Roundtable. I'm State Senator Russell Ruderman from the Puna and Ka'u District on the Big Island, and I host the Ruderman Roundtable here on Think Tech, Hawaii, talking about environmental and good government issues. My guest today is Jeff Michelina. He's the Executive Director of the Blue Planet Foundation. His accomplishments in environmental advocacy include passing legislation that sets a binding cap on Hawaii's greenhouse gas emissions, requires that all new homes use solar water heaters, requires returnable deposits on all beverage containers, and incentives for renewable energy use, also that increase the funding of natural resources through tourism tax. He holds a Master's of Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he specialized in decision theory. And the Blue Planet Foundation's mission is to clear the path for 100% clean energy in Hawaii and beyond. Thank you for joining us here today. Thanks, Senator. It's great to be here. Thank you. So tell me, I know you work a lot on energy issues. What's the state of energy in Hawaii? What grade would you currently give us on energy progress? So this is something Blue Planet Foundation does every year. We put out a report card. Our fifth annual is coming out this year. That's right. And folks can see it at HawaiiEnergyReportCard.org or .com. Hawaii Energy Report Card. So last year when we did our most recent one, which came out in September, we gave the state a B minus. And we looked at a number of metrics to arrive at that grade. B minus was the same grade the state received in 2015 also. The idea here is we've so much stagnated. We made some early progress, but unfortunately things that people know about slowing down a rooftop solar for one, some of the large solar projects on Oahu that were shelved. A lot of things kind of got put on hold during that next era discussion at the PUC. So we saw some stagnation. The real challenge in energy looking at electricity as well as transportation, transportation is something that we really need to start addressing in Hawaii. It's over half of the petroleum that we import goes into our cars and trucks and boats. That's an area that we haven't made much progress. And one of the challenges is we haven't set a goal yet of where we want to arrive for transportation. We have such a goal for electricity. The legislature passed it in 2015 trying to get to 100% by 2045. It sounds like we can get there earlier, but absent that goal we've been somewhat, you know, just turning water for transportation. So that's one of the priorities at the session for us this year is setting that ultimate goal for transportation. So we've never set a goal for transportation yet. And what would you like to see it be? I mean, certainly 100% getting off fossil fuel. Now the timeline, that's the question. I think we're going to be surprised. Just like with the electricity goal, we were somewhat surprised. During the conversation, 2050 seemed outrageous. The compromise was 2045. And just last month, the utility came out and said, you know what, we can actually achieve this by 2040. That's encouraging. I mean, I think once you set that vision and unlock the engineers and the experts and they start to drive towards that goal, we can do it. So to answer the question for transportation, honestly, we can probably turn this around pretty quick. Maybe 20 years, 15 years might even be more quick than that. We have a measure in that sets that goal for 2045, at least to have some sort of a, you know, backstop. And maybe we can move that up. An example we look at is, you know, at the turn of the previous century, when we went from horse driven carriage to, you know, internal combustion automobile, that was a dramatic change from, you know, having livestock on your roads to having, you know, gas stations and, you know, these cars. We have a great image of the Easterday parade in New York City in 1900. And it's all horse driven. And then 1913, and it's the same parade, but all cars. So that was a 13 year, you know, turnaround. I think we can make a fast change if we set our minds to it and have the right policies in place. I guess our progress on the electric side or the energy side speaks to how important it is to set a goal. Exactly, right. What is the greatest hurdle to modernizing our, let's talk for now about our electric grid and we'll get into transportation. Yeah. What are the greatest hurdles for securing and then modernizing our grid? We face a number of hurdles, but I think the fundamental one is how we reward our electric utility. Right now, we essentially allow them to recover and earn revenue on what they invest in the system. And we need to make a lot of investments in the system, but we're really not looking for investment. We're looking for the right types of investment and the right types of behaviors. There's a bill at the legislature that would establish a performance based rate making that would reward the utility for doing the things we want accomplished, our public policy goals, greater reliability, better customer service, lower rates, more renewable energy. And then they would be essentially, they would profit on achieving those metrics. So I think if we get those incentives right, we can see the right types of investments in the system. We built a grid, you know, that's worked great for over a century. And it was really designed around, you know, big power plants that send electricity in one way. But today we have some 80,000 rooftops, essentially independent power plants on people's roofs that are providing power back to the grid, providing for themselves and possibly putting it back on the grid. So we have to reimagine our energy system with a kind of a two-way flow of power. And in that form, we see the utility sort of evolving into a systems operator or like an internet service provider instead of a content provider that they are today. So those are some of the hurdles. It's going to take more intelligence in the system. Some of those investments where you need to see storage, things they call demand response that can help balance the supply and the demand. But it's going to take a utility that's, I think, incented to do those correct investments to make it happen. So the bill that you just discussed, which would modify their incentives, because right now they're basically incentivized to spend as much money as they can justify. Is that correct? Is that oversimplifying it? I think that's the motivation today. Whereas you're proposing that they would get profit based on achieving certain goals that are in our society's interest. That's right. That's what's the name of that bill, by the way. I mean, we had a good title for it that kind of captured this idea, but it's essentially performance-based rate making. But to be clear about that, I mean, we have a public utilities commission that looks at all the investments over $2.5 million, essentially, and makes sure it's used and useful as one of the tests. It's a justifiable expenditure by the utility. And this would modify that slightly to make sure that those investments are really in service of achieving these goals. Sometimes we hear in discussions about what the modern grid will look like. We hear about community-based renewable energy, or sometimes that overlaps with a discussion about microgrids. Can you tell me about that, or where do we stand with that? Sure. This is very timely. This is a measure that was passed in 2015 to essentially allow people who don't have the ability to participate in solar today. They maybe live in a multifamily, or the roof isn't quite suitable, they have too much shade, to get a share in a project elsewhere and then receive credit for the energy that's produced, just like a community garden might work. So a great idea at the time, still a great idea, but you slowly work through the process. And any day now, we should hear from the Public Utilities Commission on what that final form of a program, at least the first phase of a program, might look like. I see. So it'll be exciting for anyone who hasn't been able to participate in solar yet. There might be a new opportunity out there. Even if you're again in a multifamily and just can't do it yourself, this will open up renewable energy for everyone to participate. So that's imminent. It's going to basically come out of the fees you're probably applying any day now. We've heard a lot about the end of net metering in Hawaii, and the effect that it may have had on developing rooftop solar. Where does that stand now? And what do you think about that whole situation? So net metering came to an end over a year ago. Net metering is really why we saw that huge revolution. And it was truly a revolution. In 2008, when some of the best minds in the room were projecting where we were going to be for rooftop solar, at the time we had about one megawatt in 2008, they said we're going to get to 23 megawatts in 2015, which at the time seemed pretty radical. At the end of 2015, we actually had 350 megawatts, 15 times more than we anticipated. And a lot of that had to do with the module prices decreasing, the net metering program, of course, and then new business models that really enabled all sorts of folks to participate because they got rid of that upfront cost and just let you pay over time. Net metering changed, or the loss of net metering changed that equation. It wasn't nearly as profitable for folks to do rooftop solar, but still penciled out for most people. The prices come down such, and tax credits make it within, it pencils out. The challenge now, though, was more of a technical challenge, and that's what the utility is working through. There's something called the distributed energy resources docket at the public utilities commission. They had the first phase that came out where there was kind of a number of programs. People could get a battery and do self-supply without exporting to the grid. That's kind of come to an end now, and now they're looking at the second phase of that. And we hope this is a phase that really gets the pricing signals right, so it's still an option for people to go solar. People that want to get battery storage can do that, and they're properly valued for the services that they provide to the grid. So this is a very dynamic place, but we need some stability in that market and the right policies in place. So solar is available to everyone, and that's really our vision, is to democratize energy, make sure there's customer choice, and if the market wants to invest, we put in over a billion dollars in private capital from folks who put solar on the rooftop, and that's getting us closer to 100 percent. So the more we can enable folks to make those choices, I think the better off we'll all be because we all benefit from moving away from fossil fuel and toward renewable energy. Now, did I hear you say 350 megawatts? At the end of 2015, folks' rooftops. That's on rooftops that doesn't even include the utility scale. Not the utility, right? That's just the rooftop. Only rooftop, we have 350 megawatts. That's a pretty serious amount of power, huh? It is, yeah. We have a long way to go. I mean, to understand our whole system is to require gigawatts. Right. Why didn't that meter and go away? Is it because of the grid reliability, or is it because of the finances of the utility company? You know, to be fair, it was certainly both. But for the utility, I mean, when your biggest competitor is your customer, you have to rethink where you're heading. And one of the issues that they brought up, which we don't agree with, is this idea that people are getting paid for the power that they pushed back out for the same that they're buying the power from. There are other costs out there to keep the grid just operating. These people pay up to 20 bucks a month for just staying connected to the grid. We think that covers a lot of it. They also sacrifice any extra power that they create at the end of a one-year building period. That goes to the utility at no cost. But really, it's somewhat of a blunt tool. We thought it was a very effective tool. And where they're moving toward is something that really accurately represents what energy is worth on the grid at any given time. And that's an important concept, I think, to wrap our minds around, that energy at noon today is pretty cheap because it's a supply and demand sort of thing. And energy at six in the evening is probably going to be more expensive as the sun goes down and everyone turns on their lights and things. So something that reflects that reality will be better for all of us. So that would include the potential of smart meters and differential rates for different times of day. That's right. We have to take a short break. We're going to come back in just one minute. I'm here on the Ruderman Round Table with Jeff Nicolina, the Executive Director of Blue Planet Foundation. Thank you for joining us. I'm Jay Fiedel and with Ray Starling, I host Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy, four o'clock every Wednesday, the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, making discovery of what's going on in energy in this community. Ray, what do you think? We've got a great group of shows coming up, finishing out this year and starting next year. Dean Nishida has been with us today. He's the new consumer advocate and he has told us a lot, but he's got a lot more to tell. So we're going to have him back and others like him in future shows. And Dean, how much of that do you agree with? There's a lot to be said and I'm interested in seeing some of your other shows. Okay, we'll be back four o'clock every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii. Hey, has your signal just been taken over or am I supposed to be here? This is Andrew, the security guy, your co-host on Hibachi Talk. Please join us every Friday on Think