So, hello and welcome everyone to this first event in the SOS Continuing the Conversation series. I hope you can all understand me and see me. First, I would just like to welcome you all and thank you very much for joining. Can I please ask you to mute your microphone and maybe close your webcam because this will make it easier for all of us as this event is attended by 250 people. So, thank you very much. My name is Dr. Christina Max. So, I was previously the lecturer in Chinese politics at the SOS Politics Department and now I moved on to the University of Sheffield. So, I will be the moderator for today. The title of today's event is COVID-19 What Drives China's Approach and our speaker for tonight is Professor Steve Zhang. So, before I introduce Steve, I would just like to go through a few housekeeping notes. So, first of all, please be aware that this event is recorded and will be shared later on on the SOS website. Secondly, if you would like to discuss or follow this event, then you can find us on our Twitter account using hashtag SOS or hashtag SOS alumni. And then finally, I would just like to give you an overview of this event today. So, first we will start with about 20 minutes talk by Professor Steve Zhang. Then we will, during this time, you will be able to post your questions to Steve in the chat box on the right-hand side. Afterwards, we will then have a 20-minute Q&A session during which we will discuss or Steve will discuss and answer selected questions from the chat box. We will not be able to discuss all of them, but I'm sure we will have a very vibrant conversation today. So, finally, I would like to introduce our speaker for tonight. Professor Steve Zhang is well-known among many of you, I'm sure. He is the director of the SOS China Institute and has written extensively on Chinese politics, whether in the field of Chinese foreign relations, Chinese domestic politics, and also politics in the greater China area, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan. And most recently, Steve has started a very interesting new research project on Xi Jinping thought, and I very much look forward to his findings in this area. You will also know Steve from his frequent appearance on the news. So, he's a frequent commentator on the BBC as well as other global news channels and has already shared a lot of his insights into the COVID-19 crisis there on the news as well. And today with us here in this SOS series. So, I would just like to hand over to you, Steve. I'm very interested in your insights. Well, thank you very much, Christina, for your very kind introduction. Given that we only have 20 minutes, I will get straight on to the point. What I will do in the next 20 minutes or so is to start off by putting things in context, and then I will highlight what I think is the most important driving force of the Chinese government's response to the COVID-19 crisis. And then I will say something about how the Chinese government is dealing with the existence of a pandemic and also underline that we have to make a distinction when we look and say that the Chinese government doesn't understand. Sometimes we are talking about collectively and spiritually, whether they understand or not. Now, first of all, to put things in context, I wanted to start off by suggesting that we can forget about most of the conspiracy theories that are going around. The idea that the virus was the result of laboratory work in Wuhan and it was spread by the Chinese maliciously. But those are just conspiracy theories without much of real evidence and it's quite clear the Chinese government did not intend to start a global pandemic with China being the first major victim. So I think we can put that away. The second thing I wanted to put in context is to understand that yes, there clearly were major mistakes that were being made by the Chinese government at different stages, particularly at the early stage. But it's a bit too simplistic to simply say that they fail and it's kind of a system failure. And I'll suggest to you that in fact, the system in place in China did not fail. It worked very much in accordance to how it was being designed and conceived. And the system itself for all the awareness it had of previous problems like the emergence of SARS and the avian flu and all this happened in the last 17 years and all the institutions that were being set up to alert the government fundamentally, the incentive system in place make it very, very difficult for the systems to have responded in the way that we would have liked is to have responded or in a way that we would expect it to be responding. Fundamentally is a very, very heavily centralized system led by Xi Jinping. When you're dealing with the potential of something like a pandemic or an epidemic. At the local level, even though being head of the city like Wuhan 11 million people or the province in which Wuhan is a part of the province of Kubei and obviously both the party secretary for Wuhan and the party secretary for Kubei are very, very senior officials. But they really don't have the scope to take action without running it by the very top of the leadership. Because if they said that there was a problem of a new virus developing in Wuhan and here we're talking about December when they knew about this and it was again in December. Most people thought that it was in the market life market in Wuhan and if they simply close the market down and count all the animals and incinerated them and quarantined the people involved with the Huanan market. They would have raised questions by the international media and a lot of questions will be very embarrassing for the Chinese government. So there's no way that a local leader would have responded in that way and therefore it will have to be pushed all the way back to the top Chinese leadership. And it would not be decided until Xi Jinping have a chance to look at that and that didn't happen until the 7th of January. So in many ways the system worked to form and even at that time Xi Jinping was still much more focused on dealing with the relationship with the United States trade war. And therefore the prospect of some kind of disease that may or may not become an epidemic in a far away city like Wuhan would not have taken the attention of Xi Jinping. Now we also need to bear in mind that while the Chinese government did cover up and did mismanage it in the first place and if they had not done so and have responded much more quickly they almost certainly would have saved a lot of lives globally. But that is something separate from simply saying that we should all focus on what this government has failed to do because the reality is that most governments outside of China also responded in a very complacent way because we know certainly by January it was very very serious. But yet governments in Europe and in North America by and large did not take it very seriously. So the idea that if the Chinese had taken it seriously earlier on so it would all be hunky-dory I think is a bit fanciful. The only way that it could have made a difference would have been for the Chinese governments to have responded in the way the government in Taiwan had responded and Taiwan took it seriously in December and started checking people arriving in Taiwan from Wuhan for the end of December. And then here we're talking about a fully democratic government which was constantly aware that it was under threat and if you get into problems it will not get help and support from the external world. So unless we have that kind of conditions there's no way the Chinese government would have responded in the way that the government in Taiwan had responded. So that was I think where we have to understand how the Chinese government responded in the first instance. Now when the pandemic happened what was the single most important issue that focused the attention of the Chinese leadership? Now this is separate from what were the priorities of the Chinese government as a whole. I think there were a number of priorities and the priorities are reflected in the composition of the top level coordinating committee which was being set up at the end of January when they took it seriously. It was a committee of nine individuals and the committee's full name is the central leading small group for works to counter the new coronavirus infection pneumonia epidemic. We're simply called the leading small group. Of this leading small group of nine leaders there is not one single scientist or medical officer. Instead the membership includes the premier of the PRC who has the economy as his primary portfolio. We have also the vice premier Shun Chen Nan who has amongst her many portfolios public health. And then amongst the other members and this was interesting. You have the director of the Communist Party Central Office. Obviously he's the manager in charge of coordinating all the work of the party. And then there was the party secretary for Beijing, the foreign minister, the state council's secretary general, again the coordinating person for the state council and then the minister for public security. So all the portfolios involved represents priorities. There's one other area and the only other area that has two persons being represented and that's the propaganda section of the party. Both the supreme head of the ideological and propaganda work, the political standing committee member Huang Huning was one of them. The other one was the head of the central propaganda department of the Communist Party, Wang Kunming. So you can see that all these public health and economy were priorities. The most important about that all was in fact the propaganda department. It's about controlling the narrative. That was a single most important issue there. But here we should again be very careful, even though seizing and controlling the narrative was seen as the most important issue. It was not propaganda for propaganda's sake. The real priority, the real driver behind this was about maintaining the control of the Communist Party in keeping it in power and maintaining the leadership of Xi Jinping. So you have amongst them all the people with the portfolios, somebody to deal with the real issue of the public health, somebody to deal with the fallout of the economy. The others were all about spreading the message or keeping the country under control so that nobody could seriously challenge the leadership of the party and in particular that of Xi Jinping. And I think it really tells us how the Chinese government prioritized it. And once we can see that controlling the narrative is so important, then we can begin to understand why the Chinese government would use a very aggressive international propaganda campaign supported by its foreign policy establishment. And push ideas that people outside of China will find it very, very difficult to understand. Like pushing the idea that the virus did not start in China or Wuhan, but in fact it started by the United States military army. Or when Italy became seriously in trouble and was getting figures that would make Italy look like a worse victim than China, then they started to... So one say quote, extraordinary imaginatively of an Italian medic and imply that the Italians admitted that it really started in Italy before it started in China. Hardly anybody would seriously believe in that the Chinese government is not dumb, they know that. But pushing for that narrative is important in terms of presenting to people in China that the party is not to blame and that the evil foreigners are to blame. And of course once the crisis happened, once the pandemic happened, the Chinese government takes the view that one must not let a crisis be wasted. It happened. They didn't engineer the crisis, but the crisis happened. And the Chinese did what they did for primarily domestic party considerations. But the early lockdown of Wuhan and then the spread of it means that the Chinese government, China as a whole was the first in and it was also the first out. China came out of lockdown ahead of the others and that would give China some advantages. First of all, when China was the worst hit area, it