I'm Jay Fiedel. It's a two o'clock block today. We're talking about the military in Hawaii more specifically. We're talking about the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, and we're talking about Par-Hawaii, Par-Pacific. And we're joined by Captain Greg Burton of the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. He's a commander there. And Mark DeWilliger, he's with Par-Hawaii, and he sells oil. Am I right, you guys? I get it right. Yeah, good afternoon, Jay. Thanks for having us. Yeah, good afternoon, Jay. Captain, why don't you tell us what it's like to be the commander of the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard? It is a big undertaking enterprise, isn't it? Hey, it is a big enterprise. And, you know, it's referred to as the Crown Jewel in the Pacific between the West Coast of America and the Far East. But that Crown Jewel really goes to, not the facilities in the dry docks, but it goes to the talented folks that work here. And there's over, if you include contractors, over 7,100 folks that work here. Those are the Crown Jewel that I would refer to, surrounded by the shipyard. There's all kinds of things going on. Usually our dry docks are full. We're the busiest fast attack home port in the Navy with approximately 16 home ported ships here. And we have responsibility for four home ported ships in Guam as well. So a lot of stuff going on on the submarine front. And we also have 10 surface ships home ported here that we contract out maintenance to do maintenance on those. So, you know, our mission is to deliver ships that are fit to fight back to the fleet. And we do that with a skilled, talented workforce on a daily basis. Concerned about the workforce, concerned about safety. It's an industrial environment. We're the largest industrial employer in Hawaii.  I love coming to work. I love everything about the shipyard. I like the dry docks. You have a thing with dry docks. Can you talk about why?  And it gives us an opportunity to get in there and do maintenance where we wouldn't otherwise be able to do, you know, pier side, you know, painting and preservation and working on hull and backup valves and all those kind of things. It's just a great opportunity. You see some highly skilled technicians doing just amazing work with big, huge pieces of equipment and machinery. So it's just a great place to come. So just a question that comes to mind, can you put a carrier in one of those dry docks? Yes, we can. We can fit a Nimitz class carrier in our largest dry dock, dry dock four, though the Navy has no plans to do any carrier work here in Hawaii. By dimensions, we can fit the carrier. We don't have the right utilities lineup to serve us a carrier. But by dimensions, we could dry dry dock a carrier here in Pearl Harbor. It must be, are you an engineer? You told me before that you were a submarineer and for a while you were in the Army, but are you an engineer? I do have engineering degrees. And I've worked in the naval nuclear power program in the Navy for almost 34 years now. So I have mechanical and electrical engineering degrees and I work nuclear power in the Navy for 34 years. So I'm a naval officer. So being a leader comes first, but I do have much engineering experience. You have to be a leader if you're commanding 7100 people. Yes, sir. So are you academy? I am not. I enlisted as a machinist mate in the Navy and then applied for an officer program, got one and went right back in the nuclear program after graduating from the University of New Mexico and then spent my time as an officer operating submarines and then wedged my way into the engineering duty officer community, which that community is responsible for building ships, maintaining ships, modernizing ships and then decommissioning those ships at the end, cradle to grave. And I found my niche in the shipyard part of that enterprise. Yeah, that's great. Well, I love asking, you know, military officers about their careers and histories and how they have gone through the system, so to speak. And I really enjoy this conversation. So, Mark, you have some, aside from being an executive with PAR, you have some military experience, too. Can you talk about it? I did, yeah, Jay. So I was an Army logistics officer for 12 years here. My last duty station was out here in Hawaii, ended up at Fort Shafter up at the U.S. Army Pacific. So background was, you know, 12 years as a logistics officer should doing anything from beams to bullets to, you know, fuel, pipelines, you know, other operations like that. Did you have a good time? Oh, I loved it. It was great. You know, just after 12 years decided it was time to start a family.  And that took us back to the mainland for about four years and then had the opportunity to come back out here to Hawaii and join the PAR team. And that's where it brought me here today. So don't regret any of it. Honestly now, Mark, are there mornings where you wake up and you look out the window and say, gee, I would be retired by now. I could have stayed in if I have those reminiscent thoughts. Every once in a while, you have that. But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm back here in Hawaii enjoying life. So it's a tough, it's hard to look back in the rear-view mirror, right? Yeah, well, yeah, but sometimes it happens, you know, involuntarily. I continue what happens to me. That's why I ask you. So anyway, so tell us about PAR. What is PAR? What are you doing for PAR? So, you know, PAR Pacific is our parent company and we have essentially four oil refineries, one out in Newcastle, Wyoming, one up in Tacoma, Washington. And then we have two out here on the west side of Oahu, both out in the Campbell Industrial Park. On top of the oil refineries, we also have a fairly large logistics hub. We have a pipeline here on Oahu. And we have several terminals, one in Kauai, two on the Big Island, and one in Maui. You know, and through that, we support a retail organization here in Hawaii, as well as out in Spokane, Washington. And, you know, glad that I could be part of the show today and partnered with the military because they are one of our biggest clients. And, you know, we service and support them with different grades of fuel that we produce right here on Oahu. That includes aviation fuel? Right here in Oahu, I should say. It does, yeah. So we provide the military with what we refer to as JAA or their jet fuel, as well as F-76, which I believe is the Navy's kind of equivalent to diesel. Okay. Is that those bunkers? That's what they call a bunker. Yeah, the different bunker fuel, sure. And then at one point, we did support them with JP-5 as well, which is kind of a little different grade of jet fuel that they use for the aviation on the Navy ships. You're doing a refining anymore? We do, yeah, absolutely. So we have two refineries out here on the west side. One of them is currently reduced in capacity, basically, because of COVID and the lesson in the demand for product right now. But the other one, which we refer to as Par East, even though it's out here on the west side of the island, it's still up in full operation and we still refine fuel on a daily basis. Interesting because it's a metric for how well the economy is doing. If you're selling a lot of fuel, the economy is humming right along. If you're not, it means people are staying home and not doing much. Certainly. And COVID has definitely put an impact, I mean, obviously, on the entire economy of Hawaii. And we certainly see that in the fuel market. With the lower demand, people not commuting as much. You see that the gas pump, and certainly with airlines not flying nearly as frequently as they were in the past, we saw a significant decrease in the jet fuel demand.  Do you pick up the phone and say, hi, do you have Zoom meetings? I don't. He sounds like a great guy, though. Well, what is it? What is it with fuel for you at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard? I mean, I can imagine a lot of people working on ships there, but you don't have a lot of vehicles, do you? Or do you? No, I would say, you know, the base, really joint-based Pearl Harbor Hickam coordinates all of the fuel for the surface ships. And then the submarines, except for some back-up diesel generator power, really run on nuclear fuel. So I don't have that much interaction with, you know, the kind of fuel that marks in the business of selling. Okay. So, you know, the bottom line of our program today, in fact, the title of it is how your respective organizations demonstrate how the effect, the economic effect of the military on the economics of Hawaii. So, Captain, can you address that? How do you feel the shipyard, particularly? And I suppose we can talk about the base, too, in general. How does it affect the... And I think we should also talk about the history of it. We're talking before the show about how many, you know, it's, well, gosh, it's 170 years ago, the Navy was at Pearl Harbor. That's a long time. And so you are integrated, but how? How do we find indicia of that today? Yeah, this whole area of the joint-based Pearl Harbor Hickam really are sacred lands, Puhu Loa of Pearl Harbor. The shipyard was authorized by Congress back in 1908, where we started construction of our first dry dock, which finished in 1919. And if last year, in 2019, we had the 100-year anniversary of dry dock one. We worked with the Hawaiian delegation, and we gave dry dock one a name, Keau Namano, which means the realm of the sharks. And so we felt a great connection there, and that history continues to grow. We've done, you know, great things in the shipyard over the years. Many folks remember the USS York town after the bombing in Pearl Harbor with initial estimates of three months from the shipyard. We had just broken the Japanese code in the bottom of building one here, right on shipyard property. That's where the code breakers were. So another piece of history that is tied directly to the shipyard. Admiral Nimitz came down and said, you have three days to turn that ship around, and the shipyard went to work on it, actually caused brownouts on the island, so we could supply enough power to all the welding that was going on. And that ship turned around in three days, got out of dock, and was pivotal in the Battle of Midway and the turning of the tide of World War II in the Pacific. And that history continues now. We've been working on Los Angeles class submarines, destroyers, cruisers, and now the new Virginia class submarines that have been coming in to replace the Los Angeles class submarines that are being inactivated at the end of their service life. And we've been learning how to do maintenance on those new submarines, and we've been doing really well. Where the Virginia class center of excellence is designated by our parent command. So a lot of really great things going on in the shipyard, and not just today, but through that history from 1908 to today. But when you talk about economic impact, you know, if I could pull back a little bit and just talk about some of the numbers, you know, that are beyond the shipyard. But I think I can share some recent numbers with you for defense spending on the island. Well, in Hawaii, defense spending has been, you know, recently, in recent years, about 7.2 billion per year to the Hawaii state economy. 