Hey, hey I'm late Yeah, it was a great meeting after we went to the speaker's house and watched a video on Some of my sober Sponsy bros were there, so No phone All my soul was dead Would you be okay to do a drug test? Yeah, I mean sure You understand why right? Yeah, I mean I should have called to let you know so I Trust you we just need to have some sort of proof That's about as contradictory as it gets but I know I know I'll do it. No worries Nothing. I hey, you're doing great. You really are But my count four hundred eighty five days clean. Come on. That's I just leave it in the bathroom. Okay All right Good night. I love you too


Some people live life with a huge straw in their hands, as it were. Some people live relationally with a straw, looking for someone to sink it into.  Because they bled you dry, and they call that friendship. Well, that's called being a leech.


Let me now head over to to Brian. Hi, ready. So thanks again for the invite to be here. It's great being here at the Taiwan Summer School again. So it was a great gathering of so many interesting people. So I think I'll talk today a bit starting from method or writing style and move over to kind of larger framework issues. I think these kind of points are related. So a bit about a new bloom was founded in 2014. Among people that participate in the Sunfire Group, a lot of us were a part of efforts to spread awareness about Taiwan to make sure the world was aware of this movement. And so that shaped a lot of kind of our earlier writing in the sense that a lot was aimed in form to clarify misunderstandings about Taiwan and to engage in dialogue with the international world. That being said, also, none of us were actually journalists. We were actually mostly people with students in graduate school, a lot of MA students. I myself had no background in journalism before a new bloom. And so actually that new bloom became actually a media outlet is somewhat surprising to me. Media outlet organization, whatever you want to call it, in the sense that most was an academic background. We were aiming to inform in this sense and so forth. But I think that a lot of what we shared was a frustration with both academia and journalism. Academia sometimes does seem overly narrow. It seems like you're talking to the same set of people over and over again, people that have a kind of meta language. They already know what you're talking about. You can assume a certain set of knowledge or understanding or framework, which you don't have with a general audience. However, that being said, with news reporting, it's often quite shallow in the sense that you have boilerplate text always being repeated over and over again. The most infamous being Taiwan is a Renegade province and what have you for any figure you have to kind of simplify them into one or two sentences. And a lot is just very repetitive or just kind of fades out day in and day out. It's very difficult for a news article to stand in within its time, but also outside of it. A lot of news reports are just a news report about what happened that day and you forget about it. And maybe it's cited somewhere, but it's only remembered. It's not really something that people come back to. And the other frustration is that particularly because of Taiwan's marginality in the world, having a surface level or shallow information could actually be dangerous to Taiwan. For us with our background in the Sunfire movement, that's what we saw because international perception of the movement could prove dangerous actually. It would have a concrete political effect here. And so I think that even for our members as academics or people that later sort of became involved in development this way, we were kind of hoping to intervene in that way. And so a lot of different categories of articles we had our news reports, but also commentaries, polemics, injecting some kind of trying to try to inject some kind of point into the discourse and so forth for us as well because we were originally entirely bilingual that the Chinese language section kind of shrunk as Taiwan on and English section became larger because of the fact that there's already a lot of Chinese language discourse about Taiwan, but there's less English language discourse that also kind of changed things. We were really hoping to conduct dialogues back and forth between English and Chinese and so challenged. I think that I'll talk about this a bit later that really affects I think the way we write about Taiwan. And so in terms of style often as a new bloom, I think of it as trying to be somewhere between academic journal and journalism. It's not the articles are above 700 words. Usually we actually have no upper length in articles. So we've had some monsters before pieces that are above 10,000 words even like 30,000 words. There's a few pieces are like 30,000 words. Sometimes at one point someone tried to submit a is like 70 to 80,000 words. I think that we actually had to break it up into like three articles. I don't know if anyone read it and it was very clearly an MA thesis other times. We actually have submissions which are pretty clearly just undergraduate papers, which is also fine, but sometimes you do get the submission with the kind of genre of submission, which is like a basic point about Taiwan's like, well, I'm going to explain these very basic facts about Taiwan or just some issue about Taiwan. It doesn't really fit in a Taiwan specific publication because we presume a certain amount of knowledge about Taiwan in our readers. And so it's kind of dealing with these different kind of categories of submission and we try to hope to find a balance between that at the same time. I think a lot of times because of our frustration with these frameworks that academic writing needs to be within certain parameters to be published as you get circulation that journalistic writing is again shallow, but also you have these word like limits, which are incredibly short, I think for, particularly for academics. And so we really did want to be open to kind of experimental forms of writing much longer pieces than usual. We didn't, we don't have an article length limit because of that, though we do hope to have something that is not as long, but then can still have a deeper discussion of something. And so the way I often think about it is not reducing a point into something that's more simple or generalizing. It's having something that's almost like a zip file. It's like something that you can unfold and take different pieces of it and look into further because just if this piece contains access to other parts of information or links or points to different discourse, you can kind of learn much more through that. In that sense, I think that that's not really simplifying, but it allows for further exploration beyond what you can do in a single piece. In that sense, you know, I think it's, it's again trying to find the sort of balance particularly for us when we were started. That was in 2014. That was two, three years after Occupy Wall Street, which in New York at the time saw the launch of a number of publications. Like Jacobin Magazine is probably the most famous, but then also New Inquiry and plus one and so forth. And these were publications that claimed in their kind of mission statement to have a similar aim to push for discourse, political discourse, also to kind of not exactly be academic. A lot of the staff members were graduate students primarily, but then also be kind of journalistic in that way. And so we're kind of hoping for that. I think in general, when we look at writing, for example, a book I really like is The Last Intellectuals by Russell Jacobi pointing towards like the decline of this kind of general intellectual, someone that was oftentimes a expert in their field, but would also publicly engage, would write for a general audience who would draw on their expertise to build legitimacy in that sense, to be able to talk credibly about other issues that are directly related to their field of study, but also sometimes tangentially. I mean, I think that in Taiwan, you do actually have this more of this tradition of the public intellectual that's still alive. But I think that in other parts of the world, you've kind of seen this narrow specialization within academia, where you research more and more narrow topics. And it's kind of harder to talk about these larger framework issues or to just engage with public. I think even academia, there's a sometimes disdain of public engagement, which is something that I think we were trying to push against because for us, because we were primarily, I think, coping to influence the world as in our background, because our background is all being activists and so forth, having kind of articles that were just being read by very few people in a journal behind a paywall by maybe only the other researchers in that field. That was a bit frustrating to us. We felt it was overly narrow. At the same time, then we didn't want to kind of just appeal to the general audience that in a way that really simplified or depicted Taiwan in a way that is somewhat misleading. And so then we were trying to find a balance and that was the challenge. But I think that there's actually not a lot of precedence for this. And so we were actually trying to be experimental. That's why eventually we tried to kind of expand our horizons. Recently, for example, we launched a kind of arts and culture publication to have more focus on that, but also to allow for maybe even combinations of subjective and objective writing. Because I think Sam brought up the point earlier of what is objective. And this is actually a discussion we had early on. Do we actually believe in objectivity in the sense that we do view there's an objective kind of a thing that we're reporting on, which is social phenomenon in Taiwan or what happens in Taiwan. But we also have our own ideology and viewpoints and thoughts. And we thought that actually that's true of anybody. And so we want to be more honest about that to allow people to kind of take it or leave it. They know what we think. We don't aim towards this kind of false sense of objectivity to have it out there for people. And so that's kind of one of the decisions that we settled on pretty early on. I mean, I was actually, as I mentioned, I was a little surprised that people started calling me a journalist as I went on in the beginning, actually just thought of myself as more in ideologue more than anything else. So then to