Tech Hawaii. And welcome back to the Ruderman Round Table. I'm here with Jeff Nicolina, Executive Director of the Blue Planet Foundation. We're talking about energy issues in the State of Hawaii. Tell me, Jeff, about 20 percent of electricity used in Hawaii is used to cool buildings, air conditioning in particular. Tell me about that. Are there alternative solutions on the horizon like seawater cooling or what other initiatives might we put forward to try to address that part of it? Seawater conditioning is a great solution. We don't always think of that resource that's just offshore and it can actually provide cooleth. You just go down deep enough and the water is pretty much cold enough to provide air conditioning. So there's a project proposed that's currently being developed for Honolulu and they're signing up contracts that would pipe that cold water, actually bring it up to shore, go through heat exchanger, and then bring that chilled water through buildings for air conditioning. So using our cold ocean resource for AC and a similar project they're looking at in Waikiki, which really has a 24-7 air conditioning demand. What else might we do to not waste so much air conditioning? So glad you asked. There's a bill at the legislature to do what New York has done, which is require stores or restaurants if they have the air conditioning on to keep the doors closed. This is something that most folks have experienced if you walk down Kalakau Avenue and Waikiki, you get the blast of cold air. The temperature there is usually inversely proportional to the price of stuff inside. We think a common sense solution to just, I mean, if we're reaching 100% we at least have to do the fundamentals right and that's being efficient with the energy that we do create. So we hope to pass that measure this year. It doesn't mean you have to close your doors, you just have to have the solution to make sure you're not leaking that air conditioning out. It could be an air curtain or something like that. So you could put like the plastic curtains or something or a fan air curtain. Wonderful. Sounds great. Do you think that seawater cooling could be used? I'm interested in my own district. We're proposing an ag park that might use cold ocean water for chilling for cold storage. Do you think that's a possibility? Could it be used for that? It could be also for maybe hydroponics too, in a way. It's going cold where the car is. The challenge is always looking at how far apart things are. That was the issue with Honolulu is how far can they take it where the the Marshall price doesn't, yeah, it still pencils out to put in the pipe. But if you have an ag park you're going to get around a lot of those challenges of digging up streets and everything. So it might be, this is something what they do at K-Holy Point, you know, with the chilled water. And they're growing cold crops. Right. It opens up a whole new. It's interesting because they're running cold pipes through the ground and just being cold condenses water from the air and you're actually getting fresh water as a result of piping that cold salt water through. Tell me about the Sustainable Transportation Coalition. I hate to call it Stitch, but its acronym looks a little bit like Stitch. It is Stitch, you guys are involved. It's somewhat thoughtful because the idea is transportation is not just one thing. It's walking, it's biking, it's transit, it's Uber or what have you. So can we stitch all these options together to make sure people have choices? But can we do it in a way that doesn't use fossil fuel? And this is sort of a restructured existing organization that was called Honolulu Clean Cities. Now it's statewide and the idea is just to really address our transportation challenge and getting all the pieces to work together. We think this is important, not just for solving transportation, but actually for solving our entire energy challenge. And this is where it gets kind of exciting. As we add electric vehicles to our power system, for example, we're adding batteries that are on wheels and we need a lot of battery storage on our utility grid. So can we kind of fix both problems at once? And these electric vehicles, we can charge them at different times of the day to absorb some of that extra solar in the middle of the day and possibly even push it back in the evening when we need more of it. You can turn the charging on and off pretty quickly. So if you have a cloud that comes over solar, for example, it just gives you more tools to be able to balance the load and the supply in the grid. So it's easier to solve these two problems at once than just alone. So that's why it's exciting. But it's not just electric vehicles, it could be hydrogen as well, hydrogen developed from, you know, you name it, any renewable resource. How's the electric vehicle program going in Hawaii and what's next for EVs in Hawaii? This is a place I think we're going to see incredible growth. We hit the 5,000th electric vehicle in December last year, last month. And it's curving upwards, even with the lower gasoline prices. Still is increasing. Still people are, yeah. And I think it's a number of reasons. People, anyone who's gotten behind the wheel of an EV knows what it's like. It's fun to drive. It's fun to drive. I have a little Nissan Leaf myself over here in Oahu. There you go. I love driving past the gas stations. I'm thinking I'm never going to stop there. And then you charge to the capital. And the only thing you need to replace is the windshield wiper blades, right? So I mean, there's a number of benefits. I had to put air in the tire once, that's it. So technically I stopped there once. And so as more people experience it and then the more models that come out, Chevy has one that's coming out this year. Perfect for the big island because you're looking at over 200 mile range. So we do need to do more to support electric vehicle infrastructure as it grows. And that's going to be charging stations. It's going to be ensuring that there's parking. But we're really hitting that inflection of people adopting electric vehicles. Well, if I know on the big island, I'm part of the EV club. And we're pushing to complete a network of charging stations so that so that one can drive around the island with confidence of getting back because, you know, the distance is just such that Nissan Leaf, for example, couldn't reliably go across. I think we'll get there because the new the new models coming out to have new models extended range. And plus we're getting a lot of those charging stations put in. Our electric company has been a very much a partner in making this happen. As you might expect, there's so much electricity, but they've really been part of the solution. I'm very excited about electric vehicles in particular. And at that point, the other thing that I think is really important for electric vehicles and to really capture this value of pairing it with a renewable grid is workplace charging. You know, so many folks go to work, they plug their car in and it sits during the middle of the day when we have this abundance of sunshine and energy. And I see if we can start to get more workplace charging, we can really take advantage of that benefit. Is there a push to do that? Is there any kind of not a scope and scale that we need to make it happen? Workplace charging. Okay, great. Tell me, what is a clean, what's a clean filet and what's a mode shift project? If I'm saying those right. A mode shift, easy one to address. Okay. There if you're, you know, you typically drive your car to work. Can we get folks on a bike or on transit or rideshare or some other program just shifting the mode? Okay. And that's, you know, you look around Europe and other places. I was in Vancouver recently, they've done a really good job with that. I think it's a convenience and providing the choices. You have a myriad choices. You don't have to jump in your car and if we can give people those choices and then use some social pressure too. I think the more people see people on bikes or see people walking or using ridesharing services, the more we'll get. Do you think the Department of Transportation has a role to play in establishing bike lanes and making that the more acceptable on the roadway or is it more of a private effort? I think it's going to be mixed. I mean, yeah, we're going to see, I think, some encouragement from the public sector, but you see how fast the private sector can move. I mean, Uber and Lyft and those services, I mean, if given a path, they jump in. I'm guessing this is clean fuels, which gets to the biofuel question. Biofuels, which is important for transportation. And it's been a success story, certainly over in Hawaii Island with a Pacific biodiesel's facility. It's something that I've been driving on for a decade is biodiesel. And that's predominantly made out of waste, fats and greases from restaurants, but we can grow it here as well. And I think we'll see more of that as they've experimented with different crops that they can grow. In fact, the gas company is looking at some different crops that they can grow to make natural gas, truly natural gas, not out of fossil fuel, but out of locally grown. And so a measure that passed last year provides a production fuel tax credit for folks that can actually deliver locally grown fuels. That would apply to that. I know there's a program in my neighborhood, there's a fellow is trying to get an oil palm project off the ground and Pacific biodiesel has expressed a lot of interest in it. And I think we have had a pilot program, but he's trying to ramp it up to a commercial scale. Do you think, I mean, a lot of, I hear sometimes I hear electric vehicles versus biofuels versus hydrogen vehicles in the future. Are they all going to play a role, do you think? Is it too soon to know what it's going to look like? Definitely too soon. Or maybe there's option four that we have no idea. It could be a Mr. Fusion or a flux capacitor or something. But I think one will dominate. Right now it looks like electric vehicles because of all the work in batteries and how it pairs so well with a grid. I mean, everyone has an outlet at home, they can plug in and use it. We don't have that hydrogen infrastructure yet. But hydrogen could be pretty amazing because hydrogen's unlike, well, different than electricity. It's not as perishable. I mean, electricity you have to use instantly or put in a battery. Hydrogen you can put in those tanks that you see, just like that we store and we can store it for months, years. And you can fill up a car pretty quickly, if you had a question. And fill up a car. And that new Marai that Toyota is selling, it has a five kilo tank of hydrogen, which probably doesn't mean much. What it translates to is about 150 kilowatt hours of electricity. And you think a typical home in Hawaii uses about 20 kilowatt hours in a day. So potentially you have a car in your garage that can fuel your home for seven days. That changes everything, right? If you can fill up your car. And then if you need to, you have solar on your roof, maybe batteries. But then you have your backup in your garage that you can power your home on. Who knows what that's going to look like. But we see some of the bigger players starting to look at this. JTB, Hawaii, they were looking at some of their buses if they can repurpose them to electric or hydrogen. I think they're looking at electric now. Electric buses. Which would be great because if you've experienced some of the trolleys and the buses through Honolulu and Waikiki, probably over on your side too, they're loud, diesel, polluting. The ones here are open and everyone inside is exposed to that. You might imagine a silent, quiet, clean bus. And it would project the right image too. So we talked about biofuels a little bit. You have a bill that you've submitted relating to a vegetable energy production. Can you tell me about that? I think this may be a bill that you introduced. And it's related to that measure last year providing a production tax credit for renewable fuels. But we think it's important because we're right at that cusp of this being profitable and that's the proper role I think for tax credits is to provide a boost to get them more mainstream. In that regard, you mentioned the tax credits for renewable fuel production. Now there's also, did we pass tax credits for energy storage or is that something we're still logging over? Discussing, yeah. There is some measures at the legislature now looking at a standalone credit for energy storage. So last year we tried but failed. Failed, that's right, yeah. Folks can take advantage of a system credit. So if you do have a battery that's in combination with a solar system, the current credit applies for that. I see. So that would include self-supply type standalone house. Right. But I think we're getting to a point where we want to encourage people to get battery storage just because it's the right thing to do for the grid. Even if they're connected, yeah. So tell me if someone wants to get involved with Blue Planet Foundation or learn more about the projects you're doing, where can they find you? You can find us online at BluePlanetFoundation.org. Is there such a thing as membership? Can they sign up to be a member? It's not that kind of organization. We're not a member organization but we have a lot of friends. Friends, okay. Blue Planet tiers, folks that volunteer participate in other ways. Blue Planet tiers, okay. And that's, you know, we have everything from a student energy summit where there are a lot of volunteers that want to do more education stuff to policy sorts of things. So excuse me, Jeff, I have to interrupt you because we've run out of time. I'm here with Jeff McElina of the Blue Planet Foundation here on the Ruderman Roundtable. We hope you'll join us again. Mahalo.