was the one that suffered the most from shortage of PPE and therefore they very quickly take advantage of the industrial capacity to regear some of the manufacturing facilities to produce not their usual products but PPEs. And now that China itself has less of a demand for PPEs, they are able to export them. So they take advantage of that and try to see the narrative and present China as the saviour for the rest of the world. I don't think one can blame the Chinese government for being opportunistic about this. I think any other government in a similar situation would want to be somewhat opportunistic about that. And of course the reality that the capitalist, democratic, western countries have been very badly hit, much worse than they had themselves expected, or for that matter the Chinese had expected them to be, also provided an opportunity for the Chinese government. We are looking at countries like the United Kingdom, the United States and the EU as a whole, practically on their knees, dependent on China for PPEs. And these are the countries that usually will take the most robust stance on issues like Hong Kong. Really, there wasn't any reason to be surprised that the Chinese government would use the fallout from the pandemic to push for a hardline in Hong Kong in order to get rid of those protesters that practically put Hong Kong in power, economic difficult situations, most of the second half of last year. And I think the Chinese government will push even more in terms of how they can push in Hong Kong. And it's also quite likely that they will take advantage of this and push for controversial things like the setting up of an air defence identification zone over South China Sea, because that again is something that is normally very problematic for the Chinese government in terms of the reactions from the outside world. They will try to do that. They might potentially even try to push Taiwan harder. And they will also try to take advantage of this and push themselves a bit more over the Belt and Road Initiative. But here I think we have to be very careful. The system now in place in China puts Xi Jinping so much at the top of it and in control that most of your senior Chinese officials prioritise ingratiating themselves with Xi Jinping. So they may not be using the opportunity over the Belt and Road Initiative to promote Chinese soft power and instead they may well be doing things that they think Xi Jinping would like to see being done over the Belt and Road, but will not be well received by countries at the receiving end of it. And that's also perhaps why we have seen the current of very frankly racist treatment of African residents in the southern city of Guangzhou or Canton. Now finally in the last two minutes I just wanted to say that yes we can see from the UK, from Europe, from America that the very aggressive Chinese foreign policy, getting Chinese diplomats to come out to say things which are very problematic. And the very aggressive propaganda campaign is generating a lot of negative responses from Europe and from North America. Can the Chinese government really not know about that? This is where I think we have to make a distinction. The Chinese government officially probably doesn't really accept that. The Chinese government does not believe that it has done anything wrong. It believes that it's absolutely right and completely righteous of it. So in that sense they are in self-denial, but that doesn't mean that you don't have very bright people, Chinese diplomats and others in the Chinese government who do understand that this is causing a fair bit of negative backlash against China. But then they really do not feel that they are in a position to come out and contradict anything that Xi Jinping has said or implicitly wanted to be done. So we get into a situation that we see the Chinese handling it quite poorly. But when we say the Chinese are handling the pandemic very poorly, we should perhaps also bear in mind that most countries have handled the pandemic very poorly. I will stop here and hand it back to you, Christina, with 40 seconds to spare. Thank you, Steve. So there's still a lot of time left for discussion and I have seen that nobody has posed any questions yet. So please feel free to post any questions that might come to your mind. We do have a few pre-submitted questions and the first one is how has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the global perception of the PRC? What is your take on that, Steve? I think it's a very good question. Where I think the big change happens is that before COVID-19, there is a general sense that the Chinese government has been somewhat quirky, but it is a pretty reliable partner and a kind of hawkish rhetoric that the trauma administration was taking was perhaps unjustified. I think we are now popularly going to see a lot more people who are much more concerned about how the Chinese government deals with a crisis situation. A crisis where there is not a West versus China situation, but others competing with China. And the competition is in terms of the supply of PPEs. Is China a reliable provider of critical equipment in the moment of crisis? And there are perhaps too many countries or governments that feel the Chinese have not turned out to be as reliable as they were hoping they would be. And the same may also apply to some of the multinationals looking at the global supply chain. That previously China as a critical part of the global supply chain was not something that the multinationals thought much about. You may well have some of them now getting a bit worried because of the disruptions to the supply chain in January and February, before their own factories were closed down as a result of the general lockdown. Some of those effects may well be a bit rather more long lasting than I think we would like to admit. Over to you. Thanks very much Steve. So we have a few more questions. Mark for instance wanted to know in what ways does the political culture drive the consent within China to the surveillance measures that have been put in place? And similarly to what extent do the political cultural elements factor in the UK's consent to surveillance at this time? I would be inclined to think that it is more about the political system than the political culture. Because when we look at the political culture in China, it is easy to get confused between the traditional Chinese culture and how that is being modified by the politics of it. But in fact, a lot of what happens in China is driven by the Party's day. The Party says what needs to be done, really people did not have much of any choice. When we are looking at the UK, I think we are looking at a combination of the two. There is an element. Personally, I think there is a very strong element of conversations by the government when we look at the COVID-19 early stage, whether we are talking about February or by mostly in fact February. I think they probably should have taken it more seriously in January. But since the Chinese government did not formally take it seriously until the 20th of January, I think we can excuse that. But by February there is really no excuse for us not taking it seriously. Where I think the political culture element comes is the British willingness to think that yes, we don't have to impose very strict rules like continental Europeans have to. If there is going to be a lockdown in the UK, we can rely on the reasonableness and the good sense of the British people to do the right thing in the situation. So we don't need to require people to download and form, sign it to say why you are going out on a daily basis, which is what happens in France. And we simply say that you can only go out for exercise once a day and expect people to respond to that. I think that part is your political culture bit. I don't see anything comparable being applicable in China. They don't trust the people to do that. And that's why the surveillance becomes so important and it is basically imposed by the government and people did not really have a choice in terms of whether they wanted or not. Great. Thank you very much. And so we have a few questions that relate to China's rise or whether this is an opportunity for China's beginning of China's kind of global leadership or kind of China's China to rise even above the US leadership. What do you think, Steve? Well, I think at the moment it is a bit too early to know how the world will come out of COVID-19. We don't know whether there will be a second wave, or for that matter, even a third wave or not. If there will be a second wave in the winter, how countries will come out of that and manage that? We don't know. It hasn't happened yet. On the basis of where we are, the Chinese actually are doing better. The Chinese government is actually doing better than most governments in the Democratic West with a few notable exceptions. I think we can see that Taiwan certainly has done very, very well. It's shortened really well. South Korea has done pretty well, but for most of the rest of us, we haven't really done all that well in coping with it. And the Chinese economy is in a better place than most of the other major economies at the moment. And that will give them an advantage. And of course, there is also the tremendous helper for the Chinese government, which is Donald Trump. The mismanagement by Donald Trump of the US situation and the US position globally is very helpful in making it possible for the Chinese to appear to be doing relatively better, even though they are also not doing quite so well. If that doesn't change, I think the Chinese will try to use that to assert itself more. But the assumption that that will definitely remain the case in the next year or two I think is perhaps premature. Okay, thank you, Steve. We also have a few questions regarding what you just mentioned, the anti-Chinese rhetoric by the Trump administration, but also the labeling of the virus as China virus. So what do you think about the Chinese authorities responses and comments on this rhetoric? And do you think that is actually something that could help the Chinese government kind of in their anti-U.S. propaganda? I'm afraid that those pretty regrettable somewhat racist comments that were made by a few, mostly Donald Trump and some of the people working for him, and some of the other people in society really are very helpful to the Communist Party. I think the Communist Party is not all that unhappy about those comments being made. They needed to change the narrative in China to get people not focus on the failure of the Chinese government and focus much more on a hostile international environment that is being unfair to China, and therefore use that to provoke nationalism amongst the Chinese people in this response. So those racist comments fall straight into that. And Xi Jinping himself, before COVID-19 came into existence, gone beyond what his predecessors have done in terms of how he engaged with the Chinese communities overseas. Officially, under China's nationality law, if a Chinese person acquire a non-Chinese nationality, that person automatically lose Chinese nationality is not a Chinese citizen any longer. Now Xi Jinping has taken the view that if you have Chinese blood running through your veins, then you are Chinese and he wants you to be patriotic to China, which is usually very difficult to get to some of the people in Europe and America, particularly your second generation who are born here, brought up here. They feel much more British than anything else. But if those people are at the receiving end of racist abuse, it will not be so. It will be easier for the party to engage with them. And this is a leadership that is quite happy to do that. So I don't think the Chinese government is too upset by that kind of racist abuse, which I think is really quite regrettable because others will be paying the price. Over to you. Thank you, Steve. We also have a few questions regarding to what extent the Chinese Party State can use this as an opportunity to, for instance, put through more aggressive measures in Hong Kong or Tibet? Oh, I think the Hong Kong case is already