say the volumetric deformation because area of cross section remains constant here only the vertical height is changing and horizontal length is changing for a given length of sample L if I say the deformation and if I plot it on the scale with respect to epsilon A for loose sands the deformation curve would be like this and for the dense sands the deformation curve would be something like this alright. I will write this as positive compression and this is as negative compression the positive is compression and the negative is dilation alright I can depict this on e scale which I did in the previous lecture. So this is how I plotted e versus epsilon A how the void ratios change and this is how we plot for the loose sands and this is for the dense sands alright. Now concentrate for few minutes on the blackboard stop writing a bit of the philosophical interpretation of the characteristic curves which we have got what is happening here now this is the critical state of the material if I draw a line over here this is the critical state of the material we represent this as either TCR or tau CV control volume after achieving this state of shearing the sample does not show any volumetric deformation either delta V or delta H delta H is in our hands so what we do is normally delta H upon L is approximately 6 to 10 percent in conventional test the reason is very simple the more and more you shear it may so happen that delta H might become a very big overhang on the sample and the sample may get tilted when you are shearing it. So this is the biggest disadvantage of doing this test so delta H has to be limited it cannot be more than 6 to 10 percent if I want to know shearing strength of the material for very high axial strength what I should be doing I should be going for a ring shear test or sometimes we call this as a torr shear test. So this becomes a ring shear test alright so you have a circular sample like consolidation cell and in which you try to rotate the entire sample with certain angle anything which is lying above this line is the state of the material clear. So very dense and when they are sheared what happens the energy gets stored in the system and because of the storage of the energy there is a hump formation now the question is what happens after this peak at very near to peak shear strength the material has a tendency to crack and once the cracking occurs air enters into the system the density becomes less and that is the reason there is a drop in shear strength from peak to the residual. So if you keep on shearing the sample a stage comes where the shear strength becomes almost constant and this is what is known as residual shear strength alright. Now this portion of the graph corresponds to dilation what dilation means remember we have confined the sample by applying sigma and truly speaking when you are shearing the sample what is happening the sample is defining the confining stress and the whole system is moving up now this is a very peculiar property of the sands which are either very dense clear or which are interlocked interlocking of sands why interlocking of sands occurs if you look at the microstructure of the sands you will find that this is how the grains would be alright this we had talked about in the first course if you remember and this type of a shape of the grains is going to an interlocking effect something like this is also known as a gear box assembly two gears put together I get lot of strength against shearing alright. So this is the situation which is responsible for a hum formation very peculiar characteristics so dilation is a function of sigma alright and sigma is the confining stress this type of a phenomena is normally observed for very small confining pressures approximately 25 kPa let us say alright 25 kPa is approximately 0.25 kg per centimeter square so for very small stresses dilation occurs as sigma increases what will happen this whole portion of the curve will get compressed in the compression zone so there will not be any dilation. So that means if I draw an arrow over here and if I say with increased sigma value the dilation will vanish and what will happen the dilation response will get reflected into compression response only. So these are the peculiar characteristics of a shearing phenomena of the material which is soils any questions and then I discussed about you know the critical value of if I say that this is the E critical or ECV control volume constant volume sorry not control volume I said most of the systems are designed in this range so that they remain stable and the earthquake effect is not there much the reason is simple within this band of wide ratios the compression and dilations are going to be extremely small and hence the foundations which you are going to design would be more stable. Now if I repeat this phenomena 2-3 times by changing sigma value alright so this is for one sample remember if I do now if I make 3-4 identical samples identical means the densities are same the way of formation of the sample is same and they are identical for all practical purposes what I am going to get is I am going to get the response where the shear strength and if you plot axial strain so if I say that this is the direction of increasing sigma each of this curve corresponds to one sample sample A sample B sample C and so on and what is changing is only sigma value so you can connect this response with this response the moment sigma increases the dilation vanishes the whole response is compression the moment confining stress increases the shear strength also shoots up alright and then if I pick up these peaks or the residual thing here in this case there is no peak a easy way to plot this would be what is known as a shear envelope or shear strength envelope is something which covers the entire mechanism so if I plot tau versus sigma now each of this test is going to give me a Mohr circle because the Mohr circle is symmetrical about the x-axis we always plot only half of it fine so this is the sample A depending upon sigma 1 sigma 3 values what is going to happen will be getting another Mohr circle and the third one would be because the sigma value is extremely high this is how it will look like so this is sample A sample B sample C 3 identical samples tested with different values of sigma this is the response which we are going to get if I draw a envelope which is nothing but the shear strength we call this as a failure envelope what I have to do is I have to draw a tangent which is touching all the 3 circles and which might be cutting this is a tangent actually now this becomes the Mohr Coulomb envelope or sometimes people call this as Mohr envelope Mohr Coulomb failure criteria having done these tests by maintaining the rate of shearing constant density constant I have got these 3 circles and I have drawn a common tangent the intercept of this line on the y-axis is defined as cohesion C and the slope of this line is defined as phi phi is the coefficient of internal friction and C is the cohesion alright now most of the time people misinterpret these graphs remember first thing is the scale of tau and sigma should be same then only you can draw a circle so the first thing which is important is tau and sigma scale should be same draw these circles draw the tangent interpret C and phi so word of caution here is you have to go back the soil classification which you did in the first course because C and phi cannot be unique for the material try to characterize the soil first and see what type of soil is this superimpose that information on the graph which we are going to get so if I am working on the soils which can be classified as coarse material it is understood that C will be 0 clear so this is where the pathological examination is very important doctors never diagnose a patient based on what he or she says they just listen the story correct and what is important is that I will be getting all the pathological reports and I have a conceived idea about the illness I try to match between what this person says and what the reports say and then prescribe a medication so this is like selecting the right parameters as long as you sit in my class please do not do any mistake in this because it is not a mathematics that you just plot a circle draw a tangent so please remember this there should not be any goof up with this information I mean you have to understand the soil you might be getting the results but then be careful in interpretation of the data otherwise it is not correct agreed the cohesion in sands is possible under two three situations either they are interlocked or they are cement cemented so this cohesion could be because of interlocking we just talked about interlocking effect this could be because of cementing agents which are present in the sands so most of the time sands are calcareous in nature they are calcium and this calcium binds the particle together all right this could be because of aging of sands also I hope you can realize how difficult it is to deal with the natural materials and that is why we require technologists and the right doctors who can deal with the material most of the problems in the contemporary society are misinterpretation the results the point is it is a very difficult situation to interpret the results and all natural process what is the aging of sands over the period of time millions of years you know the silica which is present in the sands might ooze out come out and cohes the particles so this is