Oh, yes it's on! Yes, and it's level 30!  Oh, he's swapping. But if you close, you're emotional, balance emotional. Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode two of Jurassic World Alive! Oh, oh my, there has been... I've made some mistakes in my last video. By George and it's about time we addressed them. So, today we're going to be looking at Gemini Nidus because I have put boosts on and I'm expecting to do a little bit better. Probably because I now kind of know how it works, but there were some people that were very enraged with me, I have to admit. When I was going over the upcoming dinosaurs, I said that Rexie and Parasol Lux, or at least Rexie anyway, is something that you can only get from special events and stuff like that. They were commenting saying that actually no, Rexie isn't, you can get it on the map. However, oh, is it a cruel twist of fate. I was like, yeah, you're right actually. It's a bit hard when you're recording and you forget things and I often name things wrong or call things names wrong and what have you. So, I went, I had this flashing, the tracker. And when I clicked on said tracker, a quick message came up which I quickly clicked exit on, and then I was like, wait, I can't click on anything. What's going on? Why is nothing on my tracker? So, now I don't know whether this is just me or whether it's all dinosaurs on the tracker. Luckily, I was recording before I was recording with this device. So, I went back about 20 seconds and found this image which says creatures removed from the tracker and that was Parasol Lux I put on there. This creature shown above have migrated off the map and can no longer be tracked. They have been removed from your tracker. Watch out for them in future events. So, actually now you can't. So, yeah. I quickly looked at the leaderboards as you'll see here. They actually don't have it maxed up to level 30 which is interesting. But it seems like most people have about like 120 or above speed. They have over 2000 attack and they have over 8000 health. In some cases, people have it with, you know, max attack, 126 speed and other people have it, oh, so other people don't have it. Do you have a gold boom? Oh, it doesn't have it. Oh, blue me either doesn't have it. This guy's level 30 and has 9,626. I also forgot that German Titan also has some cool things going on with it, meaning that if it's below half health, it has a priority. Now, the battle that I did where I could have got a priority wouldn't have made a difference against that deal because it was faster and it would have went for its priority anyway. And you know, it's always good to see how it does. So, basically I took up all the attack of my paratops and I took up all the health of my Inditorus, because both those creatures had max. So now instead of like 6000 health, it has 8000. And instead of 1400 attack, it has 1900 attack. So, yeah, straight up that group disarming rampage is like, oh, no, oh, that was a damage. So at level 30, it's going to pack a pretty big punch. And I'm looking forward to not facing up against any, what's it called, frickin' deals. The thing is, if you don't have the counter for deal, like you don't have the flock, or you don't have something that's perfect against it, they're kind of not going to do too well, if we're going to be honest. So I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and people were saying that someone, I think someone said that the dragon they called it, which is the Alancos Saratops, which I always called Draco, is a perfect counter for deal. However, as you saw, I did 20 minutes and it was just backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, it was no way for me to win because it was heal attack, heal attack. So people did agree with me that it takes no skill to battle with deal. And I mean, it's pretty much like you're a one track mind and that's why he didn't think about switching out because he was like, well, I just heal attack and he's probably not going to kill me and move it. So we got up to 120 with the speed. We do have two more levels to go, so we could get it to 24 for 1, 2, or mix things around a little bit. I'm expecting to change it at some point because I'm sure people would be like, there's this optimum build where it can counter this specific dinosaur that very rarely has any stats that are different. And we also have this one, the health which I put 4 on because I was like, I think 8,000 health is kind of a lot. But yeah, a lot of people got confused, or I got confused, sorry, when reduced armor decreases or reduced when applied against his creature. So I got in a lot of trouble with a particular somebody who was like, oh my god, baby, why don't you read the patch notes? Geez, why can't I just have fun? Why do I have to be like, get my glasses on and be like, okay, let's have a look. Alright, we got a little bit of... I mean, if you're coming to my videos for MLG strats, have you not seen my videos in the past? But yes, anyway, if you are that kind of player, fair play to you. I'm not, I just go into it and just love how some people are like, meh! Really angry, it's hilarious. But anyway, we're going to do a couple of more battles in the Nublar Shores with a newly-boosted Geminitis and just see what it can do against the current meta. Get it now! Oh yeah, sorry, I completely forgot about this. The Frost Pass before we do any battles is the reason why we are here, is just to check out what we can get. So let's have a look. Well, I'm going to put on the music while we're here and we might as well do that. So let's have a look. There's a lot of Panther Tigers and I'm sure there's ghosts because that's what these are, these events. Sorry, the new hybrids have a lot of DNA that you need that is that. Oh, also 50 for that. So I'm assuming if, oh, this must be the new creature, the dire wolf I think it is, or something like that. Some of the ones, yeah, Carbon Nemes, another 50 of that unique hybrid. More of its ingredients. Oh, wow, no emotes. Oh, there's the emotes. Oh, okay. So it just comes out of there. Some fairies will love that.  And finally, Spirit, which actually isn't the Octodus. Scared me, I was expecting that. And then Cirrus being that one. Okay, so while I was saving to cash these in, we got 55 for open, 10 more incubators, which is definitely going to get us up to rank two only. Sweet. And another 55, which takes us up to rank five, as well as some deadies. Direct hits on that. Let's collect 30 more. Epic DNA. Spin one special event drop. Oh, well that's hard. Use. Oh, here we go. We're going to easy. So there's one special event. Easy. These daily missions, man. Sometimes it's nice to get something easy. What was the other one like opening? Oh, put on a cent. That's right. We'll put on a small cent. So that's that one done. And then spend coins. So we'll just go into here. Do you have any? Oh, look at that. We got some fusions for the post metrodon. Could we be just about to get a level 30 Ankyloseratops? Is that what it's called? God knows. I'm like, don't call it Draco. Somebody will call you out in the comments and you'll have your feelings hurt. Oh, no, never mind. It's to run a metrodon. Oh, come on. Just a 30. That's all I need. Just one 30. Come on. Just one 30. It makes all of this difference. And it's... Oh, God. Found. We're like 10 off a level 29. And then it's going to take ages to really level that thing up a little bit more. Anyway, yes. So we're going to... We need to spend coins, which we've actually already done. So we should have got two. Well, wait a second. Yeah, I'm back to 80. I didn't realize if you don't do these daily events, the game penalizes you. And it's like, yeah, we're going to make sure that the creature that you get is a lower amount of DNA.  I get 10 direct hits on coins, which is very easy. But we'll not bother. So what do we get? Was there... Oh, there was an emote here. My bad. They're completely forgot. Ah, yes. I bet that cost them a fortune. Is this panthera? Yes, it is, because we don't have panthera. We have another rare send, which I'm pretty sure I already have a lot of rare send. So maybe that was wasted. Not entirely sure. 166 of that, which we don't really need. I've got loads of this thing, I think. Yeah, 2,000. It's already level 25. A 50 of this, which I don't have too much of that. And 166 of this thing, which is the dial-up, which is also unlocked. Sweet. So now, we should be able to create a said dial-up.  Oh, look at the fur. Oh, that looks cool, actually. Nice. So, shame it turns into that abomination, but hey, the 20% crit chance, no armor. The sawming strike, here we go. This is what people were meaning. So, it reduces the armor by 50%. Interesting. So, I'm assuming a lot of dinosaurs have that. It reduces armor by 100%, if the opponent swaps out. So, basically, if you've got loads of armor and you are able to be pinned in, don't swap out against something like this. Or, I'm assuming, it's hybrid as well. And it's 25% larger than a modern grey wolf. Hmm. Eh, I don't know what that other one is. But, eh, oh. Anyway, now we're back to it. Let's do some battles as we get Gemini Titan. Okay, come on, Jemenidus. I got your name right. Oh. Will this one have Jemenidus? Attempt number two. And no, it's really cool. Oh, oh, hold the phone. Okay, this guy's got his own Jemenidus. All right, we'll put this bit in. And it's level 30. It's got 10k health. Oh, damn. Okay, there we go. And big hit. Now, if I can survive, I'm healing a lot here. So, he's increased the armor, goes for Group Disalming or Rampage, which is going to slow me down. Reduce my armor. If I hadn't, I suppose. And now I get... You know, it's just a chunk of health, but it's not so bad, is it? And then, like, he's got his priority here. And it goes through armor. And I think it targets all opponents. So, I may as well just do this, because he's definitely going to go for it. And at least I know I could definitely recover health from this. Let's see what he does. Oh, he does it? Yeah, shielding a lot of Rampage gains an invincibility. Yes, big hit. Very good. Okay. So, you're still faster. You got invincibility for one turn. That's a cool thing of two. So, I suppose I could go for my own invincibility if I wanted to, or I could get some health back and bleed you out a little bit. Or you could swap. Ooh, an Imperatus Sutius. All right. Well, I'm not expecting that to come back. I think that's probably it. We're not going to see Geminitus coming, because it's pretty much dead. Well, there you go. Scorpion won it. Just like very close. Let's try and find Gemini Titan. Well, another victory. Still no Geminitus. Okay. Come on, this time. The third battle. Can it be Gemi... All right. Well, Terano, Metrodon, whatever won that one. And another win. But please, give me Geminitus. Okay. This is it. The fourth battle. Come on. Just one. Come on. All right. Okay. The fifth thing. I've lost... Oh! Jesus. A 1-3 lost the last one. And then... The last one was like a long battle.  