4.9 billion of that goes directly to payroll. So, you know, local island paychecks, about 2.3 billion of that in contracts. And so, you know, 49,000 local jobs with the payroll and about 30,000 jobs through federal contracts. So really a huge influx from defense spending. When you bring that down to the Navy, about 57.8% of that 2.3 billion in contract spending stays local in Hawaii. And then when you bring it down to the shipyard, you know, I mentioned earlier that we take in about a billion dollars every year. And of that billion dollars, about 731 million goes directly to paychecks. We also have a big impact with the local contractor base that works on our surface ships. And we let anywhere from 150 to 250 million dollars a year that goes to local contracts, local contractors to work on surface ships. So, you know, that's a very significant impact. During COVID, a lot of that work has continued. We're up around 91, 92% of full capacity even during COVID. We're designated mission essential and we have a critical national security mission to carry out in the shipyard. And that has largely been able to continue. So, you know, you talk to folks that are working in the shipyard and multi-generational folks, they understand the critical nature of this work and they understand why it's important to come to work and do the welding and do the pipe fitting and the ship fitting and everything else that has to go on to deliver these ships back to the fleet, even amidst this battle against the unseen enemy COVID-19. But that's some of the impact that Pearl Harbor brings to the local economy. How do you cope with COVID? I mean, what special arrangements have you made? I assume masks and distancing, but have you put partitions in? Have you changed work schedules? What have you done to minimize the risk to, you know, the people who work at the shipyard? Good question. We've done a little bit of all of what you just talked about.  And it starts with a personal screening, you know, at home before you come to work. You know, what's my temperature? Do I have any flu-like symptoms? You know, so that's where it starts. You know, if you feel any flu-like symptoms, don't even come into the shipyard, right? And then once you come into the shipyard, I ask them to wear their mask. I'm not wearing a mask right now, but I'm isolated in my office and the door shut. I do have my mask right here. But wearing masks are important. That physical distancing is important. We also do frequent hand washing. We clean our high-touch areas and high-traffic areas three times a shift. And these are all, you know, in our policies and protocols. We've got, you know, documentation to show that we're doing that. So there's a lot of things that we've done in the shipyard. We've also learned, you know, when supplies were limited, we also made almost 30,000 face masks so that every employee here could have five masks. We developed, using the Center for Disease Control formula, we made our own, you know, hand sanitizer solution. And we distributed that hand sanitizer solution to other activities so they could have someone when we were on kind of a short supply here on the island. So we have done that. We have tried to spread our day shift across our second and third shift so that we could minimize the footprint on any given shift so that we could increase that physical distance and minimize the risk to our employees. We've also encouraged our employees to telework when they can and teleworking that contributes to the mission and is in accordance with their, you know, position description, you know, those things that they're getting paid to do. It's not just, you know, go home and telework. We actually have a critical mission to accomplish here and when we can support that teleworking, we're encouraging our folks to telework. So, I mean, that kind of paints the picture of how we're dealing with COVID. We actually have a very robust program. You know, we do also have temperature screening for folks coming in at random locations just to continue to remind folks that, you know, hey, we've got to wear the mask, physical distance, consider others so that we can continue this critical mission here in the shipyard. Wow. That's a lot of things. Have you been successful?  Have you had issues where people didn't follow the rules or even did follow the rules and wound up getting sick on the outside? We've, I mean, we've certainly had our cases in the shipyard for operational security reasons and for privacy reasons. I can't give you any numbers. The numbers in the shipyard have remained low. We had a few cases early on as did the island and then we had that long, you know, not much was happening on the island and then we had this second phase, you know, where we had a spike in the island and then we did have increased numbers in the shipyard, but we've been able to maintain, like I said, about 91, 92 percent full capacity here in the shipyard. We've taken some impacts with COVID, but we're still able to continue the mission and deliver back to the fleet. To the extent you can discuss it, I'd be interested in knowing, you know, the trends. Do you have substantially more people under your command now or less than you did, you know, a few years ago? Do you have substantially more funding than you did? I mean, how is that moving up or down or sideways? In the shipyard, we've been consistently moving up. So our workload has moved up. The number of employees that we've hired have moved up. Five, six years ago, we were right around 4,000 and now we're right around 6,500, 6,600 total. So we are moving up. We're going to be at this level for the next foreseeable future. We do see our workload continue to increase. And so, you know, the way that we're going to get there is with innovation and, you know, increasing our productive capacity to do more with the number of employees that we have now. And you're going to stay here. You mentioned, for example, that you cover ships out of Guam and I suppose other areas, all areas in, you know, western Pacific, Indo-Pacific, if you will. But I assume that this is going, at least as we know today, this is going to remain the home base shipyard for the whole area. And there's no competitive shipyard elsewhere within the American fleet. Well, we have, I mean, we have four public shipyards and, you know, two west coast shipyards, the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard being one of those west coast shipyards, the other shipyard being Pearl Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington.  And we level load our shipyards accordingly. So there's a lot of puts and takes with the shipyards to make sure we've got a pretty level-loaded workload through, you know, through the out years. So, but I mean, if you're talking about, I mean, we are the, you know, we are the shipyard between the west coast and the far east. And there's really no competition there. We've, we've, we see a continued increasing workload just based on, you know, the new Virginia class submarines coming in with the components of surface ship maintenance that we take care of as well. Well, that's good for Pearl Harbor and it's good for Hawaii. It absolutely is. Mark, you know, I was asking the captain all these questions because I wanted to sort of interest you in another career. Possibly, you could join the Navy now. He wouldn't be too late. I can put you guys together. Maybe you can have a conversation about it now. Yeah, that's great. Hey, you know, captain, I'll guess your number after this. We'll see if you can go through. Hey, we, we, uh, we have over a thousand engineers employed at the shipyard.  You have some of our graduates from Think Tech Hawaii over there too. I appreciate it. Yeah, we, I think we have two of yours. So thank you.  And, and I suppose the question is, there's a triangular thing happening here. It's PAR. It's the Navy. In fact, the whole military and it's the, you know, the civilian community.  Yeah, certainly, Jay.  