What's up my bike packing buddies? My name is Ryan Van Duzer and today we're going to talk about navigation So there's a lot to think about when planning a bike adventure and it can be very overwhelming keeping everything in order You got to think about gear and your food and your fitness level and scary animals out there and the availability of burritos And one of the biggest questions I get is how do I know where I'm going and how do I get there safely? The good news is that there's a lot of technology these days that makes navigation very easy Like so easy that it's almost impossible to get lost and I'll get to all this soon But maybe you like getting lost, which is usually my approach I've been bike touring since 2005 and only until very recently like 2020 that I start using a bike computer with the pre-loaded route up until that point I just had a vague idea of where I wanted to go using Google Maps and Asking locals for directions and I know it might sound kind of scary to do it that way There's obviously way more unknowns But everything always worked out and because I was constantly asking locals for advice I made lots of friends, which to me is the best part of bike adventures. Here we go I think that the biggest advantage to navigation apps is the ability to create routes that are away from busy roads As we all know Distracted driving is a major problem these days. I don't trust drivers at all So I do my best to stay away from them and here's a quick PSA if you're a driver Please don't ever touch your phone while you're driving. I don't care who's calling you It can wait too many of us cyclists are getting killed by reckless drivers. Okay, end of rant So right now my favorite mapping app is called commute It's free and easy to use unless you want to pay for premium which gives you some added features But the free version will do the trick. I've been using it for a couple years now, and it's super cool What's really neat is that you can create routes for many types of activities like running Hiking gravel biking mountain biking road biking and even mountaineering It's like Google Maps and that you just pick a start and end point choose your sport and boom route created You can also put in your fitness level which helps the app calculate how long your route will take What I really love is that it tells you what types of surfaces you'll be riding and exactly how long each segment will be Quick tip if you're like me and you want as much dirt as possible Use the gravel riding or mountain bike options, and if you pay for premium It'll give you an up-to-date weather forecast and nag you like your mama. Don't forget your jacket and sunscreen You can totally customize your route by dragging and dropping the blue line adding waypoints like water sources or even Mexican restaurants and At the bottom of the screen you can drag the slider to see the elevation profile It'll even tell you the incline and surface type There's a ton of functionality on commute, and I'm not going to go into every detail But just spend some time on the site, and you'll quickly learn all the ins and outs It's super fun to play around with I've spent hours creating imaginary routes that I'll probably never ride But it's always fun to dream once you have your route set You can send the tour to your phone or a GPS device So commute is also a phone app, but I like putting together the routes on a desktop It's just easier to see doing anything on a phone is always a little bit harder, right? But you can certainly create routes on the fly Let's say you're out on an adventure and you want to put a segment together You can totally do that You can also use commute to actually guide you with the little blue line the left and right turns But I like using a bike computer, and I will talk more about that pretty soon Another fun feature with commute is that you can create a profile where all your tours can be stored For everyone to see and comment on or you can keep it private You can even make them pretty with photos or videos and all your adoring followers can comment on your rides And here's another super cool feature If you don't want to create your own route and need some inspiration You can go to the discover page and look through an endless amount of adventures from around the world that people have put together This page will definitely kickstart Some ideas and when you find one that you like just hit export to a GPS device and you're on your way Also, if you want to stalk your favorite riders and see what they're up to you can follow their profiles Just like you would on social media Laelle is my favorite follow. She's always up to some cool stuff Okay Now I'm gonna talk quickly about Google Maps because it's actually pretty solid and I use it all the time for getting around Boulder and other cities The key here is to choose the bicycle option and Google will use its magic to put you on roads that are safer for bikes Hopefully roads with bike lanes once you're happy with the route You hit the start button and it'll guide you all the way to your destination Now I'm sure you've all used this a million times in your cars Google Maps has been around for a long time But it's you know the same for biking I personally just quickly memorize the route and put the phone in my pocket And then just go on a ride and every now and then I look to make sure I'm going the right way But you can also mount your phone on your handlebars and just follow the blue line Now Google isn't good for planning off-road adventures But it'll certainly get you through cities, which is nice because biking through cities can get very stressful Again cars now. Let's talk about bike computers I'll go over this very quickly because I don't have a ton of experience here This is the only model. I've ever had it's the Wahoo Rome And I got it in 2020 and it's solid and it's also changed the way I Navigate and it's super easy to use even for a tech dummy like me It's on my handlebars at all times and I glance down from time to time to see where I'm going When I mentioned earlier that it's almost impossible to get lost This is how once you have your route loaded all you have to do is follow the line And if you go off-road by even 10 feet, it'll start beeping and annoy the crap out of you until you get back in line I will forever use a bike computer for navigation because it saves me from wasting my phone battery And you don't want to do that because you need your phone to call your mom at the end of the day To tell her that you're okay, right? You got to keep the mom's happy or the wives or the girlfriends or the boyfriends or whatever This thing lasts like 17 hours Which is great when you're out in the middle of nowhere and don't have access to power. I Will say that it's sometimes handy to use your phone to double-check where you're at and you can zoom way in and Make sure you're on the right route. These are a little bit harder to see But I always turn that off so I'm not wasting the battery on my phone all day and just use this bad boy Okay, that's pretty much it now. There's definitely other mapping apps out there like pocket earth Far out Gaia and many others, but I haven't used them very much do whatever works best for you And just make sure to practice with all the functions before you head out on an adventure So that you don't get stuck out there like I have no idea how to use this You don't want to be in that situation Really detailed techie stuff can intimidate me and the best way for me to feel confident It's just practice over and over All right, this is really important. Just remember you don't need any of this stuff to go on a bike tour I only started using phones and digital mapping apps a few years ago Now can it make things easier? Yes for sure, but it's not necessary Heck I traveled with books check out these ancient relics I traveled with books up until pretty recently and like I said at the very beginning Using local advice can lead to some very cool connections and adventures I'm still in touch with people. I've met on all my rides and for me That's the true magic of traveling by bike All right, so thank you so much for watching this video if you're new to my channel I have tons of bike adventures from all over the world and I will link them down below and It would be really helpful if you would like and subscribe and do all that YouTubey stuff All right now get off your couch and get out there


I'll tell you one thing I've got a problem with. I sure wish I could get some little help. I guess I ought to. I don't want to shove it, but I mentioned it once before. You remember you talked to me about a certain young man, and he's given me lots of problems. You told me about what he's doing, your foundation, and the other administration. He was trying to run it, and now he's getting ready to make a tour over the country. He's shown a little unhappiness, and he says that I listen to Dirksen too much, and I listen to other groups too much. Bobby Kennedy. You remember you told me the first week you were in some of the problems that you thought I'd have with him and created. That's right. So that's an accurate prediction. Now he's getting ready to go off on a big tour to Latin America, and he's going to tell them what we've done in the Dominican Republic and other things. I'm not right. He's already criticized us now. The polls show that about 85 to 10 approved what we've done, and we've tried to save that country. I just wish there's some way that we could blow it up and puff it up and take a nice jet airplane and take whoever he wanted and get Milton to visit five or six capitals a week as my special representative before this other thing occurs.


