Is it a sin to doubt or to worry? Well, if it is, we're all in sin. A lot of you may have been told that it is wrong to worry. It is a sin to worry. As a matter of fact, it's a sin to have doubt. The problem with that is that that's something that every last one of us go through. Say, Jesus, but every person on the planet that has ever lived, that has ever walked, has gone through doubt.  Now, the question is, what is meant by doubt? What is meant by worry? So, number one, is doubt disbelief? Because, certainly, disbelief is a sin if we're talking about disbelief or a lack of faith as it pertains to salvation, having faith in Christ, what He's done. If you believe what He's done, you are saved. If you don't believe what He's done, that sort of disbelief, that is a sin. That's just a sin that means that you have not placed your faith in Christ and you have no reward in Him. The longer any of Mark tells us in verse 16 says that, he who has believed and has been baptized, shall be saved. But, he who has disbelief in this word here is, doesn't have faith and so there is a difference between having faith and doubt. Doubt does not necessarily mean disbelief. Doubt in regards to what Christ did, well, that's a sin. But doubt in terms of the circumstances and situations, that is a whole other thing. It is possible to have faith in God, but not have faith in what God is going to do about the circumstances. Notice this conversation that this man is having with Jesus, whose son is possessed and the demon has him tossed about and thrown in the fire and so forth. Notice the conversation. Now the man does have faith that Christ can heal him, but he doesn't have faith that Christ will or that He will be done. That's what he says. It is often, Jesus asked, often thrown him into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, take Pideonah so he's noticing or he seems to be possibly saying that if you can do anything, if you can, notice what Jesus' response is. Jesus' response in 23 was, if you can, to kind of parrot what he just says, if you can, all things are possible to him who believes. And he says, now, is this in terms of salvation? Well, I don't think so. I think this is in terms of the person being healed. But notice what he says. Immediately the boy's father cried out and said to him, I do believe, help my unbelief. And that's something that many of us can kind of identify with. I do believe, I believe that God can. The question is, do I believe that He will? Kind of reminds you of the Hebrew boys in the fire. We know that God can. Even if He don't, we know He can. Even if He doesn't, we know He can. And that's the point. Do you have faith in Him? The question is, Lord, these are the things that are bothering me. I'm struggling with this. I've got a problem. I've got a deadline. I've got this. It might be something financial. It might be something health-wise. It might be something emotional. So many different things. Lord, are you going to deliver us out of those things? And what we're going to find out is faith is not what delivers you out of something.  I'm not talking about salvific faith. I'm talking about believing, trusting, not doubting, having faith in Him, confidence in Him that He will get you through. And that whatever it is you go through, you will be okay. This is why Peter Paul makes a statement in Philippians 4. He's not saying that I can do every single thing that I want to do through Christ. He says, whatever it is I'm going through, all those things that I'm going through in Philippians 4.13, I can do through Christ. That's the sort of faith. That's the kind of trusting that we want. However, the Bible does say, Jesus does say, do not worry. Matthew 6.25 says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious or some birds say, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body. What you will put on it is not life more than food and the body more than clothing. And he says, look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. His point is, and he's not really speaking so much about salvation. He's speaking about the things that are happening in your life. We worry about those things. Am I going to have enough money to pay the bills? Am I going to have enough time to do this? Is this going to happen? Boy, I sure hope that I get that raise. I would sure like, is my car going to work today? Am I going to get in trouble over here? Different things that we are concerned about. Having concern is not a sin. Jesus tells us how to put this in proper perspective and what you should do first. He says, seek first, first thing that you do, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then these things will be added to you. So those things that you have concern about and worry about, let your attention to Christ be first and foremost. Let your connection, let your closeness to Him be first and foremost. Why? Because we're going to find out the closer we get to Him, the less those other things seem to worry. As a matter of fact, they won't worry nearly as much because your focus is in Him and you are being comforted in Him. Now, is it also true that other men in the Bible, godly, faithful men have also had concerns and doubts about not God, not about Christ, but about the situation? You think about Abraham. Abraham actually had a little bit of fear. He was concerned of what was going to happen to him when they approached him about his wife. He knew that there might be some problems. Same thing with Elijah. Here Elijah is, who is a powerful prophet of God, who was concerned about some woman making death threats. And then even John the Baptist. What is, how highly does God speak about this? Christ speak about John the Baptist. But even John the Baptist, at his death, sent word to ask, just want to make sure, are you the Christ? Well, was John the Baptist guilty of sin? No.  There are a lot of things happening and you identify your true faith by doing really what John the Baptist did. John the Baptist did not worry out loud and go to other people. What did he do? He went to the source. That's what builds our faith. And we're going to find out again that some of these doubts, these concerns, these worries, actually can be used and should be used and will be used to build our faith. And so it's possible that you can have faith in God, but not be sure if God is going to remedy the situation the way you like to. Now, let me just put a disclosure on it. Can doubt or can worry lead to sin? It absolutely can. One, it can cause you to do things that you should not do. Two, you might end up finding out that you might not actually be saved. You might actually have faith in Christ because your concern, your worry is more about the things of the world than about Christ. And if that's the case, it might identify that you have no faith in Christ to begin with, even for salvation. So while the Bible does say not to worry, it doesn't ever come out right and say that worrying is a sin. As a matter of fact, again, we're going to see people who also, who love the Lord, are full of the Spirit, who have some concerns and it's not called sin. But what does it end up doing? It ends up bringing them closer to Christ. Notice in 1 Peter 5, 60 says, Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time. In other words, just this statement right here identifies that there's something going on that requires some exalting. Notice what he says, casting your anxiety or your fears or your worries. And this is in a, excuse me, this is in a participle. So this is, as a matter of