happening. We saw in the last two weeks also the arrest of 15 veterans, Democrats in Hong Kong, which really was simply unnecessary. We are definitely already seeing that. I think in the middle of the crisis in China, when the two leaders in Wuhan city and Hubei province were being brought down for their failure in the early stages. The party also, under Xi Jinping, also changed the leadership of the Hong Kong and Macau affairs office and appointed a new party secretary who, well, a new head of the Hong Kong affairs office, somebody who had a long standing background as a party secretary, but never have any experience managing either foreign affairs or Hong Kong affairs. So it's quite clear that with the change of personnel in charge of Hong Kong affairs, both at the Hong Kong Macau affairs office and also had the central liaison office in Hong Kong, both on full ministerial level post. Both have no background with Hong Kong, is to get these people to enforce the lines that Xi Jinping want to be enforced and regrettably they will be, and this will be a hard line position that they will be pushing in Hong Kong in the months to come. Thank you, Steve. We also had a few questions about China's relationship to the US and how the virus has, this pandemic has impacted it. So to what extent do you see an impact on the Sino-US trade war or on the relationship between the two countries in general? Well, very good question. Again, the trade deal is no longer being mentioned much by either government. So the idea that they will move forward to phase two of the trade deal is just at the moment purely academic. I don't really see that happening. Most of the world saw the so-called decoupling between China and the United States as having been pushed by Donald Trump last year, 2019. Now, actually, Xi Jinping started the process in 2013, but very few people see that. So let's just stick to the mainstream narrative that the decoupling was pushed by Donald Trump in 2019. Most US companies did not respond very much to Donald Trump's evocation of decoupling with China. I think we are now going to see a lot more US companies which will take the decoupling much more seriously because they need to relocate some of the manufacturing facilities in China to somewhere else. It may not necessarily be reshoring them back to the USA, but they I think would be looking at putting their factories somewhere else, whether it's Southeast Asia or in Latin America. I think they will have to ponder about them and some will go in one direction and some will go in the other direction. Now, some will continue to stay in China for the simple reality that China is now the largest market for some of those companies.  And they don't sell that many in Europe in relative terms compared to the US and China as a market. So they will continue to try to manufacture in China. And so we will see this complex relationship and we will also see a solidification of the bipartisan approach in the United States towards China. And it will no longer matter whether Donald Trump wins the election or not in November. The next administration will be even harder on China than perhaps the Trump administration has been. And if it's not a Trump administration, it will perhaps be a lot more rational and more easy to see how it goes. But I don't see a Biden administration being particularly soft on China and make things easy for China. Over to you. Thank you. And we also have a few questions regarding nationalism. So to what extent do you think is this an opportunity for the CCP to bolster nationalist, even xenophobic sentiments among the population? And how does this, to what extent do you think that the government would then allow this to be used against, you know, in the trade war as such? Well, the Chinese government use what I would call party-centric nationalism as a matter of course anyway. That is almost their default part of their approach in terms of how they try to mandate relationship between Chinese people and foreigners and also China's relations with the rest of the world. So we will see that happened. And we are already seeing non-Chinese people being required to face far more restrictions in China than we have seen for at least 20 years. And those restrictions, like now if you are a non-Chinese person but with a permit to visit China or to stay to work in China, you simply are not allowed to get back. Here I think we get into a much more difficulty which is that while the official policy is not racist, it is just foreigners who are being restricted. In the actual implementations of it, it gets actually quite racist. The darker shade of people do not get treated in the same way as the lighter shade of people from outside of China. And that's why we saw those very racist activities in Guangzhou where Africans who have apartments and hotel rooms, some of them were being evicted and being fought on the streets and in very, very dire straits. And that of course provoked very strong responses from African governments and that's what finally get them to put a stop to it. Thank you Steve. You also mentioned during your talk the ways in which the local government at first tried to cover up the situation. And a few of the comments also mentioned for instance the kind of disappearance of critical voices or citizen journalists. To what extent do you think this has will this impact on a greater push for kind of a greater freedom of speech within China? Well, we've heard that in 2019 they will not be doing freedom of speech in China or the move towards democratization or protection of human rights any favor. If anything, it will push them back a bit further. And what happened with COVID-19 was that by late January to most of February the Chinese government, the Communist Party, the people who worked closely to Xi Jinping were really worried. They saw that there was a serious risk that their legitimacy to rule in China based on their ability to deliver a better tomorrow for everybody in China was being challenged because they were not delivering. The first time since 1989 the Beijing, Mexico, the parties they failed to deliver visibly to people in China in a big way. So they were very worried. And that's why they're coming up so hard in terms of the repressive methods and doctors being sirens, citizen journalists being detained, disappeared, in fact disappeared.  It's all because they were themselves worried about the risk of push within China for progressive changes, which might potentially undermine the party and Xi Jinping's whole onto power. So well, I'm not going to see, I'm not seeing that being changed in the foreseeable future. Over to you. Thank you Steve. We also had two linked questions regarding China's refusal to allow an independent investigation on the origin of the pandemic and whether this might lead to a litigation in the future. Well, I think the attempts by some people to seek reparation from China in some ways is really a computer based off time and be a distraction. The Chinese government will not agree to be a party to any litigation process. They simply will not be involved in any of them, whether you're talking about through the US court system, or whether you are talking about through some international mechanism. If they refuse to be parties to it, that's not a huge amount you can do. And there's no enforcement mechanism effectively in place for the Chinese governments to be tried in absentia and then be required to make compensations that whatever court might decide to do. And most of that, I think is a distraction because they focus on the wrong thing. The focus is very much on the virus start in China and this start from the lab in Wuhan. Well, we know the weight of the scientific opinion is that the virus was a natural mutation. It was not the result of human engineering. So it's not deliberately created in the Wuhan laboratory. And when we are looking at it as a matter of biology, we have to accept that new virus happens in different countries a lot of the time, most of the time. On this occasion, this particularly deadly one is happened in China. And we can't hold a country responsible for a physical mutation. It might not happen in the Wuhan Huanan market, the life market. Personally, I don't see any need, any point for any country to have life market, but China is not the only countries that have life markets. So the idea that because the Chinese have life markets in Wuhan, therefore you focus on that is a distraction. What we should be focusing on really is on when the animals to human transmission happened. And in particular, when humans to human transmission happened, as and we know that happens in December, how that government responded to it. That's the real issue. Not where the virus originated. That will be my personal view over to you. Thanks. So perhaps I will just have a last question. I see many more interesting questions, but unfortunately we won't be able to go through them all. But there are two questions partially related to Taiwan. So do you think this pandemic will have some kind of benefit to Taiwan? Or do you see more the party state kind of trying to use international organizations such as the WHO as a kind of diplomatic tool to kind of sideline Taiwan? Well, Taiwan is already benefiting from it because Taiwan has responded impressively well. Taiwan is the only country that took it seriously in December and then took appropriate and non draconian measures in accordance with the democratic rules and managed to contain the virus. And Taiwan has also managed to turn around the shortage of PPE domestically into a surplus and gave them away to other countries, which gave them a lot of soft power in the conventional sense of what soft power meant. So we already seen that happening where I think I would be much more cautious is to assume that this will simply continue and be sustained. The Chinese government under Xi Jinping is a very narrow minded and mean administration. The fact that Taiwan has done so well also shows up how badly the Chinese government have managed. And that contrast is really painful for the leadership in Beijing to see. It will not surprise me that the Chinese government under Xi Jinping will push much harder wherever they could to punish the Taiwanese because of the success of the Taiwanese and because of the goodwill the success of the Taiwanese government have generated elsewhere. So if we are seeing European countries pushing hard for Taiwan to be admitted as say an observer in the WHO, I would expect to see an unprecedentedly harsh response from the Chinese government to make that extremely costly for WHO or the country's sponsoring. So whether Taiwan will come up better off, I don't know. Bear in mind the Chinese government ultimately can use some sort of force against Taiwan. It does not necessarily mean it's a full-scale invasion, but there are still military means that they can use to make things very, very uncomfortable for the government in Taiwan. Your Beijing really wants to do so. On this rather unfortunate and depressing note I should stop. It is unfortunate, but thank you so much Steve for this fascinating talk and for answering so many of these many interesting questions that we had. And thank you all for attending and for posing these interesting questions. We will have to wrap up now, but I do have a few remarks as well as an end note so to speak. So if you would like to watch this event again, we will post it online on the source website and on social media pages. But you can also forward this to any other interested colleagues, friends or students that might want to watch it. There will also be more events on COVID-19 crisis in the future. The next event will be on the 28th of May and the title COVID-19 can linguists save lives. And this will be an event where Dr. Mandana Sethedini-Poor will talk about whether linguists can save lives and you can already get tickets on the Eventbrite website. But until then you can also follow this event series on Twitter again by using the hashtag SOAS or SOAS alumni. And until then I'll just say goodbye and thank you again and have a good night everyone. Thank you.