So when you look at, you know, the refined product, the gas stations or the jet fuel at the airport, the military, you know, we're, we are the ones producing it here on the island. And so with that being said, you know, it's certainly tied to the economy when it goes up, you know, things are great when the demand goes down, things tend to trend downward. And, you know, our relationship with the military is key in that as well. You know, I spoke earlier, we provide them with jet fuel as well as some Navy diesel. But, you know, there's other programs that we have been partnering and working with the military and particularly the Navy, doing different proof, proofs of concept. You know, as the captain mentioned, you know, Hawaii is certainly a strategic location out here in the Pacific, where that last stop between the West Coast and the Far East, right? So with that, fuel reserves are certainly kind of, they're critical, not just for, you know, the economy of the islands and, you know, the civilian population, but certainly from a strategic defense standpoint. And so in that, you know, we've been partnering with the military to come up with different alternatives and options for them to provide fuel. So one of those, you know, we support them and provide fuel up to Red Hill, which is, you know, fuel storage facility. And in that, you know, they utilize our pipeline and we push them product. One of those proofs of concept we did was a few years back in 2017, where we did the reverse to see if we could actually receive fuel from them, if for some, you know, unforeseeable reason we couldn't get fuel out to the island, they could provide us fuel and then we could help distribute from there. Yeah. A couple other proofs. We have a single point mooring where the crew is actually deposited for the refineries. We have a mooring that floats out about a little less than two miles off the coast and a cruise ship will come in, we'll connect it and hold it in position with some tugboats and then we'll receive the crew load from the ship. One of the other proofs concept we did was with the Navy, or excuse me, the sea lift command vessel a couple of years ago, the empty Empire State. And we wanted to see if it would be possible to bring a sea lift command or a Navy ship and connect it to our mooring. Again, for that same concept, could they receive fuel from us or could they deposit fuel into that and utilize our systems and pipelines? So, you know, in conjunction with the military, we try to come up with different ideas, other opportunities for future development, not just to continue to support the military, but to support the entire Hawaiian economy. Yeah, that's really interesting that you might have special reserves to get back from the military and then distribute them in times of crisis to the community. That's something. Absolutely. You know, I mean, out here in Hawaii, we're so remote, we're in our own holistic support bubble, if you will, taking care of not just military, but civilian needs as well. Yeah, have to work together. So what about renewables? You know, I know that Par was trying to be flexible about the development of renewables. Mostly what you do is fossil fuel, I guess, but, Quiri, have you done anything or you plan to do anything on renewables? You know, absolutely. As an energy company, particularly out here in the Pacific, where this is our land, we all need to take care of it. As a company, we want to grow and adapt with that as well. And we are seeking out different avenues and opportunities, some of those with biodiesels and things like that. I don't have specifics on all the programs we're doing, but we have engaged in multiple avenues to pursue those. So what do you see the future for Par? I mean, through COVID, I guess it's affected you in terms of sales to at least the local community. And then, of course, you get to the underside of the tunnel and you look for the light. It's out there somewhere. There is a better time coming, hopefully soon. What is it going to be for Par at that time? What is it going to be for the consumption of fuel here in Hawaii, both by the civilian community and by the military? Do you have a view of that? I mean, our view is certainly to be the enduring source of energy for the Hawaiian islands in the future and continuing and onward. And with the way the future is going, we all need to be flexible and adapt. And I can certainly see where we're going to continue to incorporate more of those renewable resources and different avenues of energy into our company portfolio moving forward. So Par's stance is we're definitely going to continue to be that powerhouse for the future for Hawaii. Somebody asked a question. It's exactly identical to a question that I was going to ask. Could you ask how the apprenticeship program with HCC is going? Is that you, Captain? That is me. What is that about? What is the program about? And what are you doing with HCC on that? We have a great apprenticeship program. We're in the 100th year of our apprenticeship program. We've graduated about 5,600 apprentices since its inception. The apprentice gets an associates degree with Honolulu Community College after their four-year apprenticeship as they learn a trade and become mechanics at the end of that apprenticeship. We teach 22 trades across 27 shops and nine codes. It's really the life force that injects into our shipyard talent pool that makes up that skilled labor. We've got a great relationship with our union, and we take care of those apprentices. They're really our lifeblood. The key trades really are your machinists, marine machinery mechanics, pipe fitters, electricians, and ship fitters are the key trades there. It's been going on for about 100 years. It's going to continue. We certainly get a lot of applicants, folks that want to come in and participate in our apprenticeship program. Is there room for Mark in that program? If not, is there room for me? I need a little training in that. Yeah, we'll have to really scrutinize your resumes, but yeah. Well, we're out of time, you guys. Mark, let me ask you to tell our viewers what you would like to leave with them about PAR. What may they not know about? What should they know about? How does PAR affect, integrate with the local economy? Why should they appreciate that connection? You know, really, PAR is a family organization, and we are here as part of the Hawaiian Ohana, and we truly support the entire Hawaiian Island chain, and we pride ourselves on being the sole provider of energy to the Hawaiian Islands, whether it's for HIKO, to create electricity for all of us or to the gas station to power our vehicles. That's why we exist. We're here to support the community and to take care of the Ohana. Thank you, Mark. Captain, back in the 60s, I tried cases, both trial counsel and defense counsel in the 14th Naval District. The Coast Guard put me on loan to the 14th Naval District. Some of the guys that I tried cases against in that context went on to be Navy admirals, as a matter of fact, a long time ago. So I have a soft spot for the Navy in the 14th Naval District. And I wonder if you could leave your takeaway with our viewers on what it all means in its connection, in its connection with Hawaii historically, and its connection economically right now. Sure, we've talked about a lot of things, but most of that was, you know, backward-looking and current economic impact. But as we look forward, this shipyard is going to stay a crown jewel right here in the Pacific with the type of mission that we have right now of delivering those ships that are fit to fight back to the fleet. And as we look forward, the Navy has agreed across the shipyards to optimize the shipyards. And the Navy is assessing building a new dry dock here in the shipyard, among other things, with, you know, a waterfront production facility that would optimize our operations in the shipyard. The overall plan is about $21 billion across the shipyards, and we would expect to get about $5 billion of that right here in Pearl Harbor. So our mission is going to continue to move forward. We have great support from the Navy to continue to support the shipyard here right in the middle of the Pacific in this extremely strategic location that's going to support families here on the island for many generations to come. So I appreciate you having me on the show today, Jay. Yeah, well, both of you guys have, you're part of the, you know, the central nervous system, the supply system, the economy, if you will, of the state of Hawaii. So I think people have to see you in that context. You're an essential element in our economy. Thank you, Captain Greg Burton. Thank you, Mark Twilliger. Really appreciate you coming down. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for having me. Aloha.


Hey guys, what is up? Welcome to my channel. So I'm so excited because I finally have a new review for you guys on a product That I'm really excited about so for today's video I'm going to be reviewing the newest Natasha Denona release and this is her bloom blush and glow palette So if you want to hear my thoughts on this then just keep watching if you've been on my channel for a while You know how we do let's talk about the major facts about this guy. So it is $55. It's available right now Natasha Denona Beauty Lish and Sephora It is free of parabens is cruelty free and it is described as an ultimate glow palette inspired by Natasha Denona's best-selling Diamonds and blush palette featuring some of her best-selling shades and formulas So let's get into the packaging of this guy. It comes in a very light peach Boxing and then I'm just gonna throw that off right now and reveal the prettiest part of it The packaging is gorgeous It's this almost creamy orange sickle kind of color and it's much prettier and much more detailed than the actual Diamonds and blush palette and then you open it up and of course it reveals the four shades to blush products and to highlighter products Now, I don't know if you can see this little plastic guy above so these two are cream products So this plastic panel protects the powders from the bottom to getting into the cream product as well as it gives The cream products a longer lifetime because it helps from drying now So this quad contains one glow cream base, which is like a cream highlighter one cream blush one