fact, this is a present active participle while casting your fear, while putting your concerns on him. Meaning you do have concerns about your life. And he says, in that way, put those concerns on him. Let your focus be on him. Give it to him. Realize he's going to do one, two things with it. He's going to either accomplish what you want or not. But the most important thing is, he will be the one that you'll be in. And so wherever he's taking you, you'll still be with him. Now notice something about Paul, what Paul says. They're going, we know about all the stories, all the things that Paul had to deal with and so forth. But listen to what Paul says about him and his companions. He says in 2 Corinthians 1-8, For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction, things that were happening to them, which came to us in Asia that we were, look what he says, burdened excessively beyond our strength. Notice the terminology that's used here. So that we despaired even of life. This word of despair is we were troubled. We were concerned, greatly concerned, despaired of life. It was so bad that the Bible says that even Paul and his companions despaired even of life. Look what he says. Indeed, and here's a good part. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves. Here's the key. We would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. And so what they were going through caused them to put more of a focus on Christ, which happens a lot. Oftentimes we go through things, things that cause concern and worry, and what do we do if we are believers, just like Paul, just like John the Baptist. We move towards Christ. So he uses those things to build up our faith, to strengthen us. Why is that the case? Where did we hear that before? In James 1, he says, Consider all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. Knowing, look what he says, the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. When you are going through something, you've got some concerns. You're not sure about something. That's what all doubt is. You're just not sure about something. Should you be sure? Should you have a life where there is no doubt? That's the goal, to not doubt anything. Have perfect and complete confidence in what God is doing. Not confidence that God is going to do what you want, but just confident that God is going to fulfill His purpose in you, that God is going to accomplish His purpose in you. That's where the faith and the confidence ought to be. And so when you are going through something where there's concern, doubt, worry, and then you in turn focus on Him, or as Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God, seek Christ, draw close to Him. What ends up happening is, you'll be amazed at how much your faith is strengthened. As a matter of fact, those things you sit down and worry about, have concern about. You're not as concerned about those any longer. Why? Because your focus has changed. Now you are focused on Him. Everything else becomes secondary. So to answer the question, is doubt or worry your sin? Notice as a matter of fact, it's one of the things that God uses to bring us closer to Him. Make sure do your best to move closer to Him and you'll find that you'll have less and less doubt, worries, and concerns. Amen.


and welcome to the latest episode of Tell Health in Hawaii. My name is Vikram Acharya. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Cloudwell Health, Hawaii's only all physician founded telemedicine healthcare delivery organization. This month is kidney awareness month. And to learn more about our kidneys, to learn more about kidney awareness is an aphrologist, a kidney doctor, Dr. Ari Gans. Dr. Gans, how are you today? Good, good, thank you, thank you. Hi everybody, and thanks so much for having me today. Thanks for the invite, especially in this special month about the kidneys, yeah? Thank you. Thank you for being on the show, Dr. Gans. We appreciate your time. To get things started, so you're a practicing kidney doctor in Hawaii. Tell me a little bit about your background, where you're from and what brought you to Hawaii. Oh, for sure. Well, it's very interesting last few years. I'm originally from El Salvador in Central America. I went to do my residency and fellowship in New York State, different programs over there. So I lived there for about almost eight years. And when I finished my training, I was looking at a few options and thank God, to be honest, we came to Hawaii and it's been great so far. I mean, the weather is amazing. I'm sure you know that already. And it's just so much like home. Very family oriented, the weather, everything is great. Actually, so very happy to be here. Now, you're a nephrologist, so you specialize in taking care of people's kidneys, and it being Kidney Awareness Month, can you talk to me a little bit about the role of the nephrologist in managing the kidneys, what they do, how they work with other doctors to make sure someone is as healthy as possible? For sure, so we love it. So basically, so kidneys starting from the beginning will be basically, we have two of them, and their main job is to clean our blood. They clean our blood, they get rid of toxins, they control our water balance, and our body, our metabolism. They do a lot of other things, but those are why they are most commonly known. And we as kidney doctors, we see such a vast, disease in the kidney that is only originating at the kidney, or that is simply affected from any other medical problems. And kidneys, they're very strong, but I want to say very sensitive to major changes of our organism, and it just unfortunately so happens that when there's a lot of other problems going on, that maybe I'm not originated at the kidney, the kidney can get hurt. So that's when we, especially for the kidney, we focus on trying to see how we can, one, find out if there's a kidney problem. Two, how can we protect the kidney? And three, how we can get that kidney in better shape. And as a fourth option, I would probably add how we can treat whatever problem is going on as well. In the way we do that is having a close connection, basically working side by side with your primary care provider, with other specialist cardiology, I would say it's very common. Also rheumatology, autoimmune disease doctors and such. So we have a lot of, there's a lot of, in nephrology, there's a lot of bread and butter happening with the kidneys, kidney failure is so common. And there's a lot of issues why that can happen, but basically we like to stay in touch with the primary care doctor. We get a lot of help from them by identifying when there's a kidney problem and when it's a good time to come to us so we can start doing some changes for the better. Yeah. Now, what types of tests or scans are done to check the kidneys? If I come to you and say, and my primary care doctor is concerned that I may have problems with my kidneys, what kinds of things would I expect when I see you and your team? All right. So essentially the first step is say when you're going to see your regular doctor, he can identify any decrease in your kidney function by a, at the beginning of a medical, of the kidney problem by a blood test. All right. And this blood test it's usually done on a routinely basis on almost all of the patients by the primary care provider on a basically every three months or every six months, at least once a year. It gets automatically done. It's part of the workup or monitoring the patient's health. So your primary care doctor can identify that from the first day. And