I was talking with somebody and I asked her, what are your goals for your business? And she said, well, it's to have a business beyond my wildest dreams, doesn't everybody? And it gave me pause. What she's saying about her goals, having a business beyond her wildest dreams is not unusual. In fact, most of the people in my industry of business coaching, marketing experts, all want to be number one, want to be extraordinary, want to have the greatest success compared to their peers, want to have a seven figure income or a million follower of social media following, right? Million people following on social media, et cetera, et cetera. But I want to be, personally, I want to be average. I want to be average in the externals, but I want to lead from the inner qualities. That's what I'm going for. And I hope you'll consider this to see if it resonates with you as well. I am much happier today, now that I've prioritized these things differently, kind of like upside down versus when I first started my business, in the first couple of years of my business, I prioritized the externals, the money, the fame, right? How much prestige I had among my peers, et cetera. And I came to, well, I burned out, that was one. And I came to realize it was just, I was going through, I was living through a lot of stress with those kinds of priorities and goals. And then a couple of years into my business, I had a spiritual transformation. And I realized that if I were to die in six months, none of that mattered. What mattered a lot more was the internal qualities that I've developed or not developed. And so I made a shift in priorities that gratefully has resulted in a much happier life today. And at the same time, it happens to be that when we focus on the inner growth, it often, sometimes at least, it translates into outer growth, not that it will always make you more money, but it wins you more loyalty. And when you have more loyalty, you tend to have enough clients, enough help, support from others who wanna help you and spread the word about your business, et cetera. So let me tell you, instead of trying to be a seven figure business and to have a million followers, let me tell you the three things I am prioritizing in my business, the three most important things. One is to increasingly become more skillful in my craft. So my craft is teaching, as you well know, and coaching. So that's the sort of the, and writing. That's, I guess I've become a writer now as well. I'm about to publish my third book. So teaching, coaching, writing, I'm increasing. That's like my, one of the top priorities in my business is to keep getting better at these things. And also part of improving my craft means to continuing, to improve my knowledge in my subject matter expertise. So for me, that's how to do authentic marketing more effectively, how to do paid advertising more efficiently, how to create and market online courses and teaching others how to do that, how to optimize one's offerings so that it's a better match with the market. And these kinds of things, basically how to build an authentic business successfully. That's my subject matter expertise and I'm constantly learning and trying to get better at it and trying to get better at teaching it and coaching it and writing about it, right? So that's like, that's one of the three top priorities in my business, not money, not fame. Those are like, those are not even priorities in my business actually. I let those happen naturally. I do have goals obviously for financial sustainability and I tend to meet them. But beyond that, funny thing is with my money, I'm not trying to make more money. And I actually don't want more followers and more fans and everything like that. I'm actually pretty happy with both. I make about average, just slightly above average compared to the salaries in San Francisco which I have to admit are higher than pretty much everywhere else. So San Francisco salary wise, I'm pretty much average. So you can look that up, you're interested. No, I'm sure, I'm sorry. No, I looked up, I should say our household income is above average in terms of household incomes in San Francisco but my own personal salary is lower than the average San Francisco salary is like $127,000 a year. And I make just below, I make below that but I make enough combined with my wife's income. We live just fine here. And I don't want to make more money. I don't, it's, there's no, I don't, it doesn't make any difference for me to make more money. I'm good at managing my money. So I'm always saving money and we have a yearly vacation that's a long vacation and we also visit our parents a couple of times a year. So, I have a fine life. I don't need to make more money. And then in terms of fame, 5,000 Facebook fans, it's enough for me, honestly, why do I need more? You know, I've got those of you watching this live, Yule and Kareen, Michelle, I mean, what more do I need? So, seriously, right? Like, why are people, I just sometimes, I shouldn't say this, I remember when I used to chase. I used to chase money, chase fame, chase prestige. I want people to look up to me and now that I look back, it seems so foreign to me. I have to try to remember those times.  I realized that's what it was.  I wasn't fulfilled and I see some of my peers and I see them doing that. And I wonder, I mean, it's not for me to judge their path, but I wonder if they are truly feeling this deep sense of fulfillment and contentment that I'm so grateful to have today, you know? So, anyway, so first priority, to increase the skills in my craft. That's what I love the most. The second, and these are not in any particular order. I think the all three are equally important. The second priority is to grow in the inner qualities through my work. I see work, I see every activity that I do in my work every single day, not as I just got to get it done, but as a stage for my personal evolution, a stage for the inner qualities to grow. How can I grow more today in diligence as I'm doing this? No matter how boring the action is, I don't have an assistant right now. I chose not to this year so that I can further streamline my business and not just streamline my business, but also it was also a purposeful act to start doing all the admin stuff myself so that, well, yes, one, I wanted to learn how to streamline it more because when I'm the one doing it now, I've got streamline, I eliminate tasks, automate as much as I can, and then whatever I can't automate and when I can't streamline, even if it's boring, I'm gonna do it myself because it is a stage for inner quality growth, right? It's a stage for like learning mindfulness and doing, entering the data, okay? Or whatever it is I'm doing, that should be admin work. No, I'm doing it now and I do it, I breathe joy into it and I breathe diligence into it, I breathe humility also. I am not better than my administrative assistant.  And yes, it's not the best use of my time, quote unquote, oh, I'm such a, you know, the best use of my time is to be a, you know, on the pedestal teacher and coach and speaker, best-selling author, you know, it's okay to do the admin work sometimes because I think it fosters our humility, right? For me, anyway, that's why I appreciate that kind of work sometimes. It's good for me to stay on the ground and do that. So I think growing the inner qualities is what I aim to do every day and that's one of the top priorities in my business. And then the third top priority of my business is to continually seek and improve my balance. The balance between work and rest and hobbies. Now, I don't have kids and I currently don't, I'm not caretaking for elderly parents. Eventually that will happen, but so I think if you have a family or if you're caretaking, obviously it's work, rest, hobbies and caretaking, right? But I don't have that right now, so just work, rest and hobbies. And that is something that's ongoing, you know? My business keeps evolving and so does, therefore does my schedule, my work schedule. And it's like every couple of months I have to rebalance between work, rest and hobbies. It's like every month, really. And, you know, work gets, sometimes work gets really engrossing and I have to remember the balance again. Work, rest and hobbies, work, rest and hobbies. So that's a top priority for me. And if I get that right, I keep improving that. If I keep improving my inner qualities and if I keep improving my skills and my craft, then I am so happy, you know? And I'm so fulfilled. And it's just so happens that if I keep on these things, right? And I think that's why I'm asking you to consider that for yourself as your top priorities, not the money and not the fame, not the six-figure, seven-figure, the million followers or whatever you, you know, maybe were influenced by other celebrities that that's supposed to be what we're after. Because let me tell you this. Now I was, let me complete my thought first to say, if I keep improving on these three priorities, it happens that organic word of mouth keeps growing. People trust me more because I come through, I know what I'm talking about in my field and I model a good work-life balance. So they feel like, well, that's something I can work towards as well. What happens when we pursue the externals? Here's what happens. We create envy in other people and we tend to become arrogant, right? Or at least, or some people tend to feel the imposter syndrome, right? So the external success, this is why I dress so plainly, you know, I don't, my background never changes. I'm not trying to wow you externally. I think I'm probably, I probably err on the side of being too humble externally, maybe, like I don't care if I'm wearing this and I don't look great, you know. It's like I'm purposely trying to be the lowest common denominator in the externals so that any, all of you feel like, well, if George can do it like that, then I can do it, right? I'm not polished, my speaking is not polished, although that is something I'm trying to improve. Fewer arms, fewer, you know, just for the sake of, you know, being a better communicator, but not to impress. So when we pursue the externals, we create envy in others and here's why. Now you might say, well, it's their fault. They shouldn't be envious. They should aim to be like me if I'm so great, right? It's because people who flaunt their externals are oftentimes lacking in the internals. And so as human beings, we naturally, we naturally want to praise the internals. We lift up people who lead with love, who lead with courage, with wisdom, but we are suspicious of people who flaunt their wealth and their fame and their power without demonstrating a higher level of wisdom than the average. Like it's almost like your external success, the success that you flaunt externally, that you display externally needs to be at least met with the same level of internal qualities. And if you at, well, hopefully higher, hopefully your internals, you know, like a Gandhi, right? Right here on, sorry, right here on my wall. Gandhi had demonstrated so much internal qualities, inspiring others that people didn't mind his power, right? He's like, please lead us, right? Another hero of mine, Pete Pilgrim. She had nothing externally. She had no possessions, but she had a lot of attention. She had a lot of attention. People are always doing articles about her. People are always inviting her to speak. And nobody was envious of her power and her attention because she had so much wisdom and she demonstrated the true wisdom and sustainability of her life. And there are also rich people whom we admire because they demonstrate leadership with love and wisdom. They have done more good. They demonstrate their internals, basically. And so we don't envy their externals. And yet there are also lots of lots of rich people and powerful people who flaunt their external. And we can tell based on the way that they work in politics and the way they work in business and how stingy they are. We can tell their internals are, it's like a child walking around in adults body with adult powers. So I think that's why envy emerges.  