move to some of these structural issues, and I think the challenge of writing on Taiwan in English is that there simply is not a lot of writing on Taiwan in English. I think that daily the amount of writing that's produced on websites, new sites, so forth, I could probably still read that all in one day. I don't think that knowledge production in the media sphere about Taiwan is yet large enough that and so you cannot conceivably read more that that all was produced within one day. And so I'm always kind of trying to read the discourse and be aware of that. But then in that sense, then there's only so many places to be published. There's only so many platforms and that also can lead to some frustrations. There are academic platforms such as Taiwan Insight and other kind of blogs that are more and focused on public engagement. But I think also what's interesting is that because there's such a lack of writing on Taiwan in general in English is that academic research on Taiwan can sometimes be actually journalistic in a way, this kind of knowledge about something would not exist otherwise or be in print in English, except for that academia provides a space to write about. I think the nice thing about academia for some of the criticism I've had of academia is that it provides a space that is somewhat insulated from Saudi to allow for knowledge production. It doesn't need to be instrumental sometimes in terms of the use value of producers or so forth. But in that sense, then you have a small group of smaller outlets, for example, New William or Catalan Media are the kind of main active ones now. You have one kind of intermediate outlets, which is I mean, I'm talking about text only, New Zealand's, which is the English language section of a larger Chinese language platform. And then you have the kind of bigger fish in the pond who are Taipei Times, Focus Taiwan and Taiwan News. The thing is that these are the only outlets capable of producing several dozen articles on Taiwan in English. And so a disproportionate amount of citations or news reporting comes through these. That can have some issues. I mean, particularly I have some issues with some of these larger tier publications regarding fact-checking or sensationalist content. However, then that's the thing though, these smaller outlets sometimes are still dependent on these larger outlets. And I think that even in terms of academia, just looking at the citations and where we gather knowledge, a lot actually does come from journalism in that sense. And so I think that that is one of the challenges that there's only so much space in the English language world. When you look at these larger outlets, I mean, New William is tiny. Actually, New William and Catalan, the thing about these tiny outlets is that these are the ones that are somewhat focused on English at this point. Whereas with the other outlets, these are all the English language sections of larger Chinese media platforms. That also stands the risk that because of the fact they're seen as peripheral and not as important, these outlets will periodically see if staff being cut or they themselves could possibly be accessed at some point. And so in that sense, I think just English language writing on Taiwan is in itself somewhat precarious. And so for us, we were trying to create kind of our own platform because we felt that what we saw was not something that was out there currently. But there's also I think the possibility that, you know, just with these larger outlets, I mean, we are still dependent on them in some way for all of us writing on Taiwan in English. And that's kind of a challenge in that sense. So I think that points to some of these kind of questions going forward quickly for the English language media ecosystem or the knowledge production ecosystem. In the past few years, we've seen the expansion of different media on Taiwan. I mean, for example, Gose Island Media is a great example because just now we have podcasts on Taiwan. We don't have that before in the past. There's just a lack of podcasts in general, whether in English or otherwise. I think in the future would be nice, for example, if there's much more video content being produced about Taiwan, because that's something that's also lacking. I think just in terms of other media, that's also something that could be bolstered because I think in that sense, whether journalism or academia, the way I think about it, it's all part of this larger discourse about Taiwan or this kind of knowledge production ecosystem. And so it's actually oftentimes interactive. I think just having different, for example, websites such as Taiwan Insider, platforms like Gose Island Media and just more diversity in viewpoints and platforms that publish different kinds of content, that all benefits us in some way. We all kind of contribute towards this together in that sense. And so I think that that's one of the challenges about just public scholarship in the present, that there's such a limited amount of platforms. And so I particularly hope to see more in the future going forward. And so I'll be looking for discussing further with people later on. Thanks. Fantastic. Thanks for that, Brian. I mean, one of the things we've been talking about recently is this idea of a golden age of Taiwan studies. And we're in the academic circles with many thinking about this through the lens of more academic publications, journals. But I think if we look at it from a slightly different angle, it's such an exciting time. There's so much material out there that we didn't have, even if we go back 20 years when, for example, Taipei Times first emerges, the limitations in terms of media data. Even though you've made the argument that there's only a limited number of platforms, but compared to the past, it's really exciting time.


Hi everyone, Sean with jaspyscasebreaks.com here doing 2019-2020 Panini Gold Standard Soccer One Box Break Random Number Block Number 15. The way this works, everyone gets 10 spots, everyone gets a number between 0 and 9. So if you get the number 3, you'll get the cards with 3 being the first number next to the slash on the left side of the slash. So for example, if the card is 13 out of 99, 3 out of 25, 43 out of 49, 93 out of 99, and so on, number 3 will get the cards. All redemption cards will go to the 0 spot even if they know one of one, it will still go to the 0 spot. So there you go. Here is our list of customers, Brandon Richards, first spot purchase down to Robert Runkel, last spot mojo, and the numbers from 0 through 9. Dice World randomized both lists and paired them up, 6 out of 6, 12 times, 12th and final time, Robert Runkel down to Michael Dubois, 12 times, 12 times, now 12 times on the numbers. I like that Rex, 12th and final time, from 8 down to 6, 12 times, back to 12 times on the dice. So Robert Runkel with 8, Jason Rodriguez with 7, Michael Dubois with 3 and 1, Robert Runkel with 5, David Lee with 2, Brandon Richards with 9, Michael Dubois with 4, 0 and 6. There you go. The next one box break of this is in the store now, available to do tonight. So Michael Dubois with the 0 spot would get any and all redemptions, but even known one of one redemptions, but since he has the one spot, he will also get in person one of ones. So there you go. No problem there. Let's print this out and rip. Gotta figure out which box we're gonna do. So you'll see we have 10 boxes here from this case still. So we're just gonna say 1 on top on the left, 5 on the bottom, 6 on top on the right, 10 on the bottom. We gotta figure out which box we're doing. So since dice would make it so that we couldn't get the box 1, obviously we're gonna have to do a random number generator between 1 and 10, and it's box 3. So back over here. 1 on top like I said, 2, 3, box 3. These will be for the future one box breaks. Like I said, number 5 is in the store now, or no, this is number 15, so number 16 is in the store now. Good luck. Let's find something crazy. I don't know who the player is on the back, but I just saw a really nice patch. Like super cool patch. So we got that to look forward to. Let's just hope it's a really good name. First up, Metal Lergy, 119 out of 149, Ross Barclay from Chelsea FC, FC stands for football club. I know that, 119, spot 9, going to Brandon Richards. This is Alex Morgan, 96 out of 129, absolute killer, 14 USA, lady team USA. Great soccer player overall, male or female. 96, spot 6, Michael Dubois, Nicolo Borela, 40 out of 79, spot 0, Michael Dubois from Italy. Lucas Dignay, 10 out of 79, from Everton, spot 0 again, Michael Dubois. Nice two color patch, Thomas Mueller, 26 out of 29, spot 6 is Michael Dubois, Thomas Mueller from Germany, Thomas Mueller. Jersey and Otto Jose Luis Aguaya from Spain, 24 out of 49, spot 4, Michael Dubois, by Jersey I'm guessing shirt, and the nice patch, dry fit, 11 out of 19, Theo Walcott from Everton, spot 1, 11, going to Michael Dubois. There you go guys, that was the one box break, very nice stuff, 2019, 2020, Penini Gold Standard Soccer, one box break, random number block, number 15 from jaspyscasebreaks.com. Number 16 in the store now, I'm Sean, jaspyscasebreaks.com, thanks for hanging out, we'll see you next time.


After which one? Drake? Yes sir. How you doing man? Good how are you? You want to be a falcon? Yes I've been wanting to go there ever since I met you. No doubt man no doubt man. Hey man look we're excited about getting you here in the building and we know the way you're going to go to work and you're going to be a part of something special all right man. Thank you thank you. Enjoy this moment I'm going to put you on the phone with a head coach right now all right? All right sounds good. Drake? Yes sir. How you doing coach left? I'm good how are you? Ready to roll? Oh yeah. Oh man this is a great day for you and your family we're fired up to have you can't wait to get you here so I'll put you on the phone with our owner Arthur Plank. All right sounds good. Hey young man how you doing? I'm good how are you? I'm doing great I feel a lot better now that you're a falcon. Yeah I think I do too. Good that's wonderful well I know they had a great visit with you out there and sorry I wasn't able to be there with you but I look forward to seeing you here in Atlanta it's a great city and you'll love our coach and love the coaching staff and everybody here so congratulations to you and I look forward to meeting your family okay all right you thank you take care okay thank you good luck. Bye. All right.