All the things I want to learn. I learned some meta stuff about it.  And I will find that out later. So the thing I noticed in the very beginning was when they find all the birds because the birds happen first and then they were the only animals because then it was just people. All the bird statues are birds in flight. So it was something that happened in the industry. No, no, no, no, no. The guy, when he's trying to do it he's like, he's like, why does he's like there must be a scientific reason. Why does it only affect humans and swallows? Oh, swallow. I didn't get that far. Yeah. He's like, why is it only human? They address it.  He's science guy, right? He was just like, why is it only human than swallows? There must be something in common.  He did the Kellis thing of counting seconds for 3,000 years. There must be something in common with humans and swallows, right? All right. I'll start this up with Dr. Stowe. He's like theories. Was it aliens? You know what my theory is? Was it an evil science? My theory is it's wind of amnesia. And he's like, is it even bad or is it good? It's the, it's Dr. Stowe.  Maybe it was a good thing someone did. They were trying to help all the people. Protect everyone from some cosmic event. I don't know. All right. It's Wednesday, August 21st, 2019. I'm rim. I'm Scott. And this is Geek Nights Tonight. The new anime that is still ongoing, Dr. Stowe. I can open a bit. So I was feeling for a little bling on Monday and got kind of like a low key cold, like not quite even sick level, just like low key eh.   And then I'm in the living room and I stepped in some water. Okay. Water in the house again. Water in the house. Water in the ceiling. We got to go back. Not in the ceiling this time. So water by the TV. Uh-oh. That's a dangerous place where there'd be water. The rug is wet. So I'm like, I didn't spill anything. And then I look and I poke around and basically the radiator had just broken. You mean the PTAC unit? Yeah. The HVAC unit. The PTAC. That has a radiator in it. It's just a radiator in there. Yeah. Basically it looks like what happened is the thing that takes condensed water out of it had clogged somewhere and it had completely filled with water. So the water that should have been leaking out the side of the building to be mystery water on someone's head was slowly filling the reservoir in the apartment. Was filling in your house. And it looks like it had been doing this for a while and it eventually, because it was so humid, only like recently, as humid consistently long enough that it actually filled that reservoir entirely and then just started leaking everywhere. Luckily, because that's a very self-contained thing, they just came in and like completely fixed it and like replaced a bunch of parts and now I'm good to go. So it wasn't like the sealing leakage. It actually was resolved quickly and did not actually cause any damage. I just had to leave the rug out to like dry before I put everything back. And it was an opportunity to dust behind the TV. I haven't dusted under there in like four or five years. Uh-oh. All right. So you got any news on this Wednesday? Uh, I mean, it's not exactly any animation or comic news, but I guess it's close enough. So the Hugo Awards happened, right? And it seems that, you know, don't they happen? Are those the ones that happened at Worldcon? Uh, yes. Worldcon in Dublin this time. Dublin this time. Okay. So, you know, there was some drama in the past about... Well, there's always some drama at Worldcon. Most drama-ish con on earth. Second, most drama-ish non-anime con on earth. Anyway, you know, there was always drama involving Hugo Awards, but it seems that the, in terms of Hugo Awards, that the good side has managed to win out. And this time, they have won even more than in the past. The Hugo Award for what? Best Related Work, I believe? Yep. Best Related Work has been given to, awarded to Archive of Our Own, which is also known as AO3. So if you don't know, Archive of Our Own is basically the number one premier central, like hub of fan fiction ever, right? It's like all the fan, it's like the fan fiction community above all others. You know, it's like, you know, if it was 1996, this would be the GeoCities of fan fiction. Yep. And it does have all of the drama you might expect. Oh, yeah. But, you know, even despite whatever you may, you know, think about fan fictions, right?  Yep. Someone who's like job it is to write, say, Spider-Man comics. They're just writing fan fiction for a living, basically. They didn't invent Spider-Man. They're not, you know, Stanley died, right? No, although they're writing all Spider-Man, every Marvel movie. But they're writing canonical fiction. Sure. Every Marvel movie that you have seen is basically fan fiction, right? It's just great. No, no, no. It is just granted this like, this magic wand. It is entirely possible that some of the works you have just talked about were made by people who are not, in fact, fans of the subject matter. Oh, that's also true. So they might not be fan fiction. But also that, you know, regardless of the legitimacy of fan fiction, which it is super legitimate, although not all of it may be high quality, the number of, quote, real, right? Because everyone who writes is a real writer.  And with the Hugo Awards, what happened is after they gave the award, you know, to Archive of Our Own, right?    I mean, we've always made fun of things like Sailor Moon saves the furries and that kind of fan fiction stuff. But I think fan fiction people also do, right? But at the end of the day, you're writing stories, right? Just because your characters might be characters that someone else thought of and you modified, or kept the same, or added to, or, you know, you're... Well, I mean, what do we always say? Even if you make some, you know, to be honest, some hot garbage, at least you made something. Yeah, anyone who made even the crappiest fan fiction made more than someone who sat around making nothing and just playing games and reading and watching. Yup. Also, I get the impression that a lot of the drama in the fan fiction community is mostly people who don't actually write much fan fiction, beefing with people who do write fan fiction, because they want the fiction to go differently and they don't want to write it themselves. Who knows? So in some other news, you may have seen all this Spider-Man stuff, and I don't want to talk about it too much because I don't really care that much, but basically Disney and Sony, some of the few remaining entertainment companies... Right, so if you don't know, briefly, right? There's all the Marvel characters you know, right? Almost all of them belong to Marvel, slash Disney, because that's where they started and no one else ever really bought them away, right? However, Fox was making X-Men movies. They had those rights. And they kept making them. And as long as they kept cranking out X-Men movies, which I like none of... Do I like any X-Men movie? Do I like any X-Men anything other than the original? Well, not the original. The cartoon, the Fox cartoon. There are X-Men things I like. I like a few of the story arcs in the comics. I like individual characters. Anyway, the point is that that was Fox, but Fox is now Disney. Yup. So that has been rejoinered, right? But someone slipped into the cracks. There was Fantastic Four.  And then Spider-Man. Spider-Man was hanging at Sony, but they reached some sort of agreement at some point that I don't know the details of that allowed Spider-Man to appear. And I actually saw... Was it on a plane or was it on TV? When I happened to be near a TV, I saw, I don't know what it was. It must have been like the end of a Marvel movie.  And it was like Iron Man. And then Peter Parker was there, and he was like a really young, he was like teenage Peter Parker version.  And Spider-Man was like, nah. Oh yeah, I saw that one in the theater. I saw that one scene. That's all I saw. So in a world where... So at some point they reached an agreement that allowed Spider-Man to be in the same movies. In a world where Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse doesn't exist, that might be the best Spider-Man movie? I don't know, I didn't see it. Anyway, I only saw that one scene. The point is that Sony obviously still under that agreement had the right to make other Spider-Man movies because they made, as you said, Spider-Man to the Spider-Verse. Which like I cannot express enough is the best Spider-Man movie ever made. Best? Maybe. It's one of the better movies ever made. No, not someone with the better movies ever made. Better superhero movies ever made. Oh, it's the best superhero movie ever made. I don't know about that. It depends on your definition. Depends on what counts as a superhero movie. Is that even a genre? Or is it just like, you know, any sci-fi movie where someone is powerful? It's like... Is a kung fu movie a superhero movie? Depends. Iron Monkey. Maybe Iron Monkey is. We're not going to talk about that right now. The point is, the news that everyone's yapping about is that there seems to be some breakup of this agreement and Spider-Man may have to exit Marvel movies.  Here's a good, here's a pretty good take on this. So basically, Disney is now a monopoly on pop culture and needs to be broken up. Like, full stop. That is also true for several other companies that need to be broken up. The Google, the Apple, the Amazon, most of all. No, no, no, but here's the thing. The CBS is merging with Viacom. That should be stopped. Yeah, but forget about that. We're talking about Disney right now. Disney is on the list. No, no, but here's the thing. It's a long list. Disney, in particular, has a lot of just general goodwill among regular people and I believe the company is deeply taking advantage of that to pit Disney fans against the remaining holdouts to the Disney Empire. I feel like Disney is relying on the fact that their fans will defend their monopoly because they're more excited about Star Wars potentially being able to cross over with Disney's shed and all these like fan stuff they want. They care about that way more than they care about a healthy entertainment ecosystem with competition. So I think Disney is kind of actively weaponizing Disney fans. Well, it's crazy how, you know, the fans, right, it's like they really want things to happen. They'd be like, oh my God, Star Wars crossover with the thing. Oh my God, please make it happen.  And then boo, right? And then the next time around, they'll be like, woo. Right. And I basically, I basically never fall for that. I'm always like, right. It's like, I think I remember a time where someone was like, hey, Scott, you like Mega Man. You like board games. They're making a Mega Man board game. That game is guaranteed bad. And I said immediately, that's garbage.  Tell us garbage, right? Whereas I think most fans would be like, oh yeah, that logic would be correct for most fans. But yet just like yesterday, I found myself doing the normal fan thing where they're like, hey, we're making matrix four. And I'm like, all right. Yep. Yep. Just take me with your garbage second moving. Just pull it. Pull it. Pull it. But then you skip two numbers. You just reach my money. You just reach into your wallet. You slap down on the table. Like, damn it. Here we go again. So it's like, I'm vulnerable. But I think I'm just less vulnerable than the other fans. Frequently vulnerable to be fair. The matrix was a phenomenal movie. And I look forward to there being a sequel. Yes. We made the same joke like three times. That's under a minute. That's one of my most go-to jokes. The point is, you know, even being less vulnerable, I believe at least about myself, perhaps egotistically, you know, to this sort of phenomenon. And I think that, you know, I can still occasionally vulnerable so I can understand, you know, that feeling I have when I see Matrix 4 and I'm like, ah, you got me.  