Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu and welcome to Ahqam SOS, the show that brings you the rulings on Islamic duties and practices by the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Sadik Shirazi, may Allah prolong his life. Tonight's discussion will be on Nijasat impurities. I'm your host, Mohsin Shah, and this is your co-host, Sheikh Ali Ma'ash. Assalamu Alaikum Sheikhna. Wa Alaikum Assalam Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu. Sheikhna, let's begin the discussion by, do you have any sort of hadith or any sort of narration in regards to Nijasat and why it is haram or anything like that? Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Wa sallallahu ala Muhammadin wa alayhi al-tayyibin al-taherin. Initially, Allah SWT is wise and created the mankind according to his wisdom. So when he made things haram or halal or wajib, it's all according to his wisdom. Now, the narration, I would like to mention now, before we begin with the Islamic rulings with regard to the Nijasat and impurity, it's a narration from Mufad al-Ibn Umar, one of the loyal companions of Imam Al-Sadiq, alayhi al-salam. He says, He says that I ask Imam Al-Sadiq, peace be upon him, that why did Allah SWT made it haram and forbidden for the one to consume wine, corpse, blood, and pork meat? The Imam, peace be upon him, he responds to Mufad al-Ibn Umar, he says, He says that the Imam, peace be upon him, with this regard that Allah SWT, when he made it haram and forbidden, it wasn't with the desire of Allah SWT, it wasn't with his interest, just the desire, just a vain desire, you know, with regard to forbidding things. Then the Imam says, So Allah SWT, there wasn't the situation of, in one side, to make things forbidden due to his desire, or to actually use austerity, let's say, with regard to making things haram and halal. However, the Imam responds, The Imam, peace be upon him, says that he made these things haram and halal, it's all to do with what benefits that mankind with regard to his body, what makes his body strong and strong and beneficial. So when Allah SWT says in the Holy Quran that, for example, eating pork meat is haram or drinking wine is haram, then it's all to do with the benefit for the mankind, for his body, for his soul, for his social life, to do with psychology, and all types of attachments to the human being. So when it's haram, then there's actually benefit. So Allah SWT is wise when he created the mankind to benefit him and not to actually harm him according to this narration. Then the Imam says, So he knew that Allah the Almighty that, for example, this particular thing or meat became haram and forbidden, because it would actually harm that person when he eats it. So he's saying it's for our own benefit and our own health that these things have been. The first thing is the benefits and the health in this dunya and the reward for the hereafter. When you obey the Creator, when you obey the wise, then of course you'll be rewarded for being patient on these issues, the haram issues, the forbidden issues, the obligatory and wajibat issues. So you get actually a reward in the hereafter as well. Let us now discuss more on what is actually nijasat, what is the meaning of nijasat? We have something called dirty and we have something called impure. Okay.  Could you give an example of dirt? Are you talking about some mud or something like ink?  So it's to do with dirtiness and so forth, in the bacteria issues and so forth. So when it comes to the impurity and nijasat, it's all to do with faith and religious issues that I cannot, for example, eat something in nijas because it's haram, it's forbidden and I cannot pray with nijas, clothes or body and actually perform that worship before Allah swt. So basically nijasa and impurity are something in which the sharia brought and ordered us to actually follow these instructions otherwise we'll have trouble with the worship, the ibadat, we'll have trouble with eating things which are najis, impure and so forth. So what items are on this list of nijasat as in, we talked about wine, blood, pork meat, are there any other nijasat in that list? Yeah there are categories of nijasats, let's begin with the first and the second category of nijasa. The first one is the urine and the second one is the feces. So the body waste of the human being and animals in overall. Now we have to break down those two types of nijasa with regard to the animals and human beings. Initially any human beings waste, body waste in terms of the urine or the feces is nijas, be it a baby or an adult. Urine and the feces of the human being is nijas. In other words you have to purify it if you want to pray for example or if your hands are stained with nijasa then you have to actually wash them. Okay so when it comes to the actual item itself, the substance, urine or feces, is that ever tahel or does that remain nijasa throughout its whole creation, its whole life? As in if I have a sample, a urine sample which we're giving in hospitals, that sample, can that be become made pure tahel by adding any substances to it? Or does that