If you don't know about me, I used to be a huge underachiever, but through obsessive self-improvement, I found my success. Earned a college scholarship, played for my national foot-salt team, a YouTube channel with over 100 million views. I've helped players worldwide, and I'd love to help you improve faster and achieve more. But if we analyze how we're actually practicing, we're not practicing shooting. The only time some people practice shooting is when they're in the match, and then they get upset when they don't score enough. So if you want to score more goals, this time in practice, get those repetitions, practice scoring goals, it'll transfer the game. I want to warm up the legs a bit, but also practice this finish that we all need as a striker. Running on a breakaway, one-on-one, I'm just going to open up my feet, and I'm going to pick a corner. Here I want to practice running with speed, because if I have an opportunity to get in on goal, and I go too slowly, defender's going to come back in front of me, now I have to beat him again. Anytime you have the opportunity to get in on goal, use your pace, whatever pace you have, be direct.  That guy doesn't want to stay up, he's staying down. So practice with both feet, running with the ball, composure, picking a corner. There's two finishes that I would practice here. One is like I've been doing, opening up, opening up, putting it to that far side. The other one that I'll practice as a striker, play that pass, attack. Here I'm going to shape like I'm going there, but I'm shaping like I'm going to this corner, giving the keeper the eyes. So with my body positioning, I'm shaping there with my eyes, I'm looking there, but at the last second, I'm passing in there.  Okay, bit of skill. Get your shot on net. So again, same as on the breakaway, if I attack him slow, or if I attack that space slow, I'm going to have to beat more guys. I'm going to miss my opportunity to shoot. If I dribble at him slow, I'm easy to defend. If he's on his back foot here, I want to use my speed to my advantage. Okay, so dribbling, shooting after a bit of skill. So if you don't have a partner or someone to pass, that's fine. Just go, bit of skill, practice getting the shots on net. As a striker, biggest thing is that you're actually hitting the target. Don't worry about it going in the top corner, breaking the net. Just hit the net every single time and then you can focus on hitting those corners a little deeper. Here I want to focus on getting your shots off quickly. How many times in a game have you had a really good opportunity to shoot, but for some reason you took another touch, or maybe you took another touch, when you should have just hit it and you knew you should have just hit it, or you had a really good opportunity to shoot and for some reason you passed it to a teammate. Or even worse, you just took way too long and you lost possession or you gave the ball away, because you hesitated.  If you like this content, check out the Soccer Success Planner. You can download it for free. There's a link in the description below. And for advanced training, check out the Online Soccer Academy. You need to develop this mindset that anytime that ball is coming to me, especially in the attacking third, I'm already thinking how can I get my shot off as quickly as possible. Now I'm not telling you to rush your shots.  Now maybe I can dribble into space and now I can turn. Before that ball is coming to me, I'm already thinking here's the space for my shot. And I'm trying to get that off quickly, okay? Because if you take one touch to receive, one touch, let's play, one touch to receive, one touch to turn, turn towards goal. Now I'm going to try to shoot. It's way too long. This guy is going to tackle you easily. I'm already thinking, boom, how can I find some space for myself before that ball comes to me? So this is a drill that you can practice shooting off a turn. If you have a teammate or you have something to pass to you into space, getting your shot off, okay? But get in the mindset of before that ball comes to me, I'm already thinking of my first touch. I'm not stopping it.  It's too long in a game. I'm thinking, boom, get your shot off quickly. So think about touch out of space, but also the quick footwork to get to your shot. If I'm receiving this ball, touch, and then I'm moving my feet slowly, it's taking too long, okay? So focus on good touch, quick feet.  The last of the soccer drills for strikers I want to show you is one-timers. So as a striker, you need to become comfortable hitting the ball early. If I always need one touch, two touch to set myself before I can get a shot off, I'm going to miss my opportunities. So let's demo a few different scenarios, ways you can take one-timers. Okay, my teammate wants to play me half-holies. Maybe your teammate will give you better quality. You can play off the turn. Let me see if I can hit that a little cleaner, a little better. Okay, but playing in different ways. And whatever happens, just try to hit it, especially in practice. Don't worry about taking an extra touch. You have to build confidence and you just have to try. You're never going to be able to hit that full ball. You're never going to be able to score the goal if you don't try to take the shot, especially on one time. You really have to focus on where you're making contact on the ball. Pick a specific spot that you want to hit and keep your eye on that until your foot actually makes contact. If you like this content, check out the Soccer Success Planner. You can download it for free. There's a link in the description below. And for advanced training, check out the Online Soccer Academy.


As a long-time Linux user, I'm amazed that sometimes I come across these applications that I've never heard of these applications that have been around for years. I've never heard of most of you guys have never heard of and when I investigate them like they're totally game changing kinds of programs. Like it's a kind of program that I think most people need to know about and many of you guys that are watching this right now will probably find very, very useful. And today I'm going to talk about a program called GetAnX. GetAnX, again, has been around for years. What does GetAnX actually do? Well, it does a lot of stuff, right? Their website covers a lot of various scenarios that GetAnX can help you with. But basically what I'm going to do today, I'm going to show you two scenarios that I've played with here in the last couple of days using GetAnX that I thought were amazing. And that was basically being able to sync large files between two different computers or between a computer and a remote repository. Because by default, Get, the program Get, can't handle large files. That's not really how it was designed. Certainly your Get hosts like GitHub, GetLab, they have file size restrictions on them. And what GetAnX allows you to do is actually work with very large files using Get because it uses a very unique system of SIM links, basically, to handle this. So let me start by demonstrating how you can sync files between two local folders on your system. So maybe you want to sync some very large files between a Get repository that's hosted locally on your system. And maybe also have that in a Dropbox folder or a NextCloud folder, some cloud syncing folder service also on your system. Well, let me switch to an empty workspace here and switch to the desktop. So let me open a terminal and I'm going to zoom way in here. First of all, you need to make sure that you have GetAnX installed on your system for those of you using Arch or an ArchBase Linux distribution. It's in the standard repositories. So install it with sudo pacman dash capital S GetAnX is the program name. And I'm assuming GetAnX will probably be in most Linux distributions repositories because it's free and open source software. And again, it's been around for a number of years and it does have a few dependencies, but it only really has one real dependency. Obviously, Get also needs to be installed on your system. And then it has several small Haskell libraries as a dependency. So don't be surprised when you install it and installs like 60 or 70 packages. But almost all of that is these really tiny Haskell libraries it installs really in just a few seconds. So I'm going to CD into my downloads directory because I want to work in my downloads directory rather than my home directory just because there's less stuff in it. And let's make a new Get repository. So I'm going to do a make dir for make directory. And I'm going to create a directory called my repo. And if I CD into my repo and do an LS, of course, it's an empty directory. Let's make this a Get repository.  So initialize it as a Get repository. I'm going to get some warnings here because I haven't got my Get a net configured to where it fills out all the necessary information. It's just a warning. It is still created this as a Get repository. You see now that when I run an LS, I have .get that hidden directory here. So my repo is now a Get repo. Now we also need to initialize this as a Get annex repository as well. And you do this with Get space annex.  And in this case, we need to run Get annex and yet. And then give it some kind of name or description, something one word. So what I'm going to do, this repository, this local folder here is going to be file syncing these files within it to another file on my system. I'm going to sync it to my next cloud directory. So I'm going to call this one file sync. So that is going to be the description for this Get annex repository. So let's get that.  So it needs to be initialized with Get first for the Get annex and yet to actually work. Now let's actually create some files. So I'm going to touch, we'll call this big file. We're just going to create a file.  I'm also going to touch large file by doing LS. There's big file and large file.  Even though I'm not going to make them that big, but I will put something in them. Why don't we echo this is line one and direct that to big file by cat big file. Now, you know, it has one line of text within it. And let's go ahead and also cat. This is another line one. And we're going to cat that into large file just so it has something in it as well. And the reason I'm putting some content into this file, even though I'm not going to make it a gigantic file, it does need to have some identifiable text because we want to be able to verify that the sim linking and all of that works later. Now, typically with get once you have some files that you want to version control with a get repository, you do a get add name of file. We want to do this with get annex though, because really syncing these large files needs to be done with get annex. So let's do get annex add and we'll add a big file. Let's also add large file. And you can see that get annex added big file and large file. And of course, after adding the files, you need to do a commit and this you could just do a standard get commit.  