Dio, it had like... Oh, God. Well, it did have... The Alberta Servia thing. Good God. It was a tricky one. So, that's actually a terrible thing for me. So, I'm just going to get out. Oh. Oopsies. Please stop it. Oh, no. I just killed it. I can't believe that. I basically just killed it. That was hilarious. I'm just used to everything being able to, you know, not be locked in. And I've just killed it.  And... Oh, wait, yeah. I still have... Oh, you know what? I meant to do that. I meant to do just a big hit on him. Yeah, see? And now, as long as something's faster and has a priority, well, there you go. That was probably the worst thing I could have faced up against. And I very, very rarely see an opener that is Toronto Metroton. So, I thought it was pretty safe putting that in first, but now, well, there you go. They cancelled each other out. Boom. What I probably should have started with out first, but actually, still would have been a bit dangerous against that thing. Oh, he's got a Rexie as well. 4600 and what? He needs a crit to kill me. And he's got a 45% chance to get that. So, with that in mind, let's go with our own... Oh, wait, no. I've done it again. I could be locked... Oh, no. Oh, wait, no. Oh, I thought he locked me in. Oh, never mind. Well, here's the dominant roll, which is going to do... Oh, a big chunk of damage. Yep, there it is. And he's definitely quicker. Not so good. But we can fire back with our priority Tyrant's... Roar! Oh, he's going to get a lot of health, actually, because he's going to do his big one. Is it... Am I still able? I think it was. How much else are you going to get back is the question. Has he got his roar? He's got his roar back. That's a bugger.  Unless I can get a crate and kill him. I think it's just guaranteed a crate, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, that's a bugger. Didn't even get the crate. And I'm alive. How am I alive? Okay. Well, cool. I'm... I killed it. Hey, but me didn't do that. So many misplaced. Oh, this would be brilliant. Wow, okay. Two T-Rexes. And there it is. Well done. There you go. Yeah, he's pretty much one at this point. But, wow, I should not have hung on that long. I'm quite amazed with myself if I'm going to be honest. Reduces attack. Oh, wait. It doesn't reduce the attack. It's a friend. Oh, a friend. It doesn't... And then it's going to reduce my speed. Well done.  Three, two for how that started. A special... A Toronto Medridon stardom. I mean, I guess in some situations it's good against, like, the... But still. Oh. Let's see if we can get a better showcase of Gemini just shall we? Here we go. Here we go. Is there going to be a Gemini? A freaking Gemini. Okay, we're going to be smart about this one. Or are we? No, we're going to put it in first. Of course we are. Hell yeah. Oh, my God. Come on. This time. This is the one. This is the one. Gemini. This is going to sweep. I don't know how it's going to do it. Ooh. A kind of a good comparison. I might as well just get my armor up, because I don't think it has a single armor-piercing attack. It can reduce my attack. Look at that. Oh, you were the big tanky one, but now I am with... Oh, how much armor? Oh, my God. 80% armor. Oh, my God. How much? 412. That was still a lot of damage. I'll give it that. Yes. Still a lot of damage. And then... Oh, there it is. Ooh. Ooh. I can't deal with this now, can you? Now, should I just go for this? I mean, what's the cooldown? It's always two. And what's the cooldown with this one? It's two. Okay, yeah. We'll do this one with maybe... Oh, 206. Oh, yeah. I would get armor every time I'm hit, so I'm up to 100% armor now. So when I get hit with this counter, it's going to do not... Oh, this is going to be sad. It's like, ready? You're ready for his hit that does nothing? I've reduced his armor as well. I should have done that first, actually. I just kind of want to get my armor up. Here it goes, ready? And... What? What? What? What? Increase armor for four attacks, two turns. Cool.  So he's going to do half damage? A level... Oh, I should have done that. Damn. Now I'm below half health.  I could have had my priority, no. Well, do I have armor at least? I mean, a shield? I do have shield. Okay, am I resistant to rend? That's the thing. No, okay, rend's actually really good against me. So do you think he's going to go for a cloak? I don't know. I don't know. Either way, if he does go for a cloak, maybe I should have swapped into Comsiraptor because then it didn't really matter what happens. Probably should have done that. And he gets a cloak anyway. But he can't do is... Yes! Yes! Beautiful. And now I'm going to be faster anyway, so I can do my thing.  He probably would have killed me, though, with that intimidating. Yeah, he probably would have, because he would have went first and he would have went through all my armor and broke my shield. So yeah, that was a good play on his part, but maybe he should have expected the switch out. I don't know. I think I wouldn't, but okay. And the rain does nothing, but here comes the cleanse. This is it. This is the big money and my vulnerability. Oh, not dead. Oh, that feels bad. Ah, that's a bugger. Well, if I was here, I'd swap out and just finish me with something at this point, because... I mean, even a cloak, actually. I don't think he's used to... Yeah, okay. I mean, maybe he's got... I'm assuming he's got nothing to swap out and kill me if that's the case. If he's going to go for that. Oh, if I'd went for the cloak as well, that would have been horrible. And I'm still alive. Oh, it's not good, man. Yeah, but it completely feels bad at this point, but we'll just make sure my ref doesn't die. I could have let him have it. I could have let him have it. And the clean break my comps are after. But you know what? If I can, we'll reduce his attack. He probably... Will he even go for the cleanse? He probably will, because ref does a lot of debuffs. He probably will go for it. That is like... But if you close the... Emotional balance! Emotional balance! I'm so sorry, dude. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. No, man. He could just be playing. I want him to get one. Maybe one away from his incubator. He needs one medal. And it's level 30!  Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Let's go. Let's go level 30. Oh, that's awesome.  How did it get all as well? Yeah, I mean... I'm happy to let ref's life just die. Maybe I should have stayed in? I don't know. Maybe I should have. But I think if he's... Oh, I think I'm one quicker. Oh, I'm not. One quicker. Well, here we go! Round two! I'm baiting some... Are you surprised to see me back?  And then I'm going to put in my own German attack. I'm going to get a crit here. I might actually kill him. Oh, I didn't get a crit. Maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe I would have. Oh, yeah, love to see. Maybe this guy will win, actually. The Harden. Well, done! Well, done! Get that armor up. 100% armor. He's completely turtle. Now... He... Now I have my own armor. Oh, what's he going to do? What's he going to... My gem could beat his gem at this point. I don't think he can... Oh, he's swapping. Oh. Now it's my turn. But if you close... Emotional damage! Emotional damage! Oh, this is low. All right, all right. You're just going to go for your thing. Anyway, I might as well get me armor up. And here we go. He's just going to turtle. But not really. He's healing. Freaking Dio, man. Dio. Oh, it's horrendous. But I boosted him. And this happened in the last video where I came up against a Dio. And I just didn't have the attack and stuff to kill it. Whereas this time... Oh, I do. I think I might have won this. Oh, is this it? Is this it? Oh, this might be the satisfying I've been waiting for. Oh, yeah. He does reduce my time. I think I've heard about that. Well, well, the counter comes in. And then the group disarming rampage. And can we get a... It is! Well done. Well done. Well done. That was... Oh, my God. Not only did Gemini just win it. We started with it and it killed Dio. Oh. Oh, my proud parent. Oh, my God. That was beautiful. Well, guys, we're going to wrap it up there. And I hope you stayed for that last battle because... Oh, that was... You couldn't make that up. We killed Dio. Start... Oh, this thing gets pasted so good. That's so good. I apologize if I said it was bad. People clicked off the video when he thinks it's bad, when it's really good. You should have stayed for this one because... Oh, that was brilliant. Anyway, guys, if you enjoyed this video, leave a like. And until next time, I'll see you cutie later. Oh, bye-bye.