Nowadays it's really attractiveness on social media, Instagram. Like, oh, look how pretty I am. Look how good looking I am.  You better have at least matching internal qualities that allow people to say, wow, lead with love, lead with courage, lead with wisdom, lead with virtue. So I, that's, and so you could say I kind of have, I'm trying to, I have an advantage here because I'm trying to get the lowest common denominator. I'm trying to lower my externals, what I display, and so that I can keep raising my internals and probably the actual result of that is creating more trust and loyalty, et cetera. But I'm not trying to create that. I'm just letting that emerge as I try to work on myself. And I just, because that's unlimited. That's the other thing. The externals are limited. The externals are limited. When, honestly, when you buy something from me, you have less money for other coaches, which is why I try to limit my fees and my, you know, the price of my offerings. Like, whereas other people are trying to maximize how much they charge you, so they take more money from you. I'm trying to take less money from you so I can earn enough and so that you have more money to give to other coaches and to other companies and other nonprofits and to whatever interest you have in your life. So money is limited. Now, someone say, George, you're having limited thinking, limited beliefs about money. Money is abundant. It's unlimited. No, you're not grounded if you say that money is unlimited. The money that's available in any person's month is obviously limited. Excuse me, money is unlimited. No, you've only have a certain amount of money per month that you can spend. Obviously, your money is limited. And so I have to be careful to take money from you because that means another coach has less. Right? So the externals are limited. We can only, you know, and of course, as we, as companies keep making more money and extracting more resources from the environment, that is limited as well. Now, fame and attention is also limited. If you're watching this video, you are not therefore giving your attention, paying your attention to some other coach worthy coach or worthy video maker. It's limited. Your attention is limited. So I have to be very careful not to go on too long here. That's why I'm always a little bit embarrassed how long these videos go because I know I'm taking your time away from somebody else that you can be giving it to or to giving it to yourself to be creating your own content. When you're watching me, you're not creating. So money and attention are both limited. And so when we're pursuing these things, we have to realize that we're pursuing something that's a limited pot, the comments, right? It's limited among everybody that we're all have to share money and attention. But if you pursue the inner qualities, that is unlimited. You growing encouraged does not take away from someone else's courage. In fact, it inspires somebody else's courage. You growing in kindness does not take away from anybody else's kindness. It inspires more kindness. That's not the same with money. You making more money takes away from other people's money. You getting more attention takes away from other people's attention. But you growing in kindness and courage and humility and diligence only inspires everybody else. So that's why I'm trying to model and hope that I can share this upside down priority of let's focus on the internals, let the externals emerge on their own. Victor Frankel, the famous survivor of Nazi prison camps and psychologist, he had a quote and I don't have the quote with me right now. Maybe somebody does. He's talking about how success should not be pursued. You should let success ensue. Success should ensue as a result of your pursuit of something greater than yourself. So anytime we focus on the externals, we're focused on ourselves, on ourselves not in a good, not in a self care good way, but we're focused on our self with a small s and our ego. When we're focused on the internals, we're focused on our self with a big s, the higher self. So I think I've said enough. Like I said, I'm trying to, I don't want to spend too long talking to you here. Thanks to those of you who were able to join me here. Yule and Kareen, Michelle, Lisa, Sharon, Lolo, Laura, thank you all. So I wish you courage and fulfillment as you pursue the internals in your life. And may you also see as a result the sustainability of your externals. Be well.


Hello, everybody, and welcome to another hobby-cheating video, and today we're going to talk about pale flesh. We're going to talk about doing very pale, but still perfectly human skin tone, just as many of us are, and certainly myself, who spend too much time indoors, and don't get out in the sun enough, or perhaps you want to do some kind of fantasy race of an elf like I have here, where they just have a very sort of fair skin tone. So here I have an elf, it was actually the sorceress, which I converted over to be slightly different, and we're going to talk about how to do a pale skin tone with her. So what did I do so far? Well I started out by just laying down a little base of 09443 Warrior Flesh from Reapers, because I like this, it's quite a pinky tone, but it's still fairly neutral. I just applied a couple thin coats of that by brush to get a nice base coat down, then I took some whole red, some model air whole red, and I shot it up from below with the airbrush. Just easy quick prep, and that was all over a standard zenithal highlight, as you can still see on her hair and her clothes. So let's talk about the paints I'm going to use today. So let's bring the palette over here. So right here we have the Warrior Flesh as previously mentioned, we'll start down here in the dark part. Right here we have some Gothic Crimson, we've got some Flesh Five from Warcolors, right here we've got some Pale Pink from Proacrill, right here we've got Moon Ray Flesh from Scale 75 Fantasy and Games, and then finally we have some Glacier Blue from Vallejo Game Color. And we're going blue because as per usual with things like this you want to think about how you're opposing your highlights and shadows. So if you have very bright, cold highlights, then we want warm shadows. It's a nice easy sort of rule of thumb. Again it doesn't have to be, you can have variance there, but for this case we're going to adhere to that rule. So I'm going to turn her like this so we can see her and work on her, and we're going to focus here on this area and we'll do a lot of jumps in between. But the way that I like to start with a figure like this where I've laid down this base is to, I like to start by establishing my deep shadows. We have to know we're eventually going to go somewhere pale. So I've got a little master medium from Green Stuff World as well as a little flow improver, but any acrylic thinner or flow improver will work because I want to make this stuff very thin. The Gothic Crimson is a really nice, just a really nice kind of purple color. You can see it here. I'll show you on the back of my hand. There you go and you can see how thin I've got it down to almost a filter glaze color, and we're just going to work real carefully. As per usual, you can see, if you want to see the palette very quickly, how I thinned that down. So there's what it looks like now, back to her. And we're just going to go ahead and bring some of that crimson tone into where we're going to place shadows on her. So where, this is a fun thing to paint on camera. So for instance, where her dress is sort of falling over it, we're just basically trying to help establish some volumes here. This is a very minimal touch. So that's step one. We just lightly glaze in some of this crimson. You'll notice I do it over a couple of glazes. I especially make sure it's flush up against anywhere where there's a change of material. So for example, here where we are changing over to the breastplate, or here with her waistband belt, or with her boots, those kinds of things, letting it dry each time. So I'm going to continue on with that. Make my way all the way around the fig, and we'll be back in a moment. So everything has been turned crimson. We have our shadows all nice and crimson now. And one of the reasons I'm using this kind of a more softer pinkish color, as opposed to a deeper red, like I'm sure in past videos, you've seen me use something like an African or Indian shadow from scale color, or even black leather or something like that, is because if we do want this to be more pale, then we need the deep shadows to work well. And this kind of thin crimson color will work very nice. It's softer. It's not as dark. It's not as harsh when we get later into the brighter colors. Speaking of brighter colors, let's start doing that. So we're going to take some of that warrior flesh, and we're going to start mixing it in with little bits of the Moon Ray and the pink flesh to get a brighter color. Now I'm not going to worry about how significant my jumps are at the moment, because they're going to be fairly big, and I'm okay with that. With our initial run here, you're going to see me just slowly integrate more and more of these and then start bringing in the glacier blue as well. And with our initial run here, when we're building up a nice pale flesh, the way we want to work is we want to just have our layers be nice and established, and then with glazes, we can bring everything back in line. So I don't worry too much about having these exact little steps.  