Back to the 2 o'clock block on ThinkTech, I'm Jay Fidel, and more specifically, welcome back to Making Leadership Work on ThinkTech. Our host today is called Life on the KIUC Board, and we're going to talk about striving to 100% renewable energy and what it's like at KIUC and Kauai. If you want to ask a question or participate in a discussion we have today, you can tweet us at ThinkTechHI. We'll call us at our new 808 phone number 437-2014. Our guest for the show is Jan Tenbergengate. He's been a KIUC Board of Director for some time, and he's been a journalist for some time and a Kauai resident for some time, and he's appearing today to talk about what happened on the KIUC Board for him and others, what happened for energy in Kauai, and life in general in Kauai and on the KIUC Board. So welcome to the show, Jan. Nice to have you here with us by Skype from Kauai. Thanks, Jay.  Well, you look fine. You look very comfortable with it, I must say. That means we have to do this again, you know? So let's talk about, let's qualify you, so to speak. You've been a journalist. Let's talk about that, and I'd like you to talk about your time on the KIUC Board. I'll do a quick run through. I'm a Molokai boy. I was raised in a pineapple plantation on Molokai, graduated with a degree in journalism and English from the University of Hawaii, was working for the Honolulu Advertiser before I graduated, moved because I was a country boy to Kauai the moment one of our neighbor island bureaus opened up, and that was in 1971, which dates me, and moved to, so I moved here in 1971, worked 37 years as a reporter for the advertiser. Much of that time I was the environment and science writer, which included the energy beat. So I was writing about electricity and renewables and climate and a lot of the associated issues. Retired in 2007 as the advertiser was downsizing, which eventually led to its merger with the Star, which was now the Star Advertiser with the Star Bulletin, and a couple years after that, a couple of board members at KIUC came to me and said, hey, you ought to run for our board. We're a cooperative, we're owned by our members, who are also our rate payers, and I don't pretend that people voted for me because they knew where I stood on energy, I suspect. I was a familiar name from having been in their daily newspapers for 40 years. I think I might have had something to do with that. I'm hoping that I've been twice reelected, and I'm hoping that I've done something right in the meantime that justified their initial inclinations. How long is the term? We have nine members on our board, and three of them are reelected every year, so it's three staggered terms of three years.  I started out as the lowest rank possible in a neophyte that didn't know much and had been fortunate to run many of the committees, and I was chair for a couple of years and passed the baton to Alan Smith, who is the current chair this year. So I'm the vice chair as we sit. Yes, yes. You know, I guess my reaction to the whole KIUC experience is that the board and the KIUC in general and David Bissner, they've done very, very well in order to move it ahead to clean energy and do all the things they've done and done so many good initiatives. And a lot of that happened on your watch, and I wanted to get into the dynamics of how that board works, how the leadership and the company works. You know, address the subject of our show, which is making leadership work. It's an example, in my opinion, of leadership in Hawaii, and it's a notable example. So can we talk about, let's talk about the projects that you've seen unfold in your tenure on the board. Well, when I first got on the board, there were two notable things in the offing. One was that the board had just passed its first strategic plan, which called for 50 percent renewable energy by 2023, which was a 15-year window at the time when it was passed in 2008. The, you know, at that time, it was nobody knew how you could do that, how you get to 50 percent. Nobody knew what technology you might use. Nobody knew whether it was possible, but it was an aspirational goal that our board members, before I was on the board, felt was appropriate to put in writing. How do you pick a date like that? I mean, we did that on the state level with 2045, and I don't think anybody can tell you exactly how we got to that number, but was it just throw something on the way? Well, as I said, I wasn't on the board at the time, so I wasn't part of that, but they set a goal 15 years out. That seemed like, I guess, a reasonable period of time. We were also aware that we were short on a lot of our generation infrastructure, which was 92 percent oil fired at that time. A lot of that infrastructure was getting old. We needed new generation. What we had on our plate at that time was a proposed, as I recall, 10 megawatt fossil fuel fired plant. We called it Gen X. And shortly after I got on the board, we nixed that plan and decided to move more aggressively into renewables and started developing first with the cooperation of landowners who were the folks driving the first couple of small solar arrays. And then we started doing our own solar arrays because we realized that we could do them cheaper. And cheaper power means lower rates for our members because our cost of power flows directly to the bill. So I find that interesting because not every utility company is going to get into that. Some utility companies like to do RFPs and have contractors provide the power, although that that issue may be in flux statewide now, maybe nationwide, but you guys decided pretty early that it'd be more efficient if you did it yourselves rather than let it out to a contractor. Well, we did. We did a series of projects where a developer came to us and proposed a solar array. The first one was a one megawatt solar array. And Kapa was the biggest in the state at the time. The second was a six megawatt solar array next to our Port Allen power plant, but it's owned by Alexander and Baldwin, which was the developer in that situation. And we were able to look at some of the numbers and recognize that with the benefit of some of our advantages as a cooperative, we don't pay, we pay some taxes. We don't pay federal taxes. We have a cheap rate of capital. We can we can borrow money fairly inexpensively and we have a few other tricks up our sleeve that help us do a project and actually get get the power into the onto the grid at less than what a for-profit utility or a for-profit vendor normally could. So these part of that is due to the fact that you were co-op rather than a profit corporation. Absolutely.  I think it it provides us with a really single-minded focus. We don't have shareholders to worry about to the degree that we we can make decisions that reduce rates. Our customers are happy. And you know, from a mercenary standpoint, board members get re-elected under those circumstances. Sure, it was the opposite, isn't it? For example, if I'm a profit corporation, I have to provide dividends to my stockholders or my board is out. In a co-op, there's no such thing as profit and all you have to do is provide the power at cheap cheap reasonably cheap rates. It's a different orientation completely, isn't it? That's that's my perception. And I think that's about that's the perception of our of our membership as well. It's it's really a very different way of looking at things. You know, the state public utilities commission often establishes rates on the basis of what your what your plant in use is. And and so that you could argue that there's a there's an impetus for a for-profit utility to put more plant in into place because they get compensated based on that. And that that improves the bottom line for for the owners of the company. Yeah, that might be that might be changing around us now as we speak. But let me let me ask me.  It sounds to me, I'm just guessing that you were advocating for this stuff. You came on the board, you wanted to see clean energy and you wanted to see it soon. And you were, you know, an important force in the dynamic of those decisions. I'm guessing here. But yeah, that's, that's, I mean, that guess makes me look perhaps better than I should. You know, one of the things that that I found as a journalist who had covered energy and covered utilities, I assumed that I knew a lot more about utilities than it turned out I actually did. When I got onto the board of KIC, actually, some of my fellow board members thought I knew more than I did. I found that it was an exceedingly steep learning curve. I mean, to some degree, I'm still learning, but those first couple of years, I wasn't a whole lot of use. And I don't think any new board member is until you understand more about, you know, the remarkable complexity, taxes, insurance, rate making, borrowing, all of the things, you know, beyond simply generating power and putting it in the line. So it comes out the plug that's at your house. You know, that's in many ways. That's the simple part. Did you do research? Did you go home at night and read books and articles? Oh, absolutely, lots of, I have stacks here sitting around me still, stacks of books that I, at KIC, we ship our board members. It's actually a requirement. You can't run for a second term. If you haven't taken a series of classes on the mainland in the operation of a utility. So we, we, one of the benefits is that we make sure that we give them a couple of years to get their feet under them. But by the time a board member runs for a second term, they know something about utilities and how to do what a board is supposed to do. So as you go to the mainland for these classes at your own expense or at the utility's expense? No, the utility pays the way. Many, many