continuously remain nijasa? The nijasa substance by itself, the inherent nijasa would remain nijasa forever, be it a blood, be it urine, feces, unless you mix it with a let's say stream water for example and it just disappears then that becomes tahel. Otherwise itself by itself it remains nijas forever. Now with regard to the nijasa as I've mentioned the humans feces and urine is nijas and also any haram mit animal which has the gushing blood when it's slotted and killed, the gushing blood from that haram animal also that haram animal that we cannot eat also the feces and the urine is also nijas and impure such as the fox, the wolf, lions, cats for example, any gushing animal when it's slotted. Okay, when it's slotted. All right so you're talking about when they cut from here if the blood gushes out? Yes, you're right. The haram animal of course. It has to be a haram animal. So with with sheeps and cows does the blood gush? Now with regard to the halal animals such as the sheep, cows and let's say donkey for example these types of animals because they are halal meat you can actually eat them then their urine and feces are pure. Also the second type of animals are the insects that also they are tahr in terms of their feces and urine as well and of course there are another type of haram meat animals which has no gushing blood such as the snakes for example and crocodiles if you slotted them you won't see any gushing blood from them. So also that type of animals I think they called reptiles. Reptiles yes. Reptiles European feces are also tahr. As long as they have no gushing blood when they're slotted. Shekhna what about the feces and urine of birds for example meaning you live in London I'm sure when you park your car in your tree you come back you've got a lovely surprise of the ziyara of the pigeons have come to see your car what about that sort of waste of an animal is that considered nudges the waste of the pigeons or the birds and the sea animals they're also tahr again all types of birds the ones that eat let's say vegetables okay seeds and so forth and the ones eat meat yes all its urine and feces are all tahr as well as the sea animals there's a fish the fish's urine and feces also tahr so they are pure. Some people might ask that what about the cat for example okay now the cat as I mentioned it's also nudges you cannot have cat at home and as a pet but you have to make sure that you avoid the urine and the feces of the cat. Is that nudges yes of course okay so the cats waste because a lot of people have cats at home as a pet yeah because you know they're not considered nudges in terms of touching them and but you're saying that the the waste of a cat is nudges it is indeed but we have to also refrain from its the hair basically okay in the time of the salah so if you actually you if you carry a cat and you have it on your lap for example you have to make sure there's no hair attached to your body or clothes when you pray so just to make sure that you avoid that otherwise you cannot have a cat and if you avoid it's nijasa then that's fine okay lovely so what's next on the list of nijasa the next nijasa is the semen or the sperm of the human being as well as the any animal that gushes the blood when it's slotted even if it's a sheep or a cow okay so that exception for the sheep and the cow and the animals is just that sperm or the um ejaculation of uh the sperm from so the sperm of the human and animals rushing blood yeah that have gushing blood you're right that is also nudges yes so when we talk about sperm we know that there's only there's two ways to release sperm there's one when you have you go to sleep and there's one when you have marital relations right um is it how important is it that we purify ourselves as soon as this nijasa comes of course i mean as we usually do when we go to the loo in terms of purifying the urine likewise you would purify uh nijasa from that part and then for the uh for the sperm or for the the semen you have to actually do the also which is called also janaba that will inshallah we'll cover this in the next episode inshallah with regards to the semen i mean obviously it can be of a nuisance sometimes for males as we wake up and there's nijasa on us how quickly do we have to remove that nijasa or can we you know go back to sleep or carry on without day without removing the nijasa the nijasa to be removed is is mainly for the purpose of the ibadah and worship which is the salah the wajib prayer yes or any even mustaha prayer you have to make sure you're pure from the nijasa so it's mainly for the nijasa for the issue of the salah and and so forth otherwise you can remain with your nijasa but it's better to purify it but as i've said um the main purpose for purifying is to have a pure body for the wajib salah what's next on the list the next one is the corpse or the carcass of a dead animal for example okay now animal which is uh being killed uh let's say without slaughtering towards the qiblah and all the conditions of having the halal meat let's say you would shoot a sheep with a gun and then a dyes yes or for example