And that's all I'm going to do in this repository for right now. Now I'm going to open up a second terminal because now what I want to do is I'm going to CD into my next cloud directory, which in my case, I just call NC. And I'm going to go ahead and make dear because I want to make a new repository for get annex within my next cloud directory. I will name it annex just so it's obvious that that particular folder is a syncing of get annex. And I'm going to CD into annex by doing LS. Of course, it's an empty directory. And just like we initialized the my repo directory, we need to initialize this. So first let's do a get a net. So just the standard get a net. And then let's do a get annex a net. And this time I'm going to name this one next cloud instead of fall sync. So it's obvious anytime I run a command pointing to fall sync. It's pointing to my repo anytime I run a command and specify next cloud. It's specifying NC slash annex. So let's run the unit. Now we need to make each folder each of these get annex repositories aware of each other. Because right now the NC annex directory doesn't know about the downloads my repo directory and vice versa. So let me clear the screen. I'm going to go to the first directory we did, which was the my repo. So what we need to do is add a remote. So I'm going to do a get remote add. And the remote we need to add is next cloud. So we're letting the fall sync repository over here know about the remote next cloud repository over here. It's basically what we're doing. So you have to give it the name, right? But you also have to specify the location, which in my case was my home directory slash NC slash annex. Because that was the directory we created. So that is the command. Let me make that full screen so you guys can see that get remote add next cloud, which was our name, our description. And then the location to that repository, which in my case NC slash annex. Now we need to do the same thing in the NC annex directory, right? So let me clear the screen here and do the same thing get remote add. And this time we're adding fall sync because that's what this get annex repository. We described it as the fall sync repository. And then the location to it is in my home directory slash downloads slash my repo. Again, let me make that full screen so you can see the full command. And now that we've added those, these two repositories should be aware of each other. Now what we need to do is actually run a sync between the two repositories. So if I start with my repo repository, which actually has the files in it and run get annex sync. Just run that, you're going to get some output and the sync is successful. Now if I go over here and do an LS still nothing is in this repository yet because you also have to come over to this one and do get annex sync. And now when I do an LS over here, you see I actually have big file and large file. But I don't really have big file and large file because if I cat big file, there is no such file or directory because these are really not actual files.  You see the hashes here, the very long string of numbers here. So those are just sim links. They contain some information to let get annex know exactly where the actual files exist. They exist actually in another directory. They don't actually exist in this directory. Now if you wanted to actually get the actual file itself like if you wanted to pull down this big file and actually get the content you had to do get annex, you could do get annex add name of file. If you wanted to do big file, for example, or if you want everything, what I would do here is get annex sync space dash dash content. So this time it's running the sync and then the dash dash content flag is letting us know. I don't just want the sim links. I don't want to have a sim link pointing to something. I want the actual file itself and let's run that and now run it LS and you see now. I still have the files here. They still contain some sim links, but they are the actual files. If I run the cat on big file, you can see this is line one. So I actually have the data that is actually contained in the file rather than just a sim link now. So I find that very fascinating. The fact that you can have in this case, I was using two repositories locally on my machine, but it could have been multiple repositories and they don't necessarily have to be local. They could have been on remote machines and you know, you could have some very large files that maybe again, get is kind of clunky moving large files around, but with get annex, it's all sim links, right? It's only an actual file when it needs to be an actual file and then you can specify, hey, please pull down that gigantic file, the actual content. When you don't need it, you're just dealing with sim links and I think that's great. I actually think that's really unique and really an ingenious way of dealing with this problem. Of course, I mentioned that GitHub and GitLab have real problems dealing with large files. They actually set restrictions on this. So how would you do this with something like GitLab, for example? Well, let me switch back over to the desktop and close these out here and go back to my web browser here.  I'm going to call this test repo project. URL is going to be my GitLab slash test repo. I'm not going to give it a description. It can be private repository. I'm just going to blow away this repository. Once I'm done with the video initialize repository with a read me. Yeah, sure. Why not? And then create the project. And now that I've got this remote test repository hosted on my GitLab, let me grab the URL to clone it. I'm going to clone it with SSH so I don't have to deal with passwords because my machine will know about my SSH keys. So once again, I will get into a terminal, zoom in a little bit. I'll CD into downloads once again. And then I'm going to run the Git clone and then give it the URL that I copied over from GitLab for the test repo. Now that it has cloned that, let's CD into test repo. I'm at LS and there is, of course, the hidden folder, the .git folder and the read me. We told it to auto generate. So we've already got one file that's got some text here, the read me.md. Let's go ahead and also touch a big file once again. And once again, let's echo something. I'll just echo. This is line one once again into big file. Now let's go ahead and initialize this repository. We don't need to do a git init because we already did that on the GitLab website. It initializes the repository for us, but we do need to run the git init. And then I, of course, need to name it something. I'm just going to call this one big files. Now let's do a git init add. So git init add, what do we want to add using git init? Let's add everything. So let's just do the period. So that means everything within this directory. So that'll be big file and read me.md. It'll ignore .git directory, that hidden directory. So no worries there. It looks like it did not add the read me. It says add big file. Okay. But it didn't mention anything about read me. I wonder because read me was already added using standard git. Let me try just adding specifically git nx add read me. Nothing is returned. The read me is not adding correctly, but we added big file. We got one file added for testing purposes here. Let's go ahead and run a commit.  Let me run a git log just to check on things here. And yeah, all we have is the initial commit. And that was when I created the repository over on GitLab and the added big file commit. Now let me run a git nx sync dash dash content. And I believe the git nx sync dash dash content essentially is kind of like a git push, right? I believe now I should be able to go back to the browser to test repo. And if I refresh this, oh, look at that. Big file. So I have read me, which was here when we created this. And then now I have big file. Now let's read big file right here on the GitLab website. And that is not the contents of big file, right? Because the contents should have been this is line one. But instead all we get is once again the very long numbers, the very long string of numbers, right? The hash. Again, this is just a reference to a sim link, right? So this is not the actual file here on the GitLab. And if this was actually a big file, that's exactly what we would want. We wouldn't, because you couldn't have a big file on GitLab. But now you have this sim link that actually points to a repository locally on your machine, or it could be, you know, on another machine, but it points to somewhere where you can actually have that large file stored. And if somebody wants to pull it down, they can because that sim link points to it. And that's cool. I don't know if you guys are as fascinated with this as I am, but I've been blown away by Gitanax. And again, I just scratched the surface here with Gitanax because this thing is deep. There is so much stuff you can do with it. I'm looking at key concepts, special remotes, so various services it can use, including Amazon Glacier and BitTorrent, R-Sync, S3, Web Dev, Git, of course, we've been playing with, but there's so much stuff here. I doubt the developer probably has this tested all of this. I'm sure there's multiple developers, but there's so much stuff you could potentially do with Gitanax. They have a variety of scenarios, use cases, and, you know, all I did was what I consider the most basic use of Gitanax, which is syncing very large files that typically, again, you can't do with just the standard Git command. So I'm going to keep playing with Gitanax as I find more really cool use cases with it. I'm probably going to make more videos about this because, again, I think this is a tool that I had never heard of, and, again, I don't think most of you guys have ever heard of, and I think it deserves a lot more attention. Anyway, before I go, let me thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of the show, Devon Gabe James Maximette, Michael Mitchell, Paul Scott West, Alan Armoredragon, Chuck Mandarin Reed, Diokai, Dylan George, Lee Lennox-Ninja, Mike Erion, Alexander, P Sgt. Fedor, Polytech, Red Prophet, Steven and Willie. These guys, they're my has-teared patrons over on Patreon without these guys. This episode you just watched would not have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these ladies and gentlemen. All these fine ladies and gentlemen, they support me over on Patreon because I don't have any corporate sponsors. It's just me and you guys, the community. If you like my work and you want to see more shows about Linux, free and open source software, cool tools like Gitanax, subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. All right, guys. Peace. Is there anything you can't do with Haskell?


Hello and welcome to the session. In this session we are going to discuss the following question and the question says that a mole of copper contains 6.02 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms. How many atoms are there in 0.635 moles? We are given a mole of copper contains 6.02 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms, that is one mole is equal to 6.02 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms, we have to find the number of atoms in 0.635 moles. So our first step is to identify initial and desired units. So here our initial unit is moles and desired unit is atoms. Our next step is to identify the unit path. We have to convert moles into atoms. So our unit path will look like where the initial quantity is 0.635 moles and the desired quantity will be in atoms. The next step is to write the unit path using equivalence as conversion factors to obtain desired unit. Now we know 1 mole is equal to 6.02 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms. So we have 1 mole upon 6.02 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms is equal to 1 or 6.02 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms upon 1 mole is equal to 1. We will choose those conversion factors so that the initial unit cancels out and we are left with the desired unit that is atoms. So we have the following unit path. Here we are using the conversion factor 6.02 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms upon 1 mole. The next step is to treat units as numbers to obtain answer. For this we cancel the units and terms so that we are left only with the desired units. So let us first cancel the units, moles cancel with mole and we obtain 0.635 into 6.02 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms which is equal to 3.8227 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms. So 0.635 moles of copper contains 3.8227 into 10 raise to power 23 atoms which is our required answer. This completes our session. Hope you enjoyed the session.