I'm Jean-Marc Limer and joining me today is Christine Kofutz Solam, Nordic Sales Director of Bulk Infrastructure to talk about noise and then mark status in the market in 2022 and beyond. Christine, welcome to JSA. Thank you so much for talking to me. I mean, Bulk has had a really busy 2021 and as we are starting now 2022, you're set to have a really busy 2022 as well. But before we talk about Bulk itself, what can we expect from the Norwegian and Danish status in the markets in this new year? I think for Norway especially, we see that Norway is maturing as a data center nation, mostly because of the new fiber networks being put in place for Norway. So you have the helpful cable going from Norway and Denmark into New Jersey. So the first transatlantic cable linking Norway directly to the US, which is a huge thing, of course. And also the sort of sustainability point of view for many companies all around the world.  We see that our CO2 emission per per kilowatt hour in Norway is on a national level, eight grams, which again, compared to the Netherlands or Germany is where we're reaching 400 to 500 grams per kilowatt hour. So we see companies that want real physical green power, they turn to Norway now. Yeah. I didn't know about those big numbers. And it's a massive distribution from a country like Germany, where we have one of the largest states in the markets in the world, not even just Europe. But talking about bulk, what has the business been up to? Because you do have quite a lot going on. You've got, you're expanding to Denmark, you've got fiber systems, subsidy systems as well. Give us an overview of the bulk realm and what are the market drivers for bulk? So the market drivers are pretty basic. I would say we are trying to enable the Nordic region for the rest of the world, and especially Norway. For a long time, we have seen Sweden being a good place for data centers. And we see that primarily because of the networks, the fiber networks in Sweden have been in place to support this growth. Then we have seen Denmark coming along as well, being closer to continental Europe. So it's easier to get multiple fiber pairs back to the main regions of Germany, Netherlands, UK. But we see that Norway now with all of the networks is getting ready for this. So our focus right now is to utilize the assets that we actually have. And the assets in Oslo, we have a huge data center. We call it the Oslo Internet Exchange. 70 different networks, 4I access, yeah, can get up to 20 megawatt plus. So it's a metro data center, typically. And then on my background, I have our N21 campus, which can be the largest data center campus on renewable energy, 100% renewable. You see a travel station, a transformer station in the background, it's 3.6 gigawatts. So we are basically a neighbor to a very large renewable power station. And it's also the landing station of multiple subsea cables. So it's sort of a combination of renewable power, subsea systems, and short time to market. And then for Denmark, we build a smaller data center, but we have a lot of options to scale and grow there. It's right next to where Facebook recently announced a new data center to be built. And it's also sort of the landing station for copper cable going to the Netherlands, how Hengsten cable going to UK, Danai is going to Iceland. Then we have a new subsea system called House Seal going from Esverg to Christian Sand. And it's sort of combining all of these different assets, both partners and our own, bringing them to life and then making ready for the market, basically. Okay, that's interesting. Are you of your opinion that the Nordics could serve Europe from a data center standpoint? So some people used to argue a few years ago when we still have physical events. One of the big topics was that we could put all the big data centers in the Nordics and then we'll just put the edge points across Europe to service the market and even in a way slide it down to the north of Africa. Do you think that there is still something that people are still looking at? Is that an idea that's still on the table or you think we will see more really just the digitalization of larger data centers and then the popping out of like smaller edge locations? I think that I would call it a reverse edge where you basically move the workload away from the cities and into the most sustainable areas. I think the issue is there's a lot of legislation and regulations that prohibit this. There have been some issues with latency. I think that's also sort of, you see the Nordics, it seems to be far away, but from this campus in Christenstown to Frankfurt, it's up 15 milliseconds and you can have multiple fiber pairs if you like and I think it's sort of been, it's too easy to do something in Frankfurt for example, even though you hear about the markets being sort of jammed. There's no power, no space, then they keep developing new space. So I think what we will see now is people getting more clear on where they put their workloads since the networks and the sort of communication between the intelligence and the compute will get better with more networks in place. So see heavy workloads in the Nordic hopefully and then the intelligence sticking in those core markets. But yeah, I would say that the 3.6 gigawatts we have here in Christenstown, it could support a lot of the European workloads. Well, I don't know exactly how much the entire of Europe produces or consumes in terms of energy. We know that at least the four big markets and I'm probably doubling as well. So the five big markets, they are about 2.1 gigawatts. So that station right behind you might have enough power to power the entire data center economy of Europe of today. Funny enough, we have done calculations and it would land about 3.6 but again, growing market and I would say that I think moving workloads is more difficult. But with the sort of demand coming up then you need to be more, not creative, but think a little bit more where you actually put your loads and maybe also put a megawatt in Frankfurt and 10 megawatts in Norway. Yeah, balance things out. Christen, you kind of already touched on what I'm going to ask next, but you mentioned some expansions in Denmark. Let's talk about expansions. What are you working on to launch as bulk? New locations, new products, new services, but especially locations, where are you going? We just spoke about bringing stuff in the Nordics. I mean, are you going to expand in the Nordics? Are you going to start building smaller things around Europe? Do they bring your traffic into the Nordics? Give us an overview of what's the plan. Yeah, it might be a bit boring from bulk, but right now we're sort of using the assets that we have and really getting focus on those assets because we really think they have huge potential. Christian Sand, again, has such a huge potential, but it needs to be, we need to focus on actually getting this to the market. And for Esberg, it's a totally different plan. Esberg, that's a new connectivity hub for the northern part of Europe. So I can say that we won't do anything, but we really do have a strong focus on actually using the data centers that we have in building and connecting those to our fiber networks that we have in building, but also making it much easier for basically companies all around the globe to connect into those regions. So we do do partnerships with global carriers to actually being able to support companies with a port in New York or a port in Frankfurt or in Singapore where you easily connect into our data centers. And I mean, speaking about partnerships as well, you've recently announced the partnership with the kicks. I'm probably pronouncing it wrong, but you know what I'm talking about, and you can correct me. So talk us through the partnership. What does it mean? What makes you unique? What does it bring to the table? Yeah, it's, it has been a long journey. So it's D-Kicks. So kind of got it right. Yeah, it's quite right. So D-Kicks is the largest interconnection platform in the world. 85 terabytes of traffic going through their systems, India, Europe, US, it's a massive machine. And the journey with them have been over three years, actually. So we came up with the idea that we thought you should build an internet exchange in Christiansand since we are building new cables into a region, then we can use this as sort of a gateway into the Nordic region. And the main focus was not to travel into those congested bottlenecks that we see. So meaning Copenhagen, Stockholm, being sort of a little bit more east. And also, yeah, being, yeah, not congested, but you see bottlenecks there that can be avoided. So we reached out to D-Kicks for, yeah, three, three and a half years ago and said you should build an internet exchange. And then we have developed this product all along and the sort of idea is to do three things. So to do local peering in those new markets being as spirit in Christiansand, where you can sort of take the traffic as it lands in the country and distribute it in local regions, and then do distributed peering or remote peering into those mega regions like New York or Frankfurt or Singapore, India, where you basically can produce sort of content traffic in Norway and easily get it distributed out to your home market without thinking about extra co-location, extra different kind of carriers to support this. And then also, being a huge interconnection platform for cloud services, etc. So that's the main thought about this. And of course, D-Kicks, they are huge in mid Europe, Marseille, Frankfurt, Madrid, Portugal, Barcelona. So they wanted to look north as well to be part of this green journey. Which makes sense. I mean, if it's green, it has to be in the Nordics as well. I think, yeah, there are many ways of being green, but we look at the physical part of being green. And to us, Norway is a good choice to lower your carbon footprint. Okay. And then, Christian, last question. So recently, your government announced the data center strategy. What's your thoughts on that? How do you expect these to evolve? What do you expect the outcome to be in the next few years, not just 2022, but even beyond that? Because your government seems to be very involved. I mean, all in all of the countries, government seems to be quite involved in the industry, which is quite unique compared to some other countries, even across Europe. Just to share your thoughts, just very briefly on the initiative. I think it's, of course, positive that you have a government that wants to support this. Also, government is seeing that we need new alternatives for Norway. So we have been huge on oil, of course, which can't continue. So to support sort of the future growth of Norway, we call data the new oil. And we see a lot of our employees working as technicians on critical facilities, etc. They come from the oil business. So there will be a natural shift there. But also that we can use a lot of the excess power that we have in Norway. There are a lot of, called green pockets. There are a lot of areas that actually have a lot of power. Christian San being a good example. And I think the government realized that this power needs to be spent wisely and also have clear directions for the data center industry. I think also that a lot of industries will be battling about power. And if you just have renewable, that's one thing that's good. If it's physical renewable energy, but also having excess of renewable energy is important going on. Because you have the transport industry, you have so many industries that needs to be electrified. So it's so important that you find the right spaces and the government can help you sort of develop the right spaces and areas to build the right data centers for this. And also supporting new fiber networks, etc. with government funds is of course important to support this journey. It's good to see a government actually taking proactive action in helping to build rather than helping to put a massive legislation wall in front of the sector. And Christian, if people want to know more about bulk and de-kicks and everything that you guys are up to nowadays, where they can go to? Of course, our web page, so bulkinfrastructure.com have a lot of information. Follow us in the media. We do a lot of exciting things. We will announce new partnerships and new stuff going forward as well. And of course, we will follow the clients as well. So if we are being asked to build somewhere, then we might just do that. But yeah, bulkinfrastructure.com would be a good place to start. Okay, well, Christian, thank you so much for your time. And I hope you keep well with everything that's going on again. Thank you to our viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA podcasts. And don't forget to check our social channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking.