what's up guys rucksons 34 back with another epic video and today we have a christmas mystery box so this box is not necessarily like christmas themed but it is for christmas so me and rime style both send each other a mystery box of stuff just that we wanted to send each other kind of as like a christmas swap kind of thing and i'm gonna be opening up this box and later he's gonna open up the box i sent him who knows when it'll get there usbs is crazy right now but he will have a video on his channel in like a few days probably opening one of these for me so let's see what he sent us before we do that the giveaway i'll be giving away ghost reaper and winter cherries obelisk the tormentor dark reticator world warlock and secret rare blue eyes white dragon all you gotta do is like this video be subscribed and let me know your favorite item that rime style sent us and let's hop into it i'm really excited i want to see what he sent us here we go let's see oh my goodness all right let's just go ahead and do this let's just pull the stuff out so we have that looks like it might be a grady card oh my goodness i hope we didn't send us too much i'm gonna feel like i uh i failed i didn't send good stuff i think mine's pretty cool though you guys are going to want to see what i sent him oh all right so we got some uh mystery stuff you made it very mysterious put in the white packaging which is really good oh look we have a 2020 tan that's pretty cool and a legendary collection too that's cool and let's see what else should we open those first or should we go through the okay this says careful opening i feel like okay i have a guess what that is so let's go ahead and let's do these and we'll do the openings how about that all right so we have this and we're gonna just rip into this the best we can what do what is my guess for this this feels like uh one of those japanese things that we open the maximum gold thing that's what this feels like that's not but it this is some sort of japanese product oh oh what is this the red one is this the one with the ghost rares rarity collection oh okay okay that's pretty insane time out this is actually like extremely cool isn't this where the blue eyes comes from potentially ghost rare yeah that's really really cool so we're probably not gonna open all the products in this video um this one might be its own video which would be pretty cool so we might save that one for its own video so epic that's a good start rime that's a good start i i respect that okay so these look like these feel like psa cards so i feel like those got to wait oh what is this this is like oh this is awesome this is literally like opening presents all right um i don't want to shake anything too much but definitely some sort of box but this is an unusual shape so i'm not sure what this is i'm guessing japanese again just because i don't recognize the shape or um i can't remember i can't remember anything like this hey japanese it looks like where that could be korean yes is korean oh lov korean lov yes very good korean legend of blue eyes the 40 pack boxes this is classic all right so we have all kinds of stuff right here to open he's sent us all kinds of content right now this i'm guessing is a deck that feels like some sort of like starter deck or something because it just feels like it this almost looks like a window right there but see like this right here yeah i'm guessing that that is a starter deck should we open one of these yeah let's see what these psa cards are i mean what in the world could he have put it up this seems like a psa card what in the world kind of psa card could he have sent us oh gosh 2000 and what 2008 oh jim in oh my goodness he sent us a retro pack psa 10 blue eyes ultimate dragon this card is really really cool yeah blue eyes ultimate kind of got the shaft because it didn't really get a printing until like the shonen jump in like 2006 i think maybe 2007 and this is 2008 so like this was like a second printing ever so they didn't really respect it too much this is incredible this is really cool yeah this is really really awesome yeah i don't i don't even know what the value is it's pretty cheap as a common card but as i said it's just it got the shaft and this is like one of the coolest printings this is a secret rare that is really cool and it makes sense because we open retro pack we both did it we both pull one of these i submitted one but it's still gone so that's really cool that's my favorite thing yet probably probably than that let's see what the starter deck is i'm guessing starter deck that's my guess okay it looks like it is oh gosh what could this be oh my gosh no dude what is wrong with you what is wrong with you oh my goodness i like it's in terrible condition obviously but it is sealed a sealed starter deck kaiba check that out and check that out thank you for shopping it's always rs that is incredible okay now i'm feeling like i should have sent him more stuff after this because these are like really really awesome items wow that is so cool dude thank you that's really cool i knew it was a starter deck but i was not expecting it to be i was like okay look if it's a starter deck surely it's not like 2021 this is insane dude like this is like really awesome okay so we have two more mystery items they were probably going to open up like something we'll probably open like the legendary collection gx or the the tin because we're not opening that we're keeping that sealed even though it is you know in bad shape that is gonna go in the sealed collection that's pretty awesome okay what oh no a tin dude this card is so cool i pulled this in my every pack opening when i opened every single pack i'd never even real i didn't even realize this card was in world superstars i was like this is like a really like this is such a cool card i didn't i've i always thought that that set was really bad and then i saw this card when i pulled it and i was like wait a second this set actually has two really cool cards this one and the dark magician version i think it's called like legendary or dark magician of i'll pop it up on the screen whatever it's called i can't remember but wow oh my goodness dude okay this is this slid up is that what has happened here wait a second okay there we go slid it down a little bit oh my goodness this is insane like these aren't crazy valuable but i mean they still have good value i mean they're like blue eyes but they're such cool cards oh my gosh this is awesome this is gonna be this is gonna be a fun video especially when we open this stuff okay how can we put this all in here okay we have one more mystery item one more slab i don't even know okay that's the back i don't even know how we can top this stuff we boy he gave us a blue eyes deck a blue eyes ultimate dragon tin and a legendary dragon of white tin oh my gosh oh i'm gonna have to send a mystery package around too i mean i sense of cool stuff but i don't know if i can compare to this okay okay here we go let's see what the last thing is no is that that's a wavy ride gecky that is so cool near mint seven so like if this was like a tin it would be like worth like two thousand dollars so even a seven is like crazy i mean check that wavy i don't have a wavy copy of this actually do i even have a no i do have a glossy one that i just submitted this is actually really cool i love i love ride gecky it's one of my favorite cards especially the wavy version that is really awesome wow okay this is already a 10 minute video do we even need to open anything i guess we should open something how about um how about we do the legendary collection and see what we get and uh we'll save the rarity collection the blue eyes a lot of stuff for later yeah talk about some epic items okay christmas came early technically yes christmas did come early all right by the way i got this idea it wasn't even for me or rhyme style i was buy something that i sent to rhyme style i actually got from john at house of champs and he was he was telling me he got him and he was like hey you want some of these and i was like i mean maybe you know i don't really know if i do like um and he was like dude this would be like a really good item for you to buy and then do some sort of swap of like rhyme style or something or because i think he would like it or something like that and i was like that's actually a great idea so i was like yep give me give me some of those so you guys will see that when he opens it up and uh you guys will see probably what it is yeah i don't know if you won't know exactly but i can't reveal it yet because he's probably gonna watch this video and i want to spoil what's in his package it's some pretty cool stuff so yeah i wanted to give john some props there so thank you hoc for that let's go ahead and open these mega packs right here we also have the promos raviel there's like literally 14 promos i think it's crazy it's huge it's way too many so let's go ahead and open these up and then we can finish off this video but pretty awesome pretty awesome i'm definitely happy with this definitely a cool swap here we go let's see if we can pull a cyber dragon secret rare alternate art let's see if we can do that destiny in your goon oh did i say cyber dragon or cyber in dragon i think i said cyber dragon which is what i meant but we got a cyber in dragon alternate art secret rare so it's almost as good as what we wanted actually technically probably better that looks amazing yet another awesome thing ron style sent us dimensional prison is actually a good card and elements i mean these are just such cool packs for centrics and wild edge i remember when these were back in stores for it was like was that two years ago now time's flying i cannot wait till they reprint yugi yugi's world because i'm gonna buy a lot of that i love that set such a good set so i think they should do that soon because they've done one and they've done uh legendary collection too so they shouldn't move on to that one next edge hammer here we go malicious that's a pretty good card they've reprinted a lot but pretty cool ooh marmillo that's a nice one rainbow dragon cool feather shot there's just so many good cards you can pull here all right three more packs let's see what we can get i cannot wait i cannot wait to open that rarity collection we're gonna have to do that soon i think that is gonna be pretty awesome the sixth samurai yai chi here we go clay charge destiny hero dreadmaster i was always trying to pull this oh calm down there blue eyes ultimate dragon i was always trying to pull this out of enemy of justice uh ultimate rare we never got it so that's kind