Okay, hello, it is midnight somewhere in the world at least here. So we're doing a Put our kid to bed. So we're doing a midnight teardown of Her electronic toys because this is something that techie parents always say they're gonna do They're like, oh, I'm gonna hack it. So the music is lower or I'm gonna put my own stuff in there So we're actually gonna do it. So The toy that we're going to take apart tonight is from baby Einstein and it is called the take-along tunes This was recommended by a couple of people. They're like, oh, you should get this and you know, it has like one button placed on We'll show what it does Super cute. It does not play the cure or joy division. It just plays Play some classical music to an issue like people on YouTube are like, oh, here's the the songs and here's that next to small human hands Here's a quick video just so you can see what it does Okay, so what I don't quite understand now that I'm a connoisseur Or a collector of some of these toys is why isn't there like Like the tar hero has, you know slash some of and they have songs from musicians Why isn't there like, you know, baby toys with like you should think there should be like the Johnny Cash version I would like a Prince one. Okay Purple and stuff like that. So I think we're just gonna have to make them and that's fine So this is the first step of many. We have a little kicky piano So we'll do some Tori Amos with that But the other thing is it's all like lions and tigers and everything. I do that's fun But I do think there's more modern things that young people young young children might need to There's more yellow cabs than yellow lion. Yeah, you have to walk in this like hippo. It's like well watch out You know, you're gonna get you're more likely to get run over by You know an SUV, right? So This is the first of many we think and we've done teardowns before they're always popular This is the setup we're going with now each week when we do these or each day I don't know. What else are we gonna do at midnight when the kids asleep? We're gonna get more powerful optics. Oh, we're just gonna see how far we can push it This one's pretty easy. Lady is gonna dive right in we used to do teardowns all the time at a fruit Yeah, stop for a little bit, but we will get back into it Yeah, and I think that we'll be able to uncover some neat stuff One of the coolest things about the electronic toys is you can tell it is the absolute lowest cost way to go So you can learn a lot about but and there's one thing I mean low cost in bad way No, it's not that but no look you want to make it affordable so people can yeah and have it for their kids And if they break it's not the end of the world like six bucks or something, but what's neat is You know the enclosures are really durable because they're meant to be like it proof And so and they always have little battery cases that are like nice screwed closed So they actually make for excellent Yeah, well enclosures Oh paired to like like look you you get an iPad or you get like a modern cell phone like you can yeah Well, you're not yeah, and and there's a lot of space in here And for the folks that are gonna ask so the one of the ideas is we take the electronics out of these things We put in our own reference board that shows up as a Wi-Fi device you drag and drop your own Music on it and then you can do your own light show and you can update it over maybe there's SD card And it's all but it's still the same enclosure. It's still, you know, baby safe And so you just use that enclosure, but we want to reproduce the functionality. So this is just a start of this So let's dive right in we've got The device we're gonna do a little bit of a kick cooking show thing. So let's do the before well This is yes, this is the thing It says little sounds and then this actually does this has LEDs behind it will show you and this has you know It's like an iPod But it's really just a button when you press it So it's not actually for a different button now It's not four buttons and there's this It's not something that says either and then this is the battery case. It's all it does You just press a button and it goes to a different song One thing that I do say I like is that the baby Einstein stuff uses screws And they're all like really easy to open none of it is glued closed Why I find there's enough screws. Yeah, so That's kind of nice. Okay, so this is the outer enclosure So by the magic of I undid the four screws earlier today. Yeah, this is what it comes out to be Yeah, there's this plastic piece. I'll leave it on this and then tell me when you want to go to close Yeah, when we're getting close. So this is the plastic piece and here's another interesting thing Yeah, like I said, there's a lot of screws You'll see a lot of like little hex spots here And almost no glue and I think that's actually because it makes it it isn't much faster to manufacture If you don't have to wait for the glue to cure So I think they actually went with gluing and snap fitting as much as possible And this is the little button piece, but again, it's one button. It's not four buttons Even though it looks like it's four. It's it's our five And then like you're two month old. You don't know the difference. Yeah, they don't know They don't look at different capacity and resistive touch. Yeah. Well Okay, so this is uh, let me show that and we'll we'll zoom in in a minute So this is the main PCB. There's this on-off switch. Um, one nice detail is they put heat shrink Over the um terminals. Uh, this is actually pretty well made For Okay, so here, um, you can see it really good. So yeah, you see how this has heat shrink on it Um, that's not done in really cheap electronics. Usually so, um, it's like It's inexpensive, but it's well well made Um, and then down here you can see this is the speaker. We're actually basically stock this speaker This is like a half watt eight ohm speaker and you can see it's kind of a nice design because it's got the um I hit that hit the fix button. I'm gonna stay focus lock. Yeah We did that locker. Yeah, hold on We're still learning. Okay. So now it's locked. Okay. So now I can twist this. Um, So you can see I'll show later where these go and then here's that like I said a lot things are screwed and these are the little Hex nut holding plastic pieces So this is the button like I said, there's only one button and so it's you know, it's a magnetic Uh, non-magnetic. It's like a little conductive pill under a rubber gasket and this is not glued I believe this is just press fit in using a little This I didn't take a part ahead of time. So let's see.  Um, that's really nice. They could have gone with just a plain Uh, uh lead free hassle cover, but they didn't they didn't they did enig and it is we're haas here as you can see um the speaker connection another nice little detail see how they put the Uh solder mask here just gives it a little more separation and a little more protection For the practical traces so they don't lift Because this is a single sided board. It's a paper phenolic, which is not unreasonable, right? There's no reason for it to be double sided. Uh, it's just funny because it means like this power traces go all the way around Um, but the person designed this like they did a really good job. Like everything's labeled very nicely nice large pieces Um, this is the red green and blue led, you know, when you press the button It does that there's little slots. I'll call out questions. I'm sure if you're gonna ask So why wouldn't you just use like one neopixel like thing? It is just cheaper. I mean a neopixel even the cheapest of all the neopixels is maybe four cents in quantity This is a tenth or you know less of a cent these leds are probably cheap So you can't do as much with as far as controlling like fading or maybe stuff like that, but you can still Yeah, this can like fade on off, but it's like, you know, you just get one a ledie Like personally if I was going to redo this pcb I'd add like six neopixels because like I'm I'm luxury neopixel the other thing is, you know, this is obviously an epoxy blob. That's not unusual inside of here is is a little I don't know if it'll call it a microcontroller.  That's probably like a four eight bits Audio controller that you know, when you press the button, it has a little bit of wrong memory and it makes those Those tunes and they're programmed into a wrong chip Um, you can't just change the there's no like access to reprogram the songs. Why do they put up? I mean, you know, I know the answer is this but this is for for folks who are just getting interested Why would you put a blob of epoxy on here? Um, it's cheaper to just take the chip and just mount it directly to the pcb And you bond it onto the pcb and then you put a glob of epoxy It it saves you basically 10 cents, but 10 cents times millions. Yeah It's like standard issue kid toys. I think it's like, you know, six or seven bucks or like and it's you know It does it does make it more durable I mean like even if you spilled water Into this thing it would survive because you're not going to get water under like little Pins and then here's the the contacts. So this is um Speaker power And oh, right. So the speaker has um, there's low and high volume. Let's see if I could show Yeah, and then some of the kids toys they have you can barely see and the only thing that is a little bit annoying It's like the it's it's molded And not there's no paint so it's like you can kind of barely see there's a circle and this small speaker and a big speaker I have one of the toys with me now, but um, and they make these so some of the features are like Oh, you have three languages for the ones that talk. Yeah, and it's English Spanish and French, which is cool But no cling on no cling on but also um when we make our Hacked versions you'll be able to put whatever language you want because you're putting all the files on so basically it unlocks Um, the capability of a of a kid toy. It's always going to be updateable Yeah, maybe you know, maybe you want to learn three different One of the languages besides those maybe the other languages. Yeah. All right. So what else is on this thing Portuguese Um, so and then another thing is that the battery connector. So, you know, these these all run on AA batteries Which is smart because AA batteries can get rechargeables Um, and they're very they're plentiful. They're available everywhere. You know, they don't have built-in battery charging It's a lot safer. You know, whenever we did um kids project or wearables. I always try to you know To go with that layer AAA batteries people like oh, you should use lipos It's like well, you we're not going to do lipos charging on clothing and we have to keep saying it over and over Yeah, but I think folks are kind of cool about it now They're like oh because I'm doing costume is in like now I understand the the logic and wisdom and safety behind that Yes, and this this is soldered on and you can see it solders directly to the pcb also smart Designed so, you know, one of the things that we're going to have to do is um You might have to have boost converters because this chip is designed to run on Two volts, but some of our electronics is, you know, especially the neopixels actually I'm kind of surprised the green LED actually might be a There might be a little micro booster a switch cap in here That uh gives you a higher enough voltage to to run the blue led because if this is 2.4 volts It won't light up the blue any so you know what I bet these two capacitors here, maybe um our switch caps maybe Or there's something going on here that gives you that somehow boost the voltage up just a little bit just to drive the uh the green and um Blue leds one of the things that we thought would be neat is have an exact drop in sized replacement So you can always keep your existing functionalities, you know unscrew all this take it out put our board in Yeah, um our open source board and then you can you know connect to a wi-fi drag you drop some files on it Teach the kid how to do programming on it later What so we'll see it looks like that might be possible where we'll be able to measure this You will have to like you know desolder and resolder some of these connections But you know that could be a fun hacking thing and there's people who've like hacked Toys before yeah Midi jack out the side.  