glow stream Which is a highlighter and one duo glow as you can see from the swatches I would describe this as almost a rosy peach coral palette really gorgeous and perfect for the springtime now really quickly I do kind of want to compare this guy to the original diamonds and blush palette So this comes in two shades. I do have a review of it I personally only have the Daria and so color wise this is much more pink if you have Daria You're not getting any of the same colors in this palette So immediately as you can tell this palette is much much larger than the bloom palette making this a much better option For a travel palette if you do like the formula of this now I do have a review of the diamond and blush if you are interested in hearing more details about this But that's not what this is about immediately. I do want to talk about the price difference. This is $89 This is 55 so this is a little less than half of the price But of course you get six shades in here and you only get four in the bloom palette And as you can see we have very different pan sizes for this guy Each pan is seven grams of product whereas here it is about 3.4 grams of product So it's about half the amount of product personally I love how Natasha is doing many products for less money It makes it much more easy for you guys to afford her products and for some money like me who has a lot of makeup I'm not gonna finish one of those big pans Anyways, the fact that it's smaller and I'm paying less is saving me both money and product if you do do the math This is a better value But for me personally this is a bit of a bigger waste because I'm hardly gonna use this and it's more money Formulation wise there are two formulas that are in here that are not included in the bloom palette Which is the diamond powder and the powder blush, which I'm okay with and I'll explain why also in the diamond palette The duo glow is actually considered a cream Whereas in the bloom palette the duo glow is actually now powder which I personally prefer So I'm gonna show you how I did this look and how each of these products applied So I started off with the cream blush shade now This blush shade is a deep cherry red with a subtle bronze shine And by the way, I didn't apply any powder on my face because I knew I was going in with creams over it I would suggest that if you are going to use this palette or the cream products not to put down powder quite yet So because the shade is very very intimidating I went in with a duo fiber brush to apply it just to kind of sheer it out a little bit and not allow Me to apply so much product at once obviously. It's a very bright and pigmented blush It blended out like a dream.  However, it did add a peach shade to my cheek So that's going to be more flattering on somebody with a deeper skin tone So here's the ally adds the glow I saw the glow it was really pretty It's just I also saw that it did add peach to my cheekbones Which isn't the most flattering usually on the highlighted areas You want something of a lighter shade not a darker shade And it works out in the end for lighter skin tones because you are going to put a powder over top later But on my skin tone and anybody more fair than me putting this on alone isn't the best option So then I went in with the duo glow powder. I just use a regular blush brush to apply it I love this. I think it's beautiful if you don't like a shimmery blush You're not going to like this So this is described as a vibrant coral with champagne shift to it like a golden champagne shift I definitely saw that it's a very strong duo chrome. So it did add a lot of sheen to my face I didn't notice it really emphasizing texture, which is very good considering my whole cheek is highlighted I think it's a really beautiful blush But seriously if you don't like a super shimmery cheek, you're not going to like this But I thought it was beautiful and finally I went in with the glow extreme powder I put that on the tops of my cheekbones Beautiful extremely extremely glowy not completely necessary because my whole cheek was glowing already From the duo glow but the glow is really really extreme in this Especially with the cream base if you aren't aware the cream base Is included because when you put down a cream base first Every single particle of pigment is going to stick onto that cream base to make it that much more extreme and glowy You can use this without the cream base if you want something a little bit more subdued It's still going to be crazy, but it's more subdued without the cream base But if you want that crazy glow putting this on top of the cream base really is going to direct that pigment and make it glow So this palette is also very versatile because you can use it on your eyes and your lips as well So what I did was I actually used the duo glow all over my eyes as you can see really gorgeous for the spring I also use the cream blush on my lips. That's what natasha showed in her video Exfoliate your lips before you put this on your lips because my lips were looking crusty I had to put a gloss on over top But if you are looking for kind of an all-in-one palette eyes cheeks and lips this did work The cream blush actually did apply a really pretty lip tint all over So if you're getting ready really fast in the morning and you don't want to grab a lipstick Just dip your finger in the blush and kind of dot it all over and it makes a really beautiful lip tint Here is also my suggestion for this palette as far as making looks as you can see I used all four products on my cheek. I think for the everyday person that can be a bit much I'm not going to tell you what to do But I'm just saying this is a lot of color on my cheeks for a really pretty editorial look I would recommend keeping the eyes very simple with maybe just mascara And actually blending all four if you want to use all four products into your temples and into your eyes That's going to create a really pretty editorial spring look that is still kind of wearable But of course if this is a bit much for you because I'm a blush girl But I don't know that I would go all out like this on my cheeks for every day What I think would be a good alternative Just using the cream blush alone is a really gorgeous blush and then a little bit of the glow extreme That's going to look really nice for every day Or if you're in a rush literally just applying the duo glow That is going to create a highlight and a blush on your cheek all in one So using this alone would be pretty for the everyday woman Using these two would be pretty for the everyday woman And if you have a medium to deep skin tone using this as a very subtle highlight I think would work wonderfully as well if you are more fair than me I don't know that this is the best option for you You do have to go in with a very light hand if that's the case. Obviously it worked on me I'm totally happy with it But just in my personal opinion medium to deep skin tones you're going to love this as well So you're not excluded from this product if you couldn't tell I'm loving this product. I think it is awesome I think the quality is really good. I think Natasha Denona did a really great job with this palette The quality is beautiful. It's very versatile. It's perfect for spring. It's perfect for many different skin tones It's portable. The packaging is smart I really cannot say enough good things about this palette And if you love a really dramatic glowy cheek and you're a blush person You're going to love this and you guys know I wouldn't recommend it to you if I didn't think you would love it So that being said everything I mentioned all the brushes everything else that's on my face I will link it down below if you are interested in checking it out I hope you found this review helpful. Let me know if you are picking this quad up If you ask me Natasha, I think you need to make more of these in different colors I would totally pick them up. They are awesome. Thank you guys so much for watching Remember to subscribe to my channel like this video and I will see you guys in the next video. Bye guys. Have a great day


The Nigerian Senate has held a minute silence to mourn the death of Prophet Timitaka Balugun Joshua, the founder of the synagogue church of our nations, coming under the Order 43 of the Senate rules as the deputy leader, Senator Ajayi Borofis, during plenary drew the attention of lawmakers to the demise of Prophet T.B. Joshua. The lawmakers eulogized Prophet T.B. Joshua, saying he epitomized the true Nigerian spirit, religious tolerance, welcoming all ethnic inclinations and believed in the unity of Nigeria. The president of the Senate in his remark condoled with the family of the clergy and called for prayers for Nigeria and the leaders across all levels. The lay prophet Timitaka Balugun Joshua significantly promoted tourism in Nigeria and a thousand of religious tourists from Africa and other continents fly into Nigeria to attend his church weekly services. He was a consummate and compassionate Nigerian who supported community development in great measures and paid the dues in nation building. In recognition of his artistic contribution to national development, the federal government of Nigeria honored lay prophet Timitaka Balugun Joshua with the Order of the Federal Republic in 2008. And all the family of T.B. Joshua was T.B. Joshua and also say that our country and the Nigerian leaders across all levels need prayers and prayers and prayers. We need the intervention of God while we continue to do our work, perform our functions and duties. But surely the prayers from everyone will be very, very important and we continue to ask for that because this nation and the people of this nation believe in God and we believe that God can help us in any way that is possible to overcome the numerous challenges our country is passing through. Let's observe in many silence. News updates.