Back to our show, Looking to the East. It's been a month or so since we've been on air over the holidays we took a break. So welcome and I'm back, I'm very happy to be back on the air again and to share with you. A discussion with one of my friends here in Japan and the very interesting person who's developed an international law career. So my special guest today. You can see him there is Jerry Maseki. And let me give you a brief background. Excuse me about Jerry. He is a partner at a Japanese law firm here in the Osaka Kansai area. To my knowledge he's the only foreigner who's achieved that level of success in this region that is to be a partner for a major law firm. He's a partner at Tahama Partners in 2003. And before that he actually practiced law in the United States for a number of years. So he has experience in practicing law in the United States as well as a long period of time practicing in Japan as well which is going to be the heart of what we talk about in this program this program is looking to the law. As my viewers know we often take a look at cross cultural issues between the United States and Japan sometimes political educational and so forth today we're going to be looking at that same type of thing but through the filter or lens of law. So his academic background he has a JD and MA from the Washington University in St. Louis. Before that he studied in Japan at a Japanese University Kobe University. So he was a research student there for a number of months back in 1995. Very very fortunate thank you very much Jerry for joining us today. You look very low or low or Lee lower Lee if I can say that properly with your tie on there and everything. Thank you very much to the office today or working at home. Yeah no I am going to be teleworking today but. You know I have to wear the uniform for again zoom meetings and things like that meetings with with you know clients and other people. Sure. Sure. How much of your work now is is on zoom I guess like the rest of us I'm teaching 100% online now so are you at that level as well and have you found kind of getting into the main issue have you found it difficult to carry out your business activities your legal activities over zoom as opposed to face to face which I know in Japan is the preferred method of interaction for sure. Right. You know I guess the first question there I am working probably I don't know one to two days teleworking I am trying you know to be in the office again maybe two to three days but we can really just depends you know here in Japan as you know Steve we may be entering soon into a state of emergency in that case I'll be probably mostly teleworking but right now one to two days per week and then maybe two or three days in the office. As far as you know my job and is it easy or not, I would be honest I it's actually much easier than I would have predicted. Wow, me beginning, you know, of, you know, 2020 that you know I would be spending, you know, nine months or so, teleworking I would have said wow that's going to be extremely difficult that I don't know how I'm going to do it but it's actually turned out to be I mean technology has really saved us in many in many in many industries and you know I it's amazing that that we've been able to carry out you know law firm is busy we have plenty of work and you know we're mostly able to do what we need to do. You can close contracts and negotiate deals and so forth absolutely not impeded by the fact that you're talking to people through like we are right now through zoom. No, no, I exactly I mean handling the matters, you know, legal work is very often very document intensive so that, you know, often goes through email or having meetings conferences through, you know, a zoom or whatever service. The, the, the other thing that is is somewhat impeded I guess would be negotiations I mean negotiation as you know you're in Japan is often done best face to face and, you know, courts, you know sometimes hearings get delayed. But overall we've been able to, to, you know, work work well. I mean I can't imagine if this had happened what 1015 years ago it would have been completely different story. Got it. Okay, so let's jump into the heart of the show here and talk about how how you actually developed your career. It's interesting to look at your background I thought I actually I forgot the most important thing about your background and that was that you were a consign guide I exchange student. I was indeed. Yeah, so did you know that you wanted to do this like coming out of high school or going into college can you talk about how you developed your career because I'm sure there may be some viewers would be interested in in having an international law career like you've been able to successfully do. So, my first experience is in law or with law. There have been previously no no lawyers in my family I'm the first a lawyer in my family, but you know the way I developed an interest was actually in high school my first year in high school I was in our history class and my professor or the teacher. Back then, I decided that we were going to do a trial for Alexander the great, you know the famous Greek and basically I was asked to defend Alexander the great which at the class at the time was considered extremely difficult. Alexander was quite a brutal fellow, when he wanted to be and long story short, we won the trial. How to speak. Oh, absolutely. It was, it was a thrill. So, from that point on, I thought, you, you recognize you have the talent to convince people I recognize this is something I could, I could want to put, you know, time and effort into. So, yeah, you know, I kind of knew that I wanted to be a lawyer from a relatively early age I guess high school. At the same time I was interested in Japanese I studied Japanese starts doing it seriously when I was 16 years old, and majored in Japanese in university of I had a had a major there. And at the same time, of course, with the I tour going to law school.  You know, I got through college, graduated with a degree in East Asian studies then went to Japan work for a year for a design consulting firm developed an interest in intellectual property which is the area I practice now. And then went to Washington University as you mentioned earlier in St. Louis and I went there because they have a had a very unique programs the JD or the law degree along with a masters in East Asian studies. And so I went there and graduated and as a result of that I was able to, as you mentioned earlier study at Kobe University. And then after graduating law school, I worked for a firm in Chicago I'm registered in the state of Illinois as an attorney, and also as a registered farm attorney in Japan. And, you know, work here that was a Japanese law firm where were you. While you were working there were you working on domestic cases or also cases involving Japan, or both. Well it was an American law. It's a Masuda for night information. It was founded by Japanese Americans but it was it's an American law firm based in Chicago that handles the specialized in Japanese clients in Japan related matters. So yes, I answered your question yes I did work on a lot of Japan related matters and was able to use my Japanese language ability and, you know, always knew that, you know, I eventually wanted to end up back in Japan at some point so after working. You know for a number of years there in Chicago from the suit of fun I worked in our came to become a partner's incidentally I had been at the home of partners as an intern. You know during during the Kobe earthquake that was 95 when I was at Kobe University so I'd known this firm and came back in 2003 and been here ever since. All right well great. So, you have obvious experience in working as a lawyer in the United States, and for the firm in Chicago that you just talked about, and now many many years of working at Kitahama partner partners which has is an international firm as well you have offices in Well no no we have domestic, our offices are in our main offices in Osaka we also have an office in Tokyo and we have an office in Fukuoka we don't have offices outside of Japan. We do have, you know, of course a broad network of international firms in various countries throughout the world with whom we work. Okay. So given that background. What is your assessment of the practice of law in the United States versus Japan isn't really dramatically different I know when I did my doctorate degree which was on the deployment of electronic medical records in Korea, Japan and United States. I didn't know this going in but I discovered that the practice of medicine was completely different in the United States and Japan. In Korea for example, what would be diagnosed as a disease in the United States would not be considered a disease in Japan, you know things like that so I'm curious to find out if law is similar is it really quite different because of cultural differences in the United States in Japan or or is there more commonality through international law. You know, I think, like the practice of medicine, the practice of law is rather diverse right you have various areas you have various types of, you know, clients industries, of course, the legal substantive legal areas themselves. It's a diverse profession.  So, I do do some, you know dispute resolution primarily in the area of arbitration but my primary work is in transactional law so that is commercial contracts. Again, I do a lot of intellectual property so licensing agreements, you know things of that nature. And certainly in international context, you know there are firms like mine in various countries around the world that were that lawyers also do the same thing. I would say that, you know, at least as far as the, the transactional practice, there are a large number of similarities I mean, I'm doing a lot of the same work now or have been doing a lot of the same work for almost 20 years here in Japan that I was doing back when I was in Chicago, which is again counseling clients with regard to contracts drafting contracts, you know, assisting them and negotiations, and you know advocating, you know, on their behalf. So that that is very similar. I think that the, the legal context the professions are somewhat different. So, if the work is similar, the professional context may be a little bit different again, certainly compared, you know, to my home country the you know the, the United States, and the city in which I work Chicago I mean the scale of the profession so they're far fewer lawyers in Japan, certainly per capita. Why are there far fewer lawyers in Japan as opposed to the United States? You know, I various reasons I think that, first of all, historically, really, until about the last decade or so, passing the bar exam in Japan was incredibly difficult it was 3%. You know, something like that it was incredible. So the bar to entry, even for students from extremely, you know prestigious universities was it was extremely high, you know, the average bar rates in the United States are around 70 some odd 6070, maybe a little bit lower now, but barriers to entry also Japanese don't use lawyers as much just culturally, or historically they have in any way as, as, for example, Americans do. Another reason is that the legal profession in Japan consists not only of lawyers, you know, in the United States, for example, let's say you want to be a patent lawyer so again I do IP.  