It's like, you know, it's it's a great case Right do a circuit thing right like I wouldn't add I can't add more buttons like people Can you make this thing well not really because like I'm kind of stuck with the case design the other thing is, you know Not a dig at all the cute little cute little person But I want to paint this to make it a skull. Yeah, and so, you know, there's a lot of things I want to do to this Um, and I but you can't it wouldn't make sense to do that now and have the music Stay the same. Well, maybe I could I might be able to add four button I could see like maybe if I just put four buttons in yeah, we could put we can give We could have it like a little slider like that Okay, so what else is on uh, this is pretty much it. I mean like this is you know It's just like I just started looking at my basis for the first time. I'm looking at it Um, and how do they store the music on these things? This is it's in underneath this epoxy blob is a rom chip that has the music hard burned in So there's again like I said, there's no way to replace even if there was a like a debug port like you're not You yeah, they're not gonna burn didn't permanently Like etched into stone so you can't yeah have to basically it's not like that someone's posted these files up They've I guess done a really high quality recording you yeah, you can get the recording out by just um, you know Connecting the speaker output into a microphone through a resistor to protect your microphone So you don't end up that's fun blowing it out so you can get the digital signal out And then record it and then analog signal and you're in your recording digitally or is it? Yeah, it would be analog, but it's probably PWM So, you know, you're gonna get fairly good Like as long as you filter it you'll get because it's not like a microphone. It's actually just the audio going Yeah, not a mic. I mean you're tapping in directly the signal So you'll get you know very very good recording Um, but yeah, you're not you you can't Change, you know, you can't change it without basically changing the entire so what would be Or sorry, what is gonna be the first step with making our own version just popping this pcb off measuring it?  All right. When I do this Maybe we'll start a github repo and we'll just like here's the scan for someone else Like this little slot, you know, if you get it right, it'll snap in um And like, you know, if you want to reuse this button Also, like you need I I think I would like to reuse all of the mechanical stuff because it's been battle tested Yeah, by babies by babies But then yeah, you only need to at least desolder and you know, these are color coded. It's not too bad Oh, you know, it's funny. Here's this capacitor.  I bet that's a switch cap converter Yeah, yeah Because like why would you have three capacitors? It seems a lot. I think a voltage doubler or something If you want to show it on the other cam Tilted up that line. Yeah, that's very weird to have especially since they're 10 volts There's no reason to have a 10 volt capacitor on these. You should have like a three or six volt So it makes me think that there's a voltage doubler in here that takes the That's built in which makes sense right because people are going to put in like dying batteries You're gonna get two volts out of here. You need to boost this up to four I wonder how long the batteries last Probably a very long time. I mean like yeah, that'll be interesting when we do our tests So the other piece of this that I'm gonna ask is Um, we can use an rp2040. We can use a esp32 s2 Um d3 like what what chip what chip do you think we might we might use for our board? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, um You know, if there's no usb port we could cut a port, but I kind of like the idea of having it be Um, I don't know why if I you know, it's like you basically you have a you know 10 seconds to when you put for turn it on Or you know, you can use some hold the button or something Yeah, like if the button is like yeah button is held while you're turning it on press and hold the button Then it's in it goes into bootloader mode or something me files Um, and the only thing is though, you know that uses more power But you know, maybe if you only turn on the wi-fi during that The esp32 is a fairly low power chip the rp2040 would also be great Um, it doesn't have wi-fi access, but you know one thing is there's a lot of space here Like we might be able to have a pico Go like a pico w and so you could take advantage of like, you know, there's these low cost boards you would solder that in um, yeah, maybe maybe i'll have uh, you know in patria Do a 3d reproduction of this so people could have it as an enclosure for their projects Yeah, don't want to figure out how to fit stuff in. Okay. Well, that's our second you fit like, you know, much much larger stuff So, you know, I don't I don't know yet, but i'm thinking i'm thinking probably a esp32 s2 because it's a really it's a really stable one thing that's funny is the s2 does have a DAC output, but we like there's no dma to the DAC So it's not good for playing audio clips. So we might have to add um Look an i2s amplifier to get really good because I think you want really good quality audio That is one of the things that Children's toys are not known for yeah, like it would be really cool if his head like nice a nice ice, it's gonna drop alg worbus on My alg worbus files. Yeah on the other hand, we don't have I I think in Circuit python. I don't think we have mp3 playback for esp Um, I know there is an arduina. There is an arduina though. Yeah, or I can do wave. We can do wave. Yeah, so um Yeah, like I think and I can't get samdies. So it can't be samdies Yeah, I think one day in the future there might be like a kid toy development camp where parents Um, whether they're coding or using drag and drop Or you know no code and they're like this is the songs I want on it and this is the light patterns I want on it and they publish to the device and They get to almost like ringtones for their phones, but they're not specific songs for their kids I guess that a lot of this stuff is neat, but um I'm just not into The like elephants and lions and frogs. It's cool, you know, but it seems like there's there's um Other things that and there's just nothing out. There's not there's nothing like everyone just copies each other Like all the all the toys. They're all toys. It's very pretty to see the The evolution of like one person comes up with a kiki piano and then they all kind of yeah I got two different kiki pianos and they're basically identical. Yeah, and um, It's cool. Um, you know, it's consistent, but I feel like Kids have to keep up with the changing times and a lot of these things are getting a little dated I just think it would be great just to look whatever her favorite songs are you load them on and you can get you know people make like MIDI like they make like You know lyricalists You know like karaoke basically basically turns into a little karaoke machine Yeah, a little bit of belly a little bit of prince a little bit of cure That's that's her current playlist. I'm going to raise her to be totally unable to socially interact with girls her age Yeah, it's like she's she's like, I'm only listening to 80s music. Um, okay. Well, let's tear it down. So we'll be back with more of these and uh More optic equipment because I think we're going to be able to do this late at night. Yeah I think we have a good job here. Yeah, just good. All right. Thanks everybody. All right. Thank you


actually embedded on like a financial budget here what you I think you meant to ask was maybe paid advertising you know advertisement here marketing is in like different forms I'll tell you for a fact like some of the biggest heat songs we did when I was working with a tealier wouldn't even have that big of a marketing budget let's say some like zero budget understand so sometimes it's about the whole project yeah when you have a plan then the music kind of guides you see when we're releasing let's say do small we just knew this was gonna be a tech talk so and I remember like when we were in the studio recording and we did like two versions of the song first song that we went to release the producer sat down overnight he was like I feel like I want to change the beat a little bit yeah and then he worked on the beat overnight sent it to me I heard it made he was in the US at that time so I fought him at around let's say 4 a.m. he's like oh I like this change I want to do my bus different I was like okay fine he worked on the song again and then he came up with it when you move to the left I go you move to the right till I woke up in the morning and I told him there's a very big change made it did something different he's like what so we were supposed to release the song actually the same same day so tiller also it was like let me just do a freestyle so he worked on it freestyle then we released the song as soon as the song was out just picked up people you know when you move to the left I go people started doing the challenges that guided us we were like this is a TikTok song so what are we gonna do let's focus more on pushing it on TikTok so we reached out to like a few influences from Kenya and these were not even paid you know the people who just like support good music hey Azit can you do a challenge for us how you do it can you do this challenge for us just four posts and the song Peter that's the biggest song on YouTube right now believe there was no much budget rate so what I want to say is don't really focus on like the you know the expenses as a as a as a young artist what you need to do is just have a plan they say a man who does not have a plan plans to fail so when you have a plan best believe you might not really need to do much yeah so just focus on having good music and then have a plan and then work with your budget whatever budget you have there's no such thing as what's a good budget for my project anything can really work for you yeah