of the classes are given at, at the beginning of conferences that are held by organizations like the National Renewable Electric Cooperative Association. I'm, it's, I misstated that the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which is the statewide organization of more than 900 electric cooperatives that provides us with a really deep well of expertise that we can tap when we have issues before us or when we need educational or other, other kinds of assistance. Does the utility pay compensation of any kind, aside from the expense of traveling to the mainland for these classes? Utility pays directors in this case? Directors get a stipend on days when we're called in to, to work. Or just by the day then. I'm sorry? It's by the day. Yeah, it's, if you're, if we have a board meeting right now, I think it's about $200. It, the, so, you know, some months we'll have a committee meeting day where we, where our several committees meet and a board member day. So that, that month, a board member might make 400 bucks. So why, why do people run for the board? Why do they, you know, why do they want to be like you wanted to be? I mean, undoubtedly the chair of the board. What, what drives you? What makes it, you know, what makes it attractive to the people involved? Well, I mean, to some degrees, to some degree, it's the same question you'd ask, why would somebody be on the Land Use Commission or the Department of Land, or the Police Commission? There's, there's a level of community service doing something to, to give back to the community. Most of our board members are, are older. They've been in the community. They've, you know, had some of the advantages of living in this community and, and benefiting from decisions made by the people who preceded them. And, and many of us are simply trying to, to, to give back. That's, that's certainly my role. Our, at our cooperative, we're also really fortunate in that the the members have elected board members who, who represent a really broad and, and in some ways unique perspective. I mean, we've got, we've got a judge, a guy who ran a large business, a guy who ran a large corporation, one, one, a family business, one, a major corporation.  Yeah, it sounds like all those skills are very helpful for an organization like KIUC. Is there a big competition running for these seats? Do you find, you know, a number of people running for the same seeds? Do you find the campaign? I think the max is in, in the recent era, I think there were some 20 who ran for the board the first year. But in the recent, in the last five years, the, the max is, I think nine ran for the three seats that were open. And we've had as few as I think five. But yeah, we have a pretty good, pretty good cross-section of the community comes out and participates. Jan, this is Jan Tenberg and Kate. He's a journalist and also a longtime member of the KIUC board of directors. We'll take a short break when we come back. We're going to talk to him about the challenges that they've had in these initiatives, and we're going to talk about, you know, how it works between the members of the board, between the, the members of the board and the leadership, the management of the company and, and the government will be right back. Aloha. My name is Raya Salter, and I'm the host of PowerUp Hawaii, which you can see live from one to one thirty every Tuesday at thinktechkawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist. And on PowerUp Hawaii, we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future. To do that, we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum, from clean energy technology folks, to community groups, to politicians, to regulators, to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at one o'clock for PowerUp Hawaii. And maybe you can't see how to. He's a journalist and also a long time member of the KIUC board of directors and through him, we're examining the notion of leadership and how leadership works. And there are many lessons to be learned from KIUC. So tell us how the, the dynamic of the board, Jen. What makes it make decisions? You know, how are those decisions reached? What's the flavor? The we benefit from having a really good staff. It's I haven't worked with any other utilities as directly as this one. So it's not clear to me how that's different or whether it's different from elsewhere. But top to bottom, we have a remarkable staff whose whose interests align with those of the of our membership in part because they all are members. You know, every everybody who works for us also gets an electric bill and to the degree that we can make their electric bill go down. You know, they're they're working alongside us to make sure that happens. All the board members are also members. Board members, you know, interface with the public. We have regular public meetings. We have them around the island. We try to spread them into different locations. But but board, I mean, we when we're sitting sitting down at the down at the dock after a fishing tournament talking to folks, we're hearing about electricity. When we're walking in the in the halls of Costco or Safeway or Times, we're hearing about electricity. People come up to us and talk to us. They ask questions. They they bring up issues.  I mean, we as board members, people know who we are. They they see us on the street. We're a small island. We hear from folks folks a lot. And I mean, and that that interface helps, you know, we absolutely know when we're in the in the boardroom, as does our staff, who we're working for. We know those folks because we're married to them. We're related to them. We have spent a lifetime working with them. We play with them. We paddle canoe with them. We drink beer with them, you know, it's we know those folks. They know us and and and they're no divided loyalties. Yeah. How important do you think those meetings are when you run around the island? And and I guess it's a periodic thing where you talk to people and expose the directors and the management to people's questions. You know, it's it's really important. It is on the other hand, increasingly. I mean, I've been to meetings where we had 100 people in the room, angry and yelling at us. And we had some of those in the early years when I first got on the board. Lately, the meetings are smaller and calmer. I hope that's because we're doing some of the right things. To some degree, I recognize that we're still 60% oil fired. We're trying to to eat away at that. And we hope to be 60% renewable within a couple of years. And but the fact that we're 60% oil fired means that when oil prices are low as they are now, our bills are lower than they would otherwise be and and people are are less anxious. It's also true that that in my experience, our membership is well aware of the of the things that we've done to keep rates down. And we and we this is also something that wasn't happening in the early days. It's happening now. People come up to us and and thanks, thank us and tell us they're proud of the things that KIC is doing on the renewable front. Yeah, that's what I wanted to get to that that I'm aware of that phenomenon. There was a time when the people in Kauai were not necessarily behind KIC. There's a certain amount of complaints and argument going on resistance, if you will, and it changed. It seems to have changed over the past not too many years, two, three, four years. And now people are proud of proud of KIC. And I think that the state looks at that and notices that. But the question, if I could just dig a little deeper on that, why, what is it that you have done or not done that has made, you know, made things change in that direction? I'm not sure I have a great answer for that, Jay. The I do think that that we we have been able to move the needle on on renewables. In a way that very few other utilities in the country have been able to do it. We've we've, you know, as I think I mentioned earlier, when we when I first got on the board, we were 92 percent oil fired. Today, we're about 60 percent oil fired. We have three significant renewable energy projects in various stages of approval that can get us to 60 percent renewable 40 percent oil fired. And and I, you know, and we can expect to continue building on that in that direction. We also recognize that there's some risk to moving too quickly. Well, you can't afford to make a whole lot of mistakes because then people will not be confident anymore. No. And well, it's also true that that we we have a couple of strikes against us. We're a little cooperative. We can't we can't do some of the things that bigger electric companies can do by trying out nascent but but somewhat untried technologies.  