They have their own licensure. They have their own tests. It's a completely it's so it's it's more and more stratified so, you know, for example, again, in the United States your lawyer will do, for example, your incorporation of your company. In Japan, it's very rare to have a lawyer do your incorporation that is done by a judicial scrivener which is a different sort of legal professional with a different test and a different so. So, you know, I, if you know the legal, the number of attorneys are smaller I guess if you if you broaden that out the legal profession actually in Japan may be quite large but the number of lawyers, you know, at least as compared to a country like the United States is rather small. Do you think or has been your experience that in Japan, because there's more sense of community that when you are involved in a dispute. The likelihood of a negotiated outcome is higher than it would be potentially United States or maybe to reverse that question. Do more of like an IP dispute, do more IP disputes end up in court in the United States as opposed to Japan is there a distinction there at all. Yeah, I mean, I do think and certainly the statistics would bear it out that that Japanese are far less litigious than, then, again, the United States. However, again, to put that in context, I don't know that the United States may not be Japan that is the outlier so much internationally that is the outlier I think, you know, but again, even even even in a litigious country like the United States. I mean, most people most clients, if they can do not want, you know, to litigate the, the whole goal is to, when you do have a dispute is to settle it amicably. I think that, you know, as you know Steve from being in Japan a long time, Japan or Japan or Japanese culture is is is one that fosters that sort of, you know, a negotiated settlements, not going as far as you know litigation and trying to settle it, you know, through through amicable means as opposed to a litigation or arbitration. It's a view, do you think in Japan with your clients and based on your experience if you do end up in court that somehow there's been a failure. I mean that's that's that somehow you haven't been able to do what is normally done and you end up in court and both sides of the of the conflict or would be viewed harshly isn't what why couldn't you work this out why are you in court at this point. I mean, I'm not a lawyer but you know for, I've been through watching TV and so forth and all the law programs for me it's like hey great they're in court it's going to be like you did Jerry when you were in high school you know the victory and so forth. What do you think is a perception that if you are in court that it's been some kind of failure in the normal process. That really depends I you know so for example, in the intellectual property context. If someone is infringing, you know my clients, you know trademarks copyrights patents, etc. You want to immediately go to court in order to have that. So no that's not considered a failure that's really considered what you're what you should be doing as quickly as possible. You know I do think however that you know really among the parties I don't know societally but but certainly among the parties. If they've had for example, you know multi your relationship that they've been you know working together things are going great and all of a sudden there is a dispute. I think it would be considered kind of a you know a failure of the people in charge that they end up in court I mean normally if you have a long term good solid relationship with someone else and and you have to resolve your differences in court that's that's not, you know, that's what I mean as is really ideal, certainly. So, without disclosing any names is there, maybe a case that you worked on either United States or perhaps in Japan that you could highlight and talk about how you were involved between these two different cultures the United States law culture and the Japanese law culture anything come to mind here. So, you know, for example, I'll go back maybe not to a transactional case but, but a an arbitration case so are for those who may not know our arbitration is a is a form of dispute resolution, which is again outside the courts is a private form of dispute where you basically have an arbitrator who acts is kind of like a private judge or a panel of arbitrators. And it's run under the auspices of arbitration organizations that exist in various countries so here in Japan the JCAA Japan commercial arbitration United States a American arbitration so various organizations, you know, a run or conduct arbitration proceedings on behalf of parties who wish to resolve disputes. I was involved in one here in Japan a number of years ago, and it was on behalf of an American client who was in the video game industry, who yeah it was in video game industry who was working on a working with a company in China to develop an online game that was also partnering with a major Japanese video game manufacturer. And so it was a sort of a triangular dispute if you will. And sounds complicated jury. Well it's it it was. So then you have Chinese law which I'm sure is different from Japanese law and. Here's the thing. This is this is where this is where the transactional side of it did come into play of course between the parties. There was an agreement and the agreement was governed by Japanese law and everyone had agreed to our operation in Japan. So one of the great things about arbitration is that it is very flexible in the sense that you know if it's in court you had you know you can't choose the date you go to court you can't use your judge you certainly in the United States can choose a jury for example. The great thing about arbitration is the parties can, it's very flexible so you know for for your garden variety. Commercial disputes arbitration is always recommended because again you can choose the language you can choose the arbitrators you can choose the venue you can choose the time. And so, all that was decided according to contract. And, you know, it ended up in Japan and therefore a firm firm was hired and therefore I was, I was working on it with my colleagues. And, you know, that was a really interesting case because that really brought, you know, you, we got to see how the Japanese system. Particularly Japanese arbitrators, I handle this confluence of, you know, Japanese client, you know, on major Japanese company on the one side, versus, you know, major Japanese law firm, you know my firm representing a foreign client. With most of the evidence of what actually happened in the case coming from China. Oh my god.  So, you know, Japan homogeneous society, you know, not as used to international this not as used to international that, but but what I found was that the, the authorities here in the system work very well, or very smoothly there. Yeah, no no real language issues, which is often cited as the biggest problem, the good arbitrator. You know, we got a favorable result that that's another reason I guess why were you happy with that is a high school case, pardon, were you as happy as your high school experience with the, you know, that's a tough one Steve. That is your first one is always the most important getting off Alexander the great. You know, I don't know if you get much better than that Steve. So, I, we're running a little bit low on time there's a couple other things I wanted to address. Often on this show, in fact, the, the whole impetus of the show. And Jay Fidel, he's the one who runs this he and I met in Hawaii was to take a look at the political influence of the United States on Japanese business activity and so forth. So, Jay, in particular is very interested in how the rest of the world perceives what's going on in the United States you and I Jerry, but no, I know my old family my my son reads about what goes on. Sometimes he knows more about the internal politics of the United States than I do as an American, of course he's American but he's also he's raised primarily here in Japan. I'm interested to see Jerry what you think about not so much on the political side but more about your practice and how the last four years under the Trump administration has impacted if at all. International negotiations international arbitration and so forth or just generally how your profession is perceived based on what's going on in the last four years because because Trump has focused some of his attention. On Asia specifically. Right. Well, you know, first, you know, maybe I'll take the end of that question first. You know, as far as how the, the, the profession is perceived and again, maybe this goes back to one of your earlier questions. The perception I think of lawyers in Japan is quite different from from the United States. So in, you know, here in Japan, lawyers are sensei right very learned profession and extremely highly respected not that lawyers aren't respected in the United States but that lawyers in the United States are seen primarily as count as you know counselors, you know, people who, who basically provide consulting services like your accountants like you know their number of consultants from the business from the client or business perspective. So here in Japan, again, you're a sensei it's a much higher level of social prestige so for example here in Japan lawyers where badges you'll often see and I as a registered foreign attorney also have a badge that you know people where you know where they go in court. I would have never worn a badge in Chicago saying I am