back to Latin American directions. My name is Nicholas Sussman and welcome to our show to discuss the most current topics in Latin America and the impact for our region. Today, we have the pleasure to have with us as guests, to have Maria Monica La Torre, Maria Monica is a lawyer from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia, with a postgraduate degree in financial legislation. She has focused her professional experience in financial law, both in the law firm and banking sectors. And today, we're going to discuss a very fascinating, interesting topic, which is financial technology, financial access, and the impact it has on poverty and development. Maria Monica, welcome to Latin American directions. It's a pleasure to have you here. Hi, Nicholas. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor. I'm very, very grateful to be here and well, happy, happy to talk to you. Great. So Maria Monica, let's start with some basic questions to set the ground for our audience, right? So now we hear fintech, crypto, a lot of new terms in the financial world, right? And now it's mixing with technology. So very briefly, what is financial technology or fintech, if I'm saying it properly? Yeah. So fintech basically refers to the idea that financial services can be provided through technology. So it's the idea that there are new business models, new ways to provide traditional financial services through technology. That's basically it. Right. And why is this better or different from traditional banking? What's the need of this new fintech world? Well, I think it's not necessarily better. But it's how like somehow how the market's been developing and like the new tendencies of the market have been leading leading there, right? So we have been seeing that the more traditional sectors of the of the financial sector have had to adapt quickly to these new technologies, these new ideas, these new business models more focused on the digital era and on new digital tools. So I don't think one is like better than the other. It's just how the market's been developing currently. Right. And how does this change the financial game? How is this different from traditional banking? Well, I think, well, the first thing that comes to mind is financial inclusion. So traditionally, and then the traditional financial services have been neglecting, let's say, or forgetting a important part of the population that has been underserved. So let's talk about more vulnerable, poor segments of society, and also, for example, small, medium enterprises that haven't had normally access to traditional financial services, right? So I think these FinTech Revolution has allowed for these traditionally forgotten segments of business and of society to have access, right to financial services and products. And that's been fascinating, I think. So I think that's one of the most important things and how it's changed the deal and how it's changed the dynamic in the financial system. Right. This may seem a bit obvious, perhaps, but why is it important for people to have access and use the financial system? Well, that's a very, very good question, actually. It has been proven that financial inclusion promotes financial development, economic development. It helps people have more access and let's say it helps for increased availability of economic resources in the economy. So that's the first thing, right? It is also an enabler for sustainable development. So let's talk about, for example, the sustainable development goals. Financial inclusion has been proven to be one of the enablers for the sustainable development goals because it helps people come out of poverty because they can have access to more resources and to more services. It helps promote education, for example, financial education, which is one of the most important sustainable development goals. It helps improve female empowerment, right? Because when we help women have access to financial services, then women have more power and more control over their financial situation, right? So it helps a lot in development, and that's why it's become so very important for people to have access to financial services. Right. Right. Let's bring this into more specific and perhaps daily life examples, right? So when I imagine financial access before, right? I just imagine the person going to the bank with its folder, with its documents trying to get a loan, right? For, yeah, a short business, they want a small business they want to create or something like that. And they have the interview with the person at the bank. And then they get an answer of yes or no, right? And that that's financial access. How does this change in in digital banking, in technological backing? Does it work the same? Is it easier, for example, to get a loan? How does this improve from traditional banking, the situation of people? Yeah, so I think let's take one step back. So the first thing is financial inclusion is it's firstly about giving people access to the most basic financial services. So before a loan even, let's guarantee that people have access to savings accounts, right? So they can store money, and they can save, they can plan for the future, right? They can have a more structured management of their finances, right? So that's on the one hand. Then on the second hand, on the on this digital era, we have seen that people have been able to be closer to the financial services, right? So for example, in rural areas, in areas where traditionally a branch of a bank would be very expensive to install if people just have access to a phone or the internet, well, they can have access to financial services without the need of them being seated in front of a person telling them what to do, how to do it, what they can do with that. So I think that's been fascinating. It's allowing people to really get access without the traditional means of the banking system, right? Right. Right. And how does this work? Because we've seen worldwide, I would say a boom of new financial institutions, right? Which they don't even have offices. As you say, you apply from the phone. How do you see this situation? How does this model is operational and also provides trust, which I would say is one of the key questions of this, right? Who am I giving my money to? Which I would say is one of the main questions we have when we go to a bank, right? Who is this person I'm trusting with my with my hard earned savings, right? Yeah, totally. And that actually has been one of the challenges of these new digital revolution in financial services, right? Because, well, people are still very wary of where they put their money and how they invest their money, right? And we have also seen that this digital era has allowed for more fraud or different new ways of defrauding people, right? So how does it work? Well, I'm going to talk a little bit about the efforts that have been done in the past and how the digital era has allowed for, for for example, more financial inclusion and more access to financial services. So the first thing is it has become a priority for governments, right? So governments have found out that if people have more access to financial services that will contribute to economic growth. So there have been products and services that have been leveraged by governments themselves. So for example, if there are government payments that the government is giving to more underprivileged segments of the population, if the government insures that their payments will only come through a savings account that has been promoting for people to open savings accounts, right? And that has included, that has promoted more bankability in different and traditionally forgotten sectors of society. The other aspect is we have allowed mobile financial services to to thrive. So we have taken advantages of already existing technologies like telecommunications to leverage and to allow for mobile financial services so people can make payments through their phones, through text messages, you can send money. So and this has been, for example, a great success in Sub-Saharan countries and specifically in Kenya. It was a great case of success where people had access to mobile banking in places in rural places where, of course, there weren't any branches of the banks, but people had access to a signal on their phone, right? So they could handle their money. We have welcomed new business models for financial inclusion. So for example, small, medium enterprises have promoted microcredits and micro indebtedness that have allowed for segments that have traditionally not passed all those benchmarks that traditional banks set for them to have access to credit, for them to have access to loans. So it's been quite, quite refreshing to see this this happen. So yeah, I think that's how basically it's worked so far. Of course, we're still inventing much of this because as technology is evolving very quickly, well, we are having to figure out how it works, how we protect the customers, how we protect the money from these new business models without hindering and without putting a stop in their development, right? So it's still very much under construction. Right, right. And now let me play a bit of devil's advocate here. And let's pick up on the common beliefs, perhaps people who are unfamiliar with the financial system have, and is that banks are not reliable, banks only want their money, and they're not going to receive any benefits. What are you going to say to these people and why would they choose now to go into this technology supported banking instead of traditional banking? Does it bring any advantages? Is it more trustworthy? What would you say to these people? Well, firstly, I think it will facilitate much of what we before hated about the traditional banking system, right? So you don't have to go to a physical place to make a line for two hours to just have access to your bank account. You just can access it from your phone, right? And you can have your resources available at any moment, at any time for as long as you have internet, right? So I think that's the very first thing. Well, the second thing is, of course, banking is a business, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any protections around banks to make sure that people receive sustainable and responsible products and services, right? So there are quite a lot of regulations in place to make sure that people's savings, people's money is safe, that banks have the right strength to back those products, right? They have the enough, how do we say it, enough strength, solvency to make sure that people won't lose their money. So I think even though we cannot forget that banking is a traditional business, there are a lot of protections in place to make sure that the people's money is protected and is safe, right? And, well, these new technologies just had made it easier for people to access it and just had made it easier for people to have access to products and services that previously were limited to a very specific segment of the population. I think that's the key aspect of all of this, right? And I would like to make like a quick propaganda here and it is, I think the digital financial services have allowed for people to have a much better financial education, right? If you don't have to go to a financial advisor in a bank for you to have access to a service or for you to get to know the services at the banks or the the fintechs are offering, well, that's we're all winning, right? Because from your phone you can see what you can do with your money, how can you invest it in a safe way, right? So I think it's also been great for improving financial education and for giving people access to information on financial services, which was, I think, previously was very limited and people just like they went to the bank to deposit their money but they didn't know what happened after that, right? We now have more access to information and information is more transparent nowadays. So I think that is also key and that is also something that should give people like the tranquility to go and deposit their money in in the banks. So, right, and well, the question now is, is it working? Are you having an increase in the amount of clients? Is it growing business model? Is it competitive against traditional banking? How does this situation of traditional versus new banking is looking like? Well, the first thing we need to say is it has definitely improved the panorama in terms of financial inclusion, right? So right now the numbers have improved significantly. 