what is known as aging of sands cementing materials you have calcium carbonate you might be having different type of sulfates different type of bicarbonates and they might be forming the bond between the two the only possibility is where the environmental geomechanics comes in the picture if there is a acid contamination of sands suppose there is a spillage of acids hydrochloric acid sulfuric acid the industry where these type of acids are being produced what these acids will do they will try to eat up the carbonates which are present in the sands clear and that is the only possibility when c is going to become 0 again otherwise you have to do you have to give you weightage to the material you can say that this is the frictional material and hence c is not going to be 0 so this is the subject where lot of interpretation is required understanding of the material is required it is not the mathematics that you got three points and you just join them together and say that this is done I hope this point is clear interlocking because of the grains which are highly irregular there could be another possibility suppose the material gets inundated too much of soaking in water because of flooding and now I think you can realize why structures are failing because we have not selected the parameters rightly so the moment I put water in the system the chances are that this cohesion may get lost and that is the reason we call all these three terms under the head of you know we call them as effective cohesion apparent cohesion apparent cohesion so these things are responsible for apparent cohesion fine now you have to go through the statement of the problem very carefully when you are diagnosing a report see what is the geological age of the of the sands what type of activities they might have gone through in the days of formation and what type of cohesive mechanisms might be occurring in them once you have done all this straightforward gets c and phi parameters and job is done fine so this will give you c and phi our objective is over the whole idea of doing direct shear box test box shear test was to obtain shear strength parameters remember this is the two dimensional situation clear plain strain why because you are straining the sample at a constant rate of shearing is this okay


And I have one last announcement before we begin this talk. This is a personal announcement to whoever slapped the sticker saying for recto use only onto my microphone. Microphones are not supposed to be used this way. Please trust me, I am very familiar with microphones. I know how they are supposed to be used. However, our next speaker is going to tell you about things that are supposed to be used this way and about how to secure and protect those things. So please welcome Vione and the talk you all came here to see, Internet of Donks. Hello, welcome to the chat room of Kathie and Kaste. Today we are going to translate this lecture on Internet of Donks, which is what we call love for you and we hope that you have a fantastic evening. Hello, my name is Werner. I work for SecConsult as a security consultant and it is about the penetration of security systems. I studied computer science in the last five years and I was in the University of St. Paulton. And about a year ago, I had a major challenge. This challenge was to choose a topic for my master's thesis. You might know, there are always those pre-defined topics. Some of them are really interesting. Most of them are very quickly gone and you have the last boring topics. I didn't want to be too stressed and I wanted to look for my own topic. The first thing I did was to get a better overview and I looked at what other people were writing. And these are the really interesting topics like Bitcoin, GDPR, Cyber, Cyber, Cyber, DevOps, Management, MailWare. But some of you may have noticed that there is a missing topic. This is very, very important in 2018 and this is the Internet of Things. I guess I don't have to explain what the Internet of Things is. It is, so to speak, the connection from all devices that used to be analog. And they are actually still connected via the Internet. And I thought, maybe I can combine the knowledge of sec-consult with pen-testing. The problem is, there are millions of products and I only have one job to write. So I have to find a sub-category of what the Internet of Things is. Especially when it comes to pen-testing. And the first thing that came to my mind was smart home devices. Yes, we have already heard a lot of interesting stories. For example, coffee machines, lawns, lamps, thermometers, something like that in the direction. But this category has a few problems. There is a lot of research on this and the other problem is the influence that it has on society. I don't really want to talk about it now, I don't want to talk about it. But when there are weak spots, when a DDoS happens on your lawn, then you go into the garden and then you're in the lawn yourself. And I thought I had to choose a sub-category where there is a big influence on society. And then I dealt with smart dolls, for example. There was this Puppe Keiler. Someone found out that it had an built-in microphone and that the data was sent to a strange server in strange countries. And it was actually also called illegal and had to be destroyed. And there were a lot of research on baby monitors. And a colleague of mine wrote a very good blog post. And there are also devices that influence our bodies. For example, the brain-maker, for example, from Science & Medical. They have the largest manufacturer of brain-makers. They have produced a brain-maker that is controllable via Bluetooth. But they just forgot the authentication. It's a very, very big problem because basically everyone could influence your brain-maker. But as you can see, these categories, that would be really hard. So that's really not good. So the deadline came to me and I really had to get into the topic. And I did a lot of brainstorming with myself and then a lot more. That there is one category that has a very, very big influence. But there is no big research on it. And that is the Internet of Dildos. That's basically the integration of sex toys in the Internet of Things, where you can connect with each other, for example, and with the Internet. But before that, I would like to show you what I found on the Internet of Dildos. A bit of history, so to speak. You might think it's something new, but the Internet of Dildos actually exists for about 50 to 60 years. And whenever there are new discoveries, the first ones actually appear in films. And that also applies to the Internet of Dildos. There are, for example, Barbarella, or Flash Gordon, or Orgasmo. And in these films, there are real films, actually. The Internet of Dildos actually appeared in these films. For example, in Barbarella. The bad guy used Orgasmo-tron to produce such a hard memory that people died. So the Internet of Dildos was actually a mass destruction weapon in the 60s and 70s. And not a mass of memory. That also resulted in a new research area, which is called Teledildonic. Of course, that's also a joke, but not from me, but from Ted Nelson. He's a technical philosopher, and he has some quite well-known terms, like Teledildonic. For example, virtuality and Teledildonic. And that was first mentioned in his book, Dream Machines. You can recommend it, you should maybe read it. In the book there are interviews with different people who had innovative and interesting ideas, but the technology was not so far away. And here's a guy who's involved, he's called Hal Voxpress. He talked about AudiTac, you can google it. There you can find a few pages where you can look a little further. He's still looking for a manufacturer who can help him to build the sonic stimulator, the audio stimulator. At the end of the day, it's a radio-controlled Dildo. It has an antenna. They go into a radio and from there two exits go, one for the stimulator and one for the headset. It even has a patent. You can search it on Google. The signals are connected to sound waves that are directly connected to the signal of the life. They're connected directly to the signal of the life. They're connected directly to the signal of the life. They're connected directly to the signal of the life. The technology was not so far away in the 1970s, but in 2018 we're definitely ready for it. That's why we're going to test the Internet of Dildos now. Before we take a closer look at the devices, I have to say that I really want to keep this project as serious as possible. I'm going to try to keep the Inuendos Pro Minute as low as possible and make as little as possible recordings. So, now we're going to talk about the test devices. I've chosen three devices. On the right side we have the Vibratissimo Pantybuster, i.e. the Höschen Springer. In the middle we have the Magic Motion Flamingo, i.e. the Magic Movement Flamingo. And on the left side we have the Vibratissimo... They are manufactured in China and the device on the right side is manufactured in Germany. And the first device is manufactured in Germany. And I have to admit, I was a little overwhelmed. And I thought, well, I could also look at the Chinese devices first. They are the low-hanging fruits, but a question to the audience. Who could think that I have found the most gaps in Chinese devices? Who believes that I have found the most weak places in the German device? Who believes that I have found the most weak places everywhere? Yeah, you're basically all right. And when I looked at the German device closely, I found so many weak places that I really listened to them and wrote my complete work about one device. Okay, so the Pantybuster is a product of a complete series of products, but it was the cheapest of all. All use the same back-end, the same apps. And the Pantybuster is a device that is connected to a smartphone with Bluetooth. It can be used, for example, for remote relations, but there are many more behind these apps. There is a complete social media connection. You can make chats, group chats, for example. You can create images galleries, you can make friends lists. Yes, it's true. It's not a joke. Yeah. And now we're going to analyze. And now we're going to analyze the software. Yeah, we're going to analyze the software. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the transport layer and the hardware, of course. So I'm going to start with the software. The first weak point that we have to talk about is the information disclosure area. So there are just a few version numbers. Yes, actually, in most cases it's pretty boring, but in this case it's really critical. I found a so-called de-store, a so-called de-store data in the web route. It's created by Mac OS Finder. There are a lot of metadata in it, for example. And if you find such a data in a web route, you have a side channel directory listing. It has a proprietary format. There is a Python module with which you can decode. And I just decoded it. And then I was shown that. So to speak, a complete side channel directory of the whole device, all the data, for example, old page example. I don't know why that has to be in this production environment. It's a database folder. But the most interesting thing is the config folder. And we'll take a closer look at this config folder. There is one data in it, the config.php. And there are the following information in it. Basically, I don't have a access to a localhost, a dbname, a username and a pass. The problem is that this host is just local. It could be that it is not really available directly on the Internet. And then you have to find a corresponding interface for it. Of course, this is the first thing I did. I did a port scan. A lot of interesting ports. So the most interesting for me is the MySQL port. But some of you may remember it. We call it the MacWiddy-orange-brown web application, the PHP MyAdmin. And then I found a subdomain that ran the application. And with that, I had a direct access to the database and had access to all the data immediately. So basically, I had access now to the real-life addresses on all real-life data, on all addresses, the member access, on all galleries, on the pictures, on messages, on everything. And the passwords were also in the clatex, so that's really bitter in the 21st century. So there wasn't much more to be done. I already had everything. In the real-life sense, I had just passed 30 minutes and I already had access to it. And I wanted to write it down as quickly as possible and send it to the German Zertbund. And then after an hour, I got a really interesting call and they already called the manufacturer and they wanted to raise the problem. I always had the problem that I had to write my master's thesis and now I had to write a few more pages, so I had to find a little bit more and of course I continued to research and found something. And now I want to talk about insecure direct access to objects. So at the end of the day, there's always a vulnerability that leads to two sub-problems or two sub-problems. So normally it's like a random string which shouldn't be guessed. Normally it's like a random string that shouldn't be advisable and the second thing is that you still have authentication tests. So even if you can advise the random identifiers, there should still be an access test that prevents you from downloading it afterwards. And in this case, it was just really easy to guess them and it was also a lot easier to advise the identifiers and there was also no access protection on it. I had to learn that on the hardcore tour. There is a feature in these smartphone apps. It's called Galerin. You can see it just your friends are able to see it yourself. And you can also give it a password. And just for a test, I have a gallery with cats and I have the request here that I need. You have to give the ID at the back of the gallery. And then I just changed the ID and then I found another gallery and I also found a penis picture. And that's relatively simple because every picture is given to the server with a global ID. So it's just unnamed. And the ID is simply counted. And there are no authentication tests. It's just put away and it doesn't matter if there are passwords on it or visibility. The weak spot I found is called unambiguous authentication. Now of course there are many different ways to implement an authentication. They are either good or bad. In that case, it just makes no sense. It's a bit like HttpBasic, but it's just a bit worse. What's normal is that you get a username and a password to the server and if the password is correct, I usually get an information that is secret and that makes the authentication like a cookie or a token. But in this case, it was just that every request has a username and password in clear text.  So if your password is compromised, then you also have to change your username in the future, because otherwise it's just still broken. So the next weak spot is called unambiguous authentication. There is a feature in these apps. I can send remote control links without any extra authentication or confirmation. Now let's take a look at this button. In this email there is a button called Quick Control. And there is of course another ID. It's just a global counter again. It's just a global ID. It can simply download the app. Create your own Quick Control link and then change the ID. Just count one down and then tell your favorite stranger on the Internet to have fun. I'll show you guys a video now. I'll show you a video where I do exactly that. So when the video is going to start, it's going to start perfect. On the right side we're going to see an attack device. It's just connected to the network. It just creates a link and then it's going to tell the ID and on the left side you can see a smartphone connected to the SmartSexToy. That's the attack device on the left and on the right is the victim. So now in a few seconds that's just what I'm going to explain. There is no confirmation, no question, no search or app. Now I have to talk about software. There is still more stuff in there like cross-site scripting and the like. But I don't have that much time. Let's talk about the transport layer. I've already talked a little bit about your weaknesses about your weaknesses and I'm going to tell you now about Bluetooth LE, what it's about in general and how authentication and connections work at a high level. You can imagine that Bluetooth LE works like a web API, it's a very, very high-end high-end, there are API endpoints and there are properties, the name of the device, for example, and it can be read and written and there are also a few other characteristics that are very important when it comes to remote pleasure 2.0, so it's a very, very short explanation, but we don't really have much more time. There are a few reasons for what the security is. Bluetooth LE uses AES-CCM, it's Counter-CBC on Mac, it's safe to keep, but as we all know, security is always a question of key exchanges and with Bluetooth LE, when keys are made, when pairing. With Bluetooth LE, we have different variants of the pairing, where we just throw packets into them and any device that is in the environment is just done with these packets. We have JustWorks, we have Out-of-Band-Pairing, PASCY and Numeric Comparison, so a numerical comparison. So you know this, for example, where you have to enter a number to pair devices. And it's just, yeah, okay, it's your device, we have Out-of-Band-Pairing, for example, like with the headphones, with NFC and JustWorks, it can just be brute-forced. It just works.  