There's waves all around this island. It's a great thing. And, you know, the answer in part is wave power is still largely an experimental technology. There aren't there aren't large tried and true wave power systems around the island. And people say, oh, tech, well, we're too small for oh, tech, as I understand the the technology and the and the finances. It also isn't really in the market yet. So but, you know, I remember David Bissell came. This takes me to David Bissell. He came to one of our conferences at the Energy Policy Forum in Honolulu. And he said, you know, we recognize that sometimes you got to take risks. And what I get out of that is that that's what David says. He says that sometimes you got to take risks. If he took no risks, if you guys took no risks, I don't know if it would work as well. And I I suggest to you, there's an element of two things here. One is in an in an area where you have moving technology changing all the time is very exciting, all that you've got to take some risks. As with all technology, if you want to adopt it and make it work for you're going to take a certain amount of moderated risk. The same time you have to explain this to the people who are affected by the risk. So if you don't take any risk, I think that puts you in trouble. And if you take risk without explaining it to people, that puts you in trouble. But if you take a little risk, a little moderated risk, and you tell people what you're doing and why that makes you a leader. Don't you think? Well, I'm not going to disagree with you on that. But yeah, I mean, there's no question. I mean, a lot of what we're doing, the least risky solution for KIC would have been to continue building oil fired power plants. Because you absolutely know your fuel source. You absolutely know the technology. It's been around for a long time. The only thing that's at risk there is the price of the fuel. And that was that was a least risky technology until oil spiked at 147 bucks a gallon. And suddenly it seemed like a very risky technology. And and and the risk sort of, you know, what's risky today isn't risky necessarily tomorrow. So I mean, we suddenly found that that anything that had free fuel associated with it, solar being an example of something that's pretty expensive up front, but then you don't have big operating costs. Anything like that, you know, changes, changes the numbers. But yeah, you ultimately you can't avoid risk in the utility sphere. You know, one other thing that I noticed that he said and he said this in the in the Kauai Energy Conference to place two, three weeks ago where I saw you was that he had a plan or the KIC had a plan and they had a couple of projects lined up to meet a goal. I think it was in 2030. I'm not sure I don't recall exactly what the goal was, but 2030 was a milestone year. And maybe I said this to a more flying, but I said, gee, what happens after 2030? And he says too early to make a plan for that. We have a general idea, a vision of where we're going on this. But, you know, you can't ask me to make projects how many 13 years away. I got to get closer to 2030 before I make those. And I think there was some real wisdom in that. You make a plan to reach a goal and then you take a look at how to see how that unfolds. As you get closer to that goal, then you plan your next goal. Exactly. I mean, when we established our 2023 goal of 50 percent in 2008, I don't think the plan was that we were never going to set another goal. And in fact, here it is 2017. And we've updated we're about to reach our within the next 12 months, we should reach our 2023 goal. And we've updated to the 2030 you referenced. And our goal now is 70 percent by 2030. Right. So as we approach those goals and and are assured that there are technologies and and and designs that'll get us a little farther, we keep updating the goal. But, you know, once again, our 2030 goal is 13 years out. Yeah. So it's a ways to go. Yeah. And there's a rhythm involved in planning and then checking and then planning again and making goals without without reaching too far. And I appreciate his comment. But we're almost out of time, Jan. And I wanted to ask you one last question. I remember that this is about, you know, leadership working, making leadership work here today. And as I see it, KIUC has done that. It's done some remarkable things in terms of gaining public acceptance, in terms of moving ahead with complex and sometimes risky projects. And it has planted its feet solidly into clean energy, consistent with the views not only of the people in Kauai, but most people in the state. And so I see that as a kind of an institution, an example of institutional leadership. In other words, it's not just you or Smith, your successor as chair. And it's not just David Bissell either. And it's not just, you know, the political officials who support you. It's the whole enchilada. Somehow this enterprise has managed to put itself into a leadership position. And I wanted to ask you to comment on that and tell me what we can learn from that in terms of, you know, other similar projects in the future, not only in energy, but any initiative that we need to take to sustain the state. You know, that's a tough one. I mean, we could have gone south at KIUC if we had not had David Bissell and his team's excellent leadership. If our board were not as, I mean, we work together as a team. We don't have fistfights in the boardroom. For the most part, don't have yelling matches in the boardroom. Although occasionally we also don't have all unanimous decisions. We have pretty rigorous discussion. And as you know very well, often there are three good solutions to a problem. And you may disagree on which one to take.  To the degree that you're asking me how we make this happen somewhere else, ultimately it comes down to our membership. Our members elected, I think, a really good board. Our board selected a really good CEO. Our CEO has selected a really good staff. And you put all of those things together with a continually supportive membership. And things happen. If you let any of that go, I mean if our membership were marching at the doors with signs calling us names, we wouldn't be able, we wouldn't have the fortitude to make some of the tougher, you know, we're making 100 million dollar decisions. And that's not easy for a bunch of, you know, Kawhi guys and gals out here in the sticks. But we have the support of our membership. We have some successes behind us. And we have, you know, we're sort of unified top to bottom from the staff through the board to the membership. We have a sense that, we have a sense of mission, a sense that we know where we want to go. Not always sure how to get there. And we may disagree about how to get there. But we're going to get there together and we're all coming along. Great. Great, Jen. Jen Tenbrugginge joining us by Skype from Kawhi. Jen, a longtime member of the KIUC board and a journalist and was chair last time around. And we will talk to him again. We want to follow what's going on in Kawhi Energy. Thank you so much, Jen. Thanks, Jay.


My main area of research is about building computational models that simulate the process of language learning in humans, mainly children.  Very rarely do children receive explicit training on the meanings of individual words or even on the structure of the language, on the grammar. Therefore, we really don't know how children go from these full complex input that they receive to learn to use a language much more flexibly. Using a computational model that is given a task similar to what children face actually allows us to follow this process step by step. What does a model have to learn in order to perform this task? Do they have to learn about individual words? Do they have to learn about the phonological language? These are the questions that we are asking as researchers.


This is the OTP, presented by Farm Bureau Health Plan, celebrating 76 years of providing Tennesseans with high quality health coverage and an affordable rate. Visit FBHP.com to learn about their story and their history in Tennessee. With Amy Wells, I'm Mike Keith, so pleased to be joined by the head coach of your Tennessee Titans, Mike Braybel. Welcome. Welcome. Thanks for having me. All right, so let's set the parameters right away. We're taping the July 4th show, but it's obviously June because our offices are closed on July the 4th. So, Mike, play along with us here. If this really were July 4th, where would you and the Braybel family be right now? What are you doing the week of July 4th? This year? Yes. I think we'll be in Utah. Nice. Yeah, I think we'll be down in Park City, taking the celebration down Main Street. It's a parade. You see the kids and candy. Is that a place you have gone frequently with Jen? Not in the summer. Not in the summer. I like it in the winter, but I'm going to try it out in the summer. I heard it's nice out there. Are you guys ski people? Do you ski? I do. Really? Yeah. Mike Braybel, I never would have pegged you as a skier. Yeah. Well, your wife's an athlete. Well, you put goggles on, a helmet. Sure. Nobody bothers you. You put music in and... Just cruising down the slopes. Nobody bothers you. Nobody knows who you could be next to, not the biggest celebrity, whoever you think the biggest celebrity is, and you would never know, because the goggles, the helmet, the snow. Who's the biggest celebrity you have encountered out there?  No, I mean the Sundance thing, I really don't even know. My buddy Thomas Conner over at the corner pub, over at the corner store, the base of Park City. That is my guy. I want you to explain something, though, because this is the only downtime of the year fully for the NFL. The last week in June and the first really two weeks in July, that's all that's left that's completely carved out to where you're alone. Is it hard for you to shut it down for those three weeks? It's not hard. It's... What's hard is that you have to hope that what you've tried to instill with the players that you've had here for the off-season program that they go and they can continue that. I guess that's my only, the biggest concern that I have as a coach in this league is those are the five most critical weeks of the off-season. It's not the March to April window. It's not the start of OTAs. It's that end of mini-camp to the beginning of training camp, because I feel like we're continuing to work, we're doing good. I think guys are getting in shape and getting stronger and having gains. But what happens after that? And I know that a lot of them will, but how do we maintain that self-motivation throughout that five-week window? Is that something you've had to learn how to do, though, is to let go during that time period?  