You know, one of the things I've learned in life and I'm still learning is that if you if you misunderstand someone's struggle You will misread and misjudge their strength If you don't understand the struggle That's behind a person's strength You will misread the strength and misjudge the person Because you don't understand why they need that strength to cope with what they're going through in life because you don't know What they're going through in life? I've often felt on the receiving end of being misunderstood with the strength I about to have at different times and the tenacity and the focus and the removal of certain voices and people from my life the times when I've been Unreasonable and not open to certain voices and opinions and ideas which I know to people Can look rude and arrogant and proud and opinionated But I was going through a struggle some of you know people in your life or you yourself You have a struggle that you're not able to articulate or nor should you have to tell anyone about but that struggle To overcome an illness or overcome a bereavement or overcome a setback a bankruptcy a tragedy a problem something in your life that has Forced you to find a strength Because of that struggle People that often don't know and sometimes people that do and should know better only see The strength the strength is what's manifested the strength is what's obvious So people judges by the strength that they see and don't like and don't understand But they would if they knew the struggle that's behind that strength So I think I'm appealing to you guys to To think twice to be slow to judge people based on The strength that they have if it's the kind of expression of strength that you don't like or You feel others wouldn't like And ask yourself I wonder what that person's going through. I wonder what their struggle is I wonder what Hand life is dealing them at the moment for them to have to find that kind of strength I've learned and I'm still learning to stop and to be slow to judge and quick to listen to be slow to Make an opinion based on the evident strength someone may have the evident stubbornness the evident Persistence the evident relentlessness the evident anger However, however the strength is Manifested and demonstrated I'm slow to judge because I wonder what is that Guy going through what are that couple going through? What is that young person going through? I don't know about the struggle and Very few people do know about the struggle So Cut some people some slack given the benefit of the doubt and try to be more empathetic towards What possible struggles people could have and then you'll read that in your own life If you put that out towards people People will grant that back to you when you are going through a season of your life where you're really struggling So you have to find a strength to Survive and cope with that struggle others will be kinder to you if you have been kinder to them When it was your turn to be gracious with someone else's turn To struggle and be strong and risk being misunderstood So I think that's a good thing to add to our humanity To be more aware and empathetic to the possibility of this is a huge struggle That's forcing you to find this kind of strength and I understand it and I am you or I was you or one day I will be you so let's give each other a break on all that


I'm Miguel Clifford. I look like a very healthy person, but I got COVID. Well, it was one morning I got up, I was coughing a lot, and I started sweating. So my people decided to tell me, well, you should go to Tapio and get a PCR test done. I was a little hard headed. I thought it was just a normal, a little cold because I must have slept with the AC or something. So then I still decided to go. When I went in, Dr. King, after the test, he called me and put me to sit down. When I sat down to my arm, I have some sad news that he tested positive for COVID. I was like, wow. I got the staff on the Saturday afternoon about 1.32 o'clock. They examined me. They took my pressure, my pulse, everything. Then they put me in the room. They told me, I cannot get out of the room. Anything I need, I have to call the reception. They're going to bring it. People are going to attend to me. So I should be fine. I say, OK. I spent Saturday Sunday. Monday, the cough started getting worse. I had a diarrhea, which was, I couldn't control. After my cough, I would pass out on me. So I called the nurse. I told her that I'm coughing heavy. So kind of give me something for the coughing and for the diarrhea and the pain, because the pain I'm having. And I'm lying down because I'm on the one way in the room. I'm sweating for about five hours straight. Sweating, sweating, wipe myself. Take out the tissue, bring it. Put it outside and open the door slightly to get dry. Take another one. And then they called me to me, OK, the doctor prescribed me something for me. So if I could get someone to come and buy it for me, no problem. I called my niece. She lives in Rodney Bay. She went to pick it up. She bought it.  They dropped it off in the room. Some inhalers and some antibiotic and stuff. Cough syrup. I started taking it. About two days after that, I started feeling... The coughing was getting worse. So I was on the phone with a friend. And she told me, but Miguel told me, you're wheezing. I said, what's wheezing? She said, like, you gasping for air. I said, really? She said, yes. But you're talking to me like, OK. I said, nah, man, I'm fine. She said to me, no, Miguel, you have a problem breathing. She told me later this evening, when the doctor's on an assist pass, I tell him that you have a little problem breathing to hear what they're going to say. And then the assist pass at seven, a little after seven, they take my temperature. When they checked me, they realized that my oxygen was low in my blood. They didn't tell me, OK, they're going to have the doctor to come and check me out. I do hear from them again.  It's on its way, so it will be there shortly. So I got myself ready. I pack up my stuff. I take a little shower and I waited for them. Then they called me about 11, 13, going up to 12. So I'm like, the ambulance is there. Can I make it to the lobby? I told them, no, if they have a wheelchair, they didn't have a wheelchair. I said, OK, I'm coming. I asked God for the decision because I was weak. So I walked out of the room. I walked towards the lobby. I made them at the lobby. They put me on the stretcher. They take my vitals again before I left. They put oxygen on me and then they took me to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, like I got to the hospital in time. At the minute I reached there, there's doctors on me, oxygen, and they start putting things on my chest. They checked my heart. They gave me blood thinner because they told me I was having blood clot. I could get a heart attack. And they started giving me medication. They put me on drips. And that's when they said I spent two days in the ward nine. And then they took me to a lower room because they told me that I could start breathing because oxygen became lesser. Because the pressure that they gave me when I got there, I realized the pressure got a little lesser. So they told me that I have to breathe on my own so that it would send me to a lower room. While I was in the lower room, I had a couple of complications with my white blood cells and red blood cells. They wasn't balancing off. They gave me a lot of antibiotics to bring out. And I never had that problem before. I never had had problem before. I never had blood problem. And then I spent 16 days at the hospital. The only people I got contacted at home that got the COVID was my wife and my two kids. None of my friends that I was around didn't get it. I up to there like today, I don't know how I got it. I don't feel through money because I didn't follow the money. I don't feel somewhere I go and somebody touch me. I don't know. I always have my mask, I always have it. All my figures are on sanitizer. Sanitize myself 24-7. On my home, everywhere, the whole business, everywhere I have sanitizer. So I don't know why I pick it up. So it's so easy to pick it up and you don't know. Until a couple of days, then you start feeling sick.


Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game are about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is a man of great character with a fantastic team-first mentality. He is Florida State quarterback Mackenzie Milton, and today we are going Beyond Football. Hey, KZ, welcome to Beyond the Lines. What's going on, Rusty? Thank you for having me. Now, I know you've been in Florida, the state of Florida, for some years now, but what are some things that you miss about Hawaii? I would say I miss the people, first of all, and then the food. The food from where? Oh, everywhere. Zippies. I've grown pretty fond of my cafe in Kapolei. That place is unreal. They have these malasada pancakes, so every time I go home, I go there, I get smoked meat. Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's the best food in the world, and I tell people that here all the time. Well, I know that you love it there in Florida as well, and the people of Florida absolutely love you. Mackenzie, I want to ask you about your family. Your parents, Mark and Teresa, are incredible people. What's the biggest thing you learned from them? Like you said, just how they treat people, and then also just working hard. They've done everything to provide for my family and myself, so I appreciate them greatly for all the lessons they taught me along the way, and I am who I am because of them. And Mackenzie, that's so good. I got to know your dad pretty well now. He's my new friend, and I know that you and Tua Tangovaloa are friends for a long time. How did your friendship begin with Tua? When we met in elementary school, he joined my parents' youth football league along with his brother, Talia, and his cousin, Myron, they were on our football team. And he was our quarterback, and I was running back, and we played together for a season. So that's how we first met, and we kind of kept in contact since and followed each other's career since, competed against each other, and I guess I had just kind of supported each other ever since. So he's a class act. What you see is what you get with him, and he's definitely someone I look up to. Just the way he carries himself, and obviously the way he plays, he's an unbelievable football player. And tell me about that youth football league. That's something that your parents had started? I'm not sure if they started the YPO Panthers, but they inherited it, and they ran it for, I think, 15-plus years, and it's out of YPO Gentry Park, and we played our games at Milani District Park. And that's how I made some of my lifelong friends from playing in that league. They just gave back to their community, and they kind of adopted me from the mainland. So I was extremely grateful for that, because it provided me an avenue to one, fall in love with football, and then to make some lifelong friends, like I said. Oh, that's so good to hear, because they definitely made a huge positive impact with so many families here in Hawaii. And Casey, I want to ask you about my books. I know you have both of my books, and you're in the first, you're reading the first book so far. Are you liking it so far? I am. I'm liking it so far. One thing that's kind of stood out to me is, or two things that kind of stood out to me, is the first thing is just, you know, everybody has choices, and the choices kind of ultimately lead to who you are. And then the four P's is what's stood out to me in the early chapters of, you know, one people, everything you do involves people, especially in sports, so. And one thing I've learned, you're only as good as the people around you. And then process, I don't feel like you can cheat the process. It always takes something to get to where you're going. And then purpose, I think purpose comes before process, I'm sorry. So you find your purpose is obviously important. And then performance, you've got to perform to be great. And like you did at Puno, you guys won 22 straight state championships, which is unbelievable. I was only able to get one at Milani, so I know how hard it comes. Hey, Casey, I'm impressed that you know the four P's. Nice. That's me really. So I feel grateful and honored that you like the book so far. Hopefully you keep liking it. And I want to talk more about your experience at Milani High School, being the quarterback there, and, you know, winning the state championship. You guys had a pretty good team that year too, right? Yeah, and I think it was 2014, we actually beat Puno, but they beat us a year prior. But yeah, we had some talent on that team. And I would argue it's maybe the best high school team ever.  And more than anything, you know, we worked really hard. And Coach Rodgort, he instilled a work ethic in us. And it's a team camaraderie.  So especially in the game of football, you know, it's all 11 guys working together. And, you know, it's a beautiful thing when it happens, right?  And it literally came down to the last plays. So that's something I still think back on and look back on sometimes. And, you know, those were definitely some great moments. No, that's good to hear.  And I like hearing that Coach York had that, you know, team first mentality. And, KZ, what attracted you to go to University of Central Florida? Well, you know, I only had a few offers coming out of high school. I got hurt my senior year, hurt my throwing arm, my shoulder, which I think kind of kept some schools away from me really in the recruiting process. And it turned out to be a blessing and, you know, ended up leading me out to UCF. And I think the main thing was, you know, watching Marcus Mariota play at Oregon and, you know, Scott Frost, he was his offensive coordinator.  