76% of the global population have an account or have an account, a bank account, right? That, of course, leaves still a very large 24% that we can improve but these new era has allowed for people to have access, for many people to have access to financial services and it has also presented as a very good business opportunity, right? Because it has become a priority for governments so it has become a great opportunity for investment, right? If you can invest in financial inclusion, well, there is a unattended segment of the population that you can, how do you say, you can focus on and that is definitely has infinite potential, right? And the other thing is it has become, for example, a huge, huge opportunity of growth for small and medium enterprises, right? So we have seen that traditional banking sectors are, well, they are evolving a lot but they are still focusing on the traditional parts of the financial sector, right? So it has left a very large portion of unattended population to be attended to by the small and medium enterprises. So it has allowed for startups, for fintech startups to be very successful for them to grow and for them to not only grow their business but also provide a good service to people that previously didn't have access to it. So I think it's a win-win, however you see it, right? Right, and in terms of global use, the appearance of these new banks, of these new financial services is more frequent or popular in what we call the global south or developing countries or is it something occurring worldwide in a similar manner? Well, it's something occurring worldwide and the thing is, of course, in more developed countries, historically more developed countries, people have had more access traditionally to financial products and services, right? It's where people have been more vulnerable when people are poor, where people are in more rural areas, where people are in conflict, that they haven't had the opportunity to have access to all those products, right? So it has presented as a great opportunity for growth in developing countries because well it's where traditionally there have, there has been more space to grow in that aspect, right? So for example, the financial, the financial, the gender gap has been more pronounced in developing countries than in historically developed countries, so it has presented as a good opportunity to promote more female access to financial products and services. So I think even though it's been a worldwide phenomenon, it has really been focused, or not focused, but it has proven to have infinite potential in developing countries where there is more space to grow and where there have been more traditionally forgotten segments of the population that haven't had access to traditional financial services, right? Right, right, and it's very interesting what you say about the link between access to the financial system to financial services and first, personal growth and second, development. Could you explain us a bit this link? Why using banks having a savings account, having access to the financial system is going to improve my personal situation first? How is this better from having my money under the mattress or in a shoebox under the bed? Well, of course. First, I think because it allows for you to have more knowledge on how to manage your money, right, to have more planning. So if you just have a daily wage and you spend it every day, you don't have any kind of planning for the future, you don't have any kind of savings for any emergencies, so I think having access to, for example, a savings account is a better way of planning and of having a better control of your finances, right, so that is the first aspect. What I was saying at the beginning, it is going for people to have more access to financial products and services is going to make more economic resources available in the system. So what does that mean? If I am a small business owner or if I am a female entrepreneur, if I have access to credits, for example, I have more chances of making my business grow, right, and if I have more chances of making my business grow, well, I have more chances of making more wealth, of producing more money, and of me being a bigger part of the economy, so I think that is really key. It has allowed for, at least here also, way for the money to flow, right, so if you have a savings account, well, you can easily receive payments and send money to other people without the need of having it in cash, right, so the other day this happened to me, I was in a small, in a small town here in Colombia where normally you wouldn't be able to pay with your credit card, of course, because people didn't have like the little thing where you pay with your card, but the guy said to me, I don't have the little thing to receive your card, but I have a QR code that will allow for you to pay with your card, with your phone, right, in a small business, in a small town in Colombia, so that opens the opportunity for their business to grow and to develop, right, and the flow of money, of course, becomes easier. Also, for example, we have seen that, well, our world is every day is more globalized and the financial system is very globalized and is very interdependent, so we have seen that having a more digital financial services has allowed for money to move easier from one place to another, decreasing, for example, the transactional costs, which is something that has traditionally been crazy, so I think all of those small aspects end up helping the bigger purpose, which is economic development, sustainable economic development, right? Right, so bottom line, more people using the financial system create more flow of cash and that leads into development, right, that's the story, that's amazing. More flow of cash, but also, like, more access to cash, yeah. Well, that's really great, and well, just to finish, how do you see the future of fintech and financial access in our region? What's the closing message that you would leave to the audience and perhaps a message for the people that are still a bit shy or reluctant to go for these new banking models? Okay, so some key takeaways perhaps. The first thing is, I think, right now governments are having a more strategic development of their financial inclusion services and the financial sectors has assessed very, like, is assessing better the situation, so if we know what we're working with, with data, then we can develop effective strategies to pursue more financial inclusion, right? So I think that's the first takeaway. The second is, we are focusing more on products and providers for underserved segments of the population, right? So if we can promote more product and more providers that are serving specific underserved segments of the population when we can help strengthen our economies and we can help strengthen and enable more development. The other, I think, takeaway is we are promoting more financial education, which is something, I think, key for economic development and for sustainable development. If people know how to manage their money, well, they're more likely to manage it in an adequate way, right? We are also trying to promote more micro-small and medium enterprises for them to make it easier for people to have access to financial services, right? And for your last question, what can you say to people that are still a little bit reluctant? Just bear in mind what I was saying earlier that, really, there are many regulations in place designed to really protect the consumer and to make the consumer the center of all of this, because at the end of the day, companies are providing services but it's just for the customers, right? So let's not forget that there are many regulations in place to protect your money. There are many regulations in place to protect your data and to ensure that the companies that are providing these services are providing them in a responsible, sustainable, ethical way and that we are not, we're trying not to allow any defrauders into the system. So just bear in mind that regulators and companies are working very hard to protect your money and to provide good services because, well, if we don't have confidence, well, the system simply doesn't work. Well, I think that's a great way to end our show. Maria Monika, thank you so much. Thank you for inviting us with something that could seem complicated, but at the end, improves our access and our education. It was a pleasure to have you in Latin American directions and for our audience, we'll see each other in two weeks. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Nikolas. It's always a pleasure and well, whatever you need, I'm always here available to talk. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching ThinkTech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com Mahalo.


completely overblown in introduction and to yourself and to die for arranging such an interesting event, first instance and for inviting me to speak at it. It's actually, it's almost 18 months since I spoke at an institute event last and that was an immediate aftermath of the bailout deal with the Troika. The Troika, that combination of the European Commission and the IMF in liaison with the ECB. The engagement with the Troika has certainly generated a lot more Europe in the financial affairs of Ireland. And that's my topic today. I want to talk about more Europe in the financial arena and ask whether it's good for Ireland. And there's a dimension which is Europe as a whole and it's a dimension of more European involvement in Irish financial affairs. So I'll come back to the Troika and the program but first of all I want to harken back to earlier days. One of the two inaugural publications of the Institute back in 1991, a study entitled Economic and Monetary Union explored the implications of the freshly minted draft Maastricht Treaty which laid the foundations, the constitutional foundations for EMU. The study, dig out an old copy, goes into the question of whether bank supervision should remain at the national level in the new Monetary Union. And concludes that, and I quote, an opportunity may be missed arguably a centralized bank supervision authority whether a department of the ECB or a separate entity with wide powers would be more able to operate above national political pressures in acting decisively to prevent a failing bank from continuing to operate in an unsound manner. There would, the study astutely goes on to observe, of course be a need to retain a local based inspection system for supplying the local field which is essential for detecting the early warning signs of distress. But so far as action to restrain unsound banking practices is concerned here again as in the case of monetary management it may be worthwhile for national governments to cede power to the center in order to save them from themselves. End of quote. Well, it seems from the banking part of what I'll call the Four Presidents report this week's report Van Rompuy and the other presidents of three presidents of the European institutions, a report which is remarkably entitled towards a genuine economic and monetary union. Very remarkable title given what's been happening in Europe for the last 20 years. I think we can see from that and from this morning's summit statement that this two-decade-old idea's time has finally come. At last there is a clear push towards integrated banking supervision with ultimate authority at the European level and forcing a common rule book. Of course a significant national component of supervisory activity would continue and probably extensive cross-border use of national supervisory capacity for Ireland both outward and inward. Our inspectors going there, their inspectors coming here. That would likely be a conspicuous part of the supervision of banks in the years ahead. The other two banking elements of the Four Presidents proposed integrated financial framework, formerly known as the Banking Union, namely the establishment of a European Bank Resolution Scheme and a European Deposit Insurance Scheme could help break for the future the damaging link between bank failure in smaller countries and the taxpayer burden in those countries. In particular centralized resolution combined with the European Commission's recent proposals on bailing in