Does one of the other variants use more or less secure? Yes, it actually doesn't use pairing. Really? Yes. And they just throw packets and the device that is in the environment, it just does something with it and it's fun. Yes, that's actually, you can knock it out very quickly. You can just sniff it and I did that. I used the Bluetooth LE sniffer. It works really well for that. And I have it between the sextoy and the smartphone app. And I just snipped a little bit with it and found some nice endpoints. And there's the 1F handle. It's like initialization. And there's a handle 25, where it's about the vibration intensity of the device. Well, and now it's a little bit of war dildoing, so to speak, war dildoing. I wrote a little Python script. It just looks at Bluetooth LE devices in the environment. Then it tries to say, when is it a sextoy? And if not, then at some point it will be switched on. It will be switched on, exactly. And the next thing I want to talk about is not so funny, to be honest. But please don't laugh, because when we published this, many of you asked me on Twitter, it's violent, very serious. Take a look. There's a man who wants to drive an attack and sits, for example, in the U-Bahn in Vienna. And he just starts this script like that. And he just looks at people. That's violence. In Austria we have violence and sexual harassment. And we have violence and freedom of speech, but we have a special paragraph. It's really hard to translate, but we can say the pograb paragraph. That's why I chose this term in the English version. And according to this paragraph, it is just an unwanted sexual act over a third device, so to speak, which is difficult to define. The hardware. The biggest problem is that company updates are not possible. That was confirmed by the manufacturer. The problem is that many weak points are easily solved by making a company update. And the manufacturer had this idea. You could send this sextoy as a user to make a company update, but honestly, that really doesn't do anyone. And the other problem is that there are no debug interfaces. So there are serial interfaces. And you can pull out the company. And then you can also do a little more research with the company. So what can you do with it? Yes, I would like to use the smart sextoy. What can I do? Well, allopholy works, not really. Let's be honest. There are a lot of interesting open source projects. For example, Internet of DONGs project. There is a very interesting person behind it. He is called RenderMan. You can find him on Twitter. He found this project to make the Internet of DONGs a little safer. He does penetration tests. And he also gives so-called DVIs, DVIs out. And then you have Batplug.doct.io, Metaphatish, which develop open source firmware for many different devices. And they are independent of the manufacturers. There is also something like OnionDildonics, which has the goal of rerouting all the smart sextoys. They worry about rerouting the traffic of the sextoys via the Tor network to make it all a little safer. Okay, there is one more thing. I had a lot of calls with the manufacturer and one was particularly nice. We have tried to explain to the manufacturer that it is not good that you can simply save everyone from the Internet with it. It should at least be a feature that you select actively and not just work from home. The manufacturer said, no, of course that is not possible, because most of its customers are swing clubs and you do not know who is in there. And that is why there is no opt-in, because we are always there. Thank you. That was my talk. Thank you. That was very educational. Thank you. That was very informative. Who wants to ask questions now on Twitter or in the ISE? Ask whatever you want. So apparently people on Twitter are engaged in a drinking game where they were drinking. Apparently they played a drinking game on Twitter every time when there is penetration. They drank it. In the meantime we have a question from microphone So now we have a first question. Have you ever seen the patent role and the Tiller-Dedonics? Were companies somehow declared out of it? Yes, there was actually something that was the Tiller-Dedonics Appreciation Day. The patent just ran off. So you can actually just use the term as much as you want. Thank you. Microphone number three, please. So this was very funny, obviously. And you showed us the real, easy-to-pick things. But have you also found the social graph of the user on the website? Have you already looked at other devices? And can you show us a little bit what I think is difficult? For example, the profile of user preferences and so on? Yes, actually, I haven't looked at the data in detail. And I actually contacted the manufacturer, but I can't give you any information there. But I have looked at tracking, for example. And in this case, there wasn't much tracking.  But if you compare it to the Chinese sex toy, there was a lot more tracking. But I didn't really look at it in a very detailed way. Thank you again for the educational and entertaining talk. Thank you again for the interesting talk. And hopefully, a big round of applause for you.


and welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Check Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kili Iakina, your host and president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. Well, if there's any problem we're talking about today in Hawaii, it's the shortage of housing. And there are lots of ways of approaching it in terms of finding solutions. But have you ever heard of the idea of single step stairs? That's something we're gonna talk a bit about today. It's certainly an idea we should throw into the mix. And I've got an expert on hand who's gonna inform us as to how we might apply that to Hawaii. Single stair construction. You know how most departments and condos in Hawaii and the rest of the US have two stairways on each side with a hallway in between? Well, that makes buildings very expensive and changing it up might be one of the little solutions on the pathway to solving our problem of housing in Hawaii. Join me today and welcome me to the program, Steven Smith. He's the executive director of the Center for Building in North America. He's in New York City now as we speak. Steven, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me on. Well, I look forward to your visiting us out here. You have some background here in Hawaii, right? Yeah, when I was a kid, we used to have a job out in Hawaii every summer and spend every summer on Oahu for a month or two. Great place to live. And we just wish that more people could stay here and afford to live here. Now, you work for an organization, you're the executive director, called Center for Building in North America. What does the center do? Just give us a little bit of background. That's right. So I founded it about a year ago and the goal is to do research and some advocacy on the US construction industry with a focus on policy, building codes and other sort of construction related policies and with a strong focus on a global perspective. So the United States has a very unique way of building and the rest of the world does things a little differently. So the goal is to sort of introduce Americans to concepts, how things are built abroad, how codes are written, what the consequences of our changes are and how things might be different if we adopted sort of other practices. Well, let's get started right from the top. Explain to our audience what single-stair construction is. Precisely. And how that differs from our traditional two-stairway approach that's commonly used in apartments all across the country. Right. So in most of the world, an apartment building will typically have a single staircase. We'll have one staircase, perhaps an elevator, maybe not. And whether we're talking about Asia, Japan, Korea, China or whether we're talking about Europe, think about those beautiful blocks in Paris or some of the slightly taller ones in Spain or Italy. You will find a single staircase and there will be a small number of apartments or right off of it.  In the United States, historically, United States has built out of a lot of light wood frame construction. I know it's been getting more popular in Hawaii in the last couple of years. And this is generally more flammable. The United States had a lot more urban fires in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is something that Europe had largely solved by then by building out of concrete and other materials. So because of this reliance on wood and because of the massive urban fires in New York in the early 19th century or Chicago in the 1870s or San Francisco, the earthquake and then the fire in the early 1900s, we started developing stricter and stricter rules around staircases. And we generally require two of them. After 9-11, it became not only two, but sort of two on opposite ends of the building, which means there will generally be a hallway in the middle. I know in Hawaii, historically, you had what was called gallery access apartments where there's sort of a single hallway and then apartments on one side of it and it's exterior. But at least on the mainland, and I'm guessing you're increasing in Hawaii, the traditional American way of building involves long corridor. It's called a double loaded corridor because it has apartments on either side. And this is what in the rest of the world, they might think of as like a hotel, really, like a hotel-like design. Doesn't make for the most, sorry. No, go ahead. Oh, it doesn't, you know, these sort of hotel-style corridors, they don't make for the best. They don't make for the most livable units. Something that's not that relevant in the mainland because of air conditioning or whatever I know is really important in Hawaii is the idea of cross ventilation. You open windows on opposite sides of your home and you get the nice breeze. And this isn't really possible with a double loaded corridor layout because typically only have window one sort of one side of the wall. So on the mainland, you just crank up the AC but I know that's quite expensive in Hawaii. So this sort of traditional way of building is really important to be able to create a breeze. So you can't get that. You can't get views on multiple sides. The apartment layouts can be a bit inefficient because they sort of lack a lot of windows. And it can also be a difficult way to build when you're building on a small lot. And in the United States, single-family zoning, single-family housing is pretty sacrosanct so we're not building on a lot of small lots. But as the housing crisis gets worse and worse, there's more talk about developing some of these single-family smaller lots and it can be really difficult to do it if you need these two staircases and then the hallway between the two stairs. And so there's sort of a push on a couple of West