a lawyer. I wouldn't have done that but okay. So, there's that I mean there's there is a different level as far as you know, the perception of the profession as far as the effect on on it maybe particularly the Trump administration on, you know, the law there I don't think that there has been a huge influence as far as the actual work or the conduct you know how contracts are done or anything I think that when, when President Trump came in, people originally thought that he was going to be extremely good for business. He developed actually a quite a good relationship with former Prime Minister Abe. I think that things, you know, started out well and unfortunately, however, I think, you know, as things have devolved the perception of sort of the, I don't know the legal profession but maybe the United States as a whole has dropped somewhat unfortunately, as a result of, of, you know, the current instability. Unfortunately, that's been going on for for a bit now. So, you know, I think that I don't know that the perception of large but but certainly the perception. And again, we as lawyers and you know this as well to Steve, you know, we are part of the larger, you know, a business community, or American business community here in Japan, of course, and in our in our overall image I think has unfortunately not been helped by by events that are going on in politics in the United States. Well, I'll have to have you on later, Jerry, and under the new administration, I state Steve, hopefully that that damage is what in the general business conditions or business perception improves we're certainly hopeful that that will be the case. Absolutely. We've run out of time, you know, again, it just has flown by. I didn't get to some of the questions I wanted to ask you. So I will have to have you back but thank you so much for sharing your experience for those of you that are watching I hope this provides an inspiration to maybe some of our younger viewers to take up law as a career and focus on international business. Obviously, Jerry made a big investment in learning Japanese and living in Japan. I would also recommend I recommend to my students and if they're serious about cross cultural professional jobs that they need to study abroad and study the language and so forth. Jerry, thanks so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Really appreciate it to my viewers. I'll see you in a couple of weeks, and we'll have another interesting topic to cover. Looking to the east. And thank you everyone.


The next item of business is a statement by Shirley-Anne Somerville on update on 2022 national qualifications. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement, so there should be no interruptions or interventions. I call on the cabinet secretary for around 10 minutes please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. As I reaffirmed in Parliament on 19 January, it is our firm intention that exams will take place this year. I restated the significant modifications to courses and assessments already made by the SQA to take account of the expected disruption to learning. I set out the contingencies to support learners in the event of further disruption, as has been the position since we made the initial announcement in August last year. The SQA has been working closely with partners, including through the national qualifications group, to take account of the disruption that learners continue to face. Indeed, everyone involved in education, myself included, acknowledged what another exceptionally difficult year this has been. Two weeks ago, I advised that the SQA had indicated that a decision on the scenario to contingency was likely to be made soon, based on information such as national teacher and pupil absence levels. While the number of full and partial school closures has been small, it is clear that many secondary schools have experienced extreme disruption in the way of Omicron variant, particularly in the first half of January, in relation to both student and teacher absences. We continue to refine our school safety guidance accordingly, based on evidence on risks and benefits, including the changes that are published today, and are keeping the data under constant review as we move forward. In relation to the college sector, learners had to revert to a universally remote learning model rather than a hybrid model since late December. Given both the level of disruption and its impact on learning and teaching, the SQA board has now taken the decision to invoke the scenario to contingency measure, and the SQA will provide revision support to aid learners in their preparations for exams. The SQA will provide revision support for every course that has an exam. The type of support for each course will depend on the course and on the modifications to assessment that the SQA has already made at the start of the academic session. Information is now available on the SQA website, setting out the existing modifications and the type of revision support that will be provided for each course by subject and by level. The SQA will provide the full detail of the provision support in early March. This time, it enables teachers to complete delivery of the full modified course requirements before learners turn their attention more fully towards revision in the run-up to the exams. The support is aimed at helping to reduce the stress for learners in preparing for their exams and in allowing them to maximise their performance. The SQA has today also announced its approach to exceptional circumstances, grading and appeals this year. Those measures have been developed in close consultation with members of the national qualifications 22 group. The exam exceptional circumstances approach is available to learners as exams are taking place and provides a backup for learners who are unable to attend their exam or exams due to illness or bereavement or where there is a disruption during the exam. That will include Covid-19-related absences. The service is based on SQA's established annual process and if a candidate is eligible for exceptional circumstances, then their centre will provide appropriate assessment evidence gathered during the course of the year and the SQA will review that against the national standard and award the appropriate grade. Once the exams have been completed and marked, SQA will look at the outcomes through their standard processes to determine the 22 grade boundaries needed to achieve an A, B or C grade for that specific subject and level. Senior SQA appointees who are practising teachers or lecturers will take an expert decision based on a range of evidence. That includes the reflections of markers in the senior exam team as they mark and review a wide range of candidate exam scripts, estimates provided by centres and information such as the number of candidates entered and the number of centres presenting candidates for the course. The key focus will be to review how the course assessments worked this session as measured against the national standard. In recognition of the disruption that learners have faced over the last two years and the different assessment approaches applied, the approach to grading this year's exams will look to factor in the impact of the pandemic on learners. Those grade boundary decisions will be applied at a national level, individual local authority or school data will not be looked at and no algorithms will be used in the process. The expectation is that the overall outcomes in 2022 will represent an intermediary position between 2021 and pre-pandemic years. Once the results have been published, learners will have free direct access to appeal their result. The appeal service in 2022 acknowledges the particular challenges for learners this year. For this reason, as well as conducting a clerical check on exam scripts for each appeal, SQA appointees will review alternative assessment evidence that learners have completed through the year. That would be the same evidence as that used for an exam exceptional circumstances request. If, following this review of evidence, the SQA assesses that a higher grade has been achieved, then that will be awarded. If the review of evidence results in a lower grade than achieved in the exam, then the exam grade will stand. Delivery of this approach, which has the interests of our young people at its heart, will require the whole system to work together. SQA have agreed with the national qualifications group what SQA centres and learners need to do in the event that learners have not performed to the standard expected in their exam. A quality in children's rights impact assessments have been carried out and will be published in the coming weeks, alongside full detail and guidance on those measures. All of those measures underpin the 2022 exam diet, balancing the integrity, credibility of the qualifications against the on-going impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on learners. They will also give clarity and reassurance to learners with conditional and unconditional offers for colleges and universities. In addition to those measures by the SQA, I am clear that more is needed to support our young people in their learning. I have set out the measures that the SQA is taking, but there is, of course, an important role for local support to learners. Schools are best placed to support individual learners to catch up on their learning and have the best chance to demonstrate their potential. Our teachers have continued to work tirelessly throughout these challenging times to deliver for their learners, and I offer my heartfelt thanks to them and all the staff in our schools. To complement and enhance school-based support, Education Scotland continued to provide support for young people studying for qualifications through the national e-learning offer. Every learner in Scotland from ages 3 to 18 is able to access the national e-learning offer. Through the youth of Glow, our national schools internet, senior phase learners are accessing e-school support study webinars and resources. The e-school senior phase easter study support programme last year was extremely popular and will be repeated this year, offering live webinars, covering more than 60 courses at a range of levels from national 4 to advanced higher. Building on existing provision, learners are also able to attend online evening revision classes in a range of courses throughout the term. Learners from all 32 local authorities have engaged with this study