of sad oh elemental hero flame wingman secret rare and a magical mallet rare that's cool or uh ultra rare sorry not rare that was a good pack elemental hero flame wingman here we go let's get this back let's leave this bad boy up secret rare these are actually pretty valuable even an unlimited first edition this set is actually very valuable all right mega pack legendary collection too what can we pull can we pull the cyber dragon to top it all off or the shining phoenix enforcer or the i'm sorry the shining flare wingman finding phoenix enforcer would also be cool but we know we don't pull that oh this was in uh lighted instruction i think we just pulled it the other day hero counterattack in nishi shim's chancellor we just pulled this in ultimate rare in the glass video make sure you check that one out oh gladator beast dairies cool cyber dragon the regular art cool so we didn't get the cyber dragon we didn't get the secret alt art version we got the ultra that's cool glad to be serious i actually really like this art a lot better it's just very nostalgic it looks really cool from the tin especially i had two of those back in the day final pack of this video hope you guys have enjoyed this mystery box opening it's pretty crazy make sure you'll get to watch another one rhyme style opens his up should be maybe like the day after christmas the day after that something like that zanji crystal beast sapphire pegasus cyber twin oh my goodness we got all the cybers and cyber phoenix wow that's crazy we got all kinds of cybers so we got the secret rare cyber twin dragon that is really cool so out of that we got flame wingman and then we got cyber dragon cyber twin dragon and cyber in dragon all in the same box that's the cyber dragon box that was really awesome so once again we pulled some really crazy stuff out of that mystery box i mean not really pulled it was like sent to us but that was a lot of fun so thank you again rhyme style hope you enjoy your box when you open it up and make sure you guys check that video out it's gonna be pretty fun and i'll see you guys later thanks for watching peace i'm a metal hero dark bright boom


Lleon angen i chi i chi i g weld i'r eithraddodd-gwrs. Felly ydych chi'n oed yn gwybod ar ei bodiedig ar eich gweithdoedd? Felly mae'n ffrindiau. Fe ar eich gweithdoedd yn wythredd. Mae'r gweithio'r llad yng Nghymru yn eu gwirionedd. Felly mae'r ddiw yma. Felly yn ymgrifetodd o'r llad yng nghymru. A er mwyn fydd gweithio. Felly mae'r eich gan slapau y gweithredd o'r llad yng nghymru. Mae y llad wedi gweithio'r llad er mwyn y trod! It wasn't what I expected to be fair because obviously going down the lower league I thought the lads might have been a bit different but they welcomed me very well and I've met all of them so I'm pleased. Did you know in advance you'd be coming here or going elsewhere on loan, or was it a bit of a last minute here? I think there was got to mention a few times pre-season, but then I think it was only on Monday. I think it was just going to go ahead, so since then I think that's when it got done. And what do you know about the club upon coming here? Do you know anything about the club?  It's a great club, obviously they always want to push on and do well. Obviously you've got a great stadium, obviously you've got great fans, so it's really good to be here. And as the manager, you've come as a bit of an unknown to Bradford fans at the moment. What can you tell them about the type of play that you are? I like to keep things basic, simple and obviously my job is to stop goals so I've come here hopefully to sharpen the defence up and stop concealing goals but I like to play, I think I like to keep the ball on the floor and obviously play through the thirds but however the manager wants me to play I'll play and I think I can adapt to them.


So, we have been looking at methods of solving OD initial value problems and under this category we have till now looked at Taylor series approximations and in Taylor series approximations we said that the trouble with classical Taylor series is computation of partial derivatives. We do not want to explicitly compute partial derivatives. So, is there a way out and these Runge-Kutta methods actually provide a way out of this difficulty. You can do calculations equivalent to Taylor series approximation without having to explicitly compute derivatives. So, you just do function evaluations and the function evaluations are done in such a way that it is equivalent to doing Taylor series approximations. So, we looked at last time this second order Runge-Kutta methods and then I talked about this, I talked about a general Runge-Kutta method, second order Runge-Kutta method. So, the classical Taylor series approximation based method would actually have this formula where I would have to compute the first derivative of f with respect to x and t. So, this is the classical second order method and Runge-Kutta method tries to do the same, achieve the same calculations without actually having to compute. So, we have this Runge-Kutta method xn plus 1 is equal to a generic formula I had written was xn plus h a k1 plus b k2 and k1 was nothing but chosen as fn and k2 was. So, this is my generic second order Runge-Kutta method, k1 and k2 are function evaluations at some intermediate points and these are carried out in such a way that you match or in spirit you are doing second order Taylor series expansion. So, I choose a b alpha beta in such a way that these calculations are equivalent to this formula and then we derived this generic by equating the coefficients doing Taylor series expansion of this and equating the coefficients we came up with a generic formula which was. So, this was a generic second order Runge-Kutta method different choices of free parameter b with give rise to different second order methods. So, this second order method is actually equivalent to doing this second order Taylor series expansion without having to actually compute these derivatives. So, we have chosen function evaluation at intermediate point one in the beginning of the interval and one at an intermediate point in such a way that doing this function evaluations is equivalent to doing derivative calculations. So, you can think of this as some way of doing derivative approximations using finite points and then rearranging. You can do derivative approximations using some finite points and then do a rearrangement to get a formula in which you do not have to explicitly compute explicitly derivatives. Now, likewise you know and we derived some specific rules a specific formula we had different choices we had a choice which was b is equal to half and then that gives you b is equal to half gives you Unes modified rule b is equal to one choosing b is equal to one gives you modified Cauchy Euler formula and so on. So, likewise here my third derivative if I want to approximate using third order Taylor series then I will have one more term and then this d3x by dtq I can expand in terms of df by dx I will get some complex formula here I am not writing that right now, but I will just give an equivalent Runge-Kutta I will give an equivalent Runge-Kutta here. So, my equivalent Runge-Kutta here would be xn plus 1 is equal to xn plus h a k1 plus b k2 plus ck3 k1 is equal to fn k2 is f if I want to approximate a third order Taylor series method using an equivalent Runge-Kutta method the way it is done is something like this. Now, if you see here you can actually make out a pattern the k1 here is always at the initial point the k1 which is calculated is used here while calculating k2 and this is at some intermediate point between 0 to h the k2 which is calculated here is used in calculating k3 and the unknown parameters a, b, c, alpha, beta, gamma, delta there are 7 parameters to be picked up these you can get by equating the coefficients you do Taylor series expansion of this you do a Taylor series expansion of this and then equate the coefficients of the terms there when you equate the coefficients of the terms you will get and typically an over determined set of equations you will get number of equations less than the number of unknowns and you can pick some equations or some variables arbitrarily and then you can fix those arbitrary variables and come up with the remaining variables. What you will get is set of methods which are called third order Runge-Kutta method and logically you can go on writing fourth order, fifth order basically when you want to derive these equations you have to be very, very patient do Taylor series expansions properly and then equate the coefficients to get the equations. What you are doing is essentially doing something equivalent to Taylor expansion without having to compute derivatives. So, this explains entire class of Runge-Kutta methods I mean you might keep wondering how did you get those coefficients and why compute at intermediate points what is the basis? The basis is that these methods actually try to mimic and Taylor series expansion of equivalent order. So, fourth order Taylor series would try to mimic a fourth order sorry fourth order Runge-Kutta will try to mimic accuracy of a fourth order Taylor series expansion. So, that is the basis and looking at this pattern you can go on developing if I ask you conceptually can you write fifth order set of equations you can because K2 is used here if you have to write for fourth order K3 will be used and two more parameters will appear and then you will get those many equations by comparing the coefficients and then you can solve them. So, typically up to fourth or fifth order you might find them coefficients listed normally we can work with fourth or fifth order you do not have to go beyond that to get reasonably good accuracy if you choose your integration step size carefully. Now, what do you do when you go for multi variable method multi variable equations actually we do not do the derivations these derivations we have done for the scalar case right now f here is a scalar of one variable equation we do all the derivations of finding out the coefficients only for the scalar case and we simply use that when you go to the vector case there are no separate derivations for vector case. So, we just make a simplifying assumption that the same thing will hold and when I have to work with see for example, I want to now do dx by dt is equal to now I am writing this capital F x t x belongs to Rn and f is a n cross 1 function vector right dx by dt this is the kind of equations now we actually want to solve. In most of the cases we have vector differential equations which are coupled which we cannot separate into