Coast states to liberalize these rules, bring them a bit more in line with where they are in the rest of the world. What do you think has been some of the major opposition to the use of single-stair construction? So I mean, yeah, it's all about life safety. It's all about fires. Like I said, there were huge fires in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but things have changed a lot since then and I think Hawaii has some particular circumstances that make it a bit unique in this regard. Some things that have changed is for one, now we have sprinklers everywhere, sprinklers are required in all multi-family buildings. Something that's unique about Hawaii is that you have a lot more open stairs, sort of like open to the air. And I looked it up before the show and actually as a result, Hawaii has some of the best fire safety in the United States. You guys are number 49 out of 50 in fire deaths per capita. So we've encountered opposition, I wouldn't say opposition, concern and wanting to do sort of a full analysis of the issue from fire services and from some people concerned with fire safety. So that's really the challenge. You need to make these things safe. Safety always has to be number one. You can't sacrifice that for anything and even affordability. So that's the opposition that needs to be overcome. Good. How do you make the case that single stair construction can actually reduce the building costs and contribute to alleviating our housing shortage?  But one thing that architects target when they build is they try to get to an efficiency ratio of 80 to 90%, what does that mean? That means 80 to 90% of the building is going to the apartments and not stairs, elevators, hallways that can't be sold. So you want as much of the building as possible inside of the apartments. When you have these two stairs and especially you have this requirement to have them remote from each other, so a big hallway in the middle, you have to really increase the size of the building to sort of hit this efficiency ratio to build in an efficient way. And this is not just private developers, but even like the after World War II, communist governments in Eastern Europe still needed to hit this efficiency. Whether you're building with private money or public money, you want to build efficiently. So if you can slim down the area that isn't inside of the apartments, then it can be viable to build on smaller lots. You save, like I said, you save the money from the second staircase, but that's not really the major savings. Some of the major savings actually come from the apartment designs. If you have an apartment that has windows on both sides, you can design it with more bedrooms. You don't end up with all of this dark dead space in the middle that has to be filled with bathrooms and walk-in closets and double vanities and this stuff that is nice to have in a luxury building, but if you're trying to solve a housing crisis, doesn't really add much. So the savings come from having more efficient layouts within the apartments, more efficient overall floor plans, allowing you to build on smaller lots and then the small cost savings from the lack of the second staircase. Are there any municipalities or states that have gone through the process of converting from the old traditional way to single-stair development and have had some measure of success in doing so? So there are two that currently allow... So currently the codes in the United States are based on a sort of odd system called the model code system where there's a nonprofit body that writes a code and then it generally is adopted in states and cities across the United States. And it's called the international building code. The international is a bit of exaggeration. It's pretty much the US building code but it's called the international building code, the IBC. The IBC allows a single staircase up to three stories. There are two jurisdictions in America that will allow it up to six and that's New York City where I'm coming from here right now and Seattle. New York changed its laws. Well, I'm not exactly sure when but a couple of decades ago and I'm actually sitting in a single-stair building now that's five stories that couldn't have been built without it. It's sort of built on a very small lot and they would have never been able to fit two staircases in here. And then the second one is Seattle. And Seattle, I don't believe Seattle ever liberalized its rules. They just never sort of made them tighter. So anyway, the current rules in Seattle date from 1977 in either in both of these places, I'm not aware of any fire deaths in a building built after the advent of sprinklers which are sort of a non-negotiable at this point. So I think there's a good track where in both of these cities, New York City builds everything in concrete, Seattle builds everything at least at this height in light wood frame. So depending on what you're built, I know Hawaii uses both materials to build apartments. So there's precedent for it. Nothing bad has happened. There's no controversy over this in New York or Seattle, New York City or Seattle. Those are the two places. Do you know whether in Seattle or New York City, there's been any correlation between switching to single stairs and increasing the availability or bringing down the cost of housing? You know, in terms of large scale correlation, like, you know, there isn't we don't really have this data to sort of come up with us. But I will say that in New York, there is sort of an industry of people who build sort of small relatively, at least for New York, affordable condos. And these are all in single stair buildings. So for example, when I was looking to buy the apartment that I'm in, the condo that I'm in, I wasn't looking at all in these two stair buildings. They, you know, along with the staircase, along with some other things, they just, you know, were too expensive. So it's definitely, it'll definitely get you in at a lower price point. In Seattle, they also tend to be a little cheaper than the larger building because they don't come with as many amenities. So, you know, in terms of like, rigorous economic econometric analysis, I wouldn't say there's anything like that. But just anecdotally, you look at the buildings, they tend to be more affordable. Not to say they're overall affordable, you know, New York City is an extremely expensive market, but they're certainly cheaper. The monthly fees are cheaper. The actual apartment itself tends to be a little cheaper. So, you know, I see it anecdotally. You know, are there any potential drawbacks or limitations to this approach of conversion to single stairways? I mean, something at a certain height, like everywhere in the world, well, I wouldn't say everywhere, most places in the world generally limit them above a certain height. So if you're talking about a 20-story building, that's probably never gonna be a single stair building in the United States, although interestingly in South Korea and Switzerland, they do allow these. I think it's kind of unlikely to come to America though. So there's a certain height limit to them.  So as the building rises, as the building grows, the relative cost sort of falls. So when you're talking about large buildings, there's not gonna be a ton of savings. So I would say, you know, they work best for smaller buildings, you know, at a bigger building, it doesn't, it tends not to make a ton of sense, or at least it's not gonna save you that much. And then I guess another drawback is simply that it's something new that needs to be studied. Our current building codes are sort of trial and error. Now we apply much stricter standards. We don't just, we don't just say, all right, let's just try it, it feels right. So there will be, you know, sort of an extensive study of the issue, oftentimes involved. So there can be a little bit of a hurdle in convincing people, but, you know, once they're built, like I said, there haven't been any fire deaths in New York City or Seattle, in other countries, for the most part, they're relatively uncontroversial. You know, in other places, it's just an apartment building. It's just what they call an apartment building. There's no, not a special word for, you know, single stair in Germany or France, it's just how the buildings are built. You mentioned hurdles from a regulatory perspective. What kinds of hurdles or adjustments are needed to support the adoption of this alternative? You know, the building code needs to be changed and the process of changing building codes in the United States can be, it can be difficult.  And nobody makes stairs. There's no contractor that makes stairs. There's no company that makes stairs or makes one stair or two stairs. So the constituency is not always there. Sometimes states don't have the, you know, you know, each state in the US can be relatively small and sometimes doesn't feel confident enough changing the code without the model code changing.  So it can be a little difficult so that there is quite a lot of, you know, bureaucracy involved in it. And it can be, you know, it can be an onerous task, but I think it's probably worth it in the long run. What can the construction industry or private developers do to promote the implementation of single stair construction? I would say for the, you know, first and foremost, the small developers need to speak out for themselves. I think larger developers are typically pretty well heard. You know, the single family home builders have the National Association of Home Builders that, you know, really will speak out quite vociferously if you try to do anything to increase the cost of a, you know, sort of a McMansion built on the fringe of some, you know, major Texas city.  