support. Measures are also being taken to target and engage with groups of learners for this support. In addition, e-school will be offering specialised targeted study support via a referral from their headteacher for those young people considered to have been most impacted by Covid. Learners from all 32 local authorities have access to over 1,850 west online school videos to support senior phase learning via Glow on their own local platforms. Over 21,000 unique users have already accessed those videos. To complement that, learners are also accessing developing the young workforce live webinars and resources with over 40 different courses to choose from with over 16,000 learner attendancies to date. Working as part of the regional teams at Education Scotland, attainment advisers will continue to provide bespoke support to each local authority and in partnership with local authority officers to individual schools and clusters of schools. The support provided includes helping practitioners to make effective use of data and evidence to identify where young people require support and identify the actions that will have most impact. Each year, many schools provide Easter study support provision to help learners preparing for their exams. Findings from an informal audit by Ordet Scotland established that while some local authorities had a well-established offer, other local authorities chose not to deliver Easter sessions. In October last year, I committed to boosting in-person Easter study support provision. Scottish Government officials have been working with local government and others to agree distribution of a £4 million funding to increase support where appropriate, particularly from those from most deprived backgrounds. It is anticipated that that funding will allow schools and colleges or local authorities through authority-wide initiatives to offer targeted sessions for learners over the Easter break. Where an existing Easter study offer already exists, the funding could allow schools and colleges to broaden that existing officer for targeted learners or through promotion encourage those learners to attend existing sessions. This package of measures and support is designed to ensure that our learners are fully supported in their learning and preparations for the exams this year to help them to achieve and demonstrate their full potential and to have that recognised in their grades on 9 August. I hope that colleagues across Parliament can come together to welcome those measures and to recognise that that work confirms a very clear intention that exams will go ahead as planned. Thank you very much indeed, cabinet secretary. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we will need to move to the next item of business that will be helpful, as ever if members who wish to ask a question could press the request-to-speak button so that they place an R in the chat function. I call Megan Gallagher. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of her statement. Two weeks ago, the Scottish Conservatives called for this Government to commit to the 2022 examination diet to go ahead in full. Despite warm words from the cabinet secretary today, we are no further forward.  The Scottish Government is setting out its contingencies without releasing the equality in children's rights assessment, so that can be fully scrutinised by Parliament. Recent reports have outlined that 80 per cent of pupils still do not have a digital device, despite the Scottish Government outlining its online support plans. In addition, many will feel that starting revision support in March will be far too late, especially for those who are catching up on lost schooling. The Scottish Government has had two years to get this right, and we are heading for yet another disaster. Pupils and teachers deserve better than what is being offered today. Will the cabinet secretary release the impact assessment this afternoon? Ask the SQA to bring forward the revision support to start this sooner, and lastly, when will our young people finally receive their digital device, or is yet another broken promise by the Scottish National Party Government? I feel that we are having a bit of a groundhog day going around some of the discussions that we had last time, but at the end of the Conservative debate—I am going to quote again from Sharon Dowie—I know that Mr Kerr did not like this when the First Minister said it, but I think that this is very important because it testifies where we are at. The safety of our children is the most paramount thing, surely the member agrees, co-cab sure, asked Sharon Dowie. No, I do not agree. That, I am afraid, is where we are at with this. It is our firm intention that exams will go ahead. Just like every other member in the UK, we have a contingency if public health guidance does not allow for gatherings to take place. England, Wales and Northern Ireland have exactly the same contingency in place, but it is our firm intention that exams will go ahead. There is a very important reason why this has been discussed with the national qualifications group around the material that will be made available now and what will be made available in early March. That is to ensure that there is not a narrowing of learning and teaching, which will negatively impact learners' breadth of course knowledge and understanding and will impact on the next steps of their learning. It is important at this stage that the learning will continue, but absolutely as we move closer to the revision phase, the full information will be made available to learners and to centres. As I said, there is also very ample information being published by the SQA today on the revision support. The Labour benches send our best wishes to young people and staff who have been dealing with three years of unimaginable disruption. There is much to welcome in this statement extraordinarily late though it is. The cabinet secretary has finally listened to Labour demands for an appeal system, which is free, takes into account exceptional circumstances and is based on no detriment. We set this position out last year and once again in Parliament just two weeks ago, and that was rejected by the Government at that time. The position that the Government took on appeals for the last two years is now untenable. There must be redress for the Government's errors. The statement also raises a number of questions. Will the appeals process be a right of direct appeal for pupils? Why must pupils and teachers wait an entire month from now for the guidance and support? On what needs assessed basis will Easter support money be allocated and what is the rationale behind the figure? Everything in this statement is dealing with the fact that young people have lost incredible amounts of learning during the course of the pandemic and continue to do so. This has to be addressed somewhere within our education system. It is unfathomable that the Government refuses to conduct serious research to measure the impact of lost learning and to develop a plan with the resources that match the scale of the challenge. Will the cabinet secretary now commit to doing so? There are a number of points here, and I will try to get through them all. There was a direct and free appeal last year to learners. If it was not clear in my statement, I would be absolutely happy to clarify to Michael Marra that the direct and free appeal is there this year as well. I responded about the information that is being made available by the SQA now in relation to revision support and early March and why that was. For the benefit of time, I will not go through that again. On the Easter support, it has been worked with our colleagues in COSLA. It was agreed with COSLA leaders last week, hence our ability to announce that this week. The details of how much we will be going to each local authority has not yet been determined, but I am happy to provide that to Michael Marra and other members when that is available. The impact on learners has been made very clear, for example in the most recent EFAL stats that have come out that have been discussed in Parliament already. Of course, Government will keep a very close eye on that as we continue to collect data on that. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is understandable that students and staff may be anxious about exams and need assurances that the process will be fair and see the results awarded that are reflective of their hard work. I would like to ask the cabinet secretary what extra steps the SQA has taken to ensure that the appeals process takes account of the disruption that has been caused to learners? Of course, there have been many other modifications that have also been made before we get to the appeals part of the process in terms of coursework and revision support, but when it comes to appeal, the approach goes further than in recent pre-pandemic years. It builds on the approach that has been undertaken historically. However, as I said in my opening statement, conducting a clerical check on exam script, SQA appointees will review that alternative assessment evidence that learners have completed through that year. That would be the same evidence that is used in exam exceptional circumstances. That is a very important reassurance that I hope we can give to learners that the SQA has looked very seriously at this and has consulted widely with the national qualifications 22 group on what more could be done. I think that that does account for the disruption that has been caused to learners during the appeals process. Given the possibility that a larger number of pupils than normal will be subject to the exceptional circumstances approach, can the cabinet secretary confirm that pupils who are forced to miss exams due to Covid will not be subject to the same unfair grading system that has failed pupils in the past two years in a row? As I set out in my statement, the exceptional circumstances service will be available to learners that have missed the exam. That includes during Covid. There is an established SQA process for this, but this year the centre will provide appropriate assessment evidence that has been gathered during the year and that will be assessed against the national standard and awarded with the appropriate grade. I welcome the cabinet secretary's statement, particularly the fact that the SQA will recognise the disruption caused to learners in its approach to grading exams this year. Can the cabinet secretary reiterate her comment for the assurance