the issue is how severe that medical problem is and then if it's very early, we are primary care providers specifically in Hawaii, they are very capable on handling and trying to identify what's going on and how to treat it. But then of course, when it becomes or it's a very serious problem, then they refer you to us. And then at that point, it's very important for us to identify a lot of respect. And if anything, I think we all should be aware as patients, what are the risk factors that I have in my life that could actually hurt my kidneys? It can go from very serious things, say very bad high blood pressure, very bad blood sugar, diabetes, very bad cholesterol or obesity has now in the last few decades I've been associated with having kidney problems as well to the other side of simply taking too many paintings, like ibuprofen, naproxen and all those type of pills. And so once we identified the risk factors, we try to separate, okay, is there something that we can do to make that kidney not continue to get injured or not to continue to get pain? So we go through a detailed history with the patient, we try to find out all the medications that have been going on, we try to find out previous records from the patient. And it's very interesting because you can find a lot of information that it's actually, people think, oh yeah, it's okay. I just took a few ibuprofen every now and then, but then when you look back, it's actually like 10 per month. So definitely can hurt the kidney. So we like to go through different stages of when a patient comes to us. One is identifying those risk factors. Two, we like to modify those risk factors. And three, we like to start making interventions on a treatment plan to improve that kidney function if possible. But one of the main goals is, if your kidney function has deteriorated, is to avoid the progression of that chronic kidney disease. And when I mentioned chronic kidney disease, I mean chronic kidney disease is just the term that we say there is a kidney problem. And that chronic kidney disease could be for it could be from multiple reasons. It doesn't say why is your kidney failing. It's just saying that you do have chronic, but you have kidney failure and you have kidney problems. So yes. Yeah, it does start though, it sounds like with that first test though, the importance of going to a primary care doctor and getting that kidney function test to start to really evaluate the baseline health of the kidney. Really it starts with that, it sounds like. Correct, correct. It's so crucial because as you can go to your regular doctor just for a common cold or feeling tired or checking your vitamins or your cholesterol, that test will get done almost, I would say almost 90, above 99% of the times that you go and see your doctor, they will likely already discuss. And it's very important that as patients we also ask, hey, how is my kidney doing? Is everything okay? And your doctor will go over with you through all those results and there's any kidney problems for sure. Then it is definitely advisable to find out how serious it is. Do you need to be seen by a kidney doctor and so on. So the first step, exactly what you mentioned is identifying is there a kidney problem. Once we know, then we can start the workup. We can start finding out what's going on. We can figure it out, can we fix it? Can we treat it? Can we cure it? And that's very important. That's definitely the first step becomes your second point. Thanks. Now in Hawaii, are rates of kidney disease potentially higher compared to other states? Or is, and if so, why is that? Why is those rates potentially higher? Correct. So it's very, very interesting what happens in Hawaii. We have a lot of different, the population, the community that we treat, it comes from different backgrounds. We have Asian background, we have native Hawaiians, we have Pacific Islanders that come from all islands of the Pacific, and it's very interesting to see that mixed population here because all of them, they have a different percentage of the community, and all of them they have, it seems that they seem to be very sensitive on the kidney waste. Before there had been a lot of epidemiologic studies throughout the whole world, United States and in Hawaii as well, and it has been the true prevalence of chronic kidney disease. It's very difficult to put a number into that. It has, there's no growth number, how many patients and such per year. But in Hawaii, it is being reported, there was a analysis of native Hawaiians with Pacific Islanders, which was published in 2019 or 17, I believe, in which according to the data, public records data analyzed at that time, they said that from native Hawaiians, including Pacific Islanders, the ratio of kidney problems could be up to eightfold versus Caucasians and other communities. So it's very impressive. And one of the things that he was, and we know that in the United States, one of the first cause of having kidney problems is diabetes. It actually, it seems that diabetes, the prevalence and incidence in Hawaii, it's very high. And that is what we believe is one of the main factors. Of course, we all love our food. Food in the island, it's amazing. And it has something to do with our dietary habits as well, our predispositions of these medical problems, which it seems to be more sensitive on native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders as well. I see. Now, in the world of telehealth, if I needed to see you as a nephrologist, could I have a very good medical visit just like the way we're talking now? And is that possible? It's a great question, especially through COVID times. And we found out in our office that we had to provide and obviously continue to provide kidney care to our patients here in Hawaii. And through COVID, one of the silver lining of the situation was that we were putting ourselves up to speed with the technology and everything that we have available nowadays to provide that care. Even if it wasn't a face-to-face visit, being in the same room, which we all love and like and miss still, office was able to run on almost above 90, 95% of all of our visits were run through telemedicine. Excellent, wow. Actually up until now, since that last wave of COVID was happening, I would say more than 75% of our visits are still telemedicine. One of the greatest impacts in telemedicine was that patients could be, there's some parts of Hawaii that are very remote and access is very limited from other islands. Sometimes people used to travel just to O'ahu, just to have a sit-down with us. Although we enjoy sitting with people and just talking about it and finding out face-to-face what's going on, you know, and you build more report, I feel that we still have the capability of building up our relationship. And through telemedicine, it's been great because we are able to discuss, I'm able to meet not only with the patient, but also with their loved ones, their family members side-by-side, and we can all be in the same room together, no matter where they are. Talking and going through each of the medical case, through the medical records, all the labs and coming up with a treatment plan for that patient. And so the great thing is that I feel like with telemedicine, we'll be able to reach more patients than that they were not easy to get because they couldn't get to that doctor to see him at the office. No, with telemedicine now, we can have that access in just a matter of connecting through your phone, through your tablet, through your computer. If the