Well, since establishing diplomatic relations on 10th of February 1971, Nigeria's relationship with China has developed into one of the most important bilateral relationships maintained by either country. Apart from the exchange of high-level visits, Chinese companies and money have found a way into Nigeria, Africa's largest economy. They are involved in a variety of major projects in Nigeria. Put differently, trade relations between Africa and Asia, especially China, has increased the prosperity of African nations. However, overcoming Africa's debt challenges will not only benefit the continent but profit its partners in Asia and the world economy as a whole. We will focus on Africa, Asia and trade an investment on the show today. Welcome to Business Insights on PLOS TV Africa. I am Justin Akadomi. Well, welcome back. Let's start with stories which meet headlines in Nigeria's business space for this week. Incidentally, the 2021 Finance Bill, a petrol subsidy among others, helps way. Take a look. A Finance Bill is a legislative bill proposing changes to taxes, levies and duties in a fiscal year. The Virtual Emergency Neck Meeting was presided over by Vice President Yamio Sibandro on Tuesday. In a statement after the meeting, Lao Luo Akonde, senior special assistant to the vice president and media said, the bill was presented to the council by Zena Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning. The federal government has hinted that its subsidy on electricity tariff is about 1.0 trillion naira between 2019 and 2021. The amount represents a gap between the cost-reflective tariff and a liable tariff which pecked a 28 naira per unit of electricity supplied to consumers. These, according to the government, was largely responsible for liquidity crunch in the power sector as well as the poor power supply in the country. Consequently, it has closed its plans to realign its policies, regulations and activities of power sector operators as a means of improving electricity supply. As part of efforts to support Nigeria's mines and steel development sector, the office of the past ruler of the Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates, his royal highness, Adam bin Khalifa, has pledged to some of 2 billion dollars to Nigeria. The donations were to further cement the closed trade and bilateral relationship that exists between the two countries. The Minister of State Mines and Steel Development, Mr Uche Chuku Ogha, made the disclosure when he delivered a special address at the Dubai World Expo 2021 with the theme Investment in Nigerian Gold Sector, Opportunities in Gold Valley Chain. It held in Abu Dhabi. On Thursday, the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Guards Workers, New Peng, suspended its planned nationwide strike. This was confirmed in a statement signed and released by New Peng's President, William Sakwareha and General Secretary, Mr Afolabi Olawale in Lagos. The statement said the strike was suspended following the intervention and engagement with government agencies and institutions, including the NNPC. Dialspora remittances in Nigeria increased by 15.6% quarter on quarter to 9.22 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2021, compared to 7.98 billion dollars, recorded in the second half of 2022. It also represents a marginal 2.2% increase compared to a 9.02 billion dollars, recorded in the corresponding period of 2022. This is according to the review of the Nigerians Balance of Payment Account as released by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. The increase follows the continuation of the Nigeria for dollar initiative by the Apex Bank, which rewards recipient with five narrow for every one dollar they receive from licensed IMTOs and commercial banks. Recall that the Central Bank of Nigeria extended this initiative indefinitely earlier in May 2021, with a view to increase remittances so as to boost external reserves. And those were the stories that made business headlines for this week. Now Prince Olawale Suleiman Ayila is the president of the Asia Africa Chamber of Commerce and he joins us now to look at how these relations can be fostered. Well, many thanks for joining us on Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. Thank you very much. Alright, let's talk about, you know, this relationship that Nigeria specifically has had with Asian countries. Let's start with them, China.  You know, so how would you say this relationship has been, is it a win-win situation for both countries or is it just one having an edge over the other? Honestly, if I must speak from my own point of view and why I have been opportune to sit on this position as the president of Asia Africa Chamber of Commerce, African continent, is because of the deep understanding of international trade between Nigeria and Malaysia, especially to start with, then we go to other part of Asia, because I must make it clear that AACC, Asia Africa Chamber of Commerce, is an organization registered under the Interior Ministry of Malaysian Government, the International Affairs Ministry. Though it is an inclusive organization for all part of Asia to participate in facilitating bilateral trade and investment development with Nigeria here. So I will answer to you on what effect have I seen and what China has been doing. Yes, it is a win-win in a way, but we would rather prefer that whatever Asians are doing with Africans should just not have the aspect of trade benefits alone. No, it should have a very, very positive impact on the social life of the people here. So this is where we come in. We don't want to trade, just come in and trade with Africa. China is signing deals with Nigerian government, we know they are doing things. And most of the things Nigerian governments are signing with China too, they consider the interest of the people before they sign such deals with China. But then, if the government is thinking of the people, they are thinking of the people as an entity, a nation, you get what I mean. But for us to think of the people is we are thinking of the ordinary people, that how is all this trade impacting on the ordinary people? So this is where we come in as AACC, one, that we want to create a situation where trade relations between Asia and Nigeria and other parts of Africa is not just a government-to-government thing, but in the other hand, it should be something that should impact the lives of ordinary people of that environment. Let me put it in a way that it shouldn't just be part of government-to-government thing. Specifically, Asia-Africa Chamber of Commerce, aside from dealing with maybe governmental organizations, do you deal with the private sector? Definitely, we'll be working with the private sector in most cases here in Africa. That's why I say, you see, when you see most of China's relation with Nigeria, especially, it is mostly a G2G team. Yeah, it is facilitated through a G2G team. But what are we thinking of the SMEs in Nigeria? This is where we come in. We want the SMEs in Nigeria to benefit from international relations and trade. So how do we let that happen? It means we have to have a clear understanding of the situation on the ground here, especially in Nigeria. China is signing a trade agreement with Nigeria, a bilateral trade agreement with Nigeria to support Nigeria's infrastructure system. Yes, it does a great job at the end of the day for the people. It does improve on our social life. But we want something more than that in our trade relationship with Asian countries. And those things that we want more than that are the target of Asia-Africa Chamber of Commerce to implement and let it show positive impact in Africa here. You will agree with me that Africa, specifically Nigeria and neighboring countries have actually benefited from this facilitation and trade from Asia. But then again, there is this notion around Nigeria that most goods brought in from Asian countries are usually of soft standard quality. So how do you ensure that Nigerians are protected, the consumers that these are, in the sense of having a value for money, so that Africa will not just be a dumping ground for goods and services exported into the continent? Thank you very much. That's a very crucial area you are touching. Because this is another area where Asia-Africa Chamber of Commerce is part of the reasons we came up with this, a new concept of trade between Asia and Nigeria. If you see on our own programs that we are looking to implement from next year, because we are creating a new dimension to international trade with Nigeria. So we are going to be collaborating with a lot of Asia manufacturers. And we are not just working on the basis of you have a product to sell to Nigeria, you have to bring a note. There are a number of factors that has been put on the ground to consider for any product that will be coming into Nigeria, for example, that how needful is this product to our society here, number one. Then how beneficial is this product to our society, number two. Then what is the quality of this product, number three. So we have created something where we call for now AVM. AVM is going to be an industrial hub in Nigeria precisely, that we are looking into establishing on about the target actors of land. And this is where the actual trading benefits between Nigeria and Asia will come up, because the concept there is that, okay, we have said that if you want to partner with us on this program, if you want to partner with us on this program now for entering into Africa market or Nigeria market, we have our own requirements to these days. The first thing is that we have to see your product, we have to check the quality control. Then next, we have a place, we have set up that all products coming in are not finished products. We don't want finished products in Nigeria, because when you bring in finished products, how are they going to benefit from that? Yeah, so we have set up a criteria whereby, okay, if you are making any product, you can start production up to 40% or 50%, maximum 60% over there in your place. But the remaining 40%, let it come down here. That's the essence of the industrial hub. The industrial hub is creating a space for our women and our youths to gain skill in the production line of this product so that in future, such skill can be transferred to them and now it could be our own for that development. So to be some sort of vertical integration where Asian companies are at different levels of production can actually come and the final product will be done here in Nigeria? Yes, exactly. This is the concept we are working on. So in that way, we'll be able to, it is not just that you produce what we don't know about. You have to educate our youths on how to produce this. So in future, we are not encouraging you to manufacture and bring. We're encouraging you to be part of our transformation program, social economic transformation program. So you come down here, produce here.  If, for example, you are producing orange juice, for example, you do need oranges to produce orange juice. I'm just using that as an example. So why do you have to bring oranges from Asia to us? When you can actually do cultivation in Nigeria. When we have a very fertile land in Nigeria here. So we would rather say, no, you grow your oranges here. If you want to manufacture your, if you want to produce your juice there, we don't mind, but you grow your oranges here. You export your orange from here.  