separate equations and the real problem is this. Now, we do not derive coefficients separately for this we just derive coefficients Runge-Kutta coefficients only for scalar case I will just write down the formula for the fourth order Runge-Kutta which is using this vector calculations. So, again you will be able to recognize the pattern and just to give you a feel of what is done. So, this is fourth order as you could have guessed a fourth order Runge-Kutta method will have k 1, k 2, k 3, k 4, four function evaluations and the first one obviously, k 1 is just k 1 is just f n evaluation at the initial point k 2 is f t n plus h by 2 and mind you this is one way of formulating fourth order Runge-Kutta there will be other ways of getting this alpha beta delta coefficients and k 4 is f you can notice the pattern k 1 is used in calculating k 2, k 2 is used in calculating k 3, k 3 is used in calculating k 4. So, same pattern and this is multivariate implementation of same Runge-Kutta method the coefficients here a b c r you can recognize the coefficient one sixth one third one third one sixth and we can also see alpha beta gamma delta and then there are two more six coefficients will come here and they have been chosen by equating the Taylor series expansion of fourth order and matching the coefficients it is tedious, but you can just match the coefficients and then choose some of the free parameters you will get this fourth order Runge-Kutta method. So, this is the foundation of Runge-Kutta methods Taylor series expansions there are some other variations of Runge-Kutta for example, variable step size Runge-Kutta method I will come to that a little later when we talk about step size selection how do you choose h this becomes a very important thing when you are solving ODIVP and at a later point when I discuss choice of h at that point I will talk about a variant of this called as variable step size Runge-Kutta method. So, but for the time being let us now move on to the next class of methods which is predictor-corrector methods. So, this is all about Taylor series expansion and its variant which is Runge-Kutta there are also some variants of this like if you can see this is an explicit method the way it is organized if you see here it is an explicit method because all the intermediate points. So, this f n can be calculated given f n k 2 can be calculated even k 2 k 3 can be calculated given k 3 k 4 can be calculated. So, this is there is no iterations involved here that is very important there are some modifications of this which involve semi implicit some iterative calculations what I have presented here mostly the popular methods of Runge-Kutta are explicit methods ok. The next class that is polynomial interpolation based methods under this class I am going to talk about two types of methods one is multi step methods or multi step methods these multi step methods are also known as predictor-corrector methods some of the popular algorithm under this class is gears predictor-corrector see you might have heard about gears integration algorithm this in some book or some research paper you may have come across gears predictor corrector. So, those gears predictor corrector belongs to this class the second method I want to see under this is orthogonal collocation. The orthogonal collocations method which we have seen or which we have used for solving or discretizing boundary value problems or discretizing the partial differential equations this method this approach can also be used for solving O D initial value problems and will have a peak at that too. So, we begin with multi step methods or predictor-corrector methods now again my development is not going to be for multivariate case my development is going to be for the scalar case it is easier to understand and typically we do the same thing even for multi step methods we do not derive coefficients separately for vector case we just derive make derivations for the scalar case and we use those coefficients in the vector case. So, same idea which was done for Runge-Kutta is derived for the scalar case we just use those coefficients for the vector case. So, it is going to be the same case here so for the derivation sake I am going to be bothered about dx by dt is equal to small f x t where x belongs to R n sorry x belongs to R so scalar variable and we are at point x t n is equal to x n we are at the point x t n is equal to x n and then I want to go I want to integrate over t. So, again I am going to solve the same problem one small od initial value problem starting from time point t n and going to time point t n plus 1. Now, when you say multi step when you say multi step let me clarify what is the why this word multi step is being used in Runge-Kutta methods we just we were just worried about going from t n to t n plus h all that we used was x n and then values between x n and x n plus 1 we created some intermediate points and then we did evaluations at the intermediate points between t n to t n plus h and then we did the calculations here the philosophy is different here what I am going to say is that well I have information available about what has happened in the past. See I am currently at let us say I am currently at t n I want to go to t n plus h. So, my problem is I have x n here and I want to find out x n plus 1 I want to go from here to here right, but I have started my integration somewhere here this is my x 0 and then I have this information about t n minus 1 t n minus 2 t n minus 3 I have information about x n minus 1 x n minus 2 x n minus 3 because I have started integrating from time 0 and I have this information when I have reached up to point t n I have information in the past I want to march from t n to t n plus 1 one step ahead in future currently I am at t n I have this past information apart from this I also have not only information of x at this discrete time points I also have information about f n minus 1 I also have information about f n minus 2 right. These are these are values in the past I can evaluate the derivatives at the point in the past I can evaluate I know the values of the x or I know the value of the solution at time points in the past what I am going to do is when I go from here to here I am going to make use of this past information see it is like again if you take the analogy of when you are climbing down a mountain when you take the next step you may want to use information about what has happened in the past ok how was the slope and what is the local curvature you want to use that information and make one step ahead ok. The Runge-Gutta method only you know looks at it everything that is in the past is contained in x n and I just want to go from x n to x n plus 1 so Runge-Gutta method when it goes ahead it is cautious it takes small steps in between and goes ok whereas here we want to do we are not going to do intermediate calculations ok we are going to use calculations at these previous time points to make a judgment about how to go in the in the past. So the one one one major difference here is that the these are fixed step size methods so so T n or in general T i minus T i minus 1 is h so the step size is fixed ok now what is the philosophy? Philosophy is to use an interpolation polynomial what is an interpolation polynomial interpolation polynomial is one which passes through given set of fixed points ok. So one idea is that if I have this x n minus 1 x n minus 2 x n minus 3 ok I can invoke I can invoke Weierstrass theorem and say that well my solution x is actually a continuous function ok a continuous function can be approximated by a polynomial what kind of polynomial I am going to fit an interpolation polynomial. So I am going to fit a polynomial using this data ok I am going to fit a polynomial using this data and do an extrapolation ok I fit a polynomial using past data and extrapolate from T n to T n plus 1 ok. Other idea is to so this will give me an explicit method the other idea is I try to fit a polynomial using x n plus 1 x n so using future in the past ok then you get implicit formula because you will get the future is a function of you know this x n plus 1 is a function of x n plus 1 is a function of x n plus 1 and you have to solve it relatively ok. So basically I am going to fit a polynomial I am going to fit a polynomial so my idea is to fit a polynomial so I am going to say that x t is now my notation is little bit complex ok and you have to carefully understand my notation.  So x 0 n plus x 1 n t plus x this is a polynomial this is a polynomial solution let us call this let us call this local solution x n t let us call this solution x n t what is this n this n corresponds to the point t n I am standing at t n ok I am not going to fit one polynomial ok at this point I am going to fit a polynomial locally a quadratic polynomial ok and use it to do extrapolation when I move on ok I am going to fit another polynomial I am not happy with fitting one polynomial it is not possible to fit one giant polynomial into all suppose you are integrating from 0 to time 1000 minutes and your integration interval is 10 seconds ok I cannot fit a interpolation polynomial of high order ok I cannot fit one quadratic polynomial because the nature is changing as you move along the slope is changing. So I want to fit a local polynomial using local neighborhood data ok and then do an extrapolation ok. So we are just going to use the local information and this polynomial coefficients are going to be time varying they are going to change as you move in time ok that is why this index sub index n comes now 0, 1, 2 is a quadratic polynomial which I want to fit locally ok this is fit in the sense I am not going to do the square fit here I am going to do interpolation polynomial ok let us see how we can fit this local interpolation polynomial ok now what I can do is I can differentiate this polynomial ok what will I get if I differentiate the polynomial a 1 n plus 2 a 2 n t ok 2 a 2 n t now I am going to temporarily shift the time ok such that I am going to shift my time axis such that t n corresponds to 0 ok for making this local fit I am going to shift the time axis such that t n corresponds to 0. So what will be t n plus 1 this will be h what will be t n minus 1 this will be minus h what will be t n minus 2 minus 2 h and so on. Now when I am fitting a polynomial when I am fitting a polynomial in this case I am fitting a quadratic polynomial or quadratic interpolation polynomial how many coefficients are there there are 3 coefficients a 0 a 1 a 2 ok how many equations I need to exactly determine the 3 I need 3 equations. So somehow I have to generate 