patient has trouble doing it, we have maybe a niece, a nephew, an uncle, or somebody at home who also knows how to operate the devices, and we can easily come in. We got them on the habits of, hey, can you check your blood pressure before we need it? So while we're sitting with them, so we can check those vital signs, we can examine, how are they feeling, how are they doing? So it's been an amazing breakthrough for healthcare. I believe telemedicine has definitely given us so many more options. And I think it's something that for sure is here to stay. So it's been good. So our office is on full swing, able to tailor the patient needs if it is in-patient, face-to-face visit. We also have those patients that come in and we see them. And we also are completely ready to do a lot of telemedicine at the office. So yes. That's wonderful that you're able to provide care so seamlessly between an in-person setting, the traditional setting, but also the virtual setting. Because I would think that if I were able to get my labs drawn before the visit, and those labs results are sent to you, then you will know all that when you see me, and it just makes it for a very productive visit. All right, it makes it very effective, to be honest, very effective. We can share educational links with the patients through the chat box when we're doing telemedicine. I can actually share my screen, show them the graph, how their kidney function is doing, up or down, or what it is that we can show. We can show them their chart, all their labs, not only by me talking to them about it, but I can actually show them. So it's been very nice, very useful. Now, if I wanted to make my kidneys healthier, what are some steps that I can take right now to make my kidneys healthier? Great, great question. So definitely there's a lot of things that we can, and everything starts with us individually. Yeah. And what I mean by that is, having that simply hitting us on a better health. And what we focus is, what I tell my patients is definitely, if you have to know your medical problems, you may not have any medical problems, you may have a pressure cholesterol or whatever that is, but there's a few things that you can do. One of the most common things, and I keep mentioning this because it's very, very common, over 15, 20 million people in the United States, even more out there to say they use pain medications. And it's really an issue because I have seen so many types of kidney failure by simply taking too many pain tubes. And that is something that whatever medication you take, even if it's over the counter, you should be aware not to do the excess. If there's something that is bothering you too much, definitely you should touch base with your doctor after, hey, is this medication safe and okay for me to take regarding my kidneys. So watching the medications that you buy over the counter, it's important, not all of them, all of them are safe if you use them in an appropriate manner, but the excess of them might bring kidney problems. Second, I would say also, run down through the medications that your primary doctor has been providing. All of the medications in medicine do have side effects, but we always, your primary care doctor will always be checking your kidneys, making sure some of them are being well, but just to make it clear, all of the medications in medicine can have side effects, not all of them have kidney side effects. So just to make that distinction clear. Now proper hydration, it's fundamental for your health. Our body composition is a lot of water in it and definitely if you're running dry on your tank, basically you will be dehydrated, especially if you spend, you will be surprised how many liters you can spend working under the sun. I have a lot of elderly patients who love to do their gardening outside, especially when the sun is hitting so strong, make sure you're drinking water to their families, make sure you guys are getting water to your elder and the family, making sure they're drinking enough water. How much water you should drink? Well, it really depends on the body size and so on, but as a general rule, you could say at least drinking about 32, probably even more, like maybe 45 to 55 ounces per day, it's a good amount of liquid. So hydration, very important to keep your kidneys healthy. Verify that the medications that you're taking are not causing any damage or could cause any damage. Three, I would say, how to keep your kidneys healthy? Know your problems. If you have high blood pressure, slow down on salty food, you know that low salt diet not only will help the blood pressure, but it also will help to preserve your kidneys from getting any damage if blood pressure goes high. Number four, this has not been a solid proof, but there's been signals that high sugar content drinks may be an issue also with kidney failure. Also, lose weight. I say this, so the kidneys are like the ones who do the cleaning in our house, yeah? They clean our whole body. So the bigger the body, the more cleaning they have to do. So if we wait, it does help. So- I like that analogy. That's a good- Yeah. That's good. So yeah, so there's, at least I would say, staying well hydrated, watching your diet, including a lot of vegetables, it's very fundamental. That has also signal to try to preserve kidney function on patients who have kidney disease and avoid certain medications that could cause the problems as well. Then very important, make sure you have your regular checkups with your primary care doctor who can detect any early signs of kidney problem. Yeah. It's funny. Today is doctor's day. And I want to thank you. Happy doctor's day. It's very hard to be a physician every day.  And what it sounds like with telemedicine, it made it much more seamless, much easier for you to still talk to your patients. And it really does sound like telemedicine is pretty much the same as a regular visit. It's very effective if patients get to access care that they need, much easier without taking a plane to Oahu and so on. And I'm sure there's plenty of places in the mainland as well that are benefiting from it. And thank you so much for inviting Doctor's Day. I feel blessed. I really have to thank God for how he has support us through all of this. And we're very happy to help. And hopefully we can continue to help everybody in Hawaii as they need it. And for sure. The first thing of everything is education. So thank you so much, Vikram, for allowing me to share a little bit about what chronic kidney disease and kidney is. Everybody should be aware and everybody should know that there are kidney specialists to assist. And if it's not a face-to-face visit, telemedicine is always available. Yeah, I know. Thank you, Dr. Gans. It's just a real pleasure having you on the show. Your knowledge of the kidneys, being a physician on the front lines, treating all the residents in the state of Hawaii. Happy Doctor's Day. Happy Doctor's Day to you. Happy Doctor's Day to all your colleagues. And we appreciate you very much. Thank you for taking care of our Ohana. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Thank you, you too. Thanks, bye. Bye-bye. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


2019 coronavirus disease, COVID-19, pandemic control through safe and effective vaccines development, offering opportunity for novel therapeutics such as DNA and mRNA vaccines, while also presenting challenges in advancing promising vaccine platforms to widespread use. This article was authored by M. D. Arafa Rahman and M. D. Saeedal Islam.