What I more want to do is just slowly build up these highlights, figure out where I'm setting my tones. Like you can see, that's a pretty significant jump, and that's okay. Nothing wrong with that. And what's interesting here is we'll be able to really nice and slow ramp this up. So we start with that first one. Now I'm just going to go through all these rather than cut and do the whole thing. So I'm going to take that color I have, I'm going to add a little bit more pink flesh to it, and start bringing in just a tiny bit of that glacier blue, but not much. And then we're going to bring in just a little bit more of that glacier blue into that at just those highest peaks of color. Okay. All right. So right now it looks insane, and that's okay. Don't worry about that. That's just perfectly fine. Let it be kind of insane. All right. I'm going to carry on and do those same steps you just saw me do all over the figure.  Okay. So now she looks all crazy and clownish, and that's okay. It's all right.  No problem. We're just going to adjust. Now we're going to bring it all together. The reason I jump way out like that into extreme shadows and extreme highlights is because I want to really set my sort of extreme values and then just start slowly pulling back into something in the middle that feels more organic. So what we're going to do here is I mixed up a couple different thin glazes. So here I've got my mix of Gothic Crimson and some of the Warrior Flush, and here I've got a mix of the Warrior Flush, the Moon Ray, and Glacier. So a very light, sorry, a pinky glaze and a brighter glaze. Okay. And then what we're going to do is we're just going to start bringing those colors together. Now I'm not really washing because I've made sure that the excess is all wicked off of my brush. I'm just carefully applying a nice, thin, smooth glaze of this mix of sort of this pink type of flesh color. You can see as I make my way around the model how it starts to just snap all these colors together. I know she's standing at a kind of odd angle, so I apologize with the big sword in her face.  I thought, because she's a classic elf, I wanted to go for like the classic elf of, like elf, like those of you who played D&D back in the day, I've been a little obsessed with the Dungeons and Dragons Tower of Doom Arcade game recently and so the elf has been on my mind and I thought, well here's a fun chance to paint an elf. Sometimes if you get an idea, you just got to go with it, you know? Okay. So you can see now how all of a sudden when we go over it with that glaze, how much more it's brought all the colors together. Her face is still a little extreme here and there, but we'll fix that. The face is actually a whole separate shooting match. In the end, I'll spend a lot more time on the face.  If you're going to spend two hours on the figure, spend an hour on the face. That's my best advice. Faces always draw more attention. Okay. So now you can see how that glaze went on and it really did just all of a sudden snap these wonderful colors together. Look at how much smoother that all of a sudden looks. We went from crazy clown time into something that honestly I think has a nice look to it. Like right there, we're pretty pale, we're pretty good. So if you wanted to stop there, you certainly could. We're going to go a little farther because of course we are. It wouldn't be this channel if we didn't.  You can do it there later on as well. And just as I did by setting those very cold tones and the highlights, those very warm tones and the shadows, and then you can use your mid-tones to re-glaze over it and draw it all together just like you would. And what you get is this nice, smooth, heavy contrast. All right. So now I'm working from my lighter glaze. So this is my mix of a little bit of warrior flesh, mostly moon ray and blazer blue. But again, thinned nicely down. Flesh tones glaze so much easier than a lot of other colors just because of the nature of the pigments that make them up. So they're just a lot of fun to sit there and play with glazes with. And now you can see what I'm doing is just pushing out those highlights even more, just making sure that every little thing that you have a highlight will have it. So now we get into the part what we call the refinement stage where we're going to spend a long time making little itty-bitty baby changes. I can always go back to my previous glaze that I've got here and we can bring some of that back in so we can keep balancing these colors back and forth. We can keep adding more richness to the tone. One of the things that's fascinating about skin, I say this in a lot of videos, but I really can't say it enough, is skin is translucent. We don't think of it that way very much, but it is. If you've ever held a flashlight up to your hand, you know that light goes through it. It's not an opaque surface. Your hand isn't a steel wall, right? So because of that, when light interacts very interestingly with skin, it makes it so you're seeing little bits of the color underneath. That's why all that pink and stuff you can see in my hand over on the frame right now is visible because all the blood and capillaries that are underneath there that are showing through. So you can bring that same thing into a miniature. You can create that richness through repeated applications of these glazes that will keep the flesh looking nice and like it has a lot of depth. So I'm going to keep working these back and forth for a little while, doing just what you see me doing here. And I'm going to make sure all my color tones are set correctly. I just need to work my way around the figure, really look at it. And one of the things that I often recommend, by the way, here I'm working under a very bright light. So I have an architect's light on my desk that I'm shooting this under right now, set to standard 5500 or whatever, like your daylight setting. So it's nice, even light. But I'll often take the fig. My office has different color lights in it, yellow lights, all sorts of different things. I'll go around and I'll look at it under all those lights. So it has a look there, it has a look there, and so on. Just to make sure I like how it's looking. Because it gives you a more varied way to see everything. You want to often check your work under multiple different kinds of light sources. It really will make a difference.  It can really help to use different lights to evaluate what you're doing. So with that being said, I'm going to go to work. It's time to do some glazes and fixes. And we'll come back and I'll talk about how we kind of pop it all out and what are the areas we really focus on to get our looking done. Back in a moment. Alright so we're back, you can see now we've done a lot of smoothing of the skin tone. I also darkened some of the lines around the other elements just to make sure that everything was nice and even. And you can see that what we end up with is this wonderful pale skin tone that still has the other shades in it. That's why I like a sort of crimson color, that gothic crimson, anything like that. That's what I happen to be using here, but obviously you can have, there's lots of different tones you can use. The key with doing a pale skin tone is that you don't need everything to be pale. You can still have lots of other colors in there. You just need a good sized volume of the paleness. So you can see that here on like her stomach, here on the top of her hip here and you know down on her leg. But there's a little bit more we can still add. So on my palette, I went ahead and got myself a little bit of a Rykland Fleshade and Carenburg Crimson, two shades from GW and oftentimes we think of these as only for washes or something. But the reality is they make quite excellent filters as well. So we're going to mix them in a very thin mix on the palette. And when I say very thin, I mean like here's the back of my hand. You can see how transparent that is. And then what we're going to do is we're just going to come in and very carefully lay a little bit of that down in some of these areas. So if you watched the Golden Demon video where I came back in with like a sepia glaze with that brown glaze portion there, that adds so much richness and tone to the skin. And that's much of what we're doing here as well. And you can see how the application of just a little bit of that, it just warms the skin up. That pink color just seems more rich now in that area. And that's what we want. We want that nice subtle tone just mixed in there, giving us that very gentle effect in those places where we want it. So now from here, of course, I'm going to spend a lot of time with this is ultimately an entry for competition. So I'm going to spend a lot of time going over it with, you know, magnifiers on and making sure that I've really got everything down where I want it. I would say from here, I get into work that's honestly too small to film, but I will tell you about what it is.  It's stuff like the hand here, which is still quite boring, right? So we want to make sure we get some color in there around the knuckles, stuff like that. Very little touches, but it makes a big difference. People tend to look at hands. They look at faces.  So and even these subtle final glazes can make a big deal. Not only do they smooth out your overall work, so these kind of final glazes can be a great trick if you're trying to, if you're trying to get your blending down and you're having problems, one of the things you can do is just kind of turn to these kinds of these kinds of final glazes where it gives you a real chance to sort of cover everything over and, you know, or cover some of the, I shouldn't say everything, but cover some of those lines in between. And sometimes even those very subtle color shifts can really make a big difference. And of course, we still have our previous glazes out there. So if we ever need to come back in and maybe push back the other direction a little bit, we can do that too. All right. So there you go. That's your pale skin. Your key is you want to start with something relatively neutral-ish, but already into the pink tone. Pale skin tends to have a lot more pink in it. Hence why we started with this kind of pinky warrior flesh. And then you'll notice I didn't use much of the flesh five. I keep that for shadows. I was using that some in the glazing stage, especially in the shadows. Didn't really do it on camera, but it's a very minor color. It's used mainly in things like the lower back and stuff like that, where I want to knock the saturation out of the flesh. And then what we do is our highlights, we go into cold colors. So things like the Glacier Blue that I brought in there as my ultimate highlight color makes it feel very cold and counters out well against something like the Gothic Crimson, which we use as the shadow. And all over what that gives us is this wonderful pale pink tone that feels very much like somebody who has a very fair complexion. So there you go. Hope you enjoyed that. If you did, go ahead and give it a like. Subscribe for additional hobby cheating in the future. If you've got suggestions for future videos or things you would like to see, feel free to drop those down below. As always, I very much appreciate you watching this one. And we'll see you next time.


Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. Today for the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, we are going to be taking on one of the fan favourites of the series, the Meromera Nomi. The Meromera Nomi is a logotype fruit that allows its user to conjure, manipulate and become fire. It was eaten by fan favourite character, Portcaste Ace, and first showcased during the Alabaster Arc. However, following Ace's death, it was reincarnated and then consumed by Sabo, who made his debut use of the fruit during the Dressrosa Arc. As for its name, the Meromera Nomi is the Japanese Onomatopoeia for the noise made when suddenly bursting into flame. As a result, a fairly standard translation has come from both Viz and Funimation, which is the Flame Flame Fruit. However, there is a difference when it comes to the Four Kids dub, in which it is named the Flare Flare Fruit. Also interestingly enough, the Funimation subtitles also refer to the Meromera Nomi as the Flare Flare Fruit, despite the Funimation dub adhering to the Flame Flame Translation. Not quite sure what that's about at all, but it is an annoying little inconsistency. Alright, so the Meromera Nomi is a Logia, which as we all know by now comes with some pretty powerful default settings like Intangibility and all that. However, this is the first Logia we've covered in the Encyclopedia that deals with a naturally destructive element, and as expected, it's pretty damn devastating. Having been said to be capable of sinking countless battleships and burning down mighty cities. I mean, according to Gats anyway. But we have no real reason to doubt him, because we have many first-hand examples of the Meromera Nomi's power. Starting simply, we have the idea of the Hikken Attack, which literally means Flame Fist, and has been performed by both users of the fruit. Basically, it involves the user turning their fist into flames and then launching a column of fire at an opponent. It sounds really simple, possibly even underwhelming, but the sheer power of fire cannot be understated. As for the nature of the fire itself, it's not exactly known how hot the user of the Meromera Nomi can make their flames. Generally, a fire's temperature is dependent on its fuel source. And thus, it's a bit hard to predict it when we're talking about a magical fruit, but let's consider some real-world examples. The center of a lit cigarette will burn at 585 degrees Celsius, and good god, that's hot. I mean, I personally start complaining when the temperature reaches over 23 degrees Celsius, but that's just a teeny, tiny example of a flame. If we go a few steps up and expand that into a bonfire, then we're looking at temperatures of around 1100 degrees Celsius. Very hot indeed, and that's probably along the lines of what a Hikken Attack would most resemble.  Yeah, not quite my ideal scenario to be in. With that said, the Hikken is one of the most basic attacks that the Meromera Nomi is capable of. But we can also amp things up quite a bit with one of the fruit's ultimate attacks, known as Dai and Kai Entei. Literally meaning something along the lines of Great Flame Commandment, Flame Emperor. Longish name, yeah? But it involves the user of the fruit conjuring a giant fireball which strongly resembles a sun and launching it at their opponents. And at that point, all you can really do is just pity whoever said opponent is. But switching up our thinking, the Meromera Nomi can also be used in a much more precise manner. For example, the user can turn their fingers into flames and shoot literal fire bullets, each likely to be far more powerful than your everyday bullet, at least in the One Piece world. Plus there are a surprising variety of tactical uses of the fruit. The one major advantage being able to counter flames would give the user in most situations is to control the movement of their opponent. If the user had a particular mind for tactics, then they could structure their blasts so as to put their enemy in exactly the position they want them in to deliver the real attack. Alternatively, the user of the Meromera Nomi may wish to keep their powers completely hidden, putting their adversary into a false sense of security, and then say bursting into flame the moment they came into close contact. Although if we still wish to show off then the user can also perform a technique known as hotorubi, literally meaning firefly light. Whereby the user creates many small glowing fireballs and sends them floating casually towards a foam. They seem harmless enough, but at the right time the user can't activate them, causing significant damage. The Meromera Nomi also works well for users who enjoy engaging in hand-to-hand combat as they would be able to turn various bits of their body into flames, conjuring a boost in kinetic force when throwing a punch or a kick. But now we arrive at the one big weakness of the Meromera Nomi, which is obviously water.  Interestingly enough, the flames of the Meromera Nomi can also be cancelled out by other low gear abilities. For example, Smoker's Mokomokunomi was certainly capable of fighting the Meromera Flames on equal footing. Quite possibly because the smoke may have been able to remove oxygen and thus snuff out the flames. If that were to be the case in a fruit like Caesar Clown's Gasugasunomi, it would also be a natural counter to it, as it has the ability to remove all oxygen within a certain radius. But let's not let all of that dismay us, because the Meromera Nomi does also offer the user quite a lot in terms of practical usage. It's quite a nice utility to have actually, making cooking anytime anywhere rather convenient and also acting as a permanent and infinite source of light. In regards to Ace's use of the fruit, there's not a whole lot more to add. He was a very proficient wielder of the Meromera Nomi, able to use it to become a division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates and acquire a bounty of 550 million berries. His use in the fruit was so skilled that he innovated all of the attacks I previously stated, and furthermore, he was able to successfully combat Blackbeard by invoking the fruit's powers even after they were significantly weakened by the Yami Yami Nomi.  Ace did have one particularly nice use of the fruit though, which was to use the fire to propel his tiny boat rough thingy which allowed him to comfortably and swiftly traverse the Grand Slion and assumedly the New World.  As for Sabo, he's still quite new to the fruit, however immediately upon consumption, Sabo demonstrated a solid competency for wielding its power, implying that he likely studied the fruit and or Ace's use of the fruit. He even began immediately adapting the powers to his own personal fighting style, which has a particular affinity for dragons. With that said, even Sabo was shown to struggle with the raw power of the Mara Mara Nomi due to the unruly nature of fire. Some other miscellaneous things to consider when becoming a fire human. In addition to creating default flames from your body, it may be possible to augment those flames and even make them stronger if the user were to find a way to add another fuel source to them. The Mara Mara Nomi would also provide the user with a natural resistance to most heat-based attacks. Not all though, not all at all. In fact, magma in particular is still a pretty big problem, so maybe watch out for that. In essence, the Mara Mara Nomi is one hell of a powerful Devil Fruit capable of incredible amounts of destruction. It is most certainly suited to a more combat-based individual, but it also possesses a decent amount of day-to-day utility and keep in mind that humanity uses fire a hell of a lot. In everything from generic home life to mass production and industry, there will always be a use for fire, making this Devil Fruit incredibly sought after in the series and one that I feel just about every single one of us would eat with no questions asked. And with that, we are going to commit the Mara Mara Nomi to the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia. Next week, we'll be taking time to examine the Super Super Nomi, a rather awesome and deadly paramecia. If you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produces in general, then please do consider donating to the Grand Line View Patreon because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible. Also, I've recently launched a Teespring store if you're interested in shirts, hoodies and other miscellaneous items, with proceeds going directly to support the channel as well. And if you'd like to join the fun, then please do head over to my Discord server where a wide array of shenanigan retakes place on a daily basis. And finally, please do comment with your thoughts on the Mara Mara Nomi. This has been the Grand Line Review, and I'll see you next time.


we developed a powerful theory for studying the dynamics of thermal relaxation after an instantaneous temperature quench. This theory allowed us to identify a singularity in the probability distribution of heat exchange between a mean field spin model and its environment. This singularity was caused by a finite time dynamical phase transition which differed significantly from the one observed in the magnetization. This article was authored by Jan Maybohm and Massimiliano Esposito.


Christian Payne here joined by Victoria's head coach Steve Kadelka for Lynchburg 15 to 8 the final the Hornets over Cortland State fantastic play across the board but you look to seven different goalscores today coach in the mix most namely Austin Stewart a homecoming for number 13 there wasn't a shot that he didn't like today with five goals. No Austin's a special player you know and he's got a great knack of putting the ball in the back of the cage and we don't mind him you know taking taking the shots obviously but you know what was really neat though is like you said those six other goalscores you know you can't just rely on one guy and I think we're starting to learn that as a team you know to do more give more options for other guys and we've been harping on for last week and a half to just let the ball do the work and whoever scores scores you know and so kind of saying has been our hole is greater than some of our parts you know and so we're hoping we're working at it was working progress. Offensive showcase today for Lynchburg another big statement when you fast forward a couple weeks the big one over Salisbury today a big opponent in Cortland State you get the W you move on but now let's look at the defensive end your goalkeeper had the hot hand in the first half and his defense went to work in the second half to protect that crease Halley with big day as well. Yeah you know Chris has played real real big in this year you know and and he's earned that spot and he played great tonight I thought and I thought the guys in front of them you know for the most part played pretty well you know we gave up a couple goals that I think we'd all like back but at the same time that's what Cortland does to you know they kind of can score at will and but yeah to hold them to eight goals and in the way we did it I thought was was definitely a great showing of our defense. Coach let's talk about the depth you run two great midfields guys that are specialty players moving into the mix as well how does that play into a factor when you got to go against two top-notch opponents in two days here in Mustang Stadium tomorrow you face Dickinson. Yeah you know that's what we just talked about in the locker room you know we have another midfield line that is itching and raring to go you know we have a next group of attack men next group of defensemen that you know they're just not maybe seen the field as much as they'd like to right now but they're there and you know one of the reasons we do this weekend is to get us prepared for the ODAC and and hopefully if we're in that semi-final and fortunate to be in the championship game this is a great learning tool for our guys you know to be here we are at you know six o'clock or whatever it is at night and we got to come back and play tomorrow at one and so but you know it's for fitness and all those things playing the factor and these kids get a chance to play lacrosse again tomorrow which is heck of a lot better than practicing for sure. Coach Kadelk it's your 19th season at Lynchburg you've been through the tournament been through big games how does this stack up the green turtle classic here at Stevenson talk about the event. Yeah you know I mean hats off to Stevenson University you know Brad Adams or athletic director I've got to know him through the years and and Paul you know can't have been obviously they do a great job of putting this on it's a wonderful facility and you know for us we have so many people from this area and maybe not necessarily in Baltimore but but all around you know from from Philadelphia on down to DC so this is a pretty central location and they've put on a great show you know to add two more teams to have three games obviously the weather yesterday wasn't accommodating as much but to push it back made a beautiful day today hats off to them for all the stuff they do because there's a lot of logistical stuff