And not finished even. It should come back maybe in liquid tanks and flexi tanks and the bottling comes back to be done here. So that way, it's a win-win thing for both sides. It is just not one side. They were not just being over dependent on water. They just produced and sort of dumped to us. We actually are a part of the production chain and we add value at different points in time. That's right. Because in my own opinion and my own reasoning, I have lived in, say, about six, seven countries around the world. And it is a fact that if I taste you in this country, it is made with the same chili, tomato and onions that is made here. But something, I never get the same taste from them. And it is the same tomato, the same chili. So why am I not getting the same taste? It means I'm in the fatality of the soil or however it is grown. The species itself. Even is the same species, but you still don't get the same taste. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sometimes when I come back to Nigeria and I stay one month, I get fat. Then when I get back, people say, we thought they said Nigeria is not good. People will say, if you go, I said, no. Me, when I go to Nigeria, I get fat. They say, why?  I mean, when you talk organic, it's organic. So I see this huge potential and also I said, listen, why must you use your orange juice that I'm not enjoying the taste of the orange to make me orange juice? Why don't you come and take our own orange juice and make orange juice?  They feel it, rather than using your own. And at the same time, you are giving opportunity to them to be part of your trade. So this is what we're looking into. Let's move on right now. I have our two other angles to look at on this particular discourse. First off, Nigerians have a bit of concern. Aside from the fact that they have their sentiments, either biased or unbiased, concerning the durability and of course the quality of product and services coming from Asia, they also have this notion that Asia or some Asian countries just want to sort of marginalize Africa with their huge investment and their loans, financial involvement in some project here in Africa. So how do we draw the line to ensure that in as much as we are getting some sort of viable partnership with Asian countries, we are also being protected to ensure that at the end of the day we're not losing our souls as it were to the Asian country because a question comes to mind, or a scenario comes to mind with that of Uganda with some agreement. The only international airport is about being taken away by the Chinese company. That's right. You see in that angle, the scope is wide because what I'm saying is that it depends on the procedure of engagement between the two sides and the process of engagement. But as far as AACC is concerned and we are on ground, all projects coming to us have a standard operating procedure already. Yes, this is the way we want to do it. And we do not, because I'm in Nigeria for example and I'm a president of AACC Africa, I mean whatever I'm dealing with, I will not do anything that will marginalize my people on my own ground, because in one way I'm the face of my people too. True. And that is why I'm put on board because this is your country, this is your continent. You have an understanding of trade there and you have been in Asia for decades too with proper understanding of bilateral trade development. So how do we go about this? And I did a number of presentations on this which it is quite agreeable that I want a very balanced win-win situation. I don't want my people to lose their dignity or to lose their future just because someone is dangling a carrot at them. So we are here to observe and wonder whatever transaction we are going into does have a balancing ground. Because in Asia itself where we come from, you see it is hard for you for example I was talking to a friend in Malaysia in Sarawak two days ago who has a very vast land and I was just jokingly with him that I want some part of your land and something that I might be doing something there. He said no problem, you can do anything on the land but you can never own the land. I said why? He said it's my land. I said what do you mean it's your land? He said because in my country we don't sell land. My government doesn't allow us to sell our land. You see, so this is why I say if we are talking about getting the adequate balance it's going to be a combination of the efforts of all stakeholders which is the government itself. Are you getting me now? There are some government standing law that applies. Okay, look at the Chinese today. A Chinese man might say he comes to Nigeria and he buys a land from a Nigerian and he sold it, maybe you have a land and he wants to buy it. But is it possible in the other side like that? So this might not have anything to do with the business people. It might have to do with the government structure in that country which we can only advise the government but how do you overturn that system in the country that foreigners can no more buy land and all this, that should pass through the legislations and all that story. So the area of marginalizing us in trade I think it will be based on the understanding or the facilitation of the agreement between the two parties but for AACC whatever we are doing the interest of Africans come first in our mind because we are coming down to be part of better transformation development of bilateral trade and investment. Okay, as we round off from this particular discourse now let's try and understand them. The AACC and of course what benefits it could be for African nations in terms of scope. Is it just an old commerce affair or is it open to all African countries that have some dealings with Asia? Okay, we are open to develop bilateral development of trade and investment with all part of Africa but we are starting with Nigeria since Nigeria is our HQ and it is quite obvious Nigeria is the window to Africa and we have been on this for many years developing this and so and we have done most of the job here in Nigeria so we will be starting with most of our project in Nigeria which is extending into other African countries but we are looking into covering the whole of Africa. On the final note, you talked so far in this discourse you were talking about just bilateral agreement would there be a situation where it could move to multilateral where more than one or two African countries can actually deal with the Asians at the time? Definitely, we are moving but you must understand the problem we had for a very long time in facilitating better development of bilateral trade with Asia is basically trust because if the Asians say they don't trust the Nigerians we always tell them that the Nigerians too are very skeptical of the Asians I mean a Nigerian who is Canadian you are telling him to transfer $150,000 to you in China to buy some goods I mean if he thinks of the process that we take him to exchange his Naira into $2 and just send it to you there and at the end of the day he is not sure if something is going to come back so we are worried as much and if you tell an Asian man send your goods down here he wouldn't do it so this is where AACC comes in we want to create a better channel for this and we want to be able to allow both parties to facilitate trade we are here to assure you that no problem whatever you do we stand as intermediary and we will make sure things go between the two sides alright that's as much as we can take in all this particular things because we must say a very big thank you to you for explaining some of these great areas and of course some skepticism Nigerians and indeed Africans have a concern in trading with the Asian countries that's right thank you so much thank you so much for today we have been speaking with the president of the Asia African Chamber of Commerce and we have talked about how trade and of course the social life of Africans can be improved through a very good relationship we'll see you again next week I am Justin Acadone many thanks for watching


This week we're looking at another version of G.I. Joe's first machine gunner, Rock n' Roll, but this version isn't just a machine gunner, he's also a super sonic fighter! Play the theme song! Top Gear Glove, G.I. Joe! Sword Horizon! Strike! Strike! Ready! Ready! Ready! Silence! Hey Hooded Corporate Commander 788 here, and thank you to Max-Revo's Ghost Music. The figure for this review came from that Sweet Box of 90s figures that he sent to me. I have two important things to say before we get started. First, Timmer from Half the Battle has launched a charity appeal. If you donate to a charity that benefits children, you will have a chance to win a rare Tiger Force Psych-Out figure. In addition to that, I am sweetening the pot. Whoever wins Timmer's drawing will also get a complete 1985 Co-Red Eels action figure from me. That's the figure and all of the accessories, including that hard-to-find air hose. Check out Timmer's video for details. Let's show how generous the GI Joe community can be. Second announcement I will be taking next week off. I need a little break. But after that, I will be returning with a theme month in October. What will the theme month be? Stick around to find out. I'm a big fan of the original 13 GI Joe figures from 1982, and I enjoy seeing them return to the line in later versions, as long as those versions are done well. Not all were. The first version of Rock and Roll was one of the best figures from that first series. The second version of Rock and Roll was also pretty great. It was also the last vintage GI Joe figure I bought at retail. Version 3 was based on version 2, but it had a gimmick. As part of the Super Sonic Fighters subset, it had a backpack with electronic sounds. So, does the third version live up to the awesomeness of the first two? Let's find out, and let's rock out! HCC 78 presents Rock and Roll! This is the Super Sonic Fighters version of Rock and Roll. It was released in the mid-1990s by the GI Joe's machine gunner from 1991. This figure was only available in 1991. It was discontinued for the year 1992. This is the third version of Rock and Roll. It reuses the entire mold from version 2 from 1989. The first version of Rock and Roll was released in 1982, as part of the first wave of GI Joe figures when the line was relaunched that year. There was a version 1.5 released in 1983 with swivel arm battle grip. It had different articulation, but it was mostly the same figure as version 1. Version 2 of Rock and Roll was released in 1989, and as you can see, this version 3 is just a copy of version 2 with different colors. Why haven't I reviewed this version of Rock and Roll? I've decided this will be the last GI Joe figure that I review on this channel at the end of this project. This was the last figure I bought as a child. I started this channel by reviewing my first figure, Breaker. I will end it by reviewing my last Joe. That should be many years from now. We still have a lot of toys to review. Version 4 of Rock and Roll from 1993 was the Star Brigade armor tech version. These clunky figures were in the Star Brigade sub-team. We've already looked at one of them, Robo Joe. I only have carded examples of this figure with the accessories variant. I don't have a loose example, so I'm not quite ready to review this one yet. Super Sonic Fighters was a subset of figures from 1991 with