Rwy'n gweithio'r clwb ddweud i'r ddweud yng Nghymru yn ymgyrch yn ystod yn ymgyrch. Rwy'n gweithio'r ping, rwy'n gweithio'r tailermaid. Rwy'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r tailermaid. Rwy'n gweithio, rwy'n gweithio'r clwb ddweud i'r gweithio'r newydd ar y tailermaid. Mae'r stelf. Mae geniwreid o'r hynny. Mae'r hybrid. Mae'r hybrid 5. Mae'r hybrid 25 o'r llwyddiad. Rwy'n gweithio'r club onsibol. Mae'r hybrid 5 o'r fellyn yn gweld â'r biofgol ffriddol. Felly, rwy'n gweithio'r club a mynd i'r hybrid yw eithaf erbyn gynlluniaeth arall. Rwy'n gweithio'r p連fyrd o'r hybrid 5 o o'r hybrid i'r Arn. Rwy'n gweithio'r hyrfridwys ym yn gyf heapid aion o'r hybrid wneud hynny. Ffyrddwyr waith o'r hybrid o'r hybrid o'r cynnau. almost 30 years ago. It didn't buy these when they first came out, but I certainly had them during the 90s. It's a very unique look, very unique ping profile that a lot of you will be very, very familiar with. And the difference is, well, what are they? I'm really interested to find out, so I'll shut up, I'll start it in some golf balls and see if we can decide if there's been a movement in terms of technology, and if it has been one, how great is that move? Now, one of the big issues that I think we will potentially find with the ping iron is the exact one that I face right now, and that is, I've not hit any golf balls whatsoever. This will be the first shot of the morning. No warm-up whatsoever. And I'm faced with an old-style four iron, and I know from a confidence perspective, first of all, there's a massive lean towards that hybrid thinking. Well, if I have hybrid in hand right now, first shot of the day, I reckon I can get something down there. If it's not so good, I might get away with it. When I look down at this ping four iron, I'm not quite so confident. But we'll see how it goes. It's also worth mentioning that the four iron has got exactly the same loft on it as that of the hybrid. That being 25 degrees. Right, come on, and it feels really good in hand, I must say. Well, I know that in terms of audio. I actually hit a really decent shot there, a little bit right to left. Definitely got it off the bottom grooves and definitely felt it a little bit, but I'm quite surprised.  Now, I've decided to do exactly the same thing, but this time with hybrid. So, we've hit one four iron. I'm going to switch straight into this hybrid and trackman is on. So, I'm just going to have a look in terms of data. What happens with these first two shots of the morning? Just how great, like I said, is that difference, if any? Well, it's absolutely chalk and cheese in terms of ball flight. One went extremely high, which was the hybrid.  Definitely got that still off the bottom grooves as well. If you can, that was the contact area. So, that wasn't a great strike either, but certainly felt like I got away with a lot more. So, let's have a look in terms of data as to what the difference actually was. Okay. So, what I thought we would do, I have not seen this data one shot each, don't forget. So, right, let's have a look. So, I'll put it on screen for you now as I'm seeing it. I'm trying to analyse the numbers quickly, but basically, we've got, as I thought, longer in terms of the hybrid. We should have all expected that maybe. Ball speed off the hybrid quite considerably higher. Like I said, the four-iron launched incredibly well, considering it was like, certainly felt off the bottom grooves. And the fact that I got 181 carry distance out of an old four-iron that's 30 years old, I'm hugely impressed. So, without going into too much of that detail right now, we've seen that as the two first shots of the morning. What I want to find out next is when I hit 10 shots with each, what starts to happen in terms of the averages. But right now, it's fair to say, I'm fairly shocked by that data. Now, one thing to mention is this iron has had a modern shaft from Nippon. It's the AWT shaft put in. So, I don't know how much difference that would have made to what was the original type of shaft in these things, but maybe that's also a consideration. I've written this nice, you know. This five hybrid is a club though, like I said, is an absolute no brainer for a lot of golfers, you know. The interesting thing with this is there's just no effort required. Whatever I put on it, the ball just fires out there. But I could hit this thing all day long. Impressive. Ah, it's a golf shot. Let's leave that one there on the hybrid, I think. I am really surprised, you know, at how well I've hit this. Do you know what my overriding thought is? Ping made better feeling irons 30 years ago than they do now. I mean, this is just so much better feeling than kind of like I-25s, I-500s, I-59s. It's just a much purer feel. Oh, I'm enjoying it in this, you know. I'm almost impressed with my own performance. That's beautiful. Do you know what? I've got to say I enjoyed every minute of hitting that club. It literally was a trip down memory lane. And whatever the results are in terms of data, I was super impressed with how that thing performed, you know. That was the easiest head-to-head I've ever done. And to be honest with you, perhaps one of the most enjoyable as well. Like I keep saying, I'm really surprised at how well that four iron performed. And if I'm honest with you, how well I performed with it as well. I'm going to throw up the full set of numbers. We'll go with the four iron first. 173 average carry, really high launch, 18.5 degrees, 118 ball speed, 4,500 revs of spin, pk of 94, and a descent angle would you believe of 45.7 degrees. So it's kind of that club would work at a sort of 173 carry into a green. That ball is performing really well. It's stopping on greens. It's doing everything you'd ask for it. Arguably, the thing is, as in relation to a modern day five iron, let's say, I would probably expect to still be long with a five iron in hand with the same loft. But we haven't got that. We're not doing that test. But anyway, hybrid numbers now. 189 carry. So now considerable distance when we were looking to hit over a range of shots, 16.3 average launch, ball speed considerably higher, almost 10 mile an hour, 4,700 spin, 102 peak height, and a land angle of 46.3. And again, doing everything you'd want coming into a green at 190 yards on average, then it's doing incredibly well in terms of those numbers. And that's why I always say on this channel how the likes of a five hybrid are a seven wood are really an essential part of every average golfer's makeup. So the point of this video, though, is not how good the hybrid is, or it's about modern technology and how much has it progressed. When the clubs are both 25 degrees, there's one other thing that we've got to remember. There's an inch longer shaft in the five hybrid. And we know that in itself is going to generate more clubhead speed. So we know it's naturally going to be longer anyway. I think almost the difference that we'd expect to see we've seen. So the ball speed is a hotter face. The ball speeds are faster off the face. I think that if I'm being honest with you, the four iron probably surprised me a little bit in the sense that I was surprised how well I hit it. I'll put your two dispersion charts up now. Hybrid fairly reasonable dispersion, I would say. And again, from an average golfer, again, you'll notice from the four iron just turned on over really left. But the rest were okay. The biggest disappointment with the four iron, I suppose, and the biggest change in technology is the drop offs. So when you don't get it right out of the older style clubs, the older irons, then you start to see big drop offs. So we've got is it 162 is the shortest ball, the longest being 181. So that front to back dispersion is where the worry is, and that's where modern technology has clearly advanced.  But if you're hitting the ball half decent on the day and you're playing your sort of round of golf, then there's certainly more help and forgiveness in the hybrid than there is in older style clubs. I think that's the best summary we can give. Anyway, I'm done. I'm not going to waffle on with this one. It's a fairly short and sweet video. We literally made this one up this morning on the base of seeing that old four iron. And I was determined that we could put something together to see just how much difference there is.  It was really, really nice indeed. And ping, seriously, you need to go back to the drawing board and start with your irons feeling like the old ping irons from 30 years ago, because that felt superb. Right, thank you for watching. I give me a comment. Anybody playing those irons still to this day or similar? And let me know what you think in terms of the advancements or not of technology. Right, hit that like button as well. Don't forget that and I'll see you all very soon.