that goes into this and it's a special it's a special you know turn division three tournament it's highlighting some great teams at the division three level and that's what we need we need more of that at our level. March Madness for D3 lacrosse at its best here in Owens Mills coach best of luck tomorrow and your match up with the Dickinson Red Devils. Thank you so much appreciate it. For Steve Kadelk, I'm Christian Payne of SFM Sports.net. All right Glenn Clark back here with you at SFM Sports.net tough one today for Cortland falling 15-8 in the Green Turtle Mustang Classic I don't mean to keep mentioning that Coach Steve Bevel but you know just today where it seemed to get away from you a little bit early on and unable had a little bit of a moment there in the third quarter where you dug back in a bit but I couldn't quite overcome that. Yeah Lynchburg played great you know I got to give a ton of credit to them they they definitely they got out to the great start they needed to you know we had a bunch of turnovers early and never really recovered you know and I think that was a big part of it our ground ball work was weak and you know that hurt us too and Lynchburg just played better you know they they deserve the win and you know right now they're a better team than us so you know it is what it is and we've got to fight you know fight and get better and try to improve for the next game. If we look for positives in this one maybe the the face-off play was pretty good especially in the first half and the other thing that really jumped out at me maybe would be Joe Scalise who came in and perhaps maybe makes things interesting for you moving forward in the goal. Yeah you know well Pat you know you're talking about the face-off Pat's been great all year he's one of the top face-off guys in the country and you know he was great again today I thought he was very good. Dissler did a good job jamming him up a few times and you know picked up some penalties trying to do it so you know that was a bright point for sure and it was nice to get Joe in you know Joe's I think gonna be a great goalie you know Scott's still the starter and struggled early and Joe came in and did a good job but it was great to get him some experience you know and and see a lot of shots against a quality offensive team and you know that the two Lynchburg kids had both had fantastic games and I got it like I said you know I give them credit they played better than us tonight. Obviously not only a quick turnaround but it doesn't really get easier tomorrow yeah Stevenson's excellent they got a lot of great offensive players and you know that's where we're struggling now is on defense so we got to figure out some ways to make some stops you know maybe switch some things up from a personnel standpoint and and I look at some other things we're trying to do defensively to you know try to stop gap some of the some of the rushes you know that that particularly happened tonight but you know again Stevenson's a very good offensive team they got some very good defenders or you know they're a top five team for a reason so we'll have to review some film tonight and rest up and try to figure out a way to get after tomorrow. And finally I know the result wasn't good but just the experience here at the Green Turtle Mustang Classic and you know a lot of good teams in the field a good atmosphere in the crowd after the weather issues yesterday a pretty nice day today as well. Yeah the weather was great you know we were pumped to get out we hadn't played in a week and you know we were we were kind of jacked up to play last night and unfortunately you know the weather kind of took a crazy turn on us so but you know it was a beautiful day and it was a beautiful day for a lot of our guys to get some experience it's just you know fortunate we just played poorly today. Well coach we really appreciate you taking the time for us afterwards good luck the rest of the way all right. Thanks a lot. Yes coach Steve Bevel from Cortland a tough one today as they fall 15-8 to Lynchburg I am Glenn Clark live from the Green Turtle Mustang Classic for SFM Sports.net


The next topic, we're going to talk about Mitch Trebisky. Where did he come from? Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know if you saw that game against the Detroit Lions, but Mitch Trebisky looked like a franchise quarterback in that game. Oh, I know, I know. Let me slow down a bit. Let me not get there just yet. But I want to raise up the question, do you believe that Mitch Trebisky is finally after just watching one game? I know it's a little bit early, but after one game is Mitch Trebisky finally that answer for the franchise quarterback for the Chicago Bears. I mean, they brought in Nick Foles in the offseason to maybe give Trebisky a little bit of push, potentially if Trebisky just continues the trend of not doing as well, Foles were to come in, but maybe that created a chip on his shoulder and he wanted to prove people wrong. This past week against the Detroit Lions, 242 yards, three passing touchdowns, 55.6% completed, but hey, 104.2 passer rating. And on top of that, he had a long and beautiful 20-yard run. People underrate his ability to run with the football. So Trebisky, if we're talking about Russell Wilson being on pace for 64 touchdowns for the season, Mitch Trebisky currently is on pace for 48 passing touchdowns for the 2020 NFL season.  Probably won't happen, but that game against the Detroit Lions kind of surprised me because the Bears were to come, they came back under being in a deficit against the Detroit Lions. Trebisky led the charge, led the team and helped the Chicago Bears pick up that victory. Maybe it's the addition of Jimmy Graham. I know that he had one touchdown in the end zone and then there was another one that was called back. Maybe that helped out a lot. Maybe it's the improvement of David Montgomery and them trying to run with him more and even though they didn't really do much with that run game, but I don't know what it is, but Trebisky is, it seems like as of right now, he has a stronghold on that starting job and Nick Foles isn't coming in anytime soon unless in week two against the New York Giants, he absolutely fails and he flops, which we kind of don't predict happening because it's the New York Giants and the secondary is not that one of the elite secondaries in the NFL, but he definitely does have a stronghold on that starting job and this could be a new and improved Mitchell Trebisky in that Bears offense. What's funny is that no matter how good and how well he performs, he will always have that label of being in the same draft class with Patrick Mahomes and being drafted higher than him as well and the general manager of the Chicago Bears will always be under fire for taking Mitchell Trebisky over Patrick Mahomes and the only way to get out of that shadow to break it and to eliminate it, it's asked for a lot, is to win a Super Bowl. But maybe that is that chip on the shoulder for Mitchell Trebisky, knowing that he was drafted with Patrick Mahomes, knowing the amount of fire that he's been under, knowing that his starting job is in jeopardy and he could be gone out of Chicago after this year, but as of right now, if that game against Detroit told us anything, is that Trebisky has caught our attention. We're not going to go ahead and label him as a pro bowler, we're not going to go ahead and label him as the next Patrick Mahomes in that draft class, but instead it's caught our attention enough to let us sit back, let us watch and at least give him a little bit more grace and a little bit more time to show us what exactly he is made of, so Biscuit in 2020 will this be your season with the Chicago Bears and will you finally earn that long-term contract extension with the Chicago Bears and lead the Bears, dare I say, to the Super Bowl down the road. We're definitely going to have to see, but Mitchell Trebisky had a great week one.


Good morning, afternoon, evening, depending on where you are, and welcome to the 34th Regulatory Information Conference. I'm also happy to announce it's happy International Women's Day, so congratulations to all the women who make the world go around. I'm Andrea Vale, Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, and it is a great honor to be here today and to have this opportunity to welcome everyone on behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And our co-sponsors the RIC with our partners in the Office of Nuclear Reactor, excuse me, Nuclear Regulatory Research led by Mr. Raymond First now. We partner with the entire agency to bring to you an engaging conference that addresses how the agency is preparing for tomorrow, right? Thanks Andrea.  As of this morning, we've got over 3,600 participants registered, and I know I'm really looking forward to the next two and a half days. Next I'd like to welcome Joseph Goodridge from our Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, who will sing our national anthem. Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming, And the rocket's red bombs bursting in air Gave proof through the night that a flag was still there, Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land the home of the brave. Joseph, for his outstanding performance of the national anthem, and thanks to all of you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to engage with us this week. I also wanted to recognize former chairman and commissioners that are joining us virtually this week. That includes former chairman Missouri, McFarland, and Burns, and former commissioners Merrifield, Apostolakis, and Magwood. We thank you for your prior service to the NRC and your continued involvement in nuclear reactor regulation. Andrea, back to you. This year's program is comprised of two and a half days which feature morning keynote plenary sessions followed by sets of concurrent technical sessions. We open this year's RIC with an opportunity to hear from our chairman, the Honorable Christopher Hansen. The plenary sessions this morning will feature remarks from our commissioners, the Honorable Jeff Baron, and the Honorable David Ray. Plenary sessions tomorrow will include the introduction of our new executive director for operations, Mr. Dan Dorman, and remarks from special guest speaker, the Honorable Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy. Tomorrow, two plenary sessions will be focused on key topics. As this week marks the 11th anniversary of the Fukushima accident, one of our special plenaries will provide an update on decommissioning efforts. The other special plenary session tomorrow is titled, Women Belong in All Places Where Nuclear Safety Decisions Are Being Made. Amen. This session will be introduced by our chairman, Christopher Hansen, and will feature an interview with Ms. Romina Velshey, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The interview will be conducted by Ms. Brooke Clark, the NRC's next Secretary of the Commission, and congratulations to Brooke. We have 30 technical sessions between the afternoons of today and tomorrow and Thursday morning, and thanks to our virtual platform, you're free to move from session to session should you desire. In addition, all of this year's sessions are being recorded and will be made available for viewing on our website after the conference. Some of those technical sessions will be chaired by our commissioners. For example, today at 1 o'clock Eastern, Chairman Hansen will chair the session on pre-application engagements for new and advanced reactors. Today at 3 p.m. Eastern, Commissioner Wright will chair the session on reimagining the role of nuclear and energy and the electric grid. Tomorrow at 1 p.m. Eastern, Commissioner Barron will chair the regional session on reactor inspection program, Leaving Tomorrow Behind. Also on this year's virtual conference platform, we have 13 very engaging digital exhibits and a virtual tour of the NRC Incident Response Center. I encourage everyone to check out the wide range of exhibit topics at your leisure before or after our technical sessions. Just like last year, you the attendees will be able to submit questions electronically to the session moderator for consideration during the session's question and answer period. Attendees will also have the opportunity to contribute to the discussion by participating in live polling in some of our sessions. Our digital exhibits will have contact information, situations of questions or feedback for the staff. Each year, the planning and execution of a conference of this magnitude would not happen without the hard work and dedication of so many, including our NRC staff, our contractor partners, and a wide array of panelists and speakers. So I want to take this first opportunity to thank everyone involved in the RIC this year. Now I have the distinct honor of introducing our chairman. The honorable Christopher T. Hansen was designated chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by President Joe Biden, effective January 20, 2021. He was sworn in as a commissioner on June 8, 2020. Chairman Hansen has more than two decades of government and private sector experience in the field of nuclear energy. Prior to joining the NRC, he served in various roles, including staff member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, senior advisor in the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy, and the Office of the T. Financial Officer and consultant at Bulls Allen Hamilton. Chairman Hansen earned master's degrees from Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Forestry Environmental Studies, where he focused on ethics and natural resource economics. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in religious studies from Valprasal University and Valprasal, Indiana. Welcome, Chairman Hansen. We're looking forward to your remarks. Thank you, Andrea, for that introduction. Thank you, Joseph, for that beautiful rendition of our national anthem, and I'll start with a few more thank yous. First, thank you all for attending the RIC virtually this year.  I might have said this last year, but I really am optimistic that we'll get to do this in person next year. This is our second virtual RIC, and once again, I'm incredibly impressed by the dedication of the NRC staff in putting on what will be an interesting and informative three days of panel discussions, speeches, and other virtual events. I hope you all take advantage of the virtual platform to learn new things and join conversations. To Andrea, Ray, their teams, the clever CIO crew, and the many others who make the RIC possible, a heartfelt thank you. As Andrea mentioned, the RIC this year, again, begins on International Women's Day. This year, we have two sessions dedicated to highlighting the incredible contributions that women continue to make to nuclear regulation and global policy. I particularly want to thank the women whose talents continue to make the NRC the gold standard around the world. Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to a discussion with President Ramina Velshi of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, where you will hear me reaffirm my commitment to gender equity and an inclusive NRC. I'd also like to thank my colleagues on the commission. We've accomplished a lot in the last year, even though we didn't always agree. Having different perspectives while continuing to work together is imperative to the health of our institution. Finally, I'd like to say thank you to my staff, both my permanent staff and those who joined me on rotation, not only for their efforts to prepare me for the RIC this year, no small task, but also for their hard work over the past year. We've kept up a remarkable pace, and they have not let up. So thank you to Kathleen Blake and Patty Amenez, Molly Marsh, Cynthia Roman, Tony Nakanishi, Olivia Makula, Mandy Mauer, Lisa Demek, Hippo Gonzalez, Mike Clark, and Margaret Severa, who I forgot to thank last year. Like all of you, I've been monitoring the situation in Ukraine with grave concern. My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine in this desperate time. The Russian Federation's violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity is a tragedy with wide-ranging impacts. The unprecedented nature of Russia's actions on Ukrainian nuclear safety, security, and safeguards hits especially close to home for the NRC. At the NRC, and across the U.S. government, we share IAEA Director General Grossi's concerns about Russia's actions and echo his call to refrain from any measures that could jeopardize the security of nuclear materials or the safe operation of Ukraine's nuclear facilities. I'd like to commend our partners at the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine for their continuous updates to the IAEA and the international community, despite the obvious challenges they're facing. I also want to highlight the bravery and dedication of Ukrainian regulatory and operational staff in carrying out their essential duties in the face of extraordinarily trying and dangerous circumstances. The NRC will continue to remain engaged with its U.S. government colleagues to monitor the situation, and we will stand in solidarity with our Ukrainian regulatory partners. We will continue our long-standing support to Ukraine as it works to protect, sustain, and, if necessary, restore the safe and secure operation of its nuclear facilities. Last year, I spoke about my initial approach to my tenure at the NRC, and I painted a picture of the NRC as an institution with three related efforts in the form of a triangle, with risk-informed regulation, agency transformation, and diversity inclusion at each vertex. Undergirding that triangle are three pillars, regulatory independence, data, and the people who form the agency. This year, I want to build on that foundation and talk about the NRC's role as an effective trusted regulator by highlighting three concepts, process, accountability, and legitimacy. You've heard many people, myself included, say that the NRC must not be an impediment to the safe use of nuclear power and materials, new or existing. But what does that mean? And what happens if the NRC doesn't get it right? I'm talking about this from two perspectives. First, what is most often talked about, having a regulatory framework that applicants and licensees, as well as the general public, can successfully understand and navigate, tailored to the risk profiles associated with the reactors and materials in question. And second, licensing an oversight that does not miss any safety significant issues, thus calling into question our framework. As I see it, the NRC is an integral part of deploying new nuclear, even if we're not building or promoting it. Without a license from a credible trusted regulator, society simply will not accept it. As a federal agency, we are ultimately accountable to the American people. I fully understand that we don't regulate to assuage the public's fears. But we must acknowledge that there are fears around nuclear and consider how those fears affect deployment. This is particularly relevant considering the recent seizure of nuclear facilities in Ukraine, resulting in an attack and fire at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Such recent events have understandably been very alarming to the general public. And to understand the public's concerns, we have to look at what information, misinformation and disinformation is being received and how that information, or misinformation or disinformation is being used by the public to assess risk. Domestically, we find ourselves in a time of what the RAND Corporation cleverly calls truth decay and what the writer Jonathan Rausch has called an epistemic crisis. Folks are just having a hard time telling truth from fiction. Truth decay has also contributed to a decline in the trust of government. I don't want to get sidetracked by talking about the pandemic, but I think it's really highlighted individuals ability to sift through information and assess risk. And it has shown the wide spectrum of risk tolerance among individuals and the general distrust of government. I try to keep this in mind when I shape my decisions. In the past few years, as climate change and energy security have come to the fore as existential threats, many have rallied around nuclear as the solution for clean power, including many you would not expect. There's a wave of excitement around getting new reactors online quickly. And the NRC is necessarily caught up in that wave. But a note of caution. Let me quote former NRC chairman, Dale Klein, whose advice I've greatly appreciated during my tenure at the agency. In a speech in 2007, he said, and I quote, if the nuclear power business is treated with less than the seriousness it deserves, and people begin to think that anyone can just jump on the nuclear bandwagon, it opens up the very real danger of making the wave of a nuclear resurgence look more like a bubble. And bubbles have a tendency to pop unquote. The NRC has an obligation to remain independent of the excitement and hold on to our objectivity, rather than let ourselves be pushed by the wave or caught in a bubble. We're independent but not isolated. Independence is an imperative for effectiveness and public trust. Yet we must also transform how we work so we can meet new demands while never losing sight of our core responsibilities overseeing existing uses of nuclear power and materials. Everyone, industry, and the public benefits from a trusted independent regulator. One of the most important characteristics of an effective regulator is having a clear and transparent processes in place to ensure objective decision making. Licensing a nuclear reactor is necessarily a meticulous process. And while flexibility will be important for new designs, the process and guardrails must be sufficiently predictable for applicants and transparent and understandable for the public. Some people will roll their eyes and say, leave it to a government bureaucrat to give a speech defending the process. But hear me out. I've said that nuclear safety is an epistemological question. What do we know? How do we know it? And what difference does it make? The how is just as important as the other pieces of that formulation. As we further risk inform our approaches to implementing our regulations and even as we further develop more performance-based approaches, process oftentimes gains greater importance. Novel concepts continue to emerge and the agency must meet these challenges with flexibility. However, maintaining process as an integral part of our regulatory framework is one way we can continue to ensure adequate protection in all that we do. We ask our kids to show their work in math class so they and we can see the process from point A to point B. If the answer is wrong, then we can help them go back through and find the error. Similarly, when applicants come to us with new reactor designs, we look not only at their claims of performance or safety, but importantly at their methodology for reaching those conclusions. The old adage applies here, too. Show your work. And finally, there's the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, a law often misunderstood and frequently maligned by both supporters and detractors. What does NEPA require? It requires the evaluation of environmental impacts of a federal action or decision, and it allows the public to review and comment on that evaluation. It's rightly understood or thought of as a process law. People understandably look to NEPA to give them a voice in government decision making. In short, process matters. And this brings us to the next two concepts I want to highlight, accountability and legitimacy. All that process provides accountability. We're accountable to the public, applicants and licensees, other federal agencies, states and tribes, and we're accountable to ourselves. When done correctly, the process determines objectivity in the outcome. Outside parties can look at our processes and validate whether we did what we said we were going to do. We expect the same of our licensees. Indeed, some of our most significant enforcement actions involve falsification of documentation, that is, a violation of the process, which is significant because it calls into question conclusions about safety or security. It undermines the how we know what we know. A big part of accountability is maintaining a safety culture where everyone in the organization is willing to raise concerns and in turn make corrections if they're warranted. As President Biden says, when you mess up, fess up. And I would add, fix it. That goes for the commission as well as the staff. Finally, process confers legitimacy and credibility on our decisions. Ordinary individuals are not likely to understand the technical details of some of our reviews, but they're much more likely to understand our process, at least in general terms. First, we looked at X, then we independently reviewed Y, then we analyzed Z, and so on. Process is the way the public knows they can trust us when we reach a safety conclusion. Legitimacy and credibility must be earned and fervently upheld and protected. At the foundation of our legitimacy is the core technical competence of the NRC staff in which I have full faith. But we must continue to invest in the people who make up the agency and bring in new talent, both with their own expertise and the ability to learn from our existing staff. There are a lot of competing demands on the NRC staff. Our top priority must continue to be the oversight of existing reactors and uses of materials. For years, as the nuclear industry has been shrinking, the NRC was told to shrink too, and we did. Since 2014, the number of operating nuclear power plants has shrunk by 10%, and the NRC staff has shrunk by more than 20%. Meanwhile, the excitement outside the NRC is on new reactors and building them quickly. We've been changing course to be ready, and we're doing our best to have the necessary resources in place. A key indicator of our legitimacy going forward is our ability to continue to transform our inward-facing and outward-facing processes. Ideally, citizens, applicants, and licensees will see modernization of government at the same pace and scale that they see in the private sector. That's not easy. Transformation for me has never, repeat never, been about cutting regulations or