You've learned the cadence of the season. Did you have to learn how to really shut it down and let it be? Probably. We have the rookies for a couple of weeks after, so that'll be good. I think they'll really be able to settle down and try to take a deep breath here and just focus on their conditioning, their strength, and getting them ready for the training camp. We'll get them out of here, and then Chick will finish his program, his rookie development program that he does so well at. Let these guys get away. And, you know, I think I'm back and forth, so it'll be, you know, it'll be good. I'll spend some time with the rookies here for a little bit, and then we'll all get away. People hear you mention Chick. You're talking about Chick Elajase, who runs all of your player programming. And I guess his technical title is he's the player development director? Yep. Player engagement. Player engagement. And why is he so good at what he does? Well, he has a staff. And part of that group is James Mitchell, Mitch, Dr. Sheila Peters. They work extensively with the rookies, not just the rookies, but that's where their main focus is right now. You know, we always try to add points of contact for our players, you know, whether they're comfortable with Chick or Mitch or Stretch or myself, their position coach, Todd or Frank. It doesn't matter. Just somebody that they can come to, if something's going on, hey, I need this, then we go through the channels of trying to get them that. And it could be a number of different things. But Chick understands what it is that we demand of our players, what we ask of them, what they're going to need to survive and excel as a player on this team, on the field, off the field. He has a really good grasp of it. So, you know, we're lucky to have him. Those rookie programs, I guess, it's something that's relatively new to the league in terms of they're getting more extensive every year, the way that you're trying to educate them, not only about football stuff and the business of the NFL, but there's a lot of life components to that too, right? Yeah. And Dr. Schiller reminded the rookies that there used to just be a rookie symposium. You would just show up two days somewhere. They'd hammer out 10 hours a day of information and all the different things. And now they've put it back here with directors and a planned out thing. So we have a schedule when they come in each day, you know, what they're doing with the football, and then what they're doing each day in the rookie development program with Chick. So that could be a former player. That could be a second, a few second year players that could be veteran players, financial, financial advice, NFLPA benefits, all these things that go through, you know, our community relations, making sure that they have an understanding of what's going to be asked of them throughout the season and things that we can help them with. Because they are just like people coming out of college in May. They're just starting their first job. It can be overwhelming. Well, there's a lot of questions. Their families are asking them a lot of questions, and sometimes they don't always, most of the time, don't have the answers to what training camp is going to look like, what tickets are going to look like, when do we stay, the hotel, the driver's license, when we go to London this year. There's passports that some of these guys don't have passports. And so Chick and his staff, you know, with Jeb and John Albertson, they go about finding ways to provide them and get them the stuff that they need, driver's license, apartments, and all those different things. Have you seen the fruits of that labor translate to success on the football field, translate to maybe easier career transitions? Well, I think comfort level. You know, I think we try to provide as much support as we can off the field so that when they get here to work or they get to the practice field or the meetings that they're not thinking about something else that needs to get taken care of, they can focus on football.  And so we try to help those players get through that and manage that and then, you know, therefore make them better teammates and hopefully more productive. You've put a big emphasis in your support staff and we're going to talk to you about a lot of different components of that because obviously the coaching stuff is what we talk about the most. But there are so many other staff members, whether it's nutrition, whether it's people in the equipment room, whether it's trainers, whether it's just people who are around to help this football team be successful. That's something that we've really seen you kind of put a priority on, especially in the last couple of years, bulking that group up a little bit. Why is that something that's been so important to you? Well, one, the respect is critical that our players have respect for everybody in this building that has a role, that has a job to help them do the best job that they can at playing football. And so I expect that respect to each and every person, whether that's in the cafeteria, which we all know having been here as long as we all have, that didn't used to look like that. At all. Right. And we have a first class facility that feeds our players exactly what their dietary restrictions are, aren't the friendliness, the cleanliness, all these things that allow our players to come in there, hang out outside a locker room, outside of a meeting room, the equipment room. I would just, those are simple things that I asked our players to show those people respect that they're not there just to pick your stuff up there to provide you with the equipment, the laundry service, but they're not sitting there to pick up after you and be your housekeeper. And then the training room and the nutritionist that you mentioned and so many different other pieces to this puzzle because there is a lot. There's a lot going on. Big family, small families, kids travel from all across the country to be here. So the more people that we can have here that help them do their job and help us all come to work focused and ready to go is important. Mike and Jen Vrabel have two sons in their 20s who are athletes. Yep. How much do you think that has helped you in your time developing as the head coach of the Tennessee Titans knowing that you understand not only that generation and not only athletes of that generation, but the different things that they are going through than you went through back in the 1990s? I think it's probably helped.  I know what, you know, I mean, it's like, Carter's got long hair tattoos and earrings just like a lot of our players. It's like, I get it, you know, and so, but I also probably wasn't as good as I should have been early on with my own kids and trying to be, instead of being coach or instead of being dad, it's like more coach than dad and trying to find that balance. But I do think having, you know, kids in that same age group of the ones that are going to be meeting with us here, you know, when they come back for training camp, I think it helps. I think it helps to understand, you know, there's relationships, there's families, there's disagreements, there's all these different things that go on that you try to work through and talk to them about and continue with the mental performance, the mental recovery that we talk about in this game and the expectations that we all have and the high expectations and, you know, I believe in the mental performance side of things. I think that was a big reason of Carter having to be able to recover from where he was early in the season of, you know, you go with baseball, man, it's up and down, there's slumps and there's a game of failure and I struggle with that just watching as a dad. But he stuck with it, he worked, you know, worked the skills that he had been trained with and worked with and been able to fight through that early season and then finished, you know, really strong. And that's something that, you know, Tennessee Tech and that Coach Braga alluded to. He said, the way that you finished, he's like, we noticed that, we looked at that. So, you know, I try to remind our players, okay, this is the whole package that we're trying to develop. What's Mike Rabel, the dad, like watching his kid play a sport, whether it be football or baseball, cause you've got both, are you a mover? Are you quiet? Are you stationary? You've got all different types. I'm probably best, if you want to know where I'm best at, Amy, I'm best further away. Yeah. The closer I get, the more fidgety and amped up I get. I don't want to be a part of that game. I don't. And I need to unfortunately remove myself behind left field with my little grill. I got my little Blackstone out there. I make hot dogs for a fan. So that removes me from the game and I can watch and I can enjoy it and not get so close to it. She's going to find out it's the most when your girls are playing whatever sport they're playing as a parent, it's awful. It's so much worse than when I played 100 years ago or when Mike played in the NFL. I mean, I think you would agree.  