On O.C. 16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and to Hawaii. I'm Lise Anderson. And I'm Anu Hitul. For a show this time, we'll take a look at the Comic-Con Conference that just took place at the Hawaii Convention Center. Comic-Con Honolulu, also known as Hoku-Con, is a three-day all-genre conference that takes place annually at the Hawaii Convention Center. It's a family-friendly festival of comics, costumes, fantasy, sci-fi, and all the things that attract nerds and nerddom. This year it was held in late July and debuted with more than 5,000 unique attendees with a visible outpouring of support from local Hawaii artists and fans. After all, the conference is organized by local people and it's designed for local people who support the nerd community or who are nerds themselves, whatever their fandom preference is. More specifically, it's for people who love comics, costumes, books, movies, and everything in between. And it's fashion to provide a safe haven for them to meet and learn and discuss their passions with like-minded individuals. Watching them engage with each other is an experience all in itself. SART is an important opportunity for artistic expression. We've done a number of shows and commentaries on the subject and we're delighted to see this art form in play at the recent Minimakers Fair and certainly at this Comic-Con event. This year's conference featured artists and visitors from the comics, gaming, television, and movie industries, along with our local artists, vendors, and fans. We found fandoms of all kinds and their collective enthusiasm filled the room. My name is Robert Welch. My store is the armchair adventurer. And we're here in the tabletop game room because it's game store. Nothing electronic, everything you play on the table with other people. So we're here in the tabletop gaming room to show people what we have and yeah, generate some interest in board games. So we've got board games, we have role-playing games, we have magic. In fact, we'll be doing drafts all three days. So magic is still super popular. You can jump right back into it. We're in the Dull Canary and we have specific nights throughout the week where people can come in and you know, board game night, Star Wars night, role-playing night. And we also do tournaments and events. We just had a huge charity event for a Wounded Warrior project. We'll be doing events throughout the year, probably about once a month. We have one big event. The best thing is on our Facebook page, The Armchair Adventurer, we post, it's very up to date. Or they could go to our website, TheArmChairAdventurer.com. And we have a calendar of events there. I'm Van. This is the tabletop gaming room. We have a large gaming library running events all day, different types of tournaments, different types of miniature gaming. We have large games. There's a room with a clue over here doing a puzzle room, a small puzzle room. We're also doing some other events like staged events. We're doing live readings of some different staged board game written radio plays. And we're also doing large games like Cardboard Mega Brawl, Giant Jenga, Giant Connect 4, things like that. We made an organization called Tabletop Oahu for this, but we do both of the conventions. We do Kawhi Khan and Kamikhan Hanlulu. So the library belongs to both of the conventions. And it just grows every year. We also have a play and win section so people can play games and then possibly win them at the end of the convention. A lot of publishers support too. We have a meet-up group for that too called the Oahu Board Gamers. They meet up once a week at Armchair Adventurer. There are also other places like Other Realms that they do meet-ups on Tuesdays, Armchair does it on Thursdays. And we do random events throughout the week too, so sometimes on Saturdays. So my name is Anthony DiTucci. And I'm cosplaying as a sleeper agent from the video game Tom Clancy's The Division. Basically it's a game where it takes place in like after a bioterroristic attack in New York. We're activated to help bring stability to the city. Our SHD logo over here. And I got pretty much basically, I was just activated so I grabbed my gear, put it on and my head out. We got our gas masks to help prevent us from the virus that spread throughout the city. Hi, I'm Tony Young. I'm a filmmaker and I'm also a member of Last Outpost Hawaii. We're a science fiction club of Hawaii. We've been around for quite a long time. At this current incarnation, we host quite a few panels at local conventions throughout the weekend, including Dr. Hu on Russell Davies versus Steven Moffitt, Star Trek's 50th anniversary. And tonight I will be as part of Pacific Invasion Media, I'm preparing my premiering, my feature film, Mickey's Summer Resort, which I shot in California. I planned, we plan on some online distribution afterwards. We're still kind of tweaking the special effects and getting a PR campaign so that we can make posters and stuff. It's still very much a do-it-yourself, even though we do have a, we have distribution contacts in LA and this is how it kind of evolved from that group through Cinema Epoch. But we're kind of going on our own right now. Hi, we're Legacy of Life Hawaii. I'm Julie. I'm Cheryl. I'm Paula. Gay. And we're here raising awareness for organ and tissue donation. Currently there's 435 people on the waiting list in Hawaii alone and we're trying to let them know that we're here signing up donors for them. So my name is Chad.  Like we just want to prove that, you can literally do whatever you want to do and it doesn't matter what it is because if we're out here just selling something as ridiculous as this, then anything is possible. As long as you put in enough hard effort and work into it. We have a few graphic designers that help us out.  But then like I come up with the concepts and I just give it to our graphic designers and we all work together and you know, come up with all different concepts and characters. We mainly do a lot of local events like pop-ups and stuff like that. Like, you know, the conventions like this. And then we also do our website, thecrappykids.com. They can get them over there. If anything, they can also follow us on social media, atcrappykids. All of that kind of stuff, yeah. We do a lot of updates on there.  Usually comic book art, you know, things like Ghost Rider, Batman, Superman, Captain America, Iron Man, things of that sort. Sometimes I'll do a sort of tribal art, like a mixture between like have a piece here. That's Doctor Who in tribal. I'm Shannon. I'm Julie. We are making crocheted beanies and Amigurumi stuffed animals and bowls. So we do craft fairs, but we try to make superhero themed stuff just for this event. Hi, I am Daria Rao. I'm a cosplayer and artist, jewelry designer. I make these cute sushi pillows. They're over there. We can get them later. And earcuffs, which are fun like ear accessories. They hook around your ear so I do a lot of like fun wire work, lots of gemstones and stuff. Been traveling around a lot lately so I didn't get to make a lot of stuff. So I'm doing it now while I'm here and hanging out with friends. I was from Hawaii. I recently moved to California. So my favorite thing is really just hanging out with all my friends here because I love everyone here in the community. It's so wonderful and nice. And everyone's my friend, so. And she's my best friend. You're my wife. So I am a professional cosplayer.   