But the small developers, often people who aspire to be larger developers, but for the moment, you know, I don't have the capital to do it, they're not often heard. So I would say small developers need to make their voice heard.  If you see something that you think no one else is talking to, talk to me and I'd like to look into it. But I think in general, smaller developers need to organize better because ultimately these small developers build the most affordable housing and in some ways, you know, scale the most.  So I would say, you know, the smaller guys need to speak up themselves, to speak up for themselves. Well, talking about stairwells is certainly one tiny piece of the solution toward better housing availability. But let's take a 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 foot view of the issue. I found an interesting statement on your website. Let me read it and then I'd like to ask to kind of explain that. It says, building codes are oriented towards sprawling single family houses and luxury apartments for singles and childless couples and little in between. But what are you trying to say here? I mean, I guess what I'm saying is, you know, sort of what I just said about these respective lobbies is that our building codes are, if you look at some of the safety features in an American apartment building of really pretty much any size, it looks like what a European would do in a skyscraper. So there were sprinklers, which aren't going anywhere. There's the very large elevators. There's the two staircases. The staircases are often sort of in their own shaft.  And that works great if you're building a big skyscraper. If you're building a smaller building to build it like a little skyscraper doesn't always work. When I talked about singles and childless couples, this is about the efficiency of the apartments. Apartments, and I sort of, I tried to explain it a little earlier, but if you don't have a lot of windows because you need these two stairs in the hallway in the middle, so it sort of bisects your building in half, you end up with a lot of windowless space and who wants a lot of bathrooms and closets? Probably people in their 20s and 30s, little kids can't use the bathroom by themselves. They don't need walk-in closets. It's not as of use to them. Families want rooms. They want bedrooms. We want a three-bedroom apartment. And maybe it's not that important that it has three-bedroom and three-bath. Maybe three-bath and two-bath, three-bath and one-and-a-half bath is fine for them. On the other hand, this is a country, the mainland in Hawaii, where the single family house is really sort of important in our sort of national culture. And as a result, it can be quite cheap and easy to build one. Often when there's a severe housing shortage, a single family house turns into a multifamily house, just multiple families sharing the same home that's really designed for one. But our codes, our zoning codes, our building codes make those relatively easy to build. That's sort of who they're designed for. And the sort of middle, some people call it the missing middle, of small apartment buildings get sort of left behind. But when you don't have a lot of land like Hawaii does and you want to build something that's more affordable than a high-rise, you're sort of stuck in the middle. And our codes don't really do that very well. In addition to single-steric construction, what are some other innovative ideas that can work toward building more affordable housing structures? So there's a lot of things about American construction that's a little weird and different. But one of the things is elevators. United States has quite few elevators. The entirety of the United States has about as many elevators as the nation of Spain, despite the fact that we have about seven times the population as them. It's quite common in the United States to build three, four on Hawaii. I've even seen some five-story new buildings without elevators. And this poses some issues. I mean, certainly it's cheaper to build them without an elevator. But an elevator, it's important for an aging population. I know Hawaii is some of the longest-living people in the United States. It's important if you've got kids. It's important if you've got disabilities. It's important if you want to just move out of your apartment and not break your back, hauling the couch upstairs. The problem is elevators in the United States are extremely expensive. And I'm working on a report about this right now. Elevators in Hawaii are wildly expensive. I've heard quotes of over $300,000 for a six-stop elevator, which is about twice what you see in most of the mainland and up to five to 10 times as expensive as what you'd see in a country like Switzerland, which has really high incomes, really high wages. As a result, we don't get a lot of elevators. I know that in Hawaii, you guys are now starting to build five-story buildings without elevators. I don't want to say that nobody should be allowed to build something like that, but in my opinion, developers should look at the cost, look at the benefit and decide it's better to build the elevator. And the way to do that is to bring the cost down. So I'm going to come out with a report that's going to go into more details, but things that are different about elevators in the United States, our elevators are very large, which is great if you've got one, but if you don't have one, doesn't really matter how big they are. They're very large. We have entire separate safety codes in the United States around elevators that make it quite difficult for foreigners sometimes to enter the market and so, you know, cheaper models. And then we also have a very challenging labor situation. So I would like to see the cost of elevators come down because I think the more people deserve them and I think in smaller apartment buildings especially, the cost of an elevator can really be a problem and you'll often just end up without them, which I don't think it's a great outcome, especially once you go up to these four or five-story buildings. Your organization is committed to lobbying and I'm sure to education as well. What kinds of education efforts do you think have to go forward in order to increase the acceptance and the implementation of single-stair construction? I would like to see, well, actually I should correct you, don't tell the IRS we're lobbying. There's no, we're a 501C3, we do research and sort of provide technical assistance to anyone who is looking to take another look at their codes. You educate the public and our government. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So okay, so what can, I think I would like to see architects in the United States take a, the more prestigious the architecture school in the United States, the more sort of esoteric the education becomes. I think we sort of strayed from like a nuts and bolts focus on how to build building, how to keep the mold out, how to build it safely, how to do it cost-effectively, how to design efficient layouts and things. Most architects, they go to architecture school, they learn about all these sort of high-minded ideas and abstract concepts and then they end up designing houses and bathrooms and nothing wrong with designing a house and a bathroom I think are the educational, the architecture schools should sort of acknowledge what architecture is and I think there should be a stronger basis for technical education there. I would also just encourage Americans to sort of look outside of this country. Hawaii obviously sits between the North America and Asia and I think there's great lessons to be learned from Asia and from Europe. And so I think it'd be great to look to other countries and especially when it comes to designing apartments and the codes around apartments to look abroad because the United States is a nation of single-family homeowners and if you're trying to build anything else, I think sometimes there are better lessons to be learned from Korea, Japan, China, Switzerland than there are always within our own country. So I would say expand your mind and look abroad and look at places that have more of a culture of multifamily living, have more of a culture of using land more efficiently. And yeah, that'll be my advice. Well, thank you, Stephen. This has been a fascinating conversation. As I mentioned to you before, we usually look at things from a very broad level policy-wise but to look at something as minutiae as a stairwell, that's interesting. It's these little things that we can change one after another, perhaps do some things with elevators that can add up to some big savings and some great expansion of our supply. I wanna thank you for being available to us to talk and share a little bit about your experiences and I wanna wish you the very best in all you do. Glad you were here today, Stephen. Thank you and I wish you all as well. And I wanna say to all our viewers, you have been watching Stephen Smith, who is the executive director of the Center for Building. He's in New York City. And I look forward to seeing you again next week. I'm Keeley Ikeena. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. Until we see each other again, aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.