But the problem here is just that Disney is going to continue to get a huge amount of support and a huge number of people are going to pointedly ignore the real dangers of this monopoly to our pop culture and just to the entertainment industry as a whole because they want these crossover fan things to happen. And bringing it back to my first news, stick away from the big time industry arts and stay in the fan fiction fan zone in the indie arts and you won't have these issues. Particularly when it comes to tabletop RPGs. That's for sure. That's for a different time. This is Wednesday news. It's related to animation. But as you know, my little pony, which was a pretty phenomenal success, all things considered. It ended. It's like it's over. They're going to milk it forever. They'll probably do another series someday in the future.  The Pirate Bay. Yeah.  Yeah. We talked about that. Three to four seasons and maybe three. I've seen all but the last two seasons. I'll maybe one day go back and watch. So actually the plan is the show's ending. Yeah. The show's ending. But the property will live on. Who knows how long the comical gone. Yeah. Just like adventure time. Like adventure time is not going to disappear. Adventure time is a cornerstone of like animation. Which reminds me that I was listening to guaranteed audio review. They are podcasts that almost never has an episode. Talk about. They talked about they talked about the recently Netflix released Rocco's modern life movie. Oh, I was. We should do it the next Wednesday show on that. Invaders in movie. Yeah. They talked about how invaders in was on Nickelodeon for like as long as a fart. Yeah. And meanwhile they've been selling merch for the thing for like 20 years. That's it.  Because you only needed like two and then it's you just get enough to have people interested in the property and then you can just you just sell merch forever. You don't need to actually make.  But speaking of fan stuff. So the fans of my little pony had made Brony con. Brony cons been around as long as the show's been around pretty much 2011. Hundred people attended. Supposedly the most recent one had ten thousand attendees but the not the site all the citations of that are not like they're gone. I don't necessarily trust it but Brony con is also ending. And apparently sense. Yeah. It's funny because when's the last one going to be. It already happened. The previous one was the last one. So it is already done. So what's funny is at the last one they basically announced the dates for the next two Brony cons. Oh and then they change their mind right after that they're like oh yeah Brony has got gone. Big mistake. All right. Two times ago. So they so people knew that the one that was coming up that just happened was the last one. And part of the reason it had been canceled was that starting in 2015 attendance declined at a steady rate. Partly because it moved like it moved to Baltimore. And then it because it was too big to fit anywhere else. And then it moved dates. Baltimore was desperate to get any convention after Otacon left. There's a lot going on. I have a convention in Baltimore to make sure that the convention center is really cheap. And I'll go right in there. Yeah. You got to lower the price a lot. I don't know how much construction happened because that convention center had some structural issues. I don't know what this I actually do not know what this is. I mean it has its issues but it's still enormous space. And it's not big enough for our convention. We can use one room. Yeah. But also one of those rooms were good. This was a this is a moderately unpopular opinion. But when PAX first announced there's going to be a PAX East. I would. The Baltimore convention center was pretty good. They put it and they put it in Boston. I remember being pissed about it. I'm still pissed about it. But now the VCC is pretty good. But back then it had a lot more problems. But the Baltimore first PAX East was in the Heinz. Yeah. Which was awful. But the Baltimore convention center for all of its like problems of age the physical space is literally one of the best possible spaces for a nerd convention. Just the way it was laid out like no other convention centers like that. And it's kind of a shame. But anyway. You know the con left that building a long ago already. So Brony con was declining attendance rapidly because as popular as my little pony was it is really hard to dedicate a fan convention of size to not just one genre not just one thing. Yeah. One IP. Right. Usually there are conventions like say Botcon I'm pretty sure is still going. I haven't heard that it died just about transformers. But it's not a big convention. It's kind of you know medium smallish is not a big thing. And Star Wars celebration. Well it's just Star Wars. There's a lot of Star Wars. Doesn't that only happen every two years. And isn't it also like run by Disney. Like it's official. Yeah. It's like super official. Yeah. So basically what happened is this con was just declining in attendance. And rather than downscaling they were just going to shut it down. But because people knew it was the last one. I think the last one was the highest attended one ever. Oh. OK. Which they should say this is the last packs. And everyone goes up. And then just kidding except packs already sells out. Yeah. And last news. Well I can see that phenomena actually is happening. This year is the 30th. And it's right the week after packs. This year is the 30th and final New York City century. Which is not the greatest bike ride in the universe. Yep. But it was the last one.  So I think people are going to come out and droves. I intend to be able to go to the last packs. You have to survive. Yeah. I. So actually here's an over under. Will we outlive packs or packs outlive us. Well I think it's more of a question of the problem. We outlive. We outlive Mike and Jerry and well packs well Penny Arcade Corporation under or outlive them. You know five or six years ago just based on their. I would have assumed we would outlive them but they're both a lot more fit than they used to be. And no one is. No there is nobody who can there is no more Robert Koo to keep Mike from getting a motorcycle. That is true. Why does he not realize he can just buy a motorcycle. Don't tell him. No nobody nobody tell Mike Krulik that he can buy a motorcycle. Good God. That would be the last or do do. The point is right the Penny Arcade Company the convention culture in general those two jerks us two jerks right it's like which of these things will die first race against none of them none of them are immortal. Nothing lasts forever but packs as a convention has done a good job of trying to make a structure that will outlive the people that created it. Anime cons in particular has yet to be tested. Oh yeah but that is like having a backup plan and you've never done a restore yep but they're trying. Most fan cons don't even I got a backup taste. Have you looked at him. No but most fan cons are like backup tapes. Our con chair has been the con chair for 40 years he will live forever. Why do we need to teach anyone else how to do this job. But Brony con and that kind of con I've we have like pointedly as geek nights like a lot of these single issue cons try to get us to appear. I just cannot make that specific amount of content but more to the point when it comes to fan stuff I see this happen a lot when a particular fandom gets very big a huge ecosystem of fan podcast and fan video analysis things appear but too many of the people who make those sorts of things get way too invested in that thing growing forever and I see them like every time this kind of thing happens you see like a whole swath of podcasters like not know what to do with themselves and aren't able to like make a show about something else. Well I mean even we have geek nights where we have so much things that we can podcast about with our wide variety and four shows we run out of ideas. I remember in the earliest days of podcasting I wouldn't listen to them because I didn't care about Harry Potter but I saw a lot of Harry Potter podcast in the mid 2000s and all of them quote unquote pod faded because they ran out of fucking material. It's like even if there's another book that was before all the books are out but it's like yeah how many podcasts are you going to make between books.  How many Harry Potter news is there per week per month. We need to make one podcast per book. It's like you'll wait a year for another episode of your podcast. Like I wonder if there's still firefly was the biggest one for that firefly fancraft was coming out. I wonder. OK. I think the last I don't think there are any more firefly podcast. Right. You could do a My Little Pony podcast and you could you know there are still one season of episodes left right. Yep. You can talk about those. You can talk about you know there have been different other you can talk about some merch stuff. There was a card game that came out at one point. But you turn into just the comics come out every month pretty consistently turn into what all those firefly things turn into which were literally just scraping the bottom of the barrel of any news like I heard that Nathan Filion like had lunch in LA Thursday for something like My Little Pony there is stuff that comes out right. I mean I guess the best you could do is do a. I mean look we have even finished Geeknice presents Utena. So we were doing the other thing that you can do in that situation is you can resort to reporting on the meta. Right. So that's what all the firefly podcast turned into and they just turned into like the community meta like so it's like oh you know check out someone made this awesome rarity cosplay check this out someone made this awesome Applejack Quill. So you know it's funny so and so is having a meet up in this town. I looked at photos of the last Brony con the far majority of the cosplay I saw was just random anime con crap nothing to do with my little pony. So yeah I guess I haven't seen the too much pony cosplay at other cons that I go to they do have cosplay even though I used to see a bunch. I see the most still at Megfest but mostly in like the people who are going to like the not because really have raised but I see it a lot in the concert areas and I don't see it a lot in the rest of the con. That's where there's a lot of room. Yeah. So last many I feel like the anime community just sort of forgot this but it was sort of an open secret a long time ago that Neil Gaiman basically penned the English adaptation of Princess Mononoke. See I didn't even know I didn't know you didn't know that I mean those you know manga I feel like we've talked about this on Geek Nights. I know you know translations and people don't realize this do have writers right you know it's usually the translator does sort of like you know just turning it into like what is the meaning and then the writer will sort of edit slash rewrite it and say okay that means that let me rewrite that sentence in a better way right and that's what the writer's job is when you're doing an adaptation yeah like that right you know yeah but anyway so you know I knew that somebody did this for pretty much any anime movie ever that's been translated right but you never think a famous person would have that job but like I mean people like name name the English writer of like any manga or other anime like yeah I guess someone someone did it for Naruto who the hell did it but like I feel like there was a person when anime nerds just knew it was one of those things people would talk about like I did not know this okay interesting so I feel like everyone forgot because the news of this broke again recently and I saw a whole bunch of people losing a shit about it which is really funny but I didn't know about it before but why would I lose my shit about it so but there is some interesting stuff because one thing that I never knew because this is one of those things like before the internet was like kind of what it is today you could it was often hard to research these kinds of things to find out the full story there's a lot of like tribal knowledge in the anime community that like no one can go research so Neil Gaiman started talking about it like now and revealed some things I didn't know so whatever so now I'm yeah on Twitter now we know why this wasn't quote open secret and like why it was seen as this like sort of secret knowledge I'm