uninsured bank creditors would clearly ensure that what happened in Ireland would not be repeated elsewhere in the future. So it may not be popular these days in some circles here to speak favorably of more Europe but in this arena of financial integration at least I therefore believe there is very little by way of threat to Ireland in moving forward and rather there's quite a lot to gain. Indeed the Irish experience points rather clearly to the need for measures along these lines. An opportunity for coherence in system design was missed in 1991 by the architects of the Euro area it should be seized now. Of course there will be practical and political difficulties and the Four Presidents Report leaves many critical decisions unanswered but the broad direction is established. Well it remains to be seen whether the initiatives in this direction, banking supervision deposit insurance and resolution will be enough in themselves to reassure markets sufficiently narrowing again the spreads on government debt to the tight range that was observed throughout almost all of the first decade of the Euro. There is of course much more in the Four Presidents Report than just the proposals on financial integration specifically that report also covers the large areas of integration for budgetary and economic policy frameworks and a strengthening of democratic legitimacy and accountability. I'll not go into those matters here but all in all it is to be expected that while designing and adhering to such a roadmap is surely necessary to rebuild both market and especially intergovernmental confidence it may take time for market yields to converge to the extent desired. There has been already some market movement in the last few hours. Recall in thinking about this issue of yields on government bonds, recall that one of the mass strict criteria for admission to the Euro area is that a country's long-term bond yields should be not more than 200 basis points, 2 percentage points above the average for the three countries with the lowest inflation rates. So that's the way the architects envisaged. You can't get in until you've at least got your long-term yields to that sort of level. Well yesterday Spanish long-term yields reached about 550 basis points above those of Germany. The figure for Italy was more than 450 basis points. Clearly these market conditions relating to three of the four largest countries are not what was envisaged by the committee way back then and are not consistent with the integrated monetary transmission called for in the treaty. This has to be corrected and quickly. What has been going on to generate these high spreads? Well here's one oversimplified take on it but one that I think conveys some of the reality. Even very high national debt ratios in the Euro area can be seen by the markets as tolerable as long as interest rates are low and interest rates were indeed low throughout the Euro area before the crisis. The low interest rate environment owed much to the effective and credible control over inflation rates that had come into effect and represented such a welcome relief for many countries relative to what had been experienced in the high inflation of the 70s and 80s. Introduction of the Euro ensured low interest rates in the low debt countries but low yields also prevailed in the high debt countries as long as markets thought that the debt levels were tolerable and that the debt would be repaid without any doubt. Even for countries to which the rating agencies did not attach a high credit rating, sovereign debt traded for most of the first decade of emu as if it was triple A or close. But the same very high debt ratios do not appear so tolerable if interest rates are high and alas markets will demand higher interest rates if the debt does not appear tolerable.  Now the spreads again seem out of line with credit ratings but this time the range of spreads is wider than the ratings would normally imply. A sense that countries in trouble would eventually be bailed out despite treaty prohibitions may also be have been at work in keeping debt levels low in the past but that belief too has been eroded by the markets experience with the Greek PSI debt exchange. Of course by piling up debt in many Euro area countries, some of which were already high, some not so high, the fiscal and banking policy responses to the crash of 2008-09, counter cyclical fiscal policy and the assumption of the obligations of failing banks have contributed to moving countries from safety into the risk zone where the good equilibrium, low interest rates, low perceived default risk could flip and has flipped into the bad equilibrium of high interest rates and less certainty. Getting debt ratios back to moderate levels is the medium term solution but that takes time. Breaking the vicious circle should be possible even in the short run. A number of techniques is available but to do so in a way that is broadly acceptable across Europe and in a way that maintains overall stability in other dimensions requires the steps adumbrated by the four presidents. This morning's summit pushes the process forward until this vicious circle is convincingly broken and a more sustainable configuration of bond yields is restored. Financial market conditions will continue to appear fragile and that's why there's increasing recognition that it is not something to be left on the long finger. Yet it's come back to Ireland. Ireland's financial interactions with Europe also relate of course more specifically to the Troika financing and the programme of adjustment which is now about halfway through. When I spoke to the Institute last in January 2011 it was as I mentioned with an analysis of where the programme at its introduction situated Ireland. I pointed out that Ireland faced a serious problem of excessive indebtedness, public and private, and that the programme would not solve this but would give time for Ireland to deal with the level of debt. I pointed out that tail risk in the banks remained high and that the EU and IMF had not been able to include in the programme any financial instruments that would help insulate Ireland from tail risk. The hope had to be that tail risks would not materialise. Well these two issues, high public debt and the working out of the banks distress loans, remain central. Progress has been made but more is needed. Let me speak first about the public finances and public debt and then about the banks. In both aspects Ireland's interaction with Europe and the rest of the world generally is a crucial part of the story but a lot is home grown also. With regard to the public finances clearly the aftermath of the bank driven boom and bust is the context for everything. Still it's convenient in turn to separate in our minds the sums are rising directly from the recapitalisation of the banks and those related to the rest of the evolution of the public finances. So just a few words about recapitalising the banks. The government has now injected sums equivalent to over 50% of this year's GNP into the Irish controlled banks. About half of this has been a cash injection and the rest is in deferred form, promissory notes and conventional government bonds. Until these deferred amounts are settled in cash and I know that Carl Whelan has been talking a bit about this earlier today, the cash needs of IBRC, the legacy institution from Anglo and INBS are being met with some 42, nearly 42 billion of exceptional liquidity assistance from the central bank of Ireland. The drawings of the central bank on the Euro system that in effect meet this ELA are subject to remuneration at the ECB policy rate currently 1%. As long as these arrangements continue then they have a sizable impact on the gross and especially the net debt of the state, but the overall running cost to Ireland has been relatively low thanks to the indulgence in this matter at any rate of what is often locally the often aligned ECB. Although this financing arrangement continues for the time being, still from the market's point of view the lack of any explicit commitment to long-term low-cost financing of IBRC's cash needs no doubt has represented one of the obstacles to Ireland regaining market access on the necessary scale in the immediate future. With last night's summit statement it may not be unrealistic to hope that this important loose end can be tied up relatively soon. At the central bank of Ireland our initial approach to the recapitalization of Irish banks back in late 2009 was to imagine putting in not just enough capital but so much capital as to fully dispel any market concerns. If we can look at the just a few slides we're going to look at the first of them there that the rapidly mounting oh I have to do something to him. Yes I actually have to do something. Come on. The rapidly mounting actual and prospective public debt ratios coming from the non-banking deficit and you can see the solid part of that line rising that's the debt ratio rising 2008 2009 2010 even if you don't look at the banking debt which is the white bit at the top. Rapidly mounting actual and prospective public debt ratios coming from the non-banking deficit meant that given the scale of the prospective banking losses that were announced in September 2010 well they put pay to the idea of over capitalizing the banks over the capitalizing the banks under such circumstances would simply have destabilized the state and that's why we were reluctant as I said the last time I was here to endorse further accumulation of indebtedness of the state in order to recapitalize the banks to insulate the financial system and the economy against tail risks even if external insurance was not available and it wasn't direct injection of the capital from an external sources would have been a much better solution however as has been seen again with the case of Spain in the last weeks until very recently and things may have changed now this was simply not on offer limiting the possibility for decoupling the pressures of the banking system from those of the sovereign well I could go on about um there's too much here about bank capital I'll skip down a little bit loan losses as I stressed here 18 months ago loan loss projections following a big bust involved an irreducibly large element of uncertainty at the central bank we continue to research the determinants of loan losses economic conditions including house prices facing the borrowing firms and households are not the only determinants and as we have been stressing in other fora the effectiveness of the bank's engagement with their stressed borrowers as well as the legislative and administrative framework for dealing with insolvency are important factors and details of new legislative framework for insolvency have been announced by the government this morning it should not be thought of paradox that a more engaged and holistic approach by banks and a less rigid and costly insolvency framework can help reduce loan losses over time meanwhile given the final view of the troika lenders that only the holders of subordinated debt and not of senior debt could be required to share in the losses the additional capital requirements brought the total state injection from 47 billion to well by my count 64 billion i think carl disagrees says it's only 63 but i think it's 64 almost all of the unguaranteed senior bonds of ibrc have now been repaid the last big chunk was paid this week by now the irish government has provided about half of the capital requirements generated by the crisis i think this is an interesting slide and it's hard to get this in a completely consistent way but it broken down the costs of the capital injections into banks into what the government spent that's the blue bit on the left almost a half the green bit at the top is it's called liability management exercises