staff. For me, it's about making better regulatory decisions by bringing our data and the full expertise of the agency to bear on an issue. Sometimes that results in greater focus in some areas and less than others, depending on risk significance. I'm willing to follow the data. For many in the agency, transformation has been extra duty, which people have been largely willing to do, but it's not sustainable. Our people have been stretched thin by multiple demands and the COVID public health emergency. Transformation, rather than being an exciting initiative, has in many cases become a burden. And sometimes what we call transformation is really just internally shifting responsibilities, rather than truly rethinking what needs to be done, why, and which parts of the organization are best suited to the task. For me, our transformation efforts are inextricably linked to the hiring initiative spearheaded by our EDO Dan Dorman and our Chief Human Capital Officer, Mary Lamery. Annual attrition at the NRC is running about 7%, which means we need to hire roughly 200 people a year just to stay at Curtin staffing levels. A level, by the way, that we know will not be sufficient to meet the challenges of the future. Not when 24% of our people are over the age of 60 and 55% are over the age of 50, all of them looking forward to a very well-earned retirement. And we need to expand our perspective about how, who, and where we are recruiting. Building the diverse workforce of the future in agency transformation go hand in hand. Equally important, transformation is about preparing the agency for a range of possible futures, potentially a wide range of possible futures. With regard to nuclear reactors, we have an existing fleet, some of which are decommissioning, and some of which are continuing to optimize their operations and seeking to extend their licenses out to 80 years. We have to get our house in order on NEPA and continue to efficiently review applications for subsequent license renewal. Then we have new light-water reactor designs, with a lot of technological adjacency with the existing fleet poised for near-term deployment. And we have advanced reactors, which build off decades of research and development in fuels and materials that have the potential to greatly expand the economic use cases for nuclear power. With developments in fuels and materials, we've seen increased engagement on uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication and transportation. Therefore, our forecasts and preparations for the future must address all segments of the nuclear fuel cycle. Also in the materials area, we have a growing number of agreement states, 39 to date, and we have two additional applications. We must adjust to state agencies taking on more of the materials licensing and oversight roles by taking a close look at our inspection procedures, our integrated materials performance evaluation program, and capacity building among new agreement states. There are advances in nuclear medicine with an expanding array of radioisotopes and treatment modalities. Patients and their families should be able to continue to count on us to efficiently evaluate new technologies and oversee the safe and secure use of these materials. Finally, the security and incident response situation is constantly shifting, especially with regard to cybersecurity, international events, and domestic political polarization. Our partnerships across government, federal, state, tribal, local, are crucial to our security awareness and posture, emergency preparedness and incident response. It's a dynamic situation to put it mildly, and I didn't even talk about fusion. I don't know which future will come to pass, but I do know that any future will require a flexible, efficient, transparent regulatory framework implemented by experts dedicated to continuous learning and improvement. My view is that we've made significant progress over the last couple of years. By way of example, I want to spend a minute or two talking about the development of our risk-informed performance-based regulatory framework for advanced reactors, also known by its proposed place in the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 53. The staff has taken an innovative approach to development of this rule by engaging stakeholders early and often in the process. We've received feedback, sometimes even oftentimes conflicting, from many stakeholders addressing key issues, such as the use of probabilistic risk assessment and risk information more generally, appropriate criteria for a performance-based approach, and how to accommodate a wide range of both technologies and technological maturity levels in the advanced reactor community. I've been substantially involved in this effort, receiving regular updates from the staff, as well as hearing directly from stakeholders. And let me say this, I've been pleased with the approach and the progress the staff is making. Work is ongoing, but they're being thoughtful and deliberate, taking care to maintain some adjacency to existing frameworks while being creative where needed to craft a balanced and protective rule. I have every confidence that the staff will produce a rule that adequately protects people and the environment, while allowing a range of technologies and licensing approaches in the timeframe set out by the Commission. While the agency develops the new framework, the staff is working commendably within our existing regulations to review reactor applications and topical reports that are ready now. I started this speech talking about the importance of process, its importance for objectively determining reasonable assurance of adequate protection, for accountability and for public trust and legitimacy, not just for the NRC, but for the entire industry. And I've talked a lot about change. One of the key themes of my speech last year was change in the context of an institution. Adapting is essential, but in doing so, we must preserve and further the goals of the institution, adequately protecting people in the environment and overseeing the safe and secure use of nuclear power and materials. To be an effective regulator, we must be careful. We don't create instability in the institution. It could throw things off balance and undermine our legitimacy. It is a challenge to which we must rise, and I know we will. So, we need to do several things at once. First, we need to uphold our institutional values, stay true to our principles of good regulation, independence, openness, efficiency, clarity, and reliability. Second, we need to continue to risk and form our regulations, so we're focused on the most safety and security significant issues by leveraging data and training our people. We need to apply modern technology to yield safety and security insights, to communicate more clearly, and to streamline and modernize our business processes. In other words, we need to drive change in the context of our overall mission and values. And finally, and perhaps most crucially, we need to recognize each other as the future of nuclear safety and security, and as the bearers of the sacred trust of the American people. The NRC is just people. That's all it is. That's all any organization is. Honest, smart, and talented, yet fallible. Dedicated and engaged, yet weary after two years of a pandemic. Creative and eager, yet unsure about the future. Together, we will honor the work of those who came before us, and we will sustain the institution as we advance. Thank you for listening and for attending this year's RIC. Andrea, back to you. Thank you, Chairman, for number one laying out so many themes in such an eloquent way in such a short period of time. And this is a reminder to those on the platform. If you have questions, you can select the Q&A tab in the upper right hand box and type your questions. And so whenever you're ready, Chairman, I have the first question ready for you. Go for it. The first question is, you discussed the NRC not being a hurdle for new and advanced reactor technology. The NRC has yet to fully approve new reactor technology. How can the NRC ensure that its processes are not causing new and advanced reactor technology to wither on the vine? Great question. I think one of the main things we can do is really, and I'm going to have a session on this, this is just this afternoon, so I appreciate kind of the tee-up on this, is really pre-application activities and as much pre-application activity as applicants are ready for and on specific technical topics so that the staff is already familiar with the technology that comes in, it's already familiar with the fuel types and the materials and the other technical aspects that we might receive. I really, part of the discussion this afternoon will be about lessons learned from GE and Terrapower and Kyros on this front and things that I'm sure the NRC can be doing better in this space too. So we're really leaning into these engagements, this interaction and we'll continue to do that. Right. Next question. Do you expect acceleration and applications for new nuclear power plants as a result of high energy prices? That's a great question. I mean, the issue I think is probably going to be natural gas prices. You know, there isn't a lot of oil-fueled power plants in the country and so sometimes natural gas and oil prices move together and sometimes they don't and we'll just have to see. I think one of the interesting things about some of these newer designs is the idea that they can be built and deployed more quickly and that potentially changes the economics in terms of response to energy prices going forward. So we'll have to kind of see on that. At least in the public announcements that we've seen out in the world that I think everybody's seen out in the world is much more about decarbonizing power production for at least from some of the major utilities in this country and so I think carbon is a major issue, but certainly energy prices could be a factor as well. This next question has to do with transformation and at first, thanks you for your statement on transformation. You mentioned transformation versus just shifting responsibilities. This is a large undertaking and as you said, we have decreased the size of staff putting us at a disadvantage and having sufficient resources to conduct change while ensuring our mission. How do we best carve out time and resources to really transform and what risk appetite does the commission and senior managers have for real transformation? Well, that's a great question and there are a lot of questions in there. So I think I'll probably start with the last one and kind of move up. I mean, I have a lot of appetite for transformation. I was having this discussion with my staff on a trip a few weeks ago and I said, boy, I'd like to see, I'd like to understand more about both what's going on in the agency and I've done that some and at one point they kind of threw up their hands and they said, well, what do you want on transformation? I said, I want more. So I think particularly on the business side, I mean, I look at it as one of the strategic imperatives I think of transformation is really around exactly what this person is asking. Whereas the agency is shrunk, but the mission in a lot of ways, the scope has kind of stayed the same. The operating reactors has changed somewhat, but we still have a lot of licensing actions. We've got a lot of interest on advanced reactors and so on and so forth. And yet, like a lot of government agencies, we've got demographic pressures on us and so how do we use transformation to focus on the most important activities that we have? And I want to say this is a little inside of the agency, but I know a lot of that line staff have felt that burden of transformation. And so I think that augmenting our staff in some ways, pushing ahead with this hiring initiative that Dan and Mary have going is really critical in order to provide some relief. There's kind of that added, you have to spend money to make money. This is kind of the same thing, right? You need a few extra people around to actually drive change in the organization so that everybody has a little bit more bandwidth to do that. That's really the idea there. All right, this next question has to do with software digitalization, which is a mouthful to say for me. What are your views on software digitalization and how we make our fleet safer and more cost effective? So I assume this is a digital instrumentation and control question, which is also a mouthful. Look, this is something that I've been very interested in since I came to the agency about how we get, again, that people have heard me talk about having a regulatory line of sight on some of these things and getting clarity on that, revisiting where necessary, what is it, the 1993 policy on common cause failure and getting some regulatory transparency, clarity, certainty, whatever you want to call it on that issue for licensees. All while we're making sure that we've got appropriate redundancy where necessary, we've got the firewalls in place where necessary hardware as well as software to protect these systems. Look, I'm very interested in this issue both on the technical side of this, but also