just gonna I mean I did know that when Disney was adapt did have the license and was adapting the Ghibli movies for the U.S. that pretty much for every job involved they were hiring like top tier famous people all the voice actors they got for those things super famous people not the regular anime voice actor and it's right it showed because those dubs they had their problems but they were light years beyond right in the best like traditional anime dub in the U.S. all those Ghibli that Disney had adapted as you know not that G kids do a bad job they do a great job yeah but Disney when they did it they hired the famous just famous people because remember back like Disney did this through Miramax they didn't do it directly no but it's Disney so I'm just going to read Neil Gaiman's tweet because it's actually fascinating now we know why this was seen as like a weird secret quote my biggest secret the biggest secret wow studio Ghibli asked for some of that about his biggest secret isn't something that happened at Fengoku it's like yeah I met these two jerks in this guy named Steve studio Ghibli asked for some of the Miramax I'll never forget the guy who fell asleep while I was telling my story how rude how rude studio Ghibli asked for some of the Miramax execs to be removed from the poster and credits okay the execs he's not an exec he was in this purpose here's the thing the execs looked at all the names determined that theirs would remain and realize that mine was contractually expendable so basically the Ghibli wanted to reduce the number of English names and put more Ghibli names on like the posters and in the front credits and all that stuff so the executives were like I'm not taking my fucking name off of this and they basically removed all the names of people who did not have contracts that specifically gave them the rights to be in the credits and Neil Gaiman was one of those people they just took his name fucking off of it like they took it off of everything they could okay that's it that's the story they couldn't fit another name on there is none of room no they were the Ghibli executives wanted fewer American names like that's just something they wanted okay why didn't they just say no American names if I was studio Ghibli I'd be like you can't put your fucking name on that we made it you're just adapting it and putting it out there in English you don't get to put any fucking names on it as well yeah this was part of the negotiations yeah well so there's a further thing here that is crazy oh okay that doesn't see because that part just is normal Hollywood bullshit Neil Gaiman also confirmed that he received the opportunity upon recommendation from Quentin Tarantino apparently why was he even why was Quentin Tarantino have anything to do with it so the rumor was Miramax went to Quentin Tarantino okay who said what no go to Neil Gaiman okay so Adam Turney asked Neil Gaiman is it true that they first asked Quentin Tarantino who then suggested you instead and Neil Gaiman official twitter account said yes okay so they went to Quentin Tarantino who said why would he why would he what I get the impression that Quentin Tarantino's reaction to this was about the same as yours like I mean somehow this became news and it became fascinating news so but anyway it is time for Sam's people don't know about a thing get put in charge of a thing it's like when that kid asked us for autographs on his burning wheel books instead of Luke who was standing right there right so things of the day this is a Japanese YouTube channel and basically it is a professional pianist performing in her house it looks like Chopin's a to like one of Chopin's works you'll know like a good Chopin yeah you'll know which one it is it's the one that everyone knows alright you'll hear it you'll be like oh that song okay so what's special about this thing of the day then so the video doesn't start with the pianist it starts in her house and there's another there's someone else in the house and this person they're going around doing stuff and they're slowly moving toward the room where the practice session is happening and they interfere with the practice okay and this happens several times because this is in fact a video of the cat one of her two cats getting bored and apparently is pissed that she is practicing the piano instead of playing with him and slowly goes into the room waits for his moment jumps up on the piano and messes up the performance over and over and over again this is normal cat shit yup it's really really really cute okay that's my thing of the day alright so if you've ever seen anyone play drums there's a very important thing next to drums almost always that people maybe who aren't musicians don't pay enough attention to and those are symbols usually think about symbols you think about like a marching band with a guy banging two cymbals together like pshhh yup so what I can say is when we were in marching band in high school the cymbals that the band would carry those cost more than any other instrument the school and except for a handful of silver french horns sure but also you know symbols are like one of the most important instruments there are that I guess don't get enough credit like even like you know that's part that's part is symbols well percussion in general if you're not a musician it often blends into the background you don't realize how important it is think about well I think it's just that like if someone's playing guitar you go ah guitar if someone's playing bass you're like wicked bass solo right but it's like if someone plays a drum solo you go ah drum solo even though there's plenty of pshhh and all kinds of ehh in there well depending on the drum set there could be like 14 different instruments that that one person is playing right and but no one does a cymbal solo right so it's not well it's hard to do a cymbal solo you could do pretty good stuff anyway well and a lot of cymbals aren't even called cymbals like if someone's got a hi-hat that's fucking cymbals but you know what I'm saying you don't call it cymbals like a hi-hat or anyway I feel like Buddy Rook has done some cymbal solos you could even argue that like a gong is a somehow a cymbal cousin or something well gongs are gongs are actually hard to play regardless if you've ever now that you're thinking about cymbals more than you have in the past 10 years more than you've ever thought about cymbals right you might think common sense every cymbal you've ever seen almost almost every cymbal you've ever seen says ziljin on it yep right it's super rare to see a cymbal that does not say ziljin on it it's safe in it otherwise right it's like there's one other company that you may have seen maybe and it maybe looked like a knockoff cymbal maybe people who really do know about drums are like wait a minute there's more I know them yeah but 90% of the cymbals you've seen say ziljin on it I've seen three kinds the two we just talked about or unlabeled garbage cymbals so my thing of the day is a video from the ziljin cymbal factory that shows the 100% entire process of making a cymbal out of a lump of fucking metal all the way to a playable cymbal with ziljin printed on it it is an incredible video that is amazing how they mass produce them the highlight of the video is the guy whose job it is as his only job cymbal tester that is a fuck he's had the job for decades there's one dude that is a fucking amazing I want to get this guy on that show each of these two things is more expensive that's the dude, that's the cymbal testing dude that's the guy also after you watch the cymbal testing video go and read the wikipedia page about ziljin cymbals the company it is fascinating it is one of the oldest companies there is they do make an absurdly large percentage of the world cymbal supply and the history is somewhat similar to the history of adidas adidasler who made shoes and then his brother went and made puma ziljin is a family and they chose one person at one point among the generations of ziljins it says who the current ones are they're still ziljins, still a family company but at one point in the history of what's it called what's the word for that what the dynasty at one generation someone was chosen to take over to be the ziljin guy and the one who wasn't chosen went off and made a different cymbal company which is something else I was watching that winter garden guy was making the crazy marble machine x he recently chose the cymbals for the new machine he has very similar opinions he got a bunch of non-name brand cymbals they were all shit but yeah awesome to see how I remember on sesame street back in the day there was a video they would always show saxophones being made I have kid memories of that one and it was fascinating seeing get bent it was really fun but this is equally good and they don't hide nothing you could probably copy that factory from this video they're not hiding nothing they're so confident that you cannot beat them at the cymbal game they're like yeah here we'll show you everything like watching watching one of the best hockey players on earth play it's not like they have to hide their techniques so someone doesn't steal it one of the most fun parts of the video also is they're making the cymbal they're flattening out this big piece of metal making it a perfect circle putting a lump in the middle poking the hole in it and all this stuff right and then at the whole time it looks like it's all filthy and disgusting it's like when are they going to polish it and then only like very close to the end they don't polish it they throw it on the lathe and the dude laves it by hand how many cymbals does the dude lave that's dangerous as fuck holy shit he does it really fast watch this video I mean one of the comments on the youtube video is part 2 is hildjens cymbals retail I mean when I tell them that my kit is worth $10,000 and it's only $1,000 if I didn't own cymbals right you look at like a few hundred dollars per cymbal and in this video there's like thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars just floating on buys because they're like cymbal cymbal cymbal cymbal but I guess each one was laved by hand that's what you're paying for and tested by hand that's what you're paying for because a cheap cymbal sounds bad like garbage go take a piece of metal and take a hammer and maybe a forge and try to make it sound like any fucking thing try to even make like a castanet good fucking luck if you can't afford a real cymbal if you can't afford a real cymbal not even a whole tambourine just one part of the tambourine you're better off just using a drum machine good luck yeah you know what's in the drum machine recording the sildjens cymbals yup in the middle of the moment the Geeknites book club book is the tale of genji I actually started reading tale of genji I read the introduction and I'm in the beginning of the first chapter of a very long book so it's still going to be a while I got to fly to Seattle soon and then I got to fly to London by way of you'll read maybe the introduction and a few chapters yup I will read the introduction because usually that gives us a lot of insight the introduction gives a lot of info whenever you're reading these translated slash old books like when you read the odyssey so here again is another translated old book and therefore you need to read the introduction to get all the historical meta info and translation meta info from the translate tool real soon we will be at PAX West 2019 the true PAX we will be there doing a panel on Friday morning well Friday afternoon technically and on Saturday morning and the rest of the time we're going to be in the tabletop area playing games you should go to PAX and then we'll go to every other part of PAX once each probably at least yup because PAX has some nonsense actors now I feel like at this point magfest is the only kind we go to that doesn't have like ridiculous fake security yup it's the only one yup alright let's get into it so one of the anime we needed a Wednesday show I said what anime do we watch the kids are all watching Dr. Stone I went and I looked on Crunchyroll I looked at what we judged Dr. Stone was near