Because there's nothing you can do. No, you just have to try to enjoy it, find a space where you can enjoy it. And because they feel that, I think they see that, they feel that. And so the more you can just, any, I'm telling you, it took me a while. I was not very good. I was, I was probably at the bottom of parent coaches. Titans fans, listen up. Open a Titans checking account from Pinnacle with at least $100 and a recurring direct deposit by August the 18th. And you could win two tickets to five Titans home games. Details at titansbanking.com. Titans checking from Pinnacle. Play hard, bank easy, member FDIC. I've just been handed breaking news Titans fans. It's official, Seat Geek is now the official ticketing partner of your Tennessee Titans. That's right, the deal is finalized. Seat Geek is the newest member of your Titans family. If you haven't heard the name yet, Seat Geek, you'll be hearing it a lot more this season and for seasons to come. That's Seat Geek. Whether you're buying or selling tickets to Titans games or any live event in Nashville, Seat Geek is the place to do it. Seat Geek, the new official ticketing partner of your Tennessee Titans. So Titans fans can thank you. All right, so we have to ask you, Mike Grable with us on the OTP, July 4th week. We always wanna know when you come by and see us for this show, what you are streaming on TV, what you are binge watching, what you are into, the OT people wanna know. Yep, so we have made the mistake of getting into shows but realizing it's in the middle of the show and then now we have to wait each and every week. So we press pause and we are, I would say by the time that this airs, we will have finished the session. Okay. Because we got into my man over there across the pond, football coach, soccer coach, Ted Lasso. Yes. So we went back and we ripped through those three seasons, I guess. What'd you think of the third season? Like that. Okay, good. I like it. Is that controversial? Among Ted Lasso fans, it has been. Well, it got a little, I would say, political. It did. You know, but it's Hollywood. Yeah. Storylines. You need something. It has a tendency to do that. The mental health message in the show is so... There was a lot of parallels. I really appreciate watching that show and thinking like, okay, well, you know, everybody's on the right track and just, you know, he doesn't, nothing's ever really that big of a deal. No. Right? And it's a good way to look at it, not to say that you have to do it that way, but it's like, okay, well, we'll be okay. So succession, Ted Lasso. Yeah, and then we just are now are waiting for new suggestions. Okay, Amy, have you got something? Well, we're going through succession at home as well. So I'm on that same track, but we're waiting for season two of Severance. Did you watch Severance? No. Weird show. It's weird, but it's good. If you're gonna start watching Severance, you've gotta make it through the first three. Yeah. And you're gonna think this is really strange, but after you get through the first three, I couldn't make it. My son loves it. Oh, it's, yep. It's bananas. Snowfall? Haven't seen it. Haven't seen it. Worth it. Really? Okay. They get slow in the middle seasons. We kind of brushed, AJ told me this a couple years ago. Check this show out. Third season of Berry was very worth it. Okay. If you, if you like Berry, which I loved, it's a good program. It was on HBO. I don't know Berry. Berry is, the guy from Saturday Night Live. Bill Hader. Bill Hader. He's a contract killer who becomes an actor. Okay. And he finds himself as an actor. After coming out of the military as a sniper, he becomes a contract killer. That he hates the job, but he stumbles into being an actor and he finds what he loves. Did you like Dexter? I did. I couldn't get, there was so much to it. There was a, yeah. And it got a little goofy. Yeah, it got a little strange. Those are hard. I mean, what do you do after six or seven seasons? But I think that's the thing about Berry is, they did three seasons with a wrap up. Ted Lasso, three seasons with a wrap up. I think that's what he did. Here's one for you that my wife found Daisy Jones in the six. With what's her name? Riley Keough. That's it. Elvis Presley's granddaughter. Yep. Fantastic show. Fantastic show. Easy to watch, one to a night. You'll love it. So this is like setback as a Western? No, Daisy Jones, it's based loosely, supposedly on Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham coming into Fleetwood Mac. Fireworks. Yeah, you'll love it. Daisy Jones in the six. Easy watch, drama but not, you know. Okay. Hey Titans fans. Hard to decide what's the best part of a Dunkin' Run. Is it the coffee or the classic $1 donut? The $2 stuffed bagel minis or the $3 sausage, egg and cheese that you can add to that coffee or of course you just get to leave the office. The answer of course is yes. Time for a Dunkin' Run. Great deals on food for one, two or $3 with a medium or larger coffee. America runs on Dunkin'. Can we talk football now? Sure, okay. Thought that's what we're gonna do. Well, but I mean, we don't get to have you on the OTP all the time. I love being here. This is our summer program. This is our, it's light, it's easy, it's fun.  I wondered as that was going on, was that something you went into the off season looking to do or did that happen more so because of the people who were available that you were able to fit into the spots? I think a little bit of both. You know, I mean, I think it was probably time, you know, to make some changes and you just get a sense and a feel for, you know, what you're just trying to do, what's best for the team and best for the players and, you know, went through a lot of different interviews. I went through a bunch, you know, I mean, 20, 25 different interviews, offensively at different positions and got a lot of great ideas, met a lot of great people, a lot of great candidates and was able to settle on the staff that we have now, which I think has been, you know, by all accounts working well. Seems like the communication to the players is good. I think the coaching is good. We've got some guys, you know, moved some guys wrong, brought some other guys in from other places and I think it's been really good. In doing all of that shifting and adding and moving and just kind of jostling all those pieces around, do you feel like the chemistry of the group has remained intact or maybe even gotten stronger? The chemistry of the coaching staff? Yes.  Anthony Levine, Tom Quinn have been great additions on the special team side and then, you know, I think the biggest, like Mike said, was offensively, but you know, I think I like where it's at right now. What do you hope that the change is in the secondary with the coaching staff and keeping Scott Booker, who I know you're also very impressed with, what do you hope that's going to give the secondary that it didn't have in 2022? Well, I don't think there was something that it didn't have. I just think that it was good time to add, you know, what we felt like was a really good football coach. I had a lot of knowledge. You know, and in the end, there's only two coverages. There's going to be zone or it's going to be man and you're going to have to cover your guy and we're going to have to find ways to affect the quarterback. So, there's been some energy back there and we'll have some bunch of young guys again work in and we'll see where this thing shakes out at training camp, but you know, we have to defend the pass better on first and second down, you know, whether we're rushing better or covering better, but we played well against the run. We played well on third down, but just gave up too many yards on first to second down throwing a football. Some player moves this off season and one of the additions is ardent key. Why is that someone who you felt was a great fit for this program? Well, good energy's got versatility. You know, it can play up and down the front. He rushes inside, he's rushed outside. You know, it can drop once in a while if need be and obviously you can't rush everybody. So, it has the ability to move around. I've always liked him. Love his personality, his passion. It's been a really good addition so far. We had the opportunity to talk with him not too long ago and he seems like a Mike Vrable guy through and through. You guys seem like you have very similar personality styles almost and the same kind of approach to the game of football. Is that something that makes maybe your job a little bit easier having a guy who is established in the league, knows what he's doing on the field and can also kind of... Well, he brings in energy. He brings a passion and he's fun to coach, but he's got a lot to prove. You know, I mean, this is a player that hasn't been a full-time starter in this league and we told him that we could obviously would love for him to earn that role here and we would help him get there. We would do everything that we could and he was excited about it and has come in and has worked and has gotten in condition and we're excited to see where that may go. With Amy, I think Arden Key seems like your kind of guy the first time you meet him. Andre Diller doesn't necessarily seem like that because he's so cerebral and he clearly thinks about things and it takes a little to pull him out. He told us that when free agency started he prayed that the Titans would call because he bonded with you during the pre-draft process back in 2019. He felt like you got him and he looks forward to playing for you in that way. How is it that a guy so different from, say, an Arden Key connects with you in that way and that you connect with him? Because at some point in time you have to realize that everybody's gonna be different and they're gonna have a unique skill set and it's our job to find ways to reach him, to coach him, to get the best out of him and get their best version. But clearly different personalities from Arden and Andre and Taje and Derek. I mean, everybody's different and so we're gonna do our best to make a connection with the players and find out what it is that, how they function and operate best. Jeffrey Simmons is still a Tennessee Titan. We're able to get a contract done with him over the off season. How beneficial was that not only to the defense and what you guys are gonna be doing on the field but to the locker room, to the overall kind of