of those learners that the results will be based on the results of their hard work and not on historical data or an algorithm? I can confirm that awarding meetings will take place for each individual subject after the exam has been held to ensure the standard and level of demand of the assessment at each grade boundary is appropriate. The panel of subject experts that will do that are, of course, teachers and lecturers. There is a recognition that learners have faced disruption over this year, but it is absolutely very clear that, as I said in the statement, it is based on national data. It will not consider individual local authority centre on individual learner data, and there will be no algorithms that will be applied as part of the process in Scotland. It is a shame that, five minutes before the cabinet secretary rose to her feet, the statement was indeed being discussed on the internet following an SQA press release. To turn to the statement for which I thank the cabinet secretary, much discussion has been had about the data that has been used to reach this decision within the SQA. Could the cabinet secretary confirm that the data that has been used will be identified and published, and the rationale that the SQA has reached to change its position, my apologies, from only two weeks ago was arrived at? As the member is aware, SQA is independent from Government, and I am certainly not responsible for the timing of SQA press releases that they go up on their website, but I note his comment on that. The rationale for all of the decisions has been one that has been went through with the national qualifications 22 group in great detail. There has been a great deal of discussion with stakeholders. There have been varying views on some parts of the process, as we have went through this process. I hope that the chamber will agree that the SQA has recognised the disruption to learning and acted accordingly. Of course, the rationale behind that has been set out for the discussions that have been around teacher and pupil absences, but the direct feedback that has come from pupils, pupils representatives, parents representatives and from the teaching unions on the national qualifications group about the disruption to learning, so that, even if schools have remained open, they have been cognisant of that direct feedback about the impact, as well as just looking specifically at the data. I hope that that gives Mr Wiple some reassurances about the rationale behind the decisions. The SQA has taken the decision to move to scenario 2, providing support to learners to aid them with a preparation for exams. With full details provided in early March, can the cabinet secretary outline what learners can expect in March? As I mentioned in my statement, there have been already significant modifications to courses and assessments that have been made by the SQA to take account of disruption for learning. The revision support will complement those modifications, but it will vary across subjects and levels. In some courses, for example, the SQA will advise learners which topics, context or content will or will not be assessed in the exam to allow learners to focus their revision on what will be there. For some courses, this additional information has already been provided. For other courses, the SQA will provide study guides with hints and tips to help learners to prepare for their exams. A small number of courses will have study guides that learners can take into the exam where appropriate, but full details for this and for how it will impact on each topic at each level will be provided on the SQA website. Willie Rennie to be followed by Bob Doris. The education secretary has been slow-footed on moving to scenario 2, which has been abundantly clear was necessary for weeks, as some pupils have had their learning repeatedly and excessively disrupted. Why on earth do they have to wait until March to find out what the guidance is for the exams? The decision to move to scenario 2 was one for the SQA. The board met last at the end of last week, and the decision has been announced this week with my statement to Parliament and the SQA's publicity with two centres as well. It is very important that the SQA has went around this with due consideration of the data and, very importantly, with the consideration and discussion with stakeholders. That is exactly what members in the past have asked for. Bob Doris joins us remotely to be followed by Ross Greer. Presiding Officer, the Scottish Government has already announced an enhanced Easter study support offer for learners, especially important for those from deprived backgrounds, as well as a specific £4 million cash commitment. Families in my constituents will be keen to know what that will entail as early as possible. What more information can the Cabinet Secretary provide at this stage? Apologies, Presiding Officer. Mr Doris was remarkably quiet. I think that I got the gist of the question around Easter study. Of course, what will be delivered is for local authorities. As I mentioned during my statement, many local authorities already have a well-established Easter support provision. Others perhaps will look to enhance that in different ways. I am sure that each council will be able to deliver further details on that to members of the Scottish Parliament, as they can now work up their proposals on that now that the decision has been, through COSLA, and announced by the Scottish Government. However, I hope that that will ensure that greater support will be provided to many people, particularly from those from the deprived backgrounds, those with additional support needs or those who have suffered particularly difficult times this year because of Covid-19. I am sure that, if that was not his question, Mr Doris will be writing to you in the coming days. Ross Greer, to be followed by Brian Whittle. The improvements to the appeals process in particular bring this year's system far closer to respecting the rights of young people than in previous years, so I certainly welcome that. Can I ask what the options for appeal will be for the young people who have been unable to complete 100 per cent of the coursework that is stated as being required at present by the SQA? As I said in my statement, if an individual would like to go forward for an appeal, they are encouraged to discuss that with their centre in the first instance, but it is a direct appeal that they can make. The evidence that has been built up over that year can then be given to the SQA to be looked at. There are not specific requirements as part of that appeal process. The evidence that has been gathered will be what can go in for that. I hope that that gives Mr Greer some reassurance around that point, that we are keen—or the SQA is keen—to make that as flexible as can be possibly made. I spoke to a teacher recently who informed me that one out of 10 pupils in that school had been referred to CAMHS, with uncertainty over exams being a significant factor. Does the cabinet secretary recognise that the continuing uncertainty from the Scottish Government is affecting the health of our children? What can the Scottish Government do to support pupils trying to take exams under the cloud of poor mental health? It is certainly the Government's firm intention that exams will go ahead this year. That is exactly what the whole education system is working towards. The statement went into a great detail into what has been provided by the SQA, Education Scotland and other parts of the education system. What I would add, particularly given Mr Whittle's question about CAMHS, is the additional investment and support that has gone into supporting young people, for example, through councillors in every secondary school, and the additional support that has gone in to CAMHS, given the particular impact that the pandemic has had on young people. I welcome that the SQA will provide additional study support for learners in March. Can the cabinet secretary please outline how that will complement the wider support package that has been put in place, including coursework, assessment modifications and online learning resources? The member raises an important point. Although much of the statement was focused on the SQA and much of the coverages around what happens in the SQA, there is a great deal of work that is going in and other parts of the education system to support our young people. I have mentioned, again, the work from the East Gull, the West online school and others. Of course, the work that goes on day and week out from our schools and local authorities to support our young people as well is a sound package to support young people at this very difficult time. There is nothing in the statement about securing additional appropriate settings for exams. If distancing is going to be an on-going concern, what is the cabinet secretary doing to see that additional space is available to allow exam conditions to be satisfied in a controlled and managed way? With respect, there is nothing in the statement because this has been discussed at length in the national qualifications 22 group. It has not been deemed as our stakeholders as an issue of concern, given already the distancing measures that are in place during the exam setting. Of course, the SQA will continue to have those discussions with stakeholders. If stakeholders do see that as an area of concern, they would act on that. Thank you, cabinet secretary. That concludes the statement. I would be grateful for your guidance. How can I get it on the official record that, this afternoon, the First Minister and the cabinet secretary have both selectively quoted from one of my colleagues and grossly misrepresented out of context what was said in the chamber? The public watching the proceedings of this Parliament deserve better from senior members of the Scottish National Party Government. That is now an established pattern of engagement in this chamber, the gross misrepresentation of the views and opinions of colleagues who are members of this Parliament. Thank you, Mr Kerr. I think that you have answered your own question. It is on the record. It is time to move to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion 3 0 0 9, in the name of George Adam, on the UK elections bill. I would ask members who wish to participate in this debate to press the request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible, and I call on George Adam to speak to and move the motion for around nine minutes.