And I work promoting those fandoms and just kind of sharing the nerd love. My name is Vincent Kukua. I am a freelance illustrator. Just basically getting my name out there. He's an aspiring comic book artist. I'm selling prints of my prints of Hawaiian gods and goddesses. I'm selling original art and also doing sketches and commissions at the show. Primarily for networking. I came here last year for the very first show and I'm kind of loyal to the organizers here. So I want you to come back and just help support them in the show. I have a Tumblr, which is what I update the most. And that is one sketchycharacter.tumblr.com and also my Instagram, which is instagram.com slash vkukua, which is K-U-K-U-A. Well, my name is Sasha Yoselani. I am a fine artist and an illustrator. It's my first time in Honolulu or Hawaii period. And I'm here just to check it out. And I'm here at this convention, as it happened to fall at the same time as my trip was. So here I am. Most of my work is my own ideas. I don't do too much fine art unless it really inspires me and feels right. And my work, it's just inspired by nature in general and dreams. And it's pretty personal. I have plenty of social media outlets, but if you go to my website, SashaYos.com, I have everything listed there. And the link is up on my banner, actually. I keep saying, say, say, don't listen to the names they call. Yo, I got spotlight. You're just missing out. So my name is Derek. My brand is Seven Sketches. And I basically do character designs. So I do sometimes my own, my original characters are parodies. So I now match them up too. And what I love doing is I like taking two different elements that either they might go well together or maybe they're very different, like juxtaposed, but together they just look, you know, like together they look really, really nice. The easiest way to get a hold of me is through Instagram. So my Instagram is basically my brand name. It's at Seven Sketches. So that would be probably the best. I also have other social media too on Facebook, Seven Sketches and Twitter's Seven Sketches as well. My name's Tio Dodalau. I'm here at Comic-Con Honolulu. We're selling our fan art prints. We got table work of fine art. And we also got like stickers and t-shirts of all the stuff that people like. People like in their shows and their video games. If I was in Vending, I'd probably be up in the video games upstairs because they always got the hallway scene for like competitive stuff. He's always on the watch. We got, we always got our guests for like autographs and signatures like that. I know a few of them. There's like cartoon voice actors. There's Granny Mahara from Mythbusters is here. There's also the video game orchestra upstairs later tonight. So I'm definitely gonna check that out. We got Instagram, we got Facebook. We also got an online store. Usually I give them all business cards that has all that information on top. My name is Mark Rulona. I'm the creative director of Level 50. And we're making an app that allows you to watch videos, discover deals right from any sort of print media. And I guess this is what it looks like. So you have the poster. And when somebody walks up to it with their phone, you can actually watch a video. And you can go in, out. And you can actually interact with it too. You can buy tickets, you can visit social media. You can do all kinds of digital stuff. It's called augmented reality. And it's the, it brings together the physical and the digital world. So things exist, seem to exist in the physical world as if they're real. It's like a hybrid of the two worlds basically. And if anybody plays Pokemon Go, that's the same technology they're using in that. So to be able to catch Pokemon as if they were in the real world. You can use, there's all sorts of uses for this. There's educational uses, there's medical uses. There's, but we're just starting from the ground up. We want to introduce it to Hawaii. Well, my name is Michael Cannon, like it says on the banner. Local artist, I work for the government during the day and I like to draw comic stuff at night. So it seems like a good picture. So I've been drawing for, you know, 45 years. I have a boy page particular. I am on DBNR and I'm on Facebook also. RTELDON on both those, ART, I-L-D-A-W-N. The program guide for Comic Con was a work of art in itself. A kind of comics treatment of all the many offerings of the conference. Here are some of the pages from the program guide. In terms of activities, the conference included artist and fan panels and artist gallery, a manga library, video games, tabletop games, a costume contest, a vendor room and photo shoot and autograph opportunities for everyone. Yes, it was a celebration. The panel discussions range from one side of the comics world to the other. There were panels on avatars, cosplay sketching, creating memorable characters, drones, drones, drones, history versus the Marvel world, lip sync battles, Lord of the Rings lineage, the Manoa Medieval Combat Club, and so many more. In the process, the conference brought a number of celebrity guests to Hawaii and exposed them to our local artists and, of course, to the Aloha spirit. It was a meeting place for creative people from Hawaii and everywhere. There were some famous and fascinating personalities who spoke and also provided autographs. These included George Decay from Star Trek, Colin Ferguson of the Vampire Diaries, Comfort and Adam from the Unique Tales, Grant Imahara of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel, Sean Astin of Lord of the Rings, Kristen Bauer of True Blood, and quite a few others. It was amazing. You had to be there. Want to know more about Comic-Con Honolulu? See Comic-ConHonolulu.com. And if you didn't make it this year, why don't you plan to stop by next year and catch up? And now let's take a look at our Think Tech calendar of events going forward. Think Tech broadcasts its talk shows live on the internet from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and some people listen to them all night long. If you missed a show or you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on demand on ThinkTechHawaii.com and YouTube. For our audio stream, go to ThinkTechHawaii.com slash radio. Visit ThinkTechHawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live stream and YouTube links. Or better yet, sign up on our email list and get the daily docket of our upcoming shows. Think Tech has a high tech green screen studio at Pioneer Plaza. If you want to see it or be part of our live audience or if you want to participate in our programs, contact Jay at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Help us raise public awareness on ThinkTech. Go ahead and give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at ThinkTechHI. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in Hawaii. We want you to stay in touch with us and we'd like to stay in touch with you. Let's think together. To speak out on an issue or event, you can. We love the First Amendment and we love hearing from our viewers. You can come down to our speaker's corner and make a video statement on the web. See ThinkTechHawaii.com. And you can also call in and join our talk shows live. While you're watching any of our shows, you can call in at<PHONE_NUMBER> and pose a question or make a comment. Call in. We look forward to hearing from you. I'm Elise Anderson with this ThinkTech commentary. Having just returned from several weeks in Europe, I'd like to say a brief word about drinking in the streets. While Hawaii's buckling down more strictly than ever on the public consumption of alcohol, my beach club doesn't even offer plastic cups anymore, Europeans freely buy and sell alcohol in plain sight in disposable, transportable cups every day of the week at all hours of the day. After touring Lisbon's ancient Fortress Belém, for instance, I was surprised to find colorful stands openly peddling fresh squeezed orange juice infused with port wine, rum or vodka, and it was one o'clock p.m. In Portugal's fairytale enclave of Cintra also, one can buy a shot of liquor and a cup made of chocolate for just a dollar. And guess what? While American and British tourists are falling and fouling every other corner, you almost never find a horribly drunk Portuguese. These trends extend, perhaps to a lesser extent, throughout Europe. Hawaii should move in Europe's direction and not just because it's fun to wander everywhere with a cup of spirits in hand. Reason's abound. First, the easy availability of alcohol removes its alluring taboo. When society and its elders sanction a substance in plain sight, it no longer offers a veil of rebellion. European children and teens may consume more alcohol earlier, but they reach and overcome the experimental stage before leaving the protections of home. More sheltered, the consequences of early binge drinking in Europe are far less dangerous. Quantities consumed, too, are more moderate. Second, because open availability of alcohol allows one to integrate drinking into a day's routine, alcohol does not become an activity in itself. Instead, it merely supplements other activities. Because of this, the drinking pace in Europe is slower, and the effects of intoxication are less severe. You rarely find an obese European, in part because the ambulatory consumption of alcohol discourages bar stool and sofa lifestyles. As European revelers walk around, they work off the calories consumed and thus remain miraculously fit despite their toxic intakes. Finally, an open alcohol culture would stimulate our economy and allow Hawaii to reclaim its streets. Rather than buying large crates and bottles from supermarkets, locals would be encouraged to spend small premiums on the vendor experience. These premiums would be less than those of bars and restaurants where prices reflect Hawaii's astronomical rents. Street consumption would also encourage locals to mingle more with each other, too, perhaps breaking down some of the cultural barriers that painfully divide us today. One also notices very few homeless people sleeping on the street corners in Europe. I'd maybe count two or three in an hour's walk through municipal centers. If Hawaii's sidewalks were saturated with citizens enjoying their leisure time and law-abiding businesses conducting their commerce, homeless and criminal elements would be more incentivized to either join the mainstream or exit the city centers, a natural, justifiable, and far more enjoyable process than our current sweeps. For these and other reasons, I encourage Hawaii to embrace the public consumption of alcohol. Why not shine daylight on an activity that will otherwise involve less convenient, communal, and fitness-friendly conditions? Drinking, at least for the foreseeable future, will happen inevitably. Let's make it happen the right way. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Think Tech. But first, we want to thank our underwriters. ["Think Tech"] What's up this week's edition of Think Tech? Remember, you can watch Think Tech on OC16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it just like Anu does. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more Think Tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit thinktechhawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern, and volunteer to help us reach Hawaii. Thanks for being part of our Think Tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification, and globalism in Hawaii. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important weekly episode. I'm Elise Anderson. And I'm Anu Hital. Aloha, everyone. ["Think Tech"]


On the couch. On the couch. Seriously. Because I took them to the stairs. They are just trying to provide a service to the competitors, the athletes, just to make sure that their dogs are well taken care of, just to give them peace of mind when they are competing. To know that someone is taking care of their pride and joy and, you know, they are very important to the competitors, their service animals, and they provide a lot of comfort and care for them. So we want to be there for the dogs so the competitors can focus on other things. Just going around checking in every day that the competitors are here, making sure that they are hydrated, making sure that they're not having any medical issues, offering to take them out, offering to feed them, offering any veterinary care that the dogs might need. So we basically are here as a peace of mind as well as to offer care for the animals when they're, you know, competing. With service animals, as far as like Zeus goes, he's in training. He usually does wear a vest. He is not working right now, so he is available for everyone to pet and love, but it is always very, very important for no one to go up and talk to the dog, talk to the handler because they're working. They are trying to detect seizures or low blood glucose in their handlers, or they use them for balance. Some have a lot of balance issues, so they will be holding on to them, so really going up and touching them or talking to them is a disturbance because they can pull, you know, their handler, their owner and knock them over. They're actually working and they have a job to do.