the top let's watch that it sounded like the premise had possibilities everyone on earth gets turned to one that's all I knew so I watched enough episodes I watched I watched three episodes and I said alright how usually we watch four but I kind of want to learn exactly this much stuff before I talk about it and I learned exactly that much stuff I think in episode six and I think seven episodes were out but I decided not to watch anymore ever and I'll just read spoilers when the show is done yup that's my similar that's how I handled Attack on Titan after the first two seasons I was like you know what I'm going to read the spoilers to find out what the secret of space is I know the secret of space do not watch anymore of that show I don't know if you even want to know what the secret of space is but I do want to know what the secret of space is in Dr. Stone so here's the deal there's a high school kid he's in typical Japan high school he obviously most of the other people in high school are non characters because they don't look cool yup he looks cool it's weird though the character design of these two main characters are like a cross between Yu-Gi-Oh! and Jojo's bizarre adventure yeah they're pretty extreme characters like crazy hair but the main guy the dumb guy the real main guy who isn't the doctor yup he is the guy's not a doctor either the stone is the doctor the soap is the doctor well there's another doctor the stone itself is anyway yeah but there's it's weird because when I saw his face he looked weird and I realize that he is a weird amalgamation of the most generic possible anime high school protagonist crossed with basically the golden boy face kinda like he makes the golden boy face a lot like to the point that I think it's based on the art style of the manga creator yup as soon as he frowned I was like it's just the golden boy holy crap golden boy and then they briefly introduce because he stops in the science lab for like two seconds this clearly other main character who is like science guy who's a genius and then they introduce the girl the main guy is into is obviously also a main character so in terms of do this in about a minute yes here's the thing I'll break in here as we describe this shot this was the first make or break moment for what I was going to say about the show because my worry was there's like five episodes of build up to all the crap and introduce all the people nope one minute the and then as soon as he's going to confess his love to this girl outside by the tree the girl you just saw for the first time who he's been talking about for the past maybe minute the whole entire earth everyone every human being on earth some mysterious green wave it comes turns everyone to stone yep but but then it's just him he's still conscious and he's just like I can't pass out what if I die and for three thousand seven hundred years he's just laying there just trying to stay conscious right he really really really really wants to somehow stay conscious get out of this rock that he's been the people clearly have not been turned to stone like Medusa turns people to stone he there he's like alive inside a stone shell which is already terrifying now which is also it makes no sense because that would be worse than solitary confinement you would just go insane very quickly in a real world the this doctor kid probably would have woken up fine and everyone else would have woken up insane doctor kid would also know because the doctor kid with his second counting not that any of you listening to Wednesday he nights have read the prince of nothing but that's some killish shit right there kind of but I still don't anyway the point is very unrealistic it's an anime so the one guy concentrates on the girl that he wants to confess to the other guy just counts three four or five thousand years the other guy literally counts every single second while simultaneously having thoughts in the other half of his brain say about about the situation whatever and he's science guy and basically yeah they wake up thousands of years later and no one else is awake so my second point when they wake up you've got brains guy and bronze guy teaming up to rebuild civilization from scratch and I'll point out up to this point not only is it moving fast and but it's also pretty funny like right away the science guy is like hey I made you a love potion I'm the science guy and he's like I would never use such a thing and he pours it out and then the kids like good thing he poured it out that was just fucking gasoline yeah I didn't make a love potion he's like I was like I was a hundred percent sure he wouldn't take it yeah anyway he does that a lot where he does the I'm X percent sure yep and it's actually like he's a pretty funny character like it's a little bit of C3PO it is but yeah so this anime I see it as a combination of aspects of other anime so the the comedy aspect right that's sort of the wackiness there that you see right really reminds me of you know not of like a chromarty which is sort of like the you know it's it's just like you know it's just sort of like these the you know the extreme not sd art wise black extreme reactions like you know someone says something and someone's like holy shit oh my god it's like the shonen equivalent of like the sd stuff that happens in like for she right all the characters reactions to things like our our extreme and like when they're emotional it's like you know they cry and like a river of tears come out right you know that kind of thing yep so this was the next point now they don't then the set the other anime I think it's a combination of right it isn't it's not even anime it's a little manga is it has the sort of storytelling structure of delicious in dungeon where it's like you're there you know this is this this plot that's happening right you know oh the world is turned to stone what do we do we're trying to accomplish this trying right but they pause and explain science things the same way the delicious in dungeon pauses and explains you know recipes of monsters the same way that any of those you know I guess mushi she pauses and explains a mushi the made up nonsense of mushi she right but and it's pretty accurate to the point that the show has all these warnings at the end like kids don't fucking eat mushrooms in the wild right the other thing it combines with I think is obviously attack on Titan with you know what is this the big secret of this world then obviously attack on Titan isn't the first one to do it but it does it in the you know attack on Titan way like Evangelion also has what is the secret of this world but it doesn't come across the same way this is overt ham fisted what is the secret of this world but in another point one thing that I do enjoy a lot about it is that like in western fandom people like especially fanboys really like the zombie apocalypse like okay basically all the people are gone you got a small amount of people and there's zombies everywhere what do you do like how do you but in this case how do you survive like the enemy is just like the conflict is science like alright we got to make food we got to make shelter we got to make fire we got to make agriculture that is the final anime that I think this is a combination of is that it is a combination of also the MMO anime how is this a combination of MMO anime where there's no video games involved well I'll tell you I hit that I may simply have replaced the MMO with a game like don't starve or even Minecraft you know any of these games the survival type games you start or you know one hour one life any of these games you start with nothing and you build up from the only things that you can gather from the environment and create full things by combining and combining and combining and it moves so fast there so it's it's always literally like a video game once they start picking mushrooms now they just have mushrooms all the time we never even look at that again it has that same structure of one of those games and it comes across the same way MMO is adapted to an anime you know say hack sign just as one of those a different game slightly different game genre adapted to anime slash manga right so take all those all those elements right the wacky comedy the pause aside to explain science you know the big secret of this world and the survival game and put them all together and that is Dr. Stone it's got a a susan's list of the north star in the sense that it's it's a post apocalyptic world but the action scenes when humans conflict with each other which I was wondering if that would even happen I was wondering if the show was literally just gonna be we science for 24 episodes but it does move quickly to its credit so far like they wake up another person like almost right away yeah they do not hesitate and also the girl right so the statue of the girl the guy finds it right he knows my warnings if the statue of the girl had been a statue for more than like 5 or 6 episodes right you assume that like oh waking up the girl is going to be like the last episode no he wakes her up in episode 3 or 4 or something like that like right away but they wake up muscle guy instead they have to wake up muscle guy because lions come so that's the fist of the north star because muscle guy basically immediately turns into a fist of the north star villain right well he's not really a villain he's a good he's good he's just got one bad he's got one bad good idea but he's dangerous and he's making the society of muscle men like right away like I'm stronger than all of you and you can't kill me he's like raw he's bad but he's not I said fist of the north star villain that's why I thought of raw but there are other villains like that yeah but he's not one of those like skeletary fist of the north star villains he's a conflicted villain but this is where the show gets a little he fucking punches a lion to death and then turns its skin into an outfit like instantly like he can just fight lions he is immune to crossbows this guy is all sciencey right the science guy and he tries to he's trying to figure out the mystery of you know why everyone turned to stone and how come only people in sparrows turn to stone it's like okay you know see everything's cool here everything's really legit science there's no bullshit going on why does nitric acid wake people up at least it's real science but the thing is it's like he doesn't question his own superpowers the superpowers of his best friend the superpower of the guy they wake up or the apparent lack of superpower so far that's obvious of the girl now that's what I don't know it's like a little bit of lord of the flies here right where each person trying to survive and each person is a specialty but they're all superpowered in that specialty beyond all reality except the girl who probably has a secret superpower and they're not questioning these superpowers and it seems they did have the superpowers pre everyone turning to stone yeah right it's like whoa so that's what I wonder because in shows like utena the weird superpower crap that happens that you might just write off his anime crap is literally the plot it is explained specifically but then in some other anime well it's also the plot in one punch man but then exactly why what is one punch man's deal that anyway but in other anime yeah this person just randomly has powers because it's an anime that's it there's no explanation that's the only thing that's like not they didn't even try to explain in any way my based on the like six the few episodes I saw because not even there aren't even that many episodes out yet there are going to be 24 episodes total a grand total of seven is that going to cover the whole thing which I assume is the manga doubtful because the manga is 13 volumes it started in 2017 it's already got 13 volumes it's ongoing okay so the manga is still going and there are 13 volumes of it all right but yeah so that's that explains what the show is the thing is I don't think I really want to watch more of the show interesting because it's so the characters are so two-dimensional they may be the most two-dimensional characters I've ever seen I was almost inclined to keep