In the first week of January, the Kashmir valley has witnessed the season's fast-majors' novel. All the important highways and roads were cut off. People in both the rural and urban Kashmir complained of official apathy as the government's response to clear snow from the roads remained far cry. Some people lost their life due to this disconnection. In South Kashmir's Shopian, about 60 km from Srinagar, Bashir Ahmed Fahamdar fell sick right after the snow falling. His son, Altaf Ahmed Fahamdar, carried Bashir on their shoulders. The 67-year-old resident of Keller village died on the way. This is not the first time such incidents have happened in the village. His death devastated his son. The road clearance has improved a lot. The snowfall that is happening today in 2013, we have prepared for it. We have set up the control room in DC office. We have given instructions to the department of health, PHE, BDD, R&B. We have issued a number of help lines to the public. We have also given instructions to the health department to give a serious patient where they need evacuation. We have also provided a vehicle available. We have also given instructions to the department that they should be shifted to a safe place so that there is no serious health issue ahead. While Bashir lost his life, the villagers were successful in saving the life of another boy from the local area after they carried him for over six hours on foot to a nearby hospital. Another two pregnant women also had to be carried to the hospital while locals cleared of the snow for them. People sleep at night but they don't work during the day. People don't say to wake up from this snowfall. On the way, a man died in the snowfall. That's why he died. Thirty people came to pick up the snow. One chain, two chains. He picked up two chains. He died on the way. He picked up two chains in four hours. In another such incident, the woman came to a child before she could reach the hospital. Even as weeks have passed, most of the roads are still unclear and short distances are very difficult to cover. When it rained in 2014, the snow came and the land began to fall. I have requested a lot of people to give us water or electricity. They didn't give us anything. Look there. What can we see? There are ten poles under the snow. There are ten poles. Their problems are also compounded due to shortage of water and electricity. We are in trouble. There is no store. There is no water. There is no road. We are in trouble at this time. We are in trouble. Did any government help you? No. We are in danger today. We are in trouble. There is no water. The road is also closed. We are in trouble at this time. We are in trouble. We reach here in the morning. We leave in the evening. The water is very clean. To fetch drinking water, the villagers have to make an audacious journey on slippery slopes and icy terrain.


So collaboration is the key part of the research, so collaborating you can easily find the questions because you can find easier ways and shortcuts for doing that, using another person's expertise to expedite the results that you are seeking for. So here at the Texas Heart Institute, we are a very collaborative institution that plans to have many fields in different departments, but all of them working together to try to address each one of the specific questions and helping each other to find the ultimate answer that is how to help the patients.


Oh, hey there lovers happy 2019. Welcome to the future. I'm so excited to be creating content this year I'm just grateful for the incredible year we had last year and I'm excited to kick off this year Unfortunately, fortunately, we're doing it in a reactive stance. This is a reaction video to some drama That's been brewing online since I got married. I say fortunately unfortunately because unfortunately, I'd love you know I don't want to start off with some negativity Fortunately, I think this is a Important discussion and my whole channel is about analyzing the human experience Talking about things that we don't usually talk about and racial identity and cultural appropriation happened to fall in that bucket No, they're not my expertise by any stretch of the imagination So I want to just like put that out there right now that I'm probably going to use in perfect language or not Say things in the right way, but I'll just express myself from my experience and hopefully I can learn from you guys in the Comment section below, but let's just be kind about this thing because yeah, I don't I don't have it all downpacked All right, so let's get to the question at hand What's my wedding dress cultural appropriation? This was something that I saw in the comment section from the very first minute almost that I got married Once people started post posting me on their Insta story Amber's closet I think the very next day put me on her Instagram or maybe the day of and Immediately that spawned all this debate in the comment section and that was kind of not troubling to me It was a side swipe to me I honestly didn't expect for that to happen, but of course I wouldn't expect that to happen when I chose my outfit When I chose to wear a lango trolley to get married. I wasn't thinking about you guys I'm you know, I wasn't thinking about Commentaries I wasn't thinking about how the public would perceive it I was thinking about that moment that I walked down the aisle and my mom and dad saw me and saw what I was wearing Because I kept my wedding dress a complete surprise as a matter of fact like everybody my family was convinced I was gonna be coming down in a tuxedo. I Was thinking about that moment that my aunt saw me. I was thinking about that I was thinking about my grandma Those were the people who were top of mind for me when I selected that outfit as a representation of how I wanted to Get married. I wasn't thinking about the internet And so when the internet responded to me in that way I was like, oh at first of course like everything else you respond with anger You respond with a bit of outrage because hello like my last name is Boudram You know like Boudram to me is a classic Indo Caribbean or West Indian East Indian last name So to me I wear my heritage It's a part of my everyday vernacular like that It's an announcement that I don't feel I have to make because my name makes it for me and secondly I've talked about multiple times in this channel What my ethnicity breakdown is my mom is half black half white and my dad is East Indian from Guyana But he is like most people who are Guyanese It's kind of like a bit of Portuguese a little bit of black a little bit of Indian You've been in Guyana for about three generations But ultimately they came from India because they were promised a ton of land in Guyana So a lot of Indian people went over to mostly Trinidad or to Guyana in terms of like the Caribbean That's where like the heavily the most saturated population of that culture is so nonetheless. I just Am shocked sometimes that people don't know that but why should I be? I don't look it, right? And that's a big part of what I've had to come to accept as a mixed-race individual because I don't visually Represent what you think of when you think of black or Indian or of course not white I'll never truly get those Identification politics right because I just don't fit into those slots that neatly and as a result It's just I'm it's always going to be this gray area and as I've gotten older I've gotten more comfortable with existing in that space and I've become less angry and reactive about it because I Have to accept the fact that because I don't visually identify in the same ways I don't understand the identity politics or the cultural implications in the same way Even if I grew up around