3 equations ok somehow I have to generate 3 equations so let us start doing this by with this shifted time scale ok with this shifted time scale I am going to now generate 3 equations in 3 unknowns and once I have solution of 3 equations in 3 unknowns I have one way of doing calculations ok. So now let us see how this is done ok. So what is x 0 at t is equal to t n we have shifted time now ok in shifted time what will be x 0 will corresponds to x n ok. Now x n in terms of shifted time this will be a naught n ok plus a 1 n into 0 plus a 2 n into 0 ok I got the first coefficient what is my first coefficient because this is 0 so this is 0 this is 0 I got x 0 n is equal to x n ok. Now I need to generate 2 more equations ok see d x by d t is nothing but f of x right now what is f n that is function evaluated at time t n ok that will be equal to a 1 n a 1 n ok plus 2 a 2 n into 0 fine. So this is 0 because with shifted time with shifted time this is 0 ok. So I got second coefficient I got second coefficient a 2 n sorry a 1 n is equal to f n ok. Now I want to generate the third equation how do I generate the third equation I can use the past ok I can use information at x n minus 1 or I could use information of f n minus 1 I have a choice I can choose from x n minus 1 or f n minus 1 ok. So which one do you want to go x n minus 1 ok will do derive both ways ok will derive both ways. So let us take initially the possibility that to fit the interpolation polynomial I am going to use x n minus 1 ok. So what will be x n minus 1 x n minus 1 will be a naught n plus minus yeah. So a 1 n into minus h plus a 2 n h square a 2 n h square ok. Now can you eliminate and find out a 2 n just tell me what is a 2 n because a naught n is nothing but x n we got this a naught n is equal to x n we got a 1 n is nothing but f n. So these two coefficients are known to us ok these two coefficients are known to us ok what is the third coefficient. So what I will get if I just substitute there I know that a naught n is equal to x n I have found that a 1 n is equal to f n right. Now the third equation that I got is x n minus 1 is equal to x n minus f n into h right plus a 2 n h square. So what is a 2 n h square? So a 2 n will be x n minus 1 minus x n plus h f n divided by h square ok. This is my interpolation polynomial this is my coefficients of interpolation polynomial. So I have found out interpolation polynomial with time varying coefficients. So what is my interpolation polynomial? Let us go back and write it here. So my interpolation polynomial is now let us write it in terms of the shifted time let us call it tau shifted time ok. This is equal to what is a naught n is x n ok is x n plus what is the second coefficient? Second coefficient is f n into f n into tau tau is the shifted time tau is the shifted time ok. And what is the third coefficient? x n minus 1 minus x n plus h f n divided by h square into t square tau square right. Is everyone with me on this? See I fitted a interpolation polynomial there are three coefficients a 0 n a 0 n turns out to be x n ok a 1 n turns out to be f n ok. And a 2 n turns out to be x n minus 1 minus x n plus h f n by h square into tau square this is my polynomial ok. This is the polynomial second order polynomial fitted using this point and this point in the past ok. Now I am going to do extrapolation how will you do extrapolation? What I want to find out? The next step so how will you get the next step tau is equal to tau is equal to h ok tau is equal to h will give me this point. So what will I get if I substitute tau is equal to h here let us substitute no. If you substitute tau is equal to h you will get x n plus 1 see setting tau is equal to h will give you x n plus 1 ok. So if I set if I set tau is equal to h that is I want to go to this point then if I substitute that here tau is equal to h I will get x h x h is nothing but x n plus 1 ok x n plus 1 is equal to x n into f n into h ok f n into h plus here you will get h square. So this h square h square will cancel ok. Can you rearrange and write what do you get now? Yeah so what do you get? So after rearranging you will get x n minus 1 plus 2 h f n is that right ok. The final formula looks like this the final formula you do not see the interpolation polynomial anywhere ok. The interpolation polynomial which you have fitted locally has disappeared when this final form actually what you have done is fitted a local polynomial. Is this the only way of doing this? No ok let us do it some other way ok. What is this formula which you got? Is this an explicit formula or implicit formula? This is an explicit formula ok because anything that is before is known to you ok what is in the future is not known to you. Let us make a small modification and see what do you get now. If you this point I have chosen x n minus 1 I have chosen x n minus 1 instead of that let us choose here let us go back here ok make a small modification and I will choose x n plus 1 just derive what will happen. If I choose x n plus 1 this will be a naught n this will be a 1 n and this will be plus h minus h will disappear and this will be h square what will you get ok.  Now what how will the formula be modified just go back and derive the formula now what do you get you will still end up with an explicit formula I think. So, what is the polynomial that you are fitting now you will get x tau is equal to x n plus f n tau plus what is the third coefficient x n plus 1 minus x n plus h f n by h square tau square now what do you get you will get 0 equal to 0 here oh great. So, we will have to this will not help us. So, what way to go what about f n plus 1 can you use f n plus 1 just check now instead of using x n plus 1 I decide to use f n plus 1 ok. So, here you get 0 equal to 0. So, x n plus 1 is not useful.  So, using this I will get these two coefficients remain same I will get 2 a 2 n is equal to or f n plus 1 is equal to f n plus 2 a 2 n h. So, what is a 2 n h a 2 n is equal to f n plus 1 minus f n divided by 2 h by 2 h ok by 2 h if you substitute this what will you get. So, my formula now becomes here this becomes. So, this is my time varying polynomial this is f n plus 1 minus f n divided by 2 h square or 2 h into tau square ok 2 h tau square. So, what is. So, if I set h equal to tau. So, I will get x n plus 1 what is the integration formula x n plus 1 is equal to x n x n plus h by 2 f of n plus f of the famous trapezoidal rule ok. This is an implicit formula because x n plus 1 appears on the left hand side x n plus 1 appears on the right hand side ok this is our famous trapezoidal rule I got an implicit formula ok. So, when you see it in this form you do not see the interpolation polynomial ok and what I want to stress here it is matter of choice how do you choose which point to fit see suppose I give you a problem in which you have to fit a cubic polynomial what will you do cubic polynomial we will have 4 coefficients you need 4 equations how will you generate 4 equations there are a variety of ways you could do using x n x n minus 1 x n minus 2 x n minus 3 ok you could do using f n f n minus 1 x n x n minus 1 4 equations ok you could do using you know this this and this ok which points you use all of them are called multi step methods ok. So, I will just summarize this here yeah you have a doubt no no no it only give you problem at time 0 no no at time 0 you have to you have to make some assumption about past yeah why you start with the wrong this you start with the same initial point multiple same point in the beginning and then start creating new points only first 3 points will be problem 3 or 4 points after that you have with the past right no there is nothing like a wrong guess no I am not this is not iterative solutions see when you are solving ordinary differential equations you are not guessing you are marching in time ok. So, do you know some values in the past is the question ok. So, it is not just one initial condition you know you need to know some some values in the past no I can assume the same value was there in the past the system was at the same point in the beginning for last 4 instances if I make the assumption there is nothing wrong and I can go on marching. So, after 3 instances I will have past 3 and then I can go on doing it it never it does not create a problem. So, the convergence to the true solution depends upon something else ok. So, it does not matter even if you have slightly wrong initial 3 or 4 points ok. So, basically if I want to fit a polynomial of the form you know x n t is equal to a naught n plus a 1 a 1 n t plus a 2 n t square plus a 3 n t cube I want to find out a naught a 1 a 2 a 3 to generate this either I can use x n x n minus 1 x n minus 2 x n minus 3 I could use x n f n x n minus 1 f n minus 1 I could use x n f n f 1 plus 1 f n minus 1 I want to create 4 equations in 4 unknowns fit a interpolation polynomial of cubic type with time varying coefficients those time varying coefficients can be either function of past 3 x values they can be 2 derivative 2 x values it can be 3 derivatives 1 x value it is up to you ok. So, every possible combination will give rise to 1 multi step method ok will give rise to multi step method. Final form the quadrate the cubic polynomial or whatever that cubic form will disappear you will only see an integration method with some coefficients ok. What I will do in my next class is derive a generic mth order polynomial to be fitted in I will derive a method formula for mth order method and. So, we can do any order fitting find a multi step method and derive it. So, you should understand what is the philosophy you should be able to derive a new method if you want that is very very important that is what I wanted to learn from this exercise. Because the final rearrange form you know the origin disappears it looks like some recipe you know you take this you take this do this do this you will get the solution what is the philosophy is not clear when you look at. So, in the next lecture we will continue this multi step methods I will try to finish multi step method there are different classes of multi step methods one which only use past f 1 which use only past x and so on. And then there are variations you get explicit methods you get implicit methods then you use explicit method to initialize an implicit method the same idea which we use for Euler you know that is how do you get a good guess ok.   So, order you can choose how much data you want to choose in the past you can choose and then you can go on marching using interpolation interpolating polynomials ok.  So, sequence of interpolation polynomials that is very very important.