So just having the opportunity to play under Coach Frost and, you know, the offensive scheme he ran and, you know, I knew I could surround myself with some talented guys going to Florida or the state of Florida. And, you know, sure enough, there's been a number of guys that I played with that have ended up in the NFL. And we had some some great times and some some really good success over there. And KZ, I mean, that's that's an incredible story with you and Coach Scott Frost. Because UCF was 0 and 12. And then was it your first year that UCF went six and six? And then your second year, you guys went undefeated, 12 and 0, winning the Peach Bowl over Auburn, who was ranked number seven in the country? Yes, sir. Yeah, our first season, we're coming off a 0 and 12 year. And as a freshman, you know, I started several games and we went six and seven. And then following your, like you said, we went 13 and 0 and beat Auburn. And it was just a special journey, you know, with a group of special guys and special coaches. So and Coach Frost, he was the guy to catalyst at all. He was a great coach, a great leader. And with all that, he's an even better person. So that's someone I definitely look up to. And I hope to emulate him one day when I get into the coaching. Well, you know, I love Coach Scott Frost. I've been following him for years because, you know, I went to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and he was the Nebraska quarterback winning the national championship. And why is why was he such an effective coach at UCF? I mean, he just commanded the locker room. But at the same time, he knew he cared about his players and anything he said, like it got through to you no matter what it was. And, you know, it was if he was getting on, you knew it was never coming from a place of him having something against you or just trying to better you. And I think that was something special about him. So and also like you just came to work every day and you're just a genuine guy. You could talk to him about anything going on in your life. So I think that's something that's important as a coach, you know, X's and O's and on the field is one thing. But when you truly care about your players, that's something that you can truly form a special bond and have that trust on and off the field. No, that's great to hear. I mean, empathy is such a such a key thing for for any leader, you know, to have success with their teams, whether it be in sports or business. And and Casey, I want to ask you about that devastating knee injury that you had. I mean, I watched that game. I mean, it was it was horrific. And and you were doing so good in the game. And then, you know, tell me the details about how bad that injury really was. Yeah, you know, we were and we had one 22 straight games going into that. And I just took a bad hit helmet to the knee and my knee dislocated and I suffered nerve artery and limb ligament damage. It's pretty much the worst knee injury you could possibly have playing a sport or in general, typically, it's something that happens in a car accident. This is unfortunate and, you know, the rehab process has been tough, but luckily, I've had some great surgeons and a great medical team to, you know, help me through it. So it hasn't been an easy road, but it's definitely been rewarding, you know, coming out on the other side of it and, you know, being able to get to to play again. Amputation was a possibility as well.   So I think it's about 50 50, you know, with this injury. And, you know, by the grace of God, you know, I was right in Tampa and it was one of the best trauma centers in the country, Tampa General. And, you know, they had to do an artery bypass the night I got hurt.  The nerve was severed. And, you know, I'd never get feeling back in my leg, which would also result in amputation. So I said, it's by the grace of God, you know, obviously it's an unfortunate injury, but it could have been worse. And it wasn't. So, you know, I'm back on the football field, playing the game I love and, you know, I'm mixture in the group for that. You know, I always felt like that wasn't the end of the story and I still don't feel like it is. And I don't take it for granted at all, though, you know, being back on just practicing. So there's a lot of, I mean, most people would have said that I wouldn't get to this point. And, you know, but I never believed that, you know, my parents, they never let me believe that. And, you know, that's a goal I had since the moment I got hurt was to get back on the field. And, you know, that's what I've been doing. And, you know, it's not just getting back. It's I want to perform at a high level. And I feel like I'll be able to do that. Once Scott Frost left UCF, Josh Hypole became the head coach. What's something that you learned from coach Josh Hypole? I think just the main thing I learned from him was just the details of things and, you know, not taking shortcuts or anything like that. You know, we kind of butted heads a little when he first got there, because, you know, I would sometimes come late to things.   So I really appreciate him holding me accountable to that. And just bettering every aspect of my life. And I feel like that's the biggest thing I took from him and now he's at Tennessee.  So I have a lot of love for him and his family. And, you know, I wish him the best at Tennessee. And I'm sure our paths will cross again, you know, very soon. Hazy, I want you to tell my viewers about why you decided to transfer from UCF to Florida State. You know, part of it was, you know, my buddy Dylan Gabriel, he is a graduate from Milani High School as well.   So, main reason I just feel like we're both too good to be on the same team. I feel like that's part of it. You know, there's only one football. And, you know, I didn't feel like he had to take a backseat to me or I had to take a backseat to him. So, you know, it's his job now over there. I couldn't write it any better.  Then hopefully I'll get a chance to play in the NFL. But, you know, just being here has been awesome for this spring. I've only been here a few months, but I'm just extremely grateful for the opportunity. I mean, that's your, you have that team first mentality right there where, you know, it's all about team, you know, Dylan and then your teammates there at UCF and you want the best for them. And then now that you're at Florida State, I mean, what is it about Coach Mike Norval that you admire and that you like about him? You know, I competed against him while he was at Memphis. And every time we played them, they were a tough, tough team. They were physical, they were fast. And I like what they ran on offense and just getting to know him as a person.  He expects excellence in the classroom. How you conduct yourself off the field. And, you know, that's something I appreciate. And I think that's why he's had the success he's had as a coach. And I think that's why he'll continue to be one of the best coaches in college football and wherever he goes. He's gonna continue to flourish because, you know, he's molding players, but he's also molding men, which, you know, I feel like sometimes, you know, some coaches miss the ball on that, but he's a guy that has surrounded himself with great assistants, great players. And, you know, he's gonna yield great results because of that.   I mean, I know that you have a lot of talent around you. Is everyone kind of gelling together right now? Yeah, you know, it's going really good. Our spring practices have been extremely productive. I feel like we're making strides each day. And, you know, that's something that's important because you only get to put on the pads for about a month in spring.  You know, I don't feel like we've wasted a day in these spring workouts. And I feel like we've continued down that path. We will have a chance to be pretty good.  So, you know, we just got to keep pushing on a loop. And, you know, we always talk about getting 1% better. And the standard for us is just being your best. Nothing less, nothing more, just be your best. So I feel like if we continue down that, we'll have a chance to be a pretty special team. Oh, that sounds good. And KZ, I want to go a little deeper with you now. Why do champions become champions? I feel like it's a combination of things, but I feel like the main thing is consistency. You know, if you're consistent in who you are day in and day out, and it's not just being consistent in, you know, big things, it's the little things.  You've already accomplished the first task. So it's not just the big aspects of your life, it's every aspect of your life. And, you know, when you take care of those things, that's when, you know, I kind of believe in good luck per se in the sense of, you know, good things will happen to you if you take care of, you know, what you're supposed to, because, you know, sometimes a ball will land in the right spot or it'll roll the right way. Just because of what you put into it. You know, it just happens to be that way sometimes, what I've learned, you know, playing sports for a long time. So I feel like consistency is the biggest part of it.  You know, like I said, there's no individual success without team success. So champion is able to bring others along with them to get to where they wanna go. And great leaders create other great leaders around them. And, you know, I feel like it's just a combination of all those things, just the little things add up. And I feel like when you overlook the little things, that's when, you know, you'll get caught slipping eventually and the slips and the cracks will eventually become losses and you'll find yourself not where you wanna be before the time, so. No, I love hearing that. I totally agree with you.  And KZ, you know, when you guys beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl, why did you guys win that game?  You know, I feel like we won that game because we knew we were supposed to win that game. We felt like we were a better team and, you know, I always say, you know, the game's played out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.  You know, the separation is in the preparation.  So I feel like that's kind of what set us apart at UCF against those other teams. Obviously, you have to have good players. You have to have good athletes.  I feel like our team did a great job preparing and, you know, we knew we matched up physically, athletically and all we had to do was just go execute. And honestly, we didn't execute a great deal during the game and we still won because we were a better team. And truthfully, I feel like if we played them again and executed at a high level, it would have been a two to four touchdown game, either way.  I mean, because great teams can find a way to win even when they're not playing their best. And to go back on what you said at halftime, you know, like I said, we weren't executing well, but we were still up. So we had confidence going in that if we just do our jobs, we'll be just fine and win this game. So we had no worries. We felt like we're supposed to win that game that we did. No, it's a mindset. It's, I mean, you guys were just believing in yourselves and in each other and I love it.  And KZ, what drives you to be the best that you can possibly be?  It's not to prove any doubters wrong or anything like that. You know, it's for me to just prove to myself and also, you know, to show that, you know, God can work great things through some tough circumstances. So it's a combination of those three things.  I love all that, but, you know, like this, I feel like this year is going to be special just because, you know, it's been a long time coming and, you know, those people around me have been the catalyst to help me get back to where I want to be to play. So mainly for my family, but also, you know, this isn't going to be for me. And I'm not trying to be selfish, like I said, but I feel like, you know, I've been through a lot and I just really want to enjoy playing football. And I feel like that's what people a lot of times miss out and, you know, if you're playing something you love, just go out and enjoy it for yourself. Cause one thing about it, whatever sport you're playing, it's not, it's going to end one day. So just enjoy it while it lasts. And football is a game and games are fun and you can never lose sight of, you know, why you first got into football, right? Absolutely, absolutely.  Shoot, kind of like we talked about earlier, choices. You know, I haven't always made the best choices in college, you know, or in high school, but you know, I've also made some good ones. You know, I made a good choice to come out here to UCF and, you know, that's what ultimately led me to FSU. So I feel like that's the biggest thing I learned.  You know, you can choose to work hard or you can choose to take a day off, but you'll never get that day back.  And like I said, I know I'm not perfect, you know, I'm trying to better myself every day, but I know I try to surround myself with the right people and make the right choices for the most part. And that's one thing I've learned and that's one thing I'll try to carry with me, you know, forever really. No, I like hearing that because that's why chapter one is the choice is yours in the book.  What do you feel the greatest leaders do? I feel like the greatest leaders, they set the standard and, you know, they'll do anything that they expect their players to do and they'll go through that fire with them. They don't just ask or tell them to do something and don't go through and do it themselves. I feel like the best leaders lead by example and action. I kind of like saying you lead by action more than example because action, you're putting forth and going to do something with them. So I feel like the best leaders I've been around have done that and they've yielded great results and, you know, they made even greater leaders around them, which is, I feel like, you know, leaving a legacy, you know, making anybody can, you know, do something for themselves. But when they branch off, like in your book, you know, talk about Bill Belichick having his coaching tree and Nick saving his coaching tree, that's a legacy. And I feel like that's the mark of a true leader, you know, changing, you know, not just the people's lives around them, but the people's lives around them and then so forth, those people that they're going to impact. I think those are the best leaders I've been around and, you know, that's something I admire and, you know, hope to be one of them. Oh, that's exactly what you're doing, Mackenzie, and I want to ask you one more thing. How do you define greatness? Man, that's a loaded question right there.   You can be great in something and whatever your niche is, whatever your skill is, everybody's got something that they're good at, but it's finding that little thing to separate you from someone else and become great. And it's the little things, the little things that matter. And, you know, the difference between good and great, I learned in popular football is just a little more effort, little more effort each day that's going to separate you inch by inch, block by block, and those inches become feet, those feet become yards. And then before you know it, you're miles ahead of the competition and I feel like the greatest competition is yourself. Because if you start comparing yourself to others, that's where it gets dicey because someone might be far ahead of you or way behind you. So if you're comparing yourself with someone far behind you, then you're really regressing because, you know, that's not the standard. The standard should be to just better yourself every day. And I feel like that's what greatness is all about. KZ, you are a great example of greatness and I want more KZs in the world. And I want to thank you for taking time to join me on the show today. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you having me, Rusty. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that KZ and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.