culture of what the Tennessee Titans are? Well, he embodies everything that we wanted and he's starting a family here in Nashville and it's great to see that really become a part of our community and has his family that's moved from Mississippi and just his leadership, his attitude, his professionalism, that branches out much further than just the defensive line and then the defense and then on to their team and guys recognize how he works and his effort in which he plays with and what this team means to him. So I think that he's a great example for all of us. May I ask a Will Leviss question? Sure. All right. It's been a couple months since the draft, obviously. There was a lot of tracking of the Tennessee Titans around Will Leviss because you took so many people to his Kentucky workout. He was here for a pre-draft visit at Ascension St. Thomas Sports Park. It was obvious that you had a connection in terms of his skillset, you got to know him, you understood what he was about and then you went and got him at number 33. What was it, two parts. What was it about Will Leviss that you saw and learned through that process that made you think he's a fit and what have you seen from him just early, I know, that has sort of driven home that point? Well, I mean, I think we all know how valuable the quarterback position is in this league and I think we saw what everybody sees, we saw a pro-style quarterback that has size that can still move, that isn't just a statue. I think the quarterbacks are continuing to get more mobile, whether you're a running quarterback or not, he's got good arm strength to make all the throws. He understands kind of the terminology in which we use and operate. He could be under center, he could operate from the shotgun, he worked in the play-action game, worked in the RPO game. So just because you have experience with all this doesn't make you automatically just gonna be amazing, but I think that that was a great base. And then obviously, since he's been here, I think he's continued to work and learn and develop and it's a lot. I mean, our defense does a lot of different stuff and shows a lot of different looks and there's been some really positive plays and some positive throws and some throws like everybody else that he'd like to have back and decisions and those are things that will continue to coach with him, with Malik and with Ryan. Speaking of a lot, we've heard a lot about Traylin Burke's this off season. Are we hearing too much about Traylin Burke's this off season? Well, I don't know what too much is or I don't know how much enough is. I'm not, you probably listen to it a lot more than I do.  I mean, this is a big guy and he's running and he's getting in shape and this is a big receiver who continues to work and learn and develop the nuances of playing receiver in this league and so just keep stacking days together and on top of each other and continue to improve and we'll start to add some red zone here. I know we're looking back into things so hopefully the red zone installation went well when this airs and I'm hoping that the red zone went well and that he'll maintain all that hard work that he put in the off season that he'll maintain that through those five weeks we talked about. Mike Vrabel, congratulations on being put into the Patriots Hall of Fame. You know what Carter said? What? Seven times a charm, dad. Oh, you were a finalist multiple times, but seven.  If you're talking about those Patriots with, let's say the Celtics of the 80s. Okay, maybe Mike Vrabel's not Larry Bird. Maybe you're Robert Parrish. Maybe you're Kevin McKell. I don't know, but at the very least you're DJ and to Celtic fans, Dennis Johnson was a big deal. It has to be something that when you just take a set. Not Danny Ainge. You didn't bite anybody, did you? No. He can't talk like that. I like Danny Ainge too, but DJ was the glue.  But the point is you think about those teams what you accomplished, the history of this league, which I know you value. And to have that franchise now say, you're one of the greatest to ever play for them. Like the Euler slash Titans, an AFL original who did something very special. I mean, for your understanding of the game, it's gotta mean a lot. It does. And I think the one thing where I recognized, man, this is pretty cool. Ernie Adams must have told somebody along the way that one year I played a thousand defensive snaps and 200 special team snaps. And I was like, well, I didn't realize that at the time, but I think that that just, you know, when you look back at being in this thing, this is an honor. We're all going on to do some really great things because of the time that we spent in New England. And I'm thankful for the Kraft family. I'm thankful for Bill looking forward to getting up there and being a part of that ceremony. You're kind of an NFL celebrity and it has nothing to do with being the head coach of an NFL team. It's really true. I mean, people talk about Mike Vrable as one of the faces of an era of football that we may never see again in our lifetime. I mean, the Patriots were so dominant and you are one of the names that's associated with that. And yet you never talk about it. Ever. You never acknowledge it. I find that remarkable because if that was me, I'd talk about it all the time. I'd have t-shirts printed out. She would. But I really would. But that is just not something that ever, if you didn't know, you wouldn't know, you know? What I did for New England or what I did as a player is not going to help our players coming in that's not gonna help me coach them. You know, I may be able to explain, hey, so-and-so or this technique or we did that, but I mean, half these guys, they don't even, half of them not only think, realize I played, you know? How many of them do you think really don't know that you played? I just said half of them.  I mean that literally. You should go around the locker room. I would love to. Nothing would bring me more joy, actually. I guarantee you half of them didn't know I ever caught a touchdown pass. Or that you have more career touchdown catches than a lot of guys out here put together right now. That'll change. That'll change fast. I just played long. Let's, not a tight end you did. No, couple years. Could you have played in the NFL as a tight end regularly? Truth? Truth. Yeah, I think special teams would have kept me around. Yeah? You'd been a three tight end who played Red Zone and blocked a lot? Oh, I wasn't blocking. No. No. I wasn't blocking. All right, let's wrap up with this. Will we be able, you like to change things up as we know, will we be able to notice much difference in the upcoming training camp, which is now just three weeks away? I mean, I don't know. Maybe, you know what I mean? I think that what we're trying to do, you know, is provide a couple of days of work, you know, with a day of walkthrough, a couple of days of work with a day of walkthrough. But, you know, I think that the way that we're gonna practice is still gonna be upbeat. I think it's still gonna, you know, we're gonna be moving around. We're gonna, you know, do one-on-ones when we can. We're gonna spend time in a Red Zone. We're gonna spend time on the fundamentals, you know, open field tackling and all those things that I believe are critical to playing good football. It's playing with fundamentals and, you know, building the culture of how we wanna finish and be able to practice. I mean, great teams practice very, very fast, but they also know how to take care of each other. They keep people off the ground and not taking shots at each other. I mean, you've seen good football teams and they practice and there's a speed to it, but they also aren't taking shots at guys from the side and then going into somebody. That's what dog-s*** teams do, right? They don't know how to practice and guys are on the ground and they can't get anything done because you're afraid that somebody's gonna get hurt. So, part of this offseason has been learning how to practice and reminding the guys that we have had but then also the new ones of, practice is important, the timing, the speed, everything that we do at a professional level is critical, but with that being said, we have to do it in a way that takes care of each other and, you know, we wanna compete, but we don't wanna sit there and try to take advantage of somebody that's in a compromising position. Tennessee Titans practices, whether it be in training camp, the offseason, during the regular season, they have a specific cadence. They have a momentum. They have a speed that you don't always see with other teams or with other head coaches. Is that something you've- They don't let me watch the other teams practice so I couldn't tell you. Well, for some of us who have seen other teams practice, I'll let you know. You don't see practices like the Titans very often. Is that something you had to work to build here though? No, no. I mean, again, we can go back and we can talk about Jarrell Casey, Wesley Woodjard, Delaney Walker. I know that there's many more, you know, Ben and Taylor, those guys that were here. But I am thankful that those guys were here and then they bought in and I've thanked them. I thanked them while they were here. I've thanked them since then and just, you know, they were pros, they wanted to win, they competed, so that, you know, they made things, you know, pretty easy. You make things easy for us. Thank you so much for the time. We appreciate it. I want to shake that hand. We have. We have. Right flipper. I'm getting ready for training camp too. We'll just do both of them. She gets the double-hedge. I got two arms, Mike. Graby Wells and head coach Mike Grable. I'm Mike Keith. Thank you for joining us for the OTP.