The next item of business is topical questions, and we will start with question number one from Tavish Scott. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to EIS members considering supporting industrial action. Cabinet Secretary John Swinney. The Scottish Government would encourage negotiations in all circumstances on all employment issues to avoid industrial action. Tavish Scott. The teaching union EIS has today published figures on the pressure teachers face. 54 per cent of teachers say that their workload has risen in the last year. A further third say that their workload has increased significantly. Despite all the parliamentary assurances saying that teacher workload is falling, it is actually rising. Does that not start to illustrate that this Government is out of touch with the reality of teaching across Scotland? Will the education secretary not accept that teachers are considering strike action as his improvement plan and tackling bureaucracy initiatives have failed to address that very pressure in the classroom? Cabinet Secretary. The Government has taken a series of steps to tackle the issue of teacher workload. They have included the removal of unit assessments, the work for which will apply in the next academic year, the publication of benchmarks to provide clarity at the levels that students are expected to achieve within curriculum for excellence and to provide the clarity that the teaching profession requested. We have issued curricular guidance to provide the clarity that issues of literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing should be given priority within the curriculum. I have given guidance issued to all teachers, which indicates that the teaching profession should be free to concentrate on learning and teaching and enhancing learning and teaching for young people across the education system. In addition to that, I have commissioned Her Majesty's Inspector of Education to audit the burden of bureaucracy that has been applied to schools by local authorities. As Mr Scott will realise, about half of the local authorities were identified in that inspection to have work to do to reduce the workload that has been applied to schools. That reduction in bureaucracy is now being undertaken. I encourage Mr Scott to look at the various measures that the Government has taken to reduce the workload and teachers to ensure that our teachers can be free to concentrate on what we need them to concentrate on, which is learning and teaching. As we have looked at the initiatives that the Government has brought forward, the figures from the EIS illustrate that, far from going down, the workload is increasing. In 2014, an EIS survey said that 44 per cent of teachers would not recommend teaching as a profession. The latest survey again suggests that that figure has risen to 56 per cent. In two days' time, the Education Secretary will propose school reform. Will he accept that Thursday's statement must now include a far-reaching independent assessment of teachers' paying conditions on the Crohn 2 and that the 16 per cent cut in teachers' wages over the past decade is repaired, the promotion structure in schools is reviewed and that the standing of the profession, the most important profession for Scotland's future, is enhanced, not allowed to wither any further? I certainly agree with Mr Scott that we need to enhance the teaching profession and the statement that I will make to Parliament on Thursday will be designed to take a number of very substantive steps to ensure the enhancement of the professional responsibility of teachers and to enable teachers to fulfil the role that we all require them to fulfil in delivering education for young people in Scotland. Secondly, I acknowledge that there has been constraint in public sector pay for some considerable time and I cannot deny that. I was the author of the public sector pay policy in Scotland as the finance minister and I might no attempt to deny it. What I think Mr Scott needs to reflect on is that he was a supporter of a United Kingdom Government that presided over austerity for five years which created the financial climate in which this government had to operate. If we are all, as I am accepting my responsibility as the author of public sector pay policy in Scotland for many years, Mr Scott has to accept that the challenges that have existed around teachers' pay and public sector pay in general have not been the product of individual decisions taken by this Government, but of the financial climate that he and his colleagues in the Liberal Democrats were prepared to support within the United Kingdom Government without complaint for a five-year period. Finally, I would say to Mr Scott that the Government is determined to ensure that we work with the profession, we work with other stakeholders, we work with our local authority partners to ensure that we strengthen Scottish education. That will be at the heart of the reforms that I take forward. It has been at the heart of the measures that I have taken to reduce bureaucracy and to focus the curriculum, and I will continue to do so in the period ahead. Liz Smith. Thank you, Presiding Officer. In light of the first part of the answer that Mr Swinney has just given to Tavish Scott, does he foresee an opportunity within the Government's reforms and greater autonomy for schools to allow greater devolution of pay structures and the working conditions to headteachers? One of the points that I made when I introduced the Government's consultation paper to Parliament some months ago was that I envisaged the continuation of national terms and conditions discussions in Scotland. That will be my position in the Governance Review on Thursday. It was my position at the outset and, of course, for the other details of the Governance Review, I will be making a statement to Parliament on Thursday and I will, of course, answer the questions that members have to me on the details that I put to Parliament at that time. Iain Gray. We read today in the press that a welcome additional £2 million has been made available to colleges to finally honour their pay deal with lecturers. How much additional funding, then, will the Cabinet Secretary make available to local authorities to allow them to address teachers' concerns about salary and workload and thus avoid industrial action in our schools? Cabinet Secretary. Clearly, there is a process of negotiation to be undertaken with the teaching trade unions as part of the SNCT arrangements with which Mr Gray will be familiar. The Government will, of course, as a member of the SNCT, participate in those discussions and we look forward to progressing those discussions in the period that lies ahead. Jenny Gilruth. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and my members are some of the PLO to the Cabinet Secretary. Does the Deputy First Minister agree that there is a varying national culture with regard to teacher workload, which is often driven by local authorities, for example, in terms of tracking and monitoring, reporting and recording of attainment data, for example? Can he therefore outline what action the Government has taken to ensure greater consistency across Scotland when it comes to what our local authorities are asking of Scotland's teachers? Part of what I have asked local authorities to do as part of the work that we all committed to, long before I became the education secretary, was to reduce the workload and the bureaucracy applied to the teaching profession. I look to local authorities to exercise a considered judgment about the appropriate collection of information of a tracking and monitoring nature to ensure that that is appropriate and commensurate with their responsibilities. As I indicated in my earlier answer to Tavish Scott, I asked Education Scotland to undertake a focused review of the demands placed on schools by local authorities in relation to curriculum for excellence. They found that there were a number of local authorities where there was a significant variation in the extent and effectiveness of the actions that have been taken. I am, of course, continuing to monitor the progress that has been made to support improvement, to address the specific issues and to share best practice between authorities. Ross Greer. The latest inflation figures released this morning show a four-year high of 2.9 per cent and an expectation that it will continue to rise due to fallout from Brexit. The public sector pay cap has seen a massive erosion in the value of salaries. Teachers are now considering strike action and rising inflation is only going to make the situation worse for them. How much loss to the value of teachers pay is the Scottish Government willing to accept before it will act on the pay freeze? Cabinet Secretary. As I indicated in my earlier answer, I seek—I in no way try to avoid my responsibility for public sector pay. I was the finance minister here for nine years and I made a very clear judgment, which I was open about with Parliament, that in order to protect public sector employment, I had to ask public sector employees in a period of significant fiscal restraint applied to us by the United Kingdom Government, of which Tavish Scott was a supporter and the Conservatives were supporters, that I had to apply that pay constraint to protect employment. I accept that the situation we now face, where there is rising inflation in the context of pay restraint, it is difficult to support that given the pressures that are on individual public sector workers. The Government will look carefully at the issues of public sector pay as part of our negotiations with trade unions and as part of the budget preparations that the Government undertakes on anio basis. 