backpacks that made electronic sounds. Some figures were just remolded from earlier figures like Falcon here. Others had all original parts like version 2 of Major Blood. Super Sonic Fighters was a follow-up to the Sonic Fighters from 1990, which included version 3 of Tunnelrad here. The Sonic Fighters also had backpacks with electronic sounds. This idea was followed up in 1992 with Talking Battle Commanders, which included Stalker version 3 here. The Talking Battle Commanders backpacks were even bigger and were bolted on to the figure. They weren't intended to be removed, but you could take them off with the screwdriver. GI Joe had sub-teams and subsets going all the way back to the Dreadnocks in 1985. In the 1990s, the division of the toy line into numerous subsets was the standard practice. In 1991, there were no fewer than five subsets, including the main line. You had the basic GI Joe figures, eco-warriors, Super Sonic Fighters, air commandos, and the battlecopter pilots. The subdivisions would only get more numerous as the years went on. I think this was an attempt to make a GI Joe for every possible preference. In an era when toys were moving away from military realism and more to the outlandish and bizarre. I have the full card back for Rock n' Roll, so let's take a look at it. The artwork is so-so. Rock n' Roll is firing his machine gun, a machine gun that does not look like the one that came with the figure. The emphasis here is not so much on the figure as the backpack, since the backpack was the bonus feature. Instead of the explosion background we got in the early 80s or the digital explosion from the late 80s, we have these orange concentric circles representing sound waves. It looks orange to me, but it seems to be coming out more pink on the camera. I guess there's a little bit of pink in it. It's kind of a salmon color. Instructions on assembling the accessories is printed on the space behind where the figure would be. Instructions on replacing the batteries in the backpack is printed on the space here behind where the backpack would have been on the card. And this does work. I did replace the batteries in this thing.  The actual artwork doesn't really take up very much of the card. The rest of the card is taken up with a lot of clutter. Lots of little captions and logos everywhere, an advertisement sticker. Just way too much. It's very busy. Too much going on on this. Looking at the back of the card, it has the 1990 Sonic Fighters in the same partition on the cross-sell as the 1991 Super Sonic Fighters. This implies the 1991 figures were intended to be part of the same subset. However, the packaging for the 1990 figures was entirely different, and they were clearly labeled Sonic Fighters, whereas the front of the 1991 card calls them Super Sonic Fighters. Do you consider them to be a part of the same set, or are they different subsets? I don't really have a position on that. I'm just curious what everybody else thinks. We have a file card in that same salmon color. This is a horrible color to use for something you're supposed to read. It hurts my eyes to read this. That's not just some internet critic hyperbole. It really does strain my eyes. I can only read a few lines of this card at a time without looking away. The print on it is extra small too. We'll look more closely at the file card after we look at the figure. Let's take a look at rock and roll version 3's accessories, starting with this one. The card calls this an M60 machine gun. It is brown, and this is a unique accessory as far as I can tell. I don't think this is a reissue of anything. I thought this might be based on iceberg's machine gun, but it is clearly not. It's a different size, and all of the details are different. It doesn't look much like an M60 to me either. The stock borrows from the M60, but the rest of the gun really does not. It is made of a softer plastic than earlier accessories. It has some bend to it. The file card also describes it as a 7.62mm M60 GPMG. GPMG just means general purpose machine gun. Rock and roll had a mortar launcher, and it has some decent detail on it. It does have a handle, and the handle can fit in the action figure's hand. However, it does not stand on its own, and it's not really meant to be used independently of the backpack stand. The file card calls this an amphibious experimental short-range 51mm mortar launcher. What makes it amphibious? Can it float? Yes, it floats! There you have it, an amphibious mortar launcher. Now we get to what is really the main accessory, the electronic backpack. It does have a backpack. The backpack will fit on the figure's back, but it is really top-heavy on the figure, and it's very difficult to make the figure stand up, even with a figure stand with this very large backpack on. The backpack is also a stand for the weapons. It has four feet. You can set it up on the ground as a stand. This post here is actually removable. That's a separate piece, and you can attach the mortar launcher and the machine gun to it. The machine gun has this peg, and to attach it to the stand, just plug that peg into the hole on the post. There you go. Pop the machine gun out, and then you can attach the mortar launcher, which also has a little peg. Just pop that in, and now you can use the missile launcher connected to the stand. There is a foot peg on the backpack, so you can put rock and roll on the stand to fire the weapons. However, the grip on that mortar launcher is a bit low, so you really need to bend rock and roll's knees to get him down into a firing position. And unfortunately, at that angle, he can't really grip the handle. It works better if you take rock and roll off the foot peg and just have him kneeling behind the stand. He can grip the weapon. Same with the machine gun rock and roll. Can grip the weapon when kneeling behind the stand, and actually don't mind this. This is not a bad machine gun emplacement for rock and roll. Just for kicks, I broke out the brick wall from the missile defense unit because I wanted to see what this machine gun stand would look like behind some cover. And I have to say, it does not look very good at all. The colors just don't go together. Sorry, I thought that would be a good idea, but I was wrong. Do have some care when placing and removing the pegs from the post. Those are small thin pieces of plastic. These accessories are made out of a softer plastic, so they're not super prone to breakage. But you could manage to break them if you're not careful. Now we get to what really makes this backpack special, and what makes rock and roll a supersonic fighter. The electronic sounds. According to the card, it makes four sounds. The laser rifle, 50 caliber machine gun, mortar launcher, and M60 machine gun. Rock and roll only came with two of those weapons, so two of these sounds should match the accessories he came with. I'm going to pop the post off just so I can push the buttons easier. As I push the buttons, these lights should light up as well. So we have this bottom button here, and it makes this sound. Maybe that's the M60 machine gun. Let's try the others. The far right button makes this sound. What's that supposed to be? Is that the mortar launcher? Does not really sound like a mortar launcher. Next we have the top middle button. That's got to be the laser rifle. And then the far left button. Is that supposed to be the 50 caliber machine gun? That does not sound like that at all. Now let's take a look at the articulation. This figure had the standard articulation for 1989 GIO action figures, which is when this mold originated. He could turn his head from left to right and look up and down, swing his arm up at the shoulder, and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow, so he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep, so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that it looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a little bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees. He could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Rock and Roll version 3. Once again, it did entirely reuse the mold from version 2 with one minor difference. Version 2 of Rock and Roll from 1989 had pegs on the right leg. That was for pegging his rifle on the figure. The 1991 version does not have that. Other than that, it is the same mold, pretty much one for one. They even kept the 1989 copyright stamp for the newer figure. Let's take a look at Rock and Roll's head and on his head, he has a hideous orange cap with bullets that are the same color as the cap. Now, to be fair, the bullets on the cap for version 2 are also unpainted. They're just the same color as the cap, but it's more obvious on this one. This cap is suitable for hunting but not for combat. He has a yellow beard. It is a slightly brighter yellow color than version 2. The blonde beard is Rock and Roll's defining characteristic, going all the way back to version 1. He has to be blonde and he has to have the beard. That's how we know this is Rock and Roll. I should add the card art gives him a red beard. That's just weird. On his chest, he has a green shirt, not a terrible color of green with a collar. Then he has bright orange straps, orange to match the color of the cap. On the straps, there are some pouches, look like ammunition pouches with grenades. These pouches and straps are not bad and would be a nice realistic touch in a different color. On his arms, he has a muscular build and green sleeves rolled up. And he has brown gloves and those brown gloves closely match the color of the accessories. His waist pieces brown with criss-crossed belts on the front and the back with pouches. Very nicely sculpted, but it is entirely unpainted. That's a problem. On his legs, he has brown trousers and those criss-crossed straps continue down to the legs. That looks really nice, again, very well sculpted, but unpainted. We have some additional unpainted straps on the thighs. Then we have a very bright orange knife or possibly a bayonet. The cross pattern continues with crossed straps around the right shin. He has some brown boots, a lighter shade of brown. Looks like the same brown as the gloves. Some of those details were unpainted on the 1989 figure, but it's less obvious on that figure. Plus, the 1989 figure had camouflage and that makes up for it. Even though version 3 copies the mold from version 2, version 2 is superior. The color choices are better, the paint applications are on point. Version 3 has fewer paint apps and they try to distract you from that fact with some bright orange. The accessories for version 2 had their own problems, but version 3 had the gimmicky electronic sounds and that is not a gimmick that I ever went for. Let's take a look at the file card and this file card is very hard to read. In fact, I'm not even sure you can read this. On my screen, it is totally washing out. So I'm going to break with tradition and I am not going to read this file card. I just want to point out a couple things. First, they changed Rock and Roll's serial number from his version 2 file card by just transposing two letters. And it actually has an explanation for this on the file card in a footnote. It says Rock and Roll's security number has been specially modified to prevent breaches in GI Joe's security. I'm not sure that detail was really necessary. Next, it has his pay grade as E9 Sergeant Major. That's a major promotion