So we'll move on to our second of three. Oh, part two. You're getting a three-for-one deal, guys. That's like, we're saving you like two hours of gaming here. So a competitive test of skill. We have to first try to understand what a game is.  So there are many different definitions of game and we could talk for hours about semantics and everything. We only have 20 minutes. We're going to go right into this. These are the three definitions of game we use in most of our lectures, most of our panels. I think these are very good definitions. You left off the one about the animals. So yeah, so we always made a joke when we show a pheasant and we joke about pheasants for like a minute. We just did. Now we know we did a meta-joke about that joke and later I can do a callback to the fact that that was a meta-joke. But no, we're talking about this one. So this is not the place where we're going to talk about your single-player RPGs, your experiences, all these things. We're talking about games that are competitions. They are competitive tests of one or more skills. So we have to lay a few ground rules first to really understand what we mean by a competitive test, let alone skills or games. All games, every game you will ever play, breaks down. It is either a game that can be solved or a game that is random. Now one guy, I tried to tell this to someone once and they're like, no, no, no, no. You can't solve a game. You never know what the other guy is going to do. He could do anything. There's not like an answer like there is to a puzzle, right? It's not like there's a right answer to do and then you win the game. And I'm like, all right, let's play a game. It's called tic-tac-toe, right? It's like, yeah, games can be solved, right? It doesn't matter what the other guy does. You know what to do. So for example, checkers, chess, these games, to use game theory terms, perfect information, complete information games, checkers in 2007, Thursday, weak mathematical solution for checkers. I bring this up a lot because it's one of my favorite examples.  And it turns out that both sides can guarantee a draw no matter what and neither side can force a win. There is a solution to checkers. You can guarantee that you will, at worst, draw with the other player. Random. Yahtzee is at its core a random game. It's just a matter of did I roll a Yahtzee? Now, it doesn't matter. You know, you could be really dumb at Yahtzee and you could roll like all sixes and score that as a zero in the ones column if you really want to. But, you know, once you sort of understand how Yahtzee works, who wins and me and Rim play Yahtzee against each other, and we both try to win and we're both not kindergarteners, you know, whoever's going to win is going to be determined by the dice. What happens, you know, we're going to play and we're both going to win about 50% of the time. There's no, if there was a game of skill, the better of us would win most of the time. Now, this is where it gets interesting because that's game theory. They're either solvable or random, but we're humans. Two things that humans are really, really bad at are statistics and acting random with. So, in terms of statistics, even though checkers is solvable, you have to memorize the solution. You can. And even though Yahtzee is random, if you have it solved Yahtzee and you don't know how to play optimally, then there is a strategy. There is a solution that you have not yet discovered. So, there is a blurred line between these and humans. In fact, with humans, there's actually a third kind of game that is not random, it's arbitrary. Citadels is a game like that. Basically, I'm choosing a role and Scott's choosing a role. They're all equally good in different ways. So, there's no real way to logically say I should choose this role over that role. My most optimal strategy is actually to act random with. Usually what I do in Citadels, unless there's some really obvious move, I just shuffle the cards up and pick one for the next guy. I could explain to you the rules of Citadels if you want to play a game. I would shuffle them openly behind my back and randomly pick one and not even look at it. Now, one time I cheated in Citadels, well, cheated, right, is what I would do is before everyone learned how to do this, I would select a card and hand them to the next player remembering the order of the cards. They would fan the cards out and select one like that. And I was like, he picked the third one. I knew exactly what card everyone had. We thought Scott was psychic for about a half hour. But look at this, an arbitrary game. Paper Rock Scissors is an example. So the optimal strategy, we solved it. Act randomly, you have the best chance of winning.  So if you want to be little kids at Paper Rock Scissors, I always had this mnemonic that I've used my entire life.  A child tends to pick scissors because scissors are forbidden. Scissors are dangerous, scissors are strong. So a little kid is going to pick scissors most of the time, so you just pick Rock and you win. A kid who's a little smarter will realize that people pick scissors all the time and he'll start with Rock.   He's a human. Yeah, unless I have a D3C with these citadels, I can shuffle the cards and act randomly, right? But if I don't have a mechanism on hand, like a D3 or something, or maybe a random number generator on my phone, how can I randomly choose Rock Paper Scissors? My brain is going to pick one of them. And it does never have a random number generator. So psychology and other factors end up affecting games that are arbitrary in a way that is different from games that are random. So what about this? My favorite picture in all of hockey. That's my second favorite. He's trying to do it. Where is hockey? I mean, Scott, do you know the solution to hockey? Put the biscuit in the basket a lot of times. All right, all right. So there's a fourth kind of game with humans. Execution. I might know the perfect strategy to beating you if you're playing ambison as Street Fighter. It doesn't mean I can pull it off. Yeah, I know the perfect strategy to beating DDR. Step on all the arrows real fast. And what we're going to say here to save everybody a lot of time is that when we talk about execution, that is where skill is involved. So what is skill? And the problem is there are thousands of definitions for skill and every field of study has a different definition of skill. So we're going to talk about a few examples that are useful in the real world instead of academic ones. Knowledge skills versus execution skills. All right, you'll see this a lot in especially modern games. People will confuse knowledge for other kinds of skills. For example, I don't know, like an MMO. If you get into an MMO and someone else will be a lot better than you, why are they a lot better than you? Well, it's not because they can click faster or they're better at solving strategic puzzles or something. It's just because they've learned where all the places are in the game. They've memorized what the weapons do. They've memorized what the other classes' abilities are. It is no, right? Imagine if there was rock, paper, scissors. Well, everyone can remember rock, beat, scissors. Scissors beats paper. Paper beats rock. What if it was a rock, paper, scissors with a million things that all went against each other, right? You know, it's not any different from the base game of rock, paper, scissors, but winning and losing comes down to how much of that chart did you memorize? Now, as opposed to, say, an execution skill where I know what I want to do, I'll put that thing in the toad hole as you all learned at PAX East. I guess they weren't at PAX East. But I know what to do in a sport. I know I want to hit the arrow over there. You know Mario's going to jump over the hole, but every time he falls, it's like one pixel shurn. Now, there's a very soft definition between knowledge skills and execution skills. For example, chess is primarily a game of knowledge in that if you haven't memorized the openings of chess, if you haven't studied chess, you're probably going to lose against someone who didn't, no matter how smart and how tactical you are, because they have these patterns already set. They can move on to a higher level of play than you could. Yeah, when you're playing, say, Go, a lot of the professional Go people just memorize these patterns. It's become knowledge to them. They know things, so they just recall it from memory and then it doesn't take execution skill to put a stone on a piece of wood. Anyone can do that. But at the same time, memorizing and holding those things in your head is, for humans, a skill. I mean, I can read Bobby Fisher's book on how to be the best chess player in the world. I'm still not going to beat Bobby Fisher at chess. So the line between these is blurred. The definition I like to use is that if I give you gnosis, if something is a knowledge skill, it means that I can give you the knowledge and you are now on equal footing with me and revealed it to you. For example, if you're playing Trivial Pursuit and you've read the rules of the game, which includes every one of those cards, you're going to win because you know all the answers. But if I tell you again, Mario just jump over Bowser at the end, that's actually kind of hard to do. Well, think about it this way. If I can give you the strategy guide to like a JRPG and you read that strategy guide and follow the instructions, guess what? You're going to beat the game with maximum everything.  I'm the example of that. Scott can beat me in Street Fighter and with Ambison and just jabs. Yeah, I guess. But you know, if I try to just jab, anyone actually knows how to play. Let's talk a little bit about skill caps. So we talk about games testing one or more skills. But how much relevance does a skill have? In, for example, a game of Yachty, the primarily relevant skill is being able to quickly calculate the odds of six-sided dice in aggregate. That is a skill. But that only gets you so far and then the randomness takes over beyond that. Right, so like, I can pretty much play Yachty perfectly and the rim can play Yachty perfectly. We can't learn anything, we can't improve any skill to improve our chances of winning at Yachty. We have maxed it out and whether we win or lose is now up to randomness, right? Settlers of Katan, Surro. I can play both those games effectively, optimally. In fact, we were in a Surro tournament at the last packs and the two of us ended up having to go into multiple tie breakers and Scott won by random bullshit at the end. I have a medal, it's gold, this is packs on it. There's no argument to that. But you look at, say, the Olympics, right? What's the skill cap, you know? Usain Bolt is faster and faster all the time. What is the limit? How much more skill can he get? And, you know, there is no real limit yet. I mean, I'm sure it's somewhere around 9.7 seconds, but, yeah. So we get to Cyborg Olympics. That'd be the best. So we talked about a whole bunch of stuff. Let's talk about some actual games and try to understand what skills they are testing. Start with Dominion, because this is a perfect example. Dominion is a game that literally is a