2. Jamie Greene To ask the Scottish Government what the final cost will be of the Edinburgh Glasgow improvement programme. Minister Humza Yousaf. As I recently informed the chamber, Network Rail has confirmed a further delay to the route electrification. We now await further advice from Network Rail on the cost arising from that delay. Mark Khan, the chief executive of Network Rail, will be in front of the rural economy committee tomorrow, which I know the member of. Jamie Greene The Edinburgh Glasgow improvement programme was supposed to cost the taxpayer £742 million. However, just under a year ago, it was reported that this had already risen by £32 million. There was a further delay to replace faulty electrical equipment and the additional staffing costs that that might incur. Can the minister outline today what the cost of the improvement programme is? Can he tell Parliament more importantly if the additional costs will impact any other rail projects or rail funding in general? Minister. For the question and the tone in which he asks it, he will be very aware that the responsibility for the delivery of the project is Network Rail. The Transport, Scotland and the Scottish Government is a client and the funder. We must work within a funding ceiling. I do not expect that funding ceiling to be breached if that is his question. However, there is, and there has been a further delay, we will continue to have discussions with Network Rail. I would have to defer to Network Rail to come back to us with what the potential cost increases would be of the last report of the cost increases that we did from a Scottish Government perspective was an independent report against a young which, again, the committee had sight of. That is a shared problem with the UK Government as well. We know that Network Rail is a reclassified body under the Department for Transport. Clearly, the UK Government is also facing similar issues with Network Railway and the Scottish Government are facing similar issues. Now that the Government and certainly Cabinet members have been appointed, I would be keen to sit down with the railway minister and the UK Government as soon as possible to see how we can come to an acceptable position. We fund those major projects, we are the client of those major projects and yet the delivery done by Network Rail is not accountable to this Government or to this Parliament. Jamie Greene. I thank the minister for that answer. I notice that the minister is passing the buck to Network Rail, but surely as the minister in charge of transport in Scotland he would have some oversight and be able to share with the Parliament the costs of the project. That should be delivered on the Edinburgh Glasgow line until October this year. That is nearly a year after the original 2016 deadline with a whole range of problems including the breakdown of components, poor project management, unforeseen corrective action and a delay in the energisation of the overhead cables. A spokesman for the Scottish Government has said that this is wholly unacceptable. What assurances can the minister provide to passengers in Scotland who have already suffered quite significant disruptions on the line that they will now have to potentially wait until autumn for electric trains to be in operation? Does he not agree that this is unacceptable? Of course I agree that it is unacceptable, but let me just take issue with one or two things that Jamie Greene has said. I am sure that he does not expect me as the minister for transport to be literally on the wires on the lines delivering this project. It is delivered by Network Rail. We have responsibility as the funder where we are the client but the delivery of the project is done by Network Rail a reclassified body under the UK Government's department for transport. In terms of our projects, yes, of course it is unacceptable when there is any delay. The last time I informed the chamber in front of the committee no doubt under his questioning was that electric services we were expecting to come on this route in July of this year. It has now gone into October.  We are in a better position but I agree that it is wholly unacceptable that Network Rail are continuing to come to me to say that we are unable to deliver this project despite the fact, of course, that we have as the funder and as the client provided the funding that is there. In terms of the reassurance to the passenger yes, we have a project board which is actually helping to flush out some of these issues much earlier and we could have had sight of them before. My commitment to this Parliament is to continue to keep you updated as a Parliament and indeed the relevant committee whenever I get that information from Network Rail but I would end on this point to the member. I would welcome a discussion with parties across this chamber even if they do not agree with the full devolution of Network Rail which I respect as a position that they may hold to at least think about the devolution of the infrastructure projects because it is unacceptable once again that we fund these projects yet the accountability remains with Network Rail a reclassified body under the Department for Transport. John Mason. I wonder if the minister can confirm that the original cost of Egypt was quite a lot higher and that the idea of running longer trains with less frequency meant that there was huge savings on signalling, less congestion and I imagine better for the environment. Minister. There have been cost savings not only on these projects but also on some other projects but that is not to take away and I must reiterate that that does not take away from the fact that we have seen a cost increase from our revised estimates coming because Network Rail I think have failed to notice some foreseen circumstances they should have been able to foresee some of those circumstances and that is not to take away from that we wait from Network Rail to get a further update in regards to what further delay there may be on Egypt and there is a potential that that may have a cost increase so that is not to let Network Rail off the hook on that. Having said that I am confident that there are railway projects the many railway projects that we are looking to deliver in control period 5 can be delivered within that funding ceiling that we have committed to so there have been savings and there have been savings not just on Egypt but on other projects but let's not take away from the fact that that is disappointing news that we should be held to account not just to the Department for Transport but to this Parliament and to this Government. Neil Bibby as left the train drivers union say that Egypt has been mismanaged and lacked political leadership by both Network Rail and the Scottish Government as the Scottish Government is ultimately responsible for this project and it is ultimately responsible for this project despite what the minister may be trying to suggest otherwise does the transport minister accept that he will take leadership on Egypt from the start and what will he do now to reassure the workforce, the passengers and the taxpayer that his Government should be trusted any longer with meeting the railway infrastructure needs of this country. He is a beyond ludicrous question from the member for a number of reasons because Egypt has already delivered on many occasions December 2010 electrification of Haymarket tunnel will take the political leadership I'm sure for that December 2013 the transformed Haymarket station opened to passengers on time and on budget as part of Egypt. May 2014 the electrification of Glasgow to Cumbernauld he forgot to mention that. May 2015 Haymarket and Vakithing re-signalling complete he forgot to mention that. December 2016 Edinburgh Gateway rail tram interchange opened to all passengers of course he forgot to mention all of that so Egypt has of course met many of the milestones we have funded them of course and he should recognise that on top of Egypt if he wants political leadership on the railways we of course delivered Borders railway Airdrie to Bathgate electrification as I said of the Cumbernauld line one that affects him of course the paisley corridor improvements and many many other rail projects as well so I'll certainly take no lessons from Neil Bibby when it comes to management of our railways I would suggest that he looks at his own Labour colleague the former transport minister in the UK Tom Harris who said that but this responsibility cannot be properly exercised while network rail remains answerable to the UK government Reform Scotland, I think tank he was working with believes that network rail in Scotland should be fully accountable to the Scottish Government and that means it must be devolved that is somebody who used to be a transport minister within a Labour Government in the UK Government I would suggest that he will be instead of carping from the sideline actually take some expert advice there minister people will be incredibly frustrated with this delay not least because the drip drip of information prevents anyone taking full responsibility so can the minister tell Parliament on what date he was informed of the potential delays for the project and is he willing to publish all minutes of meetings in which the delay was discussed in terms of the documentation about the delay I have a letter from Mark Carn sent to me on the 25th of May I have written to the committee convener if a copy of that letter if it is able to be published of course I will look into that and I will discuss that with my officials but I also share his frustration and the public's frustration at the drip drip drip of information that we tend to get from network rail as I continue to say network rail is accountable to the UK Government ultimately under the department for transport as a reclassified body I would like a conversation with him with members across the chamber on how we actually rebalance some of this and ensure that network rail is accountable to this Parliament and to this Government but in terms of his actual question I will look into the latest letter that I received from Mark Carn and see if that can be released Thank you very much that concludes topical questions The next item of business is a statement by Angela Constance on the independent advisory group on hate crime prejudice and cohesion The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of her statement so if you do wish to ask a question please press your request to speak button now there will be around 20 minutes for questions after the statement


Here we go again. Back at it with the fail. We all know Coco. She's a volleyball player who doesn't know much about volleyball. Let's look at some of these past examples. But today, Coco is going to try to hit the volleyball. Will she succeed? Let's see. Six types of hitters. Let's go.  Please join me and make sure you like comment subscribe and I will see you guys next time keep playing