these are the losses to subordinated debt holders so their debt holders did suffer some people would have wanted them to suffer more but 14 billion the next one the red one is the losses in accounting terms by the shareholders anybody remember their bank share certificates counted for that large largest chunk of the total losses and the orange bit is the cost to the shareholders of the foreign banks so i think that's quite an interesting picture of where those banking losses fell away from the banks now and and let's talk about him the rest of the government's fiscal accounts very briefly so far i haven't spoken much about the adjustment of spending and taxation what's now being called austerity let's be clear about this when ireland lost access to the markets the availability of borrowed funds depended on the foreign official lenders they have authorized sufficient funds for what has to be described as a rather gradual glide path of the government deficit certainly relative to the alternative of no access but also relative to what is being implemented in other countries such as britain spain and the united states many others but i just chose those three despite the much lower debt ratios in those countries so is ireland is there a fiscal crunch in ireland that is is faster than countries that are not in programs evidently not and just let's look at that slide briefly on the left hand side on the y-axis the percentage government deficit as a percent of gdp leave out the banking parts of the of the irish deficit and you can see in 2009 there the green curve of course the thick green curve is ireland the the one that starts at 13 percent is the united states the red one is the united kingdom and the blue one is spain and what i want you to get out of this chart is how relatively gradual the irish decline in its in the deficit right through to 2013 is so that although it was well below the us at the start it is above all of them at the end and it's it's a lot above spain which despite not being in a program is adopting a much tougher adjustment and it it the the british program also gives britain a much lower deficit in 2013 it's important then to recognize that the availability of public official financing has protected the irish government accounts and has allowed the the adjustment to be a lot slower indeed the striking fact is that right through to the end of the program there is a resource transfer from the official lenders to support non-interest net spending of the irish government it is only after the end of the program scheduled to term that ireland is expected to be actually reducing the government debt ratio as such it can fairly be said that the higher taxes and cuts in public spending are thus far not being used to pay off the banking debt the scale of the fiscal adjustment needed even then is an indication of how badly skewed our public finances had become in the boom with what proved to be transitory revenues used to increase the level of spending above well above what could be sustained achieving fiscal targets is easier when the economy grows more important there are more jobs and more income to go around when the economy grows in the face of weakening economic activity in many parts of the euro area there has been a tendency for international comment to consider the irish economy's current growth performance as rather good export growth the current account surplus in the balance of payments compliance with budgetary targets and improvements in cost competitiveness are rightly emphasized but emphasis is sometimes also placed on indicators such as aggregate productivity and unit labour costs which in ireland can flatter in fact after the very steep fall during the crash of 2008 9 economic activity aggregate economic activity has been broadly unchanged since early 2009 growth in export oriented sectors has been offset by shrinkage in domestic demand only in 2013 does the central bank expect the domestic demand to stop falling aggregate employment has been falling for five years now bank lending despite all of the policy efforts remains timid despite the fact that exports have held up adverse economic factors have been holding the irish economy back it's one of the most open in the world and so it's important what the external factors are doing for example compared to what was projected at the outset of the program economic activity in ireland GDP is almost 2 percent below what was expected at the outset of the program but this gels with an average underperformance of the rest of the EU economy of about the same percentage pull this out here if we we can probably easiest thing is to forget about the red bars and this shows you revisions to the growth forecast for 2012 the blue lines the revision that happened between early 2011 and recent forecasts so you can see on the right hand side there there's ireland almost 2 percent below but look at all the other countries some of them as highest between three and four percent spain and italy germany also one and a half percent relative to what was expected euro area as a whole rather more than two percent below what was expected at that time so that shows you the link between external the external situation or it suggests I think between the external situation in ireland the continued high rate of personal savings and the fiscal adjustment have also been external have also been adverse factors though as I mentioned the latter factor has been minimized thanks to the availability of troika funding any overall assessment must therefore be highly qualified though there have been several setbacks in the euro area and some missed opportunities step by step actions have been taken to build the conditions needed to ensure a stronger recovery of the ireland economy according to the forecasters a return to output and employment growth is in sight and while there will no doubt be some more setbacks on the way it's not unreasonable to hope that the balance of negative and positive surprises will be better than it was however the high end still growing debt is reflected in the yield spreads even if they've come down today financing conditions do need to be improved as has been acknowledged as has been acknowledged in this latest summit this morning while some may have hope for more from europe in the past couple of years any fair minded assessment must acknowledge that the official financing received has been a lifeline if financial markets and growth conditions in europe can indeed be stabilized and i'm sure they can if financing conditions for ireland can be improved and if restraint remains the policy watchword at home the corner can soon be turned thank you very much


Good morning guys. It is like nearly 10 a.m. I'm just heading down to make the bigger gonna meet up with Dan If we make a fun video get some skating in Should be right time now. This is living in America guys got my Chevrolet hat on driving a Chevrolet Luke Holmes on the radio. It's just country Sticky icky icky That's another one. I struggle with backside big spin And then it's been 90. Yeah, okay, but I can't do that pressure you when I have to do like a shove it.  There it is ladies and gentlemen. Here we go Coming back one-sided mini-ramp It goes crazy right here. What can you hear that? Does it echo a little bit? Oh, here it is if I face this way Okay, so skating a mini-ramp An echoing mini-ramp Testing the acoustics Promise. Oh my god.  Yeah, yeah, I was like I was gonna say You've been gripping on pretty well break in traction how fast you can go in. Yeah There you go. I'm stuck for ideas because as soon as you drop you've got a turn, huh? Yeah Okay, yeah put your truck all the way against it. That's what the people want to say Baby ones like someone could do that with front 5-0 like five feeble shove NBD for sure NBD You said I feel like in skateboarding you don't know until you try Oh, yeah, I think about it for days But unless you're like just huck one and see how it goes you're not gonna know you gotta play with tricks I try random shit all the time and it's so funny on how many tricks I've learned by like trying to figure out a trick And then something else accidentally works, and I'm like, oh, I should just try to learn this instead Yeah, you grip tapes your finger. Yeah, is that part of the line?  Yeah. Oh, no. Well, what are you gonna land now cuz it's still a line Okay, how did you land it and then fall? Oh your board's gone. You like out there The outback. Oh, we should go to Outback Steakhouse tonight. Are you do you want to go to Outback Steakhouse tonight? Yeah, let's go we can continue our Australian conversation there What about American skateboards? I feel like Pox here try to put the most into like the space there is So it's like I like that. It's cool But you like stuff to be more spread out and boring and terrible go to Colorado. That's how all their skate park Sorry You got more What do you mean you're trying to hit it you're gonna hit it First try it's this pot here. It shoots you out. Oh into the bank. What do you mean? Oh, you're scared of this? Yeah, mellow bank. I'm scared of a mellow bank, dude. You got Just stay on the board and you win I thought you're gonna do board slide. Oh, you're doing real tricks Probably less scary than board slide. Okay. I don't either. I know where he's going. That was such a good front lip What are you doing? You're still going No break time. I'll do that here in the states, and he wasn't kidding about break time We've been skating together all day, and I still don't think he understands that everything's a line It's a line. Hey, have you done that one before? Yeah, pull it out of the pocket Playing pocket pool over here. I got my eye on you. Oh my god. You exploded on that Ollie We're out of this pump track here today guys Skated one before On asphalt, you know ripped up pretty sure it's asphalt isn't it black top black top in the states I'm just like me climbing what you're saying This thing is so rough Dan's just smashing through it Like that section there sick. Oh Yeah, that's way smoother because no one's skating on it. God. Why is it like this because what's not built for skateboarders? This is where we are actually the outsiders. Yeah Yeah, dude, it's like the berms are like the roughest thing so like these big big berms I'm just gonna like zip over one because when you pump over the pump on so you can get some speed But the second you hit this berms.  Oh you are not going around again.  Bo like it. Welcome to Sean's biking channel. Yeah skate skate push It looks like he's doing reverse pull-ups the way he's like pushing it down Well, that's sick. Oh Little jump.    I'm almost more tripping out that you call 330 lunch Just finishing up at Denny's right here never had Denny's meal before got to get a burger and fries Wasn't bad pretty good pretty much the end of the video right here guys I hope you guys don't mind the rawrish kind of logs I figured out that I need to upload to YouTube way more So I'm trying to upload like multiple times a week and I figured that it's probably better idea to just kind of log Stuff and then put it into a quick cut video for you guys and get it out because honestly I can sit editing a video for like six seven eight hours They're the really fun videos though like the skate desert boll one and the snow one had a ton of fun editing them But I feel like it's more Kind of smarter to kind of just shoot videos and then upload them for you guys instead of worrying about all the fancy editing But trust me there will be other videos of like sick editing and music and stuff I've just got to pick and choose my battles here guys I'm trying to make the content a bit more real life if that makes sense But yeah, cheers for watching the video guys. Hopefully I'll see all of you guys in the next one peace