test of how quickly you can solve it. You get a different layout of cards. Every game is a different board. And the goal is just based on these cards, which you've probably never seen in this particular combination before, how quickly can you identify the most optimal way to generate victory points and end the game before everyone else. And people have done some startling analysis on this game. The game could easily be solved for almost any combination if you put enough simulation to it. And, in fact, there's a great article about how big money does not win this particular board. There's, in fact, a better engine than no one plays. We don't have time to talk about that. So Dominion tests your ability to parse the actions that happen from a number of cards and then to construct a deck in real time that will maximize victory points over time. It tests this very specific deck-building skill. Let's talk about a more interesting game. Quake II Deathmatch. Quake II Lithium Deathmatch, even. This was the deathmatch that I played for many, many years. Quake II is an old-school FPS. Characters are very small and very far away. The maps are enormous. And everyone moves really, really fast. Imagine Team Fortress 2 ten times faster. That's how fast this game is. Go on YouTube and search for, like, old, original Team Fortress games, like Mega TF and watch how fast people go. It'll be like, here's the two forts. It'll be like, that's how fast they move. And you got to hit someone with a rocket who's moving that fast. Now, even better, in Quake II Lithium Deathmatch, you got a grappling hook. It was three dimensional. I could be flying through the air. And it turns out, if you look at what skills are primarily being tested, it's head clicking and precision movement. Nothing else matters.  If I'm faster at monkeying around on the ceiling with a grappling hook, my APM in Quake is very high, I'm going to win. All these other things, teamwork, capturing the flag, coordination, none of that matters. One low wolf with a very high skill in precision movement and head clicking can carry his entire team. Now, memorizing the map has a little bit to do with it, but it's like, come on, it's two maps. You can take me ten minutes. Because the skill cap is so high on the head clicking, Scott's not that good at Quake II compared to me. No, not really. Even if he gets the quad damage, because he timed it, he's not going to help him. So what about weapons factory? It's not the quad armor. Quake II weapons factory is a mod. This is in the era of Team Fortress Classic, Mega Team Fortress. The games that eventually became Team Fortress II, this was probably the most complex of them.  This is one of those games where if you wanted to play it, you had to script your controls from the console. Yes, I made this graph. Now notice how it's the same game. It's still Quake II, but every character has like ten weapons, three grenades, and some of the grenades are things like, yeah, it's a turret that sits there for 20 seconds or a minute, or it's napalm that blows up after a delay. Every class is completely different. So it's added this additional complexity of maximizing your character's loadouts, memorizing the maps, and scripting. Quake II, and I'm going to feel old here, did not have off-hand grenades. Quake I did. I couldn't be shooting and then hit a button and have a grenade pop out like I couldn't Quake I.  Switch weapons, throw grenades, switch weapon back. And that script, you think that'd be simple. That was like a hundred lines long to make that word fluently. But think about the advantage he got in that game from this perfectly legal not-cheating script, right? Because it didn't do anything you're not allowed to do. You're allowed to switch weapons. You're allowed to throw grenades, right? It just did it so fast that, you know, it totally works. So you'd be like, shoot, shoot, shoot, and the grenade pops out while he's still shooting, basically. But think about that. Team Fortress style game and just a deathmatch capture-the-lifestyle game, and suddenly these graphs of what skills are being tested at their core is very different. So Team Fortress II, now, we're not saying it's a bad game. It's a bad game. Not because weapons boundary is also a bad game. Team Fortress II changed a lot of things. They reduced the number of weapons. Increased the number of hats. They slowed everything down. They made the character models bigger. They made the match smaller. They removed the grappling hooks so there is very little old three-dimensional component. They changed all these elements. And what happened is that suddenly the coordination with your team matters way more than everything else. I'm a really good FPS player. I think I can play Team Fortress II optimally as an individual. If I join a server, I'm getting the maximum headshots I can get per minute. But it doesn't help my team win. It helps a little. But if I'm great, and the rest of my team is terrible, I cannot pull my team through. But the other team is going to win if they coordinate better. In this game, if I'm super good, it doesn't matter how good the rest of my team is. I can single-handedly carry the team because the skill caps are so high that if I am that transcended in one of these skills, I'll win. I'm not that transcended. But in this game, you can't do that. There's a skill cap. The game is testing very different things. What about Counter Strike? Counter Strike just came out again. It's pretty much just head-clicking. I love this game. But the tactics of, like, we're going to go in this way, we're going to, you know, like, send a squad that way. They matter. They matter a little bit, right?  So more of their team is funneled the way your sniper is camping. You know, some of that matters a little bit. But what really matters is, can the sniper click on that guy's head before he dies? If he can't, it doesn't matter how many guys are going down there for him to aim at, right? He just shoots and misses. Now he's dead. This is where things get interesting. Yeah, head-clicking is the primary test of skill in Counter Strike. But among skilled players, everyone's equally adept at the head-clicking with a very small margin. So as soon as you've maxed that one out, all these other things really matter. So among very skilled Counter Strike players, the decision to go banana versus going apartments is a really big deal.  All right, you're on a public server. Head-click. Well, guess what? He has a zillion points and a zillion frags, and his team always wins. And the other team can't even live because whatever they go, he finds them and they're all dead. But if you get five on five all head-clicking masters, suddenly all those things, like did you throw a grenade at the right time? Which path did you take? Did you plant the bomb? How fast did you plant the bomb? Where were you hiding? All that stuff now is what really decides the game because the head-clicking is even across the board and you can't humanly be better at head-clicking. Kind of like how in chess, among two chess masters, chess is this extremely strategic game of bluffing and counter-bluffing and fakes, all this stuff, but for me, none of that happens. I'm spitting my dupes around trying not to lose.  So, to really illustrate this point, let's look at Super Street Fighter 4. Now, this is the game where I'm terrible at, and Scott is actually really good at it. I'm not really good. Compared to me. I played it for like 10 minutes more. So, among, you guys have played in Street Fighter or fighting games. Among skilled players, they talk about the faints and the same kind of stuff in chess. There's this very high-level paper-rock fist strategy of how do I meet the other person? Like, oh, he started to charge the attack, he digged out of there, canceled, whatever your nomenclature is depending on the game. What about this game? This is Street Fighter without the execution component. These games are the same. Except in Yomi, I play a card that does the combo. In Street Fighter 4, I have to manually input the combo and do the timing perfectly or it doesn't happen. So, skilled Street Fighter 4 players are just playing this because they've already maxed out the movement and the combo and all the sort of physical mechanics. So, I'll never be that good. Right, so Yomi is sort of like, you know, what if you could play Counter Strike, but everyone had aimbot, right? That's what Yomi is. You don't have to be able to push the buttons really fast for the fighting game because you automatically do the right combo. It just happens and now you're playing the game that the high-level Street Fighters get to play. So, what's about to come up is called a callback. So, where are we going with this? So, think about the way people talked about Team Fortress 2 when it came out. I waited 10 years for that game. I was playing Weapons Factory in Quake 2 and there was this rumor, like, yeah, Team Fortress 2 someday. When it finally came out, I almost took it out of work. Glad I didn't. I really don't like Team Fortress 2. Not because it's a bad game, but I don't like it. But I think I can articulate all these sort of mechanical reasons why it's not the game for me. But when I watch most people... Don't want to get the Team Fortress 2 fans mad at you because there's a lot of them. When you watch people talk on the Internet, they go crazy about this. People argue, you know, Team Fortress 2 is great. Team Fortress 2 is terrible, or they can play just a better game than Team Fortress 2. You can't really compare apples to oranges in this case. And to understand what makes a competitive game tip, you've got to understand what skills that game is testing. Until you can say definitively, this game is testing these five skills, you can't argue about the merits of that game from a competitive standpoint compared to other games. So, why would you want to do this? You'll get better at games. As soon as you understand what skill the game is testing, you can practice that skill and you'll get really good at that game. When I learned how Street Fighter worked, I didn't realize I could load up Hadoken after I'd already sent another Hadoken down. Yes, I never figured that out. As soon as I learned to start practicing it, I started understanding how fiddly the game was and suddenly I started getting better. You'll get better at arguing about games.  Yeah, and most importantly, you'll start to see games from what they are. A lot of games that feel really competitive or that you really like or that I really like, when you start to analyze and start to look at what's going on, you might not like what you see. And that is called a segway.


All stayed with the Democracy Day celebration. In the same vein that Dhamma was the governor, a mother, Finteri has pardoned six inmate, seven various prison terms in five correctional institutions across the state. Governor Finteri also commuted the death sentence of another inmate to life imprisonment. The governor acted in line with the recommendation of the council on the prerogative of mercy. His decision is part of efforts to decongest some of the overburdened correctional centers as Nigeria marks Democracy Day.