on the human factor side, which I think is another thing we can and should be interacting with applicants and licensees on. So I think it's important each utility will make their own business decision about whether or not to invest in that. It's not an insignificant cost to them. I understand that, but I'm committed to having, at least for the NRC's part, again, a predictable and clear process for addressing digital I&C. Okay, toward the end of your remark, you mentioned fusion. So this question has to do with fusion. What might the role of the NRC be in the use of nuclear fusion? That's a great question. I think we're trying to figure that out, right? Because in some cases, it depends on the fusion technology itself. In some cases, it might be perfectly appropriate because it falls under part 20 that our agreement state partners are going to be involved in that. So it's not just a matter for us. I mean, there are kind of key regulatory issues about activation products and tritium and some other things that I think the staff is still learning about and thinking about where that fits. Also, this issue of having a burning plasma and what the risk significance of that is and what the safety systems are. So I wasn't trying to neglect fusion. I'm actually really interested in this topic. But we're still kind of figuring that out. I think we're in learning mode. We're hearing from stakeholders, both individually and collectively with the Fusion Industries Association. We're hearing from our state agreement state partners on this as well. And we're starting to kind of piece this together. Next question. Internationally, there's a great interest in globally accepted licenses. How is the view of NRC? Will you accept design approvals from other regulators? Are there any activities in this direction? I'll acknowledge that there is interest in this, what's kind of called harmonization. But I'll echo my colleague in the UK. He and I and President Felci from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission were into discussion with Director General Grossi and my British counterpart Mark Foy. We were talking about harmonization and this was something that the Director General is very interested in. And Mark had a thing that was kind of like, yes, yes, yes, but sovereignty. And sovereignty is really important because I'm not accountable to the British people. I'm accountable to the American people. And the American people look to us, look to the NRC for us to make our own determinations. And in a way to reflect the risk tolerance and the policy environment that we're in. Now, having said that, the laws and the theories and principles of physics work in the United States the same way they do in Canada and Britain and Poland and other places. So is there room to collaborate on the technical aspects of advanced reactors? Absolutely. And we have a memorandum of cooperation with Canada doing exactly that, where we're sharing information and approaches. Now, is that a universal license? No, but at the same time, and I don't think it should be, frankly, but at the same time, does that mean that every applicant has to come up with an entirely new set of information or data? Well, I think that's probably where there's some work that can be done. Okay, next question. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your risk-informed decision making and how has the NRC addressed the challenges? Oh boy, that's a great question. I've been so proud of the NRC staff and the way we've adapted. I mean, and some of this was just some really great foresight by our chief information officer, Dave Nelson, who we moved from desktops to laptops probably six months before the pandemic. And boy, aren't we glad we did. And he had made a number of other investments internally. So when the pandemic hit, I think other agencies were getting supplemental and emergency appropriations for tens and millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars to kind of upgrade their infrastructure. I think the NRC, we got 3 million. And it was to improve kind of the bandwidth into the building and really help people do VPN and a couple of other real minor things. I'm just so impressed and proud. And we've adapted in all kinds of other ways. I do think though that, and I've said this at commission meetings, right? The nuclear safety and securities, it's a contact sport, right? It's boots on the ground. There's nothing quite like having NRC people around with our NRC badges and our NRC hard hats in facilities and checking things out. And so while we were able to do some things like remote inspections or some materials inspections remotely and some other things, those are really important in the pandemic, right? People didn't want us going into hospitals or people didn't want to go into hospitals. That was kind of sufficient temporarily, but not something that we necessarily want to do in the long term. On the other hand, you look at our resident inspectors and very quickly, our licensees provided them with remote access into their systems either by providing laptops or VPN or whatever. So there were things that they could do remotely, review documents and other things without having to be on site for some of those direct sampling. So I think we're working on a lessons learned in the agency. That's been kind of an ongoing process. And I know we're going to share the results of that publicly when we kind of crystallize some of those lessons. Okay, this next question is long and it's multifaceted, so I'm going to speak slowly. Get ready. NRC regulatory processes within nuclear reactor regulation benefit from a clear set of procedures that were first developed in the mid 1990s to clarify the myriad of regulatory guidance into clear standards for regulation. Processes in other areas, for example, decommissioning, new reactor designs, et cetera, rely on regulatory guidance rather than clear rules. Clear rules in these other areas are definitely needed. Since these diverse areas cannot be addressed simultaneously, where and how would you prioritize rulemaking in select areas? That's a great question. I mean, this gets to the heart of a lot of our efforts on part 53 and advanced reactors. It's a long spectrum between predictability and flexibility. And where should we be in that? Where do we have rules on the flexibility part and where do we have guidance? We've got a lot of feedback on that question. Our staff and all of it entirely consistent. And I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure where we should be on that continuum because I think in different issues, we're going to be in different places. I think having that option for having clear rules or having guidance lets us evaluate each one of these things kind of individually. Now, we have to learn, we have to be cognizant that there's some consistency in there. We can't kind of do this, we can't pick one end of the spectrum or the other at random. But I do agree that having a set of procedures is important. I mean, we've got a couple of papers in front of the Commission on this, 5046C. I think as an example of that, where that paper I think the staff proposes to be more on the procedure end of and the predictability end of things. Likewise, a rulemaking plan for higher enrichment, higher burnout fuel, which is another paper in front of the Commission. Again, having rulemaking around those things rather than guidance. There are going to be other things though that are more appropriate on the other end of the spectrum. All right, now you use this word in your speech and I remember trying to pronounce it out. And so here comes a question again. You're framing of regulations as epistemological. It seems insightful and suited to the time we're living in. Can you say more about what the NRC can do to safeguard its interactions with stakeholders and an error of truth challenged public discourse at which you talked about truth decay? That's a great question. I was having a conversation with our Office of Public Affairs staff who I think feel this challenge particularly acutely in the agency, but I think everybody does. And I think that one of the key things we can do is just be as open and as transparent as possible. And the NRC has done a remarkable job over the years. I mean, people complain about Adams, our online document management system, but literally everything is out there. We have public dockets. We have, with the exception of some business extension of information, some security information, we really do make everything available. I think sometimes the NRC can do a better job of the translation function, but the translation function isn't easy. And there are some concepts that don't always lend themselves to translation. But I had this, I was doing an emergency planning exercise recently. And I honestly, it was for Limerick. And we do these things every couple of years, and we work with FEMA and state and local, and I was over in the operation center. And I was playing my role as chairman, and we had everything staffed up on the screens going and lots of activity. And one of the managers that we had in our nuclear security and incident response group said, okay, this is the part where I take you into this back room, and I brief you. And so I said, okay, great. And we went in, we sat down, and he gave me the spiel about what was happening at the plant under this exercise scenario. And I said, fantastic. Now, say it again in English. Because, right? I mean, everybody, you know, I'm not necessarily a technical person, but I also knew that I was in my role in this instance, I was going to have to go explain what was going on. If this was a real situation, I was going to have to go explain what was going on to National Security Council, to the secretary of Homeland Security, to the secretary of energy, et cetera, right? And I needed that in plain English. And he kind of caught up a little bit. And he went, he kind of took a breath. And he said, okay. And then we did it again. And it was great. And it's that kind of, you know, we're, we're a technical agency, we're a technical regulator, we're really good at that. But sometimes, you know, there's what's that this cliche, right, I have to go home and explain it to, to, to my mom or to my sister or whatever who aren't in the agency, I think there's, I think there's some more we could do there. Okay. Next question. Given the variety of advanced nuclear technologies, do you think NRC should move away from prescriptive regulation? Well, I see that kind of like the, the situation a couple of, of questions ago, right? Where, where is, there is this kind of more prescriptive end that is, that's predictable.  And I did, I did talk, I think in my speech quite a bit about the need for flexibility and for performance based approaches, right, where we're focused on the outcome. And, and less on prescribing specific methodologies for getting to that outcome. Now, that doesn't mean that adding the methodology is okay, right? It's the show your work. We, we get to validate whether those methodologies for, for assessing or for meeting the requirements of those performance based of criteria are adequate. Because again, if they're not, or if we think that they don't work in some way, it calls into question the conclusions, which is ultimately what we're about. We're about safety conclusions. So, so it's gonna, it's gonna depend. It depends. Hey, we have time for one more question. You mentioned data in your speech. Can you talk more about, you're very busy. So can you talk more about how you and your staff use data or data analytics to make your job easier or how you use it in your day to day interactions? Yeah, great question. I mean, certainly in a couple of key areas. I mean, one is, is certainly on the budget and internal processes, right? I've, I've, I've worked in CFO offices. And so I'm like, give me all the information. And, and in the CIO has really done a great job, I think recently of, of turning that data into information. And then I would say in, you know, in other areas, it's in a lot of the papers. I use it quite a bit just, just in, in papers. I mean, medical technologies, right, where we have a lot of data about the use of radioactive materials and, and what issues might arise with those. You see it in some of the fuel papers we've seen and some of the other nuclear papers we've seen, whether that's the ISI, IST inspections or other kinds of things, right? So what is, you know, what does the data tell us? And how can we use that to kind of inform moving forward? So I'm, I'm, you know, really constantly asking staff about, okay, well, let's, let's gather the data on this. And let's see what that says. And then let's, let's kind of, kind of move forward. And I have to say, I mean, we've used on a number of occasions too, the tools that we've got out there that are MAPX and, and, you know, other kind of performance data on the plants. So. Well, Chairman, thank you so much for breaking the ice and opening our second virtuals a little bit in person. Rick, your expert remarks and for fueling the questions. And with that, I close the session. Thank you so much. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you, Ray.