Here also that some people for some people design will mean it's the visuals I gave you examples of colors I gave you examples of the look and feel so that is largely the visual part So there might be people who'll say okay, you know if you're talking of design We'll make sure that we have a good-looking thing. We'll get our visuals right, but what about the UI UX part? So design when I talk of design after the strategy when it comes to execution It's a blend of UI UX and the visuals and the way you communicate to the real world out there again. This happens When you're dealing with I go back to the same point when the business owners and when you as a developer are talking to them Make sure you give them the holistic view of how all these three aspects should be planned. Don't leave anything behind I mean the you know client sometimes will say, okay, it just looks good Let's just I'm okay. You know, you've got your design amazingly well But if your navigation is not in place if you've not got the basics, right? Like I'm sure a lot of us are aware of the fact that on a website It is said that the left side of a website and the top part is supposed to have the maximum attention It grabs the maximum attention of users. These are the basics But surprisingly sometimes when we get so deep into the tech world We actually forget about these basics and we've invested amount huge amounts of money into getting our techs, right? But we've kind of lost the basic psychological aspect the human connect that's actually making those decisions So make sure these things are all in place coming to the I was actually surprised to see this nowadays wordpress is almost become like a Second word for websites. That's how we say that yeah wordpress. It's all about websites But the real definition which I found when I was doing my research is that it's a content management system When it says it's a system I think that's where wordpress itself has clearly defined that it should not look at anything in isolation Why do we always focus just in the technical aspect? They've developed a system which has to Consider the thinking the basis the strategy the visuals It's beautifully made to get all of this together So I would really suggest that we should look at it as a holistic thing and not get into the isolation part of just Getting our SEOs right just getting the the technical bits, right? But look at it as a whole overall aspect so that you can get the best results from it So it all boils down to the same thing ask the right questions Understand why you're doing things understand why it should be done. Who is it for and if? These things are all in place if you've asked the right questions I think it'll do it'll become really easy for you to connect the dots the platform I am not sure if the number has increased, but I came across that it has like 43,000 plugins. That's like a huge number I'm not even sure if all of them are completely utilized in the real world. It has Customizations there are like the Yoast SEO. Yes, I had no clue when you know About how it works, but when we started understanding from our users point of view that we have to make things simpler for them You have to make our life simpler the answers are all there So if you go in the right direction if you write ask the right answers the platform I don't think is the challenge I think it has enough options if there is something going wrong if you're hearing a feedback that you know I don't like this website. I don't even know how to find things around this place I cannot blame the platform I think you've went wrong where you know how you planned it and how the design was actually executed For the ones who've already created a website to the ones who've designed things I think just go back and do an analysis of what we've created or somebody who's got one created for themselves This could be even for the bigger companies I will not shy away from asking them also this challenge that just analyze your website Is there something where you feel comfortable being in that place? Is it very easy for you to understand? Is it in the first go you understand the message that it is bound to convey? I mean when you look at a website, is it the first time are you getting a sense of what it should stand? Whether you want to talk about say just an introduction of your company Is it the first project that you've just spoken about the new product you're launching? Are you getting it all right? Are you creating a hook? Are you creating that interest that the customer should actually go and look at the other pages that lie beyond the first page? If you're not if you yourself as a user feel that after the first few scrolls You want to just come out of it that means the others will also have that challenge If you feeling that something is too bright something is not working Take note of it if because if your subconscious mind is telling you that there is something that you should surely check in that space Distractions that is something that I have really pointed out This is a common mistake not the big companies, but especially the smaller business owners make They feel that when they've made a website especially on the home page, you know You want to tell everything to the customers? Oh, you know just let's tell them pictures tell them about what we do tell them about all our products But that's not the best way. It's actually distracting. It's actually confusing for the user The customer will know have no clue of where he should focus He'll just feel bombarded with information. All he's do he's gonna do is exit your website So I would strongly recommend to avoid these errors So I would almost come to a close of this talk, but I would want to talk about a quick Brief personal mission that I have is that I want to really enhance the quality of design that Especially country like India has to offer It's really undervalued as a system undervalued as a principle as a science wherein There are you know challenges that are faced in terms of career options in terms of those who are wanting to get themselves Educated in this space. So as we go forward I would really want that this science this principle because I think it has the power We're currently in that phase of having an economic slowdown But this really has the power if implemented correctly it could produce better results for businesses It is one of the key principles of course I'm not saying that you know everything else should be neglected But if this is got this if you get it right, I think it can really turn the tables So I would be very glad if everybody here could at least start thinking and start planning and start thinking of design as Something which is your groundwork from where you should take things forward so Yeah, with that I would probably close this Session and I would run through a quick brief that what we spoke about was setting your goals Understanding your audiences getting the three aspects of design right which is the UI UX visuals And then picking out the tools and then doing all the match the column so that you get the perfect results with your Customers who are ultimately the most important things it should not please to you as an individual as much as it should to your customers So I hope we see much better looking websites in the coming years and WordPress I think the platform is there. I cannot doubt or challenge it. It's just about making the right choices and asking the right questions Thank you


All right, let's look at our adductors. Let's start here because they all have several things in common. First of all, what's their major action? All of them have a major action of adducting. Adducting what? The thigh. If they're adducting the thigh, where are they going to attach? They have to have one attachment on the pelvis, and then they have to have another attachment on the femur. So we'll look at where those attachments are. They also all medially rotate the thigh. So this is an action that all of them share. Gracilis has an additional action, and I'm going to tell you what the action is, and then you're going to tell me what that means for where it's attached. The additional action of Gracilis is that it also flexes the leg. What? It flexes the leg. So what does that tell you about where Gracilis is going to attach? One of its attachments has to be on a leg bone. It has to cross because Gracilis, in order to flex the leg, has to cross the knee joint. It actually has an attachment on the medial edge of the tibia, near the tibial tuberosity, not quite all the way there. I wish that it just was tibial tuberosity. Everybody else, the distal attachment is the femur. And I'll show you a picture in a second on our website. I'll show you the image of how the adductors are kind of organized. The adenius is the most proximal on the femur for this group of muscles. And there's like four, I think, adductors that have their own special names, but we won't learn all their names. If they're moving at the thigh, they have to cross the hip joint, which means they also have to attach to the pelvis that all of them do. They all attach to some part of the pubis. And pubis is good enough for me. Let's go take a look at these guys. Here they are, now look. This one, the most proximal, proximal pectinius. That's nice. And it's an adductor, so it makes sense that it's going to be attached more medially to the pubis and then laterally to the proximal end of the femur. Can you visualize where you would have to attach to the femur in order to also get medial rotation? Can you visualize that you're going to need to be a little bit more on the anterior side of the femur to contract that muscle and have medial rotation take place? These are all my other holy adductor madness land. Awesome. This, this is the amazing gracilis. Gracilis is a long, straight muscle. It goes from the pubis all the way down and attaches to the medial side of the tibia. And you can see that, sure, that's totally going to give you adduction just like the others, but it's also, since it crosses this joint, it's also going to give you some flexion of the leg. That was an easy group. Our next group is easy too because we're going to look at the butt muscles. Be right back for that fun.