it, even if it has been my cultural experience It hasn't been my personal experience because when people see me They don't treat me with the same assumptions or labels or identifiers They would somebody who again visually represents that ethnicity That was a lot of words to basically say I don't fucking know You know, I mean like I just Think as a mixed-race individual you really have to get to a space where you stop trying to get that Bit of a hundred percent Sense of belonging from anywhere. I have benefited from racial ambiguity I'm sure it has benefited me massively in my career on the flip side. The negative part is that I just don't get to be Fully accepted or to belong in that particular vein, right? Like that's just not ever going to like neatly happen for me. And when it does happen, it feels incredible I think of like there's this one time I was in Toronto in a cab and The cab driver said to me like are you from the north or south and I was like on I'm from east Like I'm like east Toronto and then he's like no no of India like where's your family from and then I was like Hey, you visually Recognize me as a part of you like you see us as one like that never happens for me Like that is a special moment that happened I'm pretty sure like 15 years ago that I will keep with me anytime that I'm included in a list of like black women or celebrated as a black woman like that feels Incredible to me is just such an honor such a privilege on the other side of the coin I also accept when people don't see me in that life and I've had a lot of people who really adamantly are like you are not and that's the thing I just kind of been like, okay, I Watched Ari fits his video recently that's called and my transitioning where she talks about where she exists on the gender scale and The place that she's at where she's like, okay, if you want to refer to me as he him Let's do it if you think I'm her queen like let's do it and in many ways It's kind of how I feel racially like I've stopped trying to police or convince people of What I am or where I belong I just kind of roll with whatever it is that you want to roll me into I know where I am with the people that I love and I care who am around constantly And so that I feel really like affirmed and I feel very understood in but for the average person I just I've let go of that because it's just way too much pressure. It's way too much responsibility, it's way too much stress and There's so many things that things that go into cultural identification racial identification I can't examine every single person's experience and as to why they want to put me in one category or the other I can just simply go with like whatever makes you feel most comfortable And that's why when the question comes up as to whether or not this dress is Cultural appropriation It's kind of up to you to decide right like I don't think that I know why I wore it I know what it meant to me and I know what it meant for my family So I've already gotten the privilege from but I've already gotten what I wanted out of it How you want to interpret it in the aftermath?  That's my responsibility It is to be a good listener It is to absorb as much as I possibly can about these wonderful Parts of my life that I can only understand to a certain extent So I am devoted to being a good listener, but in that process sometimes I don't agree with what I hear who again my family both look mixed as well, too So like the mixed experience is just in me, right? I don't come from like a half black half white scenario where I have two polar opposite perspectives that I am like meeting in the Middle my parents look like me so their experience and like how they Interacted with the world is identical to my experience now and I'm dating or I'm married now and married to you know Another mixed-race person so my kids again will probably have that same experience none as time goes on It will become less confusing because through the generations will be able to navigate it with more ease and with more more class And that's what I'm just trying to accomplish right now. I'm trying to approach these with more class and with more empathy and so In many people's eyes If the fact that I don't outwardly represent my Indian culture frequently I'm not often in traditional clothed Photographed because I have definitely worn language holies in the past But because I put this dress out on social media That's when you get the backlash and so but in either case because I don't do that frequently enough It just struck them as as odd and unwarranted another like final thought note that I just want to throw in there is Sometimes I wonder about who benefits from the policing of cultural appropriation, right? So if in your mind, I haven't earned the right to wear a language holy and that that shouldn't have happened I should have just worn a traditional Eurocentric wedding dress right who who loses in that situation and who benefits in that situation So as a cultural appropriation is it essentially is like if you aren't a certain percentage, I guess or if you don't Actively represent a culture. You're not allowed to participate in it Visually at any given time So what is the culture that we're all allowed to take part in what is the safe zone? What is the area that every single person regardless of where you come from? What's your last name is and what you look like? What is that thing that it's okay for everybody? Anything that's Americanized or Eurocentric anything white if white people create something we can all partake in it But if anyone else creates something you could only partake in it if you belong to a certain group Who benefits from that right if I didn't purchase my dress from Chanda fashion, which is in Toronto I specifically went back to Toronto to get that dress at that store because that store meant something to me Because I know that store is Indian owned If I didn't do that I would have gone to some Bridal store in Beverly Hills and purchased a dress there that nobody would have had a problem with Chanda fashion wouldn't have gotten my business. I wouldn't have promoted them online And I wouldn't have showcased what beautiful work that they do if I was the patriarchy. I would like that I would like that a lot. You know, I would be like, yeah, you can only wear Stuff from H&M you can only purchase your wedding dresses from Beverly Hills Like your outfits can only look like the ones that we've designed You're not allowed to wear those ones like you have to come to us like our business is is the right business I just think that that that only benefits them. That's it in the comment section below I would love to hear from you and try to think of like what like a final Question is like in honesty, I kind of want to ask like what makes something cultural appropriation Like plagiarism in the law has like a very specific definition It's like if you take up to 60% of a sentence without changing it into your own words, then it's plagiarism But also if you are a mixed-race person, what how have you come to terms with this? How have you come into acceptance or found your groove? If you are not a mixed-race person What would you like to see more or less of from mixed-race people in?  What do you think is missing? What do we still need to know and then who's doing it? Right, I'd love to know that. What is some person who is? Celebrating and pleasing everybody while not being any one particular thing like who can I who can we all learn from? That's what I would love to know from you many questions lots discussed So I'll see you guys below and above all else happy new year. I just love you I love talking to you. Let's spend some time together. I'll be back soon with more exciting videos. So watch this space