watching just because despite that it was moving so fast the plot moves at a very rapid pace they're already like trying to make gunpowder yep it's like they move it right fucking along but at the same time not waiting despite how fast is moving based on the opener alone there are a shit ton of characters well I mean you didn't if you watched two more episodes like I did yeah you'd have seen they meet someone who is not awoken by them there are other people who have already been awake when basically when they set up the gunpowder it makes smoke and then they see a smoke signal in the distance and like what other people oh my god so on one end I'm very happy to see a lot of the things you could normally get out of it like fantasy world isekai or out of a like uh zombie apocalypse type thing but instead it's more like kind of real well kind of real science space like it's a very different setting for this kind of story and I think it's just like yeah but but it's still in the end a shonen show yes the two dimensional characters to think of the number one thing that turns me off the rapid pace is good because you're not sit around doing nothing yeah as opposed to say like a titan which is like stop but you're rapidly plowing through a really flimsy kind of meh plot you're not rapidly plowing through a deep meaty plot that gives you a lot to think about it's not like a floney which is just like every episode is a two hour movie condensed to 23 minutes the thing is that I think stands out most about the show is it definitely feels like somebody created this for Japanese children which is all anime is created for Japanese children almost all of it right but and there's so much stuff that blatantly reeks of we are trying this show is trying to teach Japanese children how to be right it's like you know oh that guy who is only wants to give her to the old people he's bad look you can solve anything with science science is good oh you know I'm not amazed with your science I'm amazed with your hard work and how you you just patiently kept working until you got the job done you took your hours but you saved me you beat a lion to death with your own hands and the show reeks of like pausing constantly and they say things that really sound like things that like would be after like the more you know star or whatever but to their credit in a lot of shows that teach stuff they tend to like like Murashima had this problem a little bit they spend a lot of time talking about very little when they actually explain stuff in this show they explain pretty accurate things very quickly and then they move on like hey here's the chemical here's what it does 30 seconds later they're fighting oh did you know you can use seashells for you make sodium bicarbonate and you can use that for this you can use it for that you can it's like oh okay I'm curious where they're really going to go in the long run with gunpowder though because gunpowder is not hard to make you know it's hard to make a cannon yeah there's a reason why cannons are explosives are way easier to make than things to harness explosions right well the show is called Dr. Stone and the first time they mentioned Dr. Stone when he makes soap and he's like this is the only thing that will keep us alive it's like he's like he's like without society we have no medicine if we get sick we're fucked the soap is our Dr. Stone the soap is our Dr. Stone but I love it when shows say the name of the show in the show they say the name of the show again because as it turns out right when they're covered in stuff you'll notice all the characters of these cracks on their faces yeah that's because first you think it's just character design but they know it's because the stone was cracked when they were turned to stone and apparently when you get stoned that un-stoning like heals you in that part that you got un-stoned in so wait you know they're gonna re-stone someone at some point I don't know maybe but that's actually the girl they un-stone her and like her foot is still stoned and then they un-stone the foot and then like her foot is like healed like somehow when it like it hurt and then when they and then it got healed by the un-stoning so and they're like maybe this stone that everyone turned into is the Dr. Stone maybe what turned the world to stone wasn't malevolent but was benevolent so these are my working theories having seen a little bit of the show so they already have two meanings for Dr. Stone if you maybe count the third one and that the science guy he's not a doctor but it's like you know it's the stone age maybe you could call him you know because he's a smart science guy Dr. Stone maybe gotta see the stone doctor Dr. Stone anyway so my idea number one is this is a wind of amnesia situation if any of you have watched old anime aliens did this to see if humans are actually I don't know if you saw the scene where the science guy is thinking what are the possibilities number one aliens number two evil mad scientist number three like foreign government number four some sort of in environmental he's like going through the list of all the things that you would think of it could be an oryx and crake situation he's like he's like he's like could be a virus that did this to the to the humans and only if the virus only affected swallows humans or bacteria that would explain the light right but it's like he's trying to he comes up with all the explanations it's that you're thinking of two and he runs down them all yep he doesn't settle on he doesn't know yet he's still trying to figure it out but my real thinking is either it's a wind of amnesia situation of aliens like testing to see if humans are worthy to the world our actual world is actually a fantasy world from a long time ago and this is the world resetting in some way like I could see that like some weird thing happening with that but everything is everything is science though yep true there is no is not a fantasy world I could see science world I could see benevolent aliens doing this to protect us from some cosmic event that was going to kill us like radiation storms coming through and the aliens like do this to save us that's the only thing they could think of yeah anyway maybe so if you're the kind of anime fan who likes you know like the most popular you know shonen type animes then you're probably going to like this type of show I like this way more than any other shonen show yeah I guess it's better than like a Naruto or something that goes into a tournament and drags on yep but it's still you know but it's better than an attack on titan because it seems like it might actually be going somewhere but I don't think it's going like bocarano it's still shallow as all fuck bocarano was another show that was well bocarano was legit though yeah but it was characters in a predicament those characters were not two-dimensional true they were not two-dimensional but it was still it was characters in a like very contrived frigate predicament who intelligently worked to solve the problem and bocarano was going somewhere that would make you cry a lot right but I don't think those bocarano characters all had their own deep back stories with things they had to deal with yeah this show's back story is like I was a you are science guy you are girl you are you know brawny guy you are fighting you are fighting guy it's literally 40 seconds on screen of a long time ago an adult hit me no no there actually is a whole like half an episode that shows his back story so it's more than that it's little no it's literally just dad bought him a bunch of science stuff and he always science do you want to go to space because fighting guy his back story is literally one time an adult hit me when I was a kid so I'm going to murder all the adults yes but that is it is the but like I said is the most maybe even one dimensional characters yeah right they don't have it they're just literally science guy brawny guy fighting guy girl yep at one point that might even just be zero dimensional there's no dimension it's just also you know super sexist that obviously I don't even need to be mentioned that it's super sexist that the girl the only thing that could be worse is if the girl character's superpower ends up being nurturing healing yeah she only exists as love interest and thing to be protected defended etc though in the opener there are a lot of other motivation for men there are clearly a bunch of other female characters they did the person that they met who is not who is not you know thousands of years old was a girl so if I were you though like if you're an anime fan at all just watch the first episode because it moves if you're a fan who wants the high brow anime's stay far away but if you're okay with the low brow popular anime's then this is the low brow popular anime of the season and it's better than other similarly equally low brow anime oh god on Crunchyroll views are like this also like Long Horizon, Majin Bone, Taboo, Tattoo and Bleach yeah so that's it I'm not going to watch anymore because I've seen what I got to see I'm going to read a spoiler because I really want to know I only want to know the big I've learned everything I need to know except for the one big secret which I can now learn from a spoiler of course be careful because I know the fullness of Attack on Titan and kind of wish I didn't well I don't care that if I don't waste my time watching the show that it's not a problem yeah but I kind of wish I didn't know what Attack on Titan's about also probably no one the writer might not even know because the manga's ongoing yeah and you know serialized manga sometimes I'm waiting for the tournament to enter the show the science tournament could get to one because it's already gearing up to like punching nation versus it is gearing up to a war between brains and brawn to see whether which society will prevail right because it's a it's about that you know sort of dynamic right where it's like okay doesn't matter how smart you are there's a strong person they rule the world until you have society built and then people who are smart rule the world and being strong doesn't help you gain power which is part you know fist of the north star mad max in a world where all technology's gone the biggest strongest shittiest dudes end up being in charge of things because they can physically force themselves into power it's an old story alright and we're done that's an anime


Good afternoon everyone. I am Anand Raghmar. For those who come in recently, I hope you had a great time coming in. Today we will be talking about test data, wood core test automation framework. Quick introduction about myself. We've been testing rather, sort of, for about 19, 20 years. We believe in doing whatever it takes to help build a quality product. So in that sense, the whole title is for practice activities. My Twitter ID is here. More contact information can be found from the above page. These slides will be available on Slideshare. I'll also put a talk first about this. The video is also going to be shared. So don't worry too much about trying to take notes. Instead, it would be great to have more interactions and discuss more based on each other's experiences. That's the best way we can learn from each other and grow future. Enough about myself. Why are you here? What do you expect from this particular session? I'm playing it safe. Test data is the biggest challenge. Quality of testing is based on test data. Sorry, I'm going to be repeating so that people in the back also will be able to follow. Variety in test data. You were saying? Maintaining test data across different environments. Anything else? Anyone expects? Reusing test data across different pages, different similar pages, but the structure is not really the same. Storing test data in different sources. Generating test data. Very important. Design patterns for helping design test data. Reading test data dynamically to provide in the test execution. Test data for any type of scenarios. Happy, negative, edge cases. Test case doesn't know if it is happy or negative. Test case is a test case. But you are right. How do you provide different types of testing? Using production test.