It was a long four, was it four weeks? It's been a long couple of weeks. The first five episodes just set this entire season up and the vibe for the season up so perfectly, but we're back. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to this channel. My name is Jack the Buster, I'm Shinobi, and JJK is back. We have episode 30 called It's Like That that I will be reacting to today. And man, I am so excited for this season because the first five episodes, the prequel episodes, getting to know the backstory between Gojo and Geto was just magnificent. And like I said, has really set the stage for this season.  The gang is back, baby. Wait, we're not even starting with all of them together? Guys! Human earthworm! I like how gung-holy is about it. This is kind of like the fly mixed with human centipede. Okay. Why, people in love? Okay, buddy.  They have a child. Aw, you look so sad. Whoa, she's watching, watching. Oh. Yeah, those things, she's like staring. Oh. Oh, no! That's my boy. What? Oh, shoot. Big ol' promotion for the gang. Oh, they just need to recognize her from two first grades. So they're in the big leagues now. How many fingers is he up to? I honestly don't even remember. Is that a four-leaf clover on the ball? They roll the world together. Is he rolling her that bad? It is a four-leaf clover. Oh, my gosh. I'm good to see that his, his opinion of Yuji hasn't changed. Oh, wait, what? Oh, it's like a bias thing. Those that I recommended can't accompany. Huh. Oh, it took all the wind out of the sails. That's so sad.  Are you a friend? All right. Oh, shoot. New intro. Oh, my God. Everyone. Shibuya incident.  Friggin' Jogo, bro. Kato and his gang. Dude, this is beautiful. It is an interesting piece that Toto can't accompany. Oh, the clap. What we in for in these fights, baby? Oh, my gosh. No, I don't, I'm not as into the song but the visuals in this are crazy. Domain expansion. Dude, everybody. Holy. It's going down, baby.  Oh, my gosh. Crown. Rokosato? Oh, Yuji. Oh, she got like a crush on him? Oh. Wow, love interest. How exciting. So sweet. Her name's Yuko. It's like that. Oh, the title. It's like that. Is this to like slowly get her in with his friends?  Not in a million years. No. Dang, rip the Nobita Yuji shippers. Chest. What? What? In other words, that's how it is. Oh, my gosh. That's how it is. She's not here. Definitely not. I was always starting off with like a light note. Ah. Ah, yeah, that's a good sign. Oh, that's a question for Toto. She's in. I'll summon him. Family restaurant, come. Why? Come. Got it. That was Kurt. Oh, there he is. She's highlighted. That is not the same person, bro. Oh, he does recognize her. Dang. Oh, did he have a crush on her? Well, he's kind of stylish for real. Is she? Cui-kata, Jitoka. That's so cute. But he literally said Ozawa. She gathered up the confidence to ask for a picture. She has more confidence. The same smile. So that was it. Ah. Oh, and feelings. Oh, I missed like the animation for the physical comedy. The trio is back. It's kind of an interesting loose end, though. They still have time to go. Let's go. Wormoman. Are you going to miss human earth? We're in four, bro. I think like a part of me thought the episode was over. I was like, there's no way of a feeling that something horrible is going to happen to this poor girl. That's why I set it up. I just don't trust this show with any character, man. I really don't. Oh, and yet now we got a big look at Uda Hime in the backstory, too. All of them, man. All of that sort of class of characters, leaking intel. They have two rats, bro. Man. What? No.  How would they have found out, too? I wonder, oh. Oh, that's where they're going. Oh my gosh. Everyone, oh. Oh. So he's the most suspicious out of being least suspicious. I see. There's no like direct evidence. They just have to kind of get out of there. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's no like direct evidence. They just have to kind of confront them. I hope not, man. Especially from what we saw from him in the first season. He seems genuine. This is cool, though, that we're getting a look at where he is. I mean, we got a kind of a tease, but. Yeah, true. There he is. Oh, he knew they were coming. Oh, no, bro. There's no way. What? Is this a domain? No, dude. Really? The first episode of all this arguments of fat plots was that Megamorra was evil? Oh my God, bro. I was cheering for you. Oh, wait. An enemy. Are they just using him? Maybe they threatened him? Oh. Man. In Shibuya. Yeah, but this is what you get for making a deal with these kind of people, man. Come back. Oh, man. Uncertain nature of the penalty. Oh, breaking a pack? Oh, you just lose. Breaking a pack with someone else? You don't know what will happen? Oh, so you definitely can't break a pack for someone else. What is this important of one? They're actually going to fix him.  Yeah, dude, you can't make a deal with these kind of people. He's back! Oh, man. His body is just healed now. What, now they just obliterate him? Oh, man. Now he's going to fight for this newly gained life. Okay, I'm glad he's not just like actually just evil. He was doing it to fix him. Oh, man. Somebody doesn't just get clapped right away, though. Why is this fun to watch fight? It's because he enjoys it. Third gear, bro. Oh. Atta boy. You don't need to. Oh, but he gets like an insane amount of trouble, especially since they found out. Oh, wait. He is fighting back. He's just going to let him go for free. He can have a smile. That's what I mean. What? Ultimate Mechamaru. He's actually just a Mecha. Maybe he's not inside it, though. It can still be remote, right? Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah. He's inside it. That is sick. Bro, Mechamaru been holding out on us. Victory, what? Gojo getting there? Gojo's just a trump card. He can't because I'm Mahito. Yeah, good luck. It's intimidating how confident they are. Bro, this actually just turned into a Mecha anime. Everything. For her. Oh, that's when he went to sleep. A one-year charge. Wait, so he's been building this up for 16 years total? Oh, my goodness. The one-punch fist? What's the point? No, but like, actually. Banger starts in this season, though. I say this season, but we're six episodes in, technically. But banger start, I apologize for the camera freezing a lot. I'm about to reset my PC. I'm sick of it. But ultimate Mechamaru, I mean, we've already had so many things brought up. He's sort of loose-end with Yuko having a cross on Yuji. I guess a potential love interest that's planting a seed for the future. Because she was kind of in and out of the show. She just has a lot of internal questions with herself. And what she wants out of everything, especially with Yuji. I mean, he showed us true colors to her back in school, so... I think I don't really understand what happened there with him. Maybe she just doesn't, like, think that conforming to what she thinks he wanted was right. That's kind of how I perceived it. But Mechamaru being the focus is definitely not wasn't on my being go-kart, at least for the start of this season. But I think this is going to be a way for them to really exaggerate or re-exaggerate how strong Mahito and Geto is and, like, what we're up against. Because he's stored up this energy for years in this ultimate form. And if he loses to them, then, yeah, it's just going to put the nail in the coffin further for how possibly outmatched we are. I have no idea. Power-skilling in JJK confuses the heck out of me. But guys, that's been it for my reaction to Episode 30. If you're new to the channel, don't forget to drop a sub. And I'll catch you in the next one. Peace, peace.