from E6 on his version 2 file card. In fact, that means he leaps frogs Duke, who was still an E8 Master Sergeant in 1992. Rock and Roll outranks Duke? I like Rock and Roll and all, but that should never happen. Other than that, the main takeaways from this file card include he likes loud noises and British heavy metal and now I'm going to stop looking at this thing. Looking at how Rock and Roll was used in GI Joe media, since he was a founding member of GI Joe, he appeared in the very first miniseries in 1983. He wasn't the most used character, but he made a fair number of appearances through the Sunbow series. Rock and Roll did appear in his version 3 uniform in the Deke animated series. He was featured in a two part story called Long Live Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll appeared in the first issue of the Marvel Comics series in his version 1 uniform. Did he ever appear in his version 3 uniform? It's hard to tell because of inconsistent coloring. In issue number 140 he appears in a green uniform, but in issue number 141 his uniform has turned to tan, so it is definitely his version 2 uniform. I haven't been able to find any concrete examples of him appearing in this version's colors. Looking at Rock and Roll version 3 overall, I wish I didn't like this figure, but I don't. It takes everything that was right about version 2 and makes it wrong. Most of the details are unpainted. The ones that are painted are bright freaking orange. The base colors are not bad, green and brown. It would have been easy to compliment those colors, but this was the 90s. They couldn't help themselves. They had to make it neon orange. And about that gimmick, I do not need noisemakers. The electronic sound accessory would not have added anything to my playtime. I was pretty good at making up sound effects myself. See? As a kid I was like a junior beatbox with all the gun and explosion sounds. Plus the sounds the backpack makes don't fit the weapons all that well. I can't accept Rock and Roll outranking Duke. I'm writing that off as a typo. This is a bottom tier figure, but I don't hate it. It still has that excellent sculpt from version 2. Plus I like the character of Rock and Roll. And that's it. That's my review of Rock and Roll. It's time for me to start my little mini-vacation. Please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel so you don't miss anything. And please share this video to help this channel grow. Check out HCC788.com, like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and your support on Patreon helps me keep this show going. If you have the means, please donate to a children's charity and enter Timmer's drawing. You'll have a chance to win my Cobra Eels action figure as well. I won't have a new review next week, but October will be a theme month. And since October is the month of Halloween, I've decided to do something spooky. I have decided to take a tour through one of the dark corridors of vintage GI Joe. It is truly terrifying. Are you prepared for the shock and terror? This week, I reviewed a 90s figure. Next week, we will be getting away from the 90s. And no, we're not! October will be 90s month! All 90s GI Joe in October. Can I find anything good to review? We'll find out. See you in a couple weeks. And remember, even in the 1990s, only GI Joe is GI Joe. It's an awesome new level of light and sound. GI Joe is on fire! With four new sounds and battle lights, there's Falcon, Psych out, and the evil Major Blood. GI Joe is on fire! I've got you! No, you don't! Man, one thing!


Snow melting in the Khorgan region of Russia has caused the water in the rivers to rise and floods. The Russian press reported on this. A state of emergency has been declared in the province. The water level in the Tobol River has increased by more than 11 meters and crossed the dangerous limit. As a result, more than 100 living areas and several settlements were under water. 13,567 residents were evacuated from those areas. Some of them were placed in the houses of relatives living in other areas, and some were placed in temporary shelters. The governor of the province, the dean Shumkov, says that work is currently being done to prevent the water.


Hello, I am Prabhakar. I am with Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. I am going to talk to you about open and distance learning. The title of the talk is quality without exclusivity. So, ODL is all about pedagogical processes and information technology. Pedagogical processes is about how to teach and learn and how that has got impacted by advances in information technology and has resulted in a huge revolution, if you want to call it on teaching in teaching and learning. Let us start with a quote by Sir John Daniel. It is a very insightful quote. Essentially, what it is trying to say is the technology advances which have resulted in ODL has managed to break the age old concept that you cannot have quality without exclusivity. If you want to give high quality education, you have to take a smaller number of students and you cannot really scale up quality. So, this is what ODL or open distance learning has managed to do. So, what is this ODL? People have said this is a tsunami in education. Somebody said no, it is like snake oil which really does not work. It is like a gold rush. You think there is something happening there and you go there, but really there is no gold there. But the point is all this is driven by technology and how did it all start with MOOCs? Now, we will see what MOOCs are in a while, but a short statement on MOOCs, they started in 2008. By 2011 they blew up and the actual trigger happened to be the first big MOOC, if I can use that word by two professors from Stanford, Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. They did a course on artificial intelligence and 160,000 students registered for it. So, this suddenly sort of opened up the possibility of this technology or this way of getting across knowledge or information or this way of learning if you can use the word. So, what is the trigger for this kind of tsunami? First thing is high speed internet access has become ubiquitous. Today it is possible from a hand held device to connect to the internet and get video streaming. Clients have become powerful. They have become low cost and hand held clients today are as powerful as desktop a few years back. And then cloud computing has come of age. What do we mean by cloud computing? We will explain this in a minute. So, if you look at cloud there seems to be basically three kinds of ways the cloud offering seems to have. So, these are called software as a service, platform as a service or infrastructure as a service. I will explain them in a minute. Let us start with infrastructure. Now, infrastructure as a service is basically renting a machine on the web. So, instead of buying a machine and putting it in your premises in your own data center creating an uninterrupted power supply security 24 by 7 manning you basically rent a machine which is somewhere in some data center. So, that is infrastructure as a service.  What we call infrastructure middleware kind of software. So, that is like database engines and so on. So, if you do that then you are accessing platform as a service. So, what you need to do is to write your own application on using my sql and php or middleware like that and then host it on the platform that you have rented. Alternately you can also take an application which is already somebody has written on to your browser at it and start using it. That is called software as a service. So, infrastructure is basically renting a bare machine. Platform is renting the bare machine plus some middleware and software as a service is infrastructure middleware plus the application program. Same thing is depicted in some fashion here. So, infrastructure as a service is about buying a pre-configured virtual machine. Platform as a service is about getting a lampstack or a Tomcat server which allows you to run Java programs or Ruby on Rails which allows you to run Ruby programs and so on. Or software as a service like Gmail which allows you to start using your mail client or mail service as long as you have a browser and connection to the internet. This is another depiction of cloud computing. We have infrastructure on top of which the platforms which allow you to run application programs and on top of which are the applications. So, you can rent this or rent this or rent this. So, because of this ability to go and get a machine to build your application or deploy your application has become so easy. Suddenly, it is possible and to create a service which will host your let us say the learning management system. You have recorded some lectures. You want to put it out somewhere so that everybody can access. You just go and put it on in the cloud. Earlier, it was a huge effort because you have to go buy the machine, you have to keep it up and you have to manage it. Now, everybody somebody else does it for you. So, this ability to quickly deploy machines and increase their bandwidth, their capacity, elastic capacity that the cloud offers has again encouraged people to build applications and that is another major part of the revolution which has come in education technology. So, essentially it is technology which enables everyone, anyone on the earth any time to learn. But, having said this, let us be clear. It appears that the hype in this space is actually more due to the business opportunities that seems to exist. Not so much by the fact that it is easy to do certain things, but it is profitable to do certain things. If you look at this is the investment that has happened in 2011 in education technology companies, you can see the number of deals and the amount of money that got invested in 2011. It is going up. So, people have sensed that there is enormous opportunity here and that is the reason it is compared to a gold rush. So, if you look at some sample companies, I have a list of them. This is not complete, this is just very indicative. If your company's name is not here, it is not because it is not important, because it is just a small one slide list. So, Coursera is one of them. This is taken from the company's website. They say you get the world's best courses for free, that is their tagline. Udacity is about higher education for free. Udemy is learn from world's top experts. These are basically sites which host courses. Course load is the place where they actually create textbooks which are digital in nature. They actually aggregate content. Now, this is another interesting technology in education site. This is an app on top of Facebook where you can create networks amongst college students or school students to facilitate learning. Who has not heard of Khan Academy? You can learn anything from there. There are about 3000 videos as of now and it is increasing every day. Duolingo is another very interesting site. It is a place where you can go and learn a language. Simultaneously, help create a translation system. So, what we will do in this series of talks is discuss various issues related to online distance learning. We will talk about process issues. We will talk about technology and platform. We will talk about MOOCs. We will talk about learning analytics. We will talk about what are the standards that are there in this space and we will talk about a road map on how to roll out a MOOC. Thank you.