The next item of business is an urgent question, and I call Russell Finlay. To ask the Scottish Government what its responses to reports from the Scottish Police Authority that 386 cases of potential drug driving cannot be prosecuted because of major delays in forensic testing. I was first notified of potential capacity issues last year, and in October last year I authorised an urgent additional funding of £325,000. In late April this year, the Government has alerted to a significant number of cases that had not been processed in time for the Crown to take further action, and I instructed my officials to urgently work with the SPA, Police Scotland and the Crown to assess the scale of the issue and determine what immediate and longer term mitigations were needed. Further exceptional funding of £370,000 was released earlier this month, and I fully support a commission from the SPA for HMICS, the Magistrate of Constabulary in Scotland, to undertake a formal review. Russell Finlay. Three years ago, Humza Yousaf staged a PR event alongside a police officer at which he said, and I quote, The police are ready, they have the tools necessary, and if you are caught there will be a zero-tolerance approach and you will face some hefty consequences. The police were indeed ready, except we now discover that the tools were broken and that hundreds of drug drivers faced no consequences for recklessly endangering others on our roads. We know that the SNP are great at announcements, not so good in delivery, so what is the cabinet secretary doing to now fix this? Will he reconsider his planned police budget cuts that risk making such failures more likely in the future? First of all, I think that I have mentioned the additional financing that has been provided to the SPA. That involves both a series of tranches of additional funds in terms of resources, but also additional capital expenditure. It is true to say, of course, that the estimates for this, how many likely cases would be, was formulated by Police Scotland, the SPA and the Crown Office, people that are much more expert than this than me. I cannot do an estimate of how many cases it is likely to be. It is also true to say that the police and the SPA and the Crown Office will say that it has been an underestimate. We have doubled the number of tests that have been done and people are coming forward with positive tests. They are the experts who do that. They are also independent. I do not know whether it is the case that Russell Finlay accepts the fact that they are independent, but we will do the two things that are required. First of all, to give the legislative tools that they need to do this, to make Scotland a safer place, which they have done. Of course, this is a serious error. The SPA has said that themselves. They have had their full meeting on Thursday to go over this in more detail. This is a serious error, but they have had the legislative tools in order to allow the police to make those stops and to get people tested for drugs. That has made Scotland's roads safer, but they have to correct this. We have also seen the commitment from the SPA to get HMICS to investigate what more can be done to make sure that this can be fixed now and into the future. It is the right thing to do. In terms of resources, the budget cut that Mr Finlay should have mentioned is the 5.2 per cent budget cut that we have had from Westminster, his colleagues, the Tories and Westminster. The police had the protection of the resources budget last year, and I am pretty sure that there was no amendment from the Tories seeking further budget for the police last year. We will see what happens this year. Russell Finlay. Thank you.  However, three of the dropped cases involved someone being injured, can the cabinet secretary explain whether those injured people have been told that their case was dropped? If not, will he commit to now doing so? Can he provide Parliament with a detailed breakdown of each of the 386 cases and, indeed, apologise to the victims and all law-abiding road users who have been endangered by this incompetence? I will note the point that is made about incompetence by Russell Finlay. First of all, the three cases that he mentions, I do not have the full details on that. It is information that is held, of course, by the Crown Office, but I do know that, in one of the cases, and possibly in the other two cases, the injury was self-inflicted and did not involve a collision with another vehicle. I am happy to provide more information about the figures. I have given them the figures that have taken some time to get those definitively as and when we get that from the SPA and also from the Crown Office because they are the only ones that will have the information on the stage that they are at in the prosecution process for reasons that I am sure he is aware of. I am happy to provide that information when it comes forward. There is no creative accounting. 5.2 per cent cut to this Government's budget. Despite that happening, we have protected the police resource budget last year. In fact, I think that in the last two or three years we have given more to the police than we have even asked for by the Conservatives. Of course, we have more police officers in this country and they are paid higher than they are in the rest of the UK. A couple of supplementaries first to Audrey Nicholl. It is welcome that the Scottish Government introduced drug driving limits and roadside testing in October 2019. However, we have heard that the demand for forensic testing has exceeded supply. Despite the budget constraints that the Cabinet Secretary alluded to earlier, can I ask what funding the Scottish Government has provided to the Scottish Police Authority to build testing and analysis capacity since the introduction of the new offence in 2019? Overall £1.9 million has been provided to the SPA since 2018-19 to assist them in delivering testing for the offence. That funding has been, in addition to the core budget SPA, received to ensure the delivery of policing in Scotland. The new offence required new forensic testing machines to be purchased by the SPA and we have provided capital funding totaling £572,000 for those machines. We have also provided over £1.3 million in resource funding through three tranches of funding for outsourcing, including £370,000. I have agreed to issue earlier this month. Does the Cabinet Secretary know if there are any other crimes beyond drug driving that are affected by this issue? I understand that in November the Government paid to outsource 30 per cent of testing to commercial forensic services to allow about 900 drugs driving cases to be dealt with in this way. Is that a long-term solution or is the plan to return to an in-house service? The initial intention was to have the in-house service. I should have mentioned that part of the problem is that the in-house lab used by Police Scotland did suffer a flooding incident which caused problems. It was also during the course of the pandemic and so the outsourcing which took place was in deliberate response to that to make sure that we had the capacity in relation to that. Part of the investigation by HMICS and the work that we will do with the SP will be to make sure that we plot out that way forward. I think that the main objective will be to drive out risk that this kind of thing happens in the future. As to other crimes, that would really be a matter for the Fiscal's Office to answer on that point. Briefly, Stephen Kerr. I know that the Cabinet Secretary accepts that the buck certainly stops with him but I think that it was disappointing that in reporting the statistics he did that he didn't take the opportunity to apologise to the public that there is a massive failure on the part of the whole system when it comes to prosecuting those who have been found to have been driving under the influence of drugs. Cabinet Secretary. I'm not sure there's actually a question for me to answer in relation to that, Presiding Officer, but of course I would regret any instance where the opportunity to prosecute a case of drug driving has been lost as a result of the issues that have arisen in SPA forensics. The whole point is to build on the success of over 5,000 people being stopped that would not have previously been stopped under previous legislation. Of course we want to make sure that every one of those that needs to be prosecuted is prosecuted. That's what the SPA is. It's not passing the buck, they are independent. I know that the Tories have a hard time getting their heads around this. They are independent as are Police Scotland, as are the Crown Office. We want to make sure that they have all the tools necessary to make sure that they can prosecute every case that they have to. I want benches changed and we move to the next item of business.