that animal dies naturally due to a disease and and so forth so having such condition with an animal that gushes blood then that corpse is nages which means if you touch it you have to purify purify your hands and your body and of course we can't eat it because it's not halal in regard to the halal meat animals such as the sheep and the cow but because they died naturally or being killed uh and slaughtered not in the position of the qiblah and with all the conditions of the halal meat then they are nages and we cannot consume them and same thing applies to the haram meat animals such as the lion cats for example wolf and so forth the corpse are also nages so sheikh na we in the hadith you mentioned also that blood is uh nages um is that on the list as well and what sort of what types of blood are the nages yes blood is the next category basically the blood of any human being and also any animal which has gushing blood when it's slotted is also nages okay so for example if you slaughter a sheep and the blood comes out of this sheep that blood that came out of that sheep is nages likewise if you let's say kill or hunt a fox or a tiger the blood came coming out from that a haram animal is also nages okay what about we know that females go through a certain biological phase once a month the blood that's being released of course that considered nages as well that blood is also nages yes right but also we have another type of blood which is not nages okay and that type of blood is to do with animals which have no gushing blood okay when it's killed so like fish such as ascent fish for example mosquitoes for example um animals um insects for example i mean the blood of the flies yes you know small flies very little yes butterfly for example these blood are not nages okay so you don't have to refrain from them okay of course for the hygiene purpose you can clean them wash them but as an ajasa you can still pray while they're on your body for example so shakna i've got a question that was emailed in to us and that was regarding the halal animals which are slotted in a halal way so we've got a lamb we've slotted it in a halal way facing kibla everything's legit now we've you know skin there we've started to cut the meat up and everything and we found blood remaining in in the body of the animal is that blood considered nudges whatever remains inside the body of that sheep or lamb or cow remains tahrir and pure so only the ajasa is what came out in the beginning of the slaughtering of that animal and the remaining blood becomes tahrir inside the body so you don't have to avoid it that sounds so shakna you've talked about feces urine blood what's what else is on the list yes the next category is dog and pig okay so nudges animals they are the only unique nudges animals on this planet which are entire nudges so so you mean they're continuously continuously and everything in their body is nudges the skin the hair saliva the nails everything everything so subhan Allah Allah is wise and he knew why did he made these two animals specifically nudges and specifically the dog in which we we see a lot of people make use of them very beneficial animals in terms of security guarding very loyal to their keepers for example and of course I mean Allah swt is wise so he he knows why did these animals you know became nudges and in which we have to refrain from them you know for example the dog we cannot actually I mean we can actually touch them but we have to make sure we pure our hands and hands from the nijasa of course if it's dry if the pig or the dog is dry yes and our hands are dry as well there's no reason for making them pure okay so nijasa is not transferred if your hand is dry and the the item is also dry so nijasa is only transferred through a medium which is normally liquid correct exactly the nijasa occurs and takes place when the moisture transfers from one substance to another so sheikhna what else is on the topic what else on the list of nijasa yeah the next category is wine okay wine which is known as khamur as well khamur so is this wine in particular or alcohol intoxicating alcohol in general anything that that intoxicates and has the muskir as they say okay is nudges and haram to consume does that include drugs because some drugs don't have alcohol in them they're powder or they're certain substances but they do cause intoxication they do cause like this high are they considered nudges as well or is it just wine in particular we're talking about here with regard to drugs like hashish um which are solid not liquid the only for nudges ones are the liquid ones which is the wine okay but the solid ones which is like the drugs and the hashish they're not nudges okay they remain tahrir and pure but the ones but that doesn't mean that this is halal to use oh that's a different issue of course yeah that's clear that they don't of course you don't have to do something if you touch uh you know some sort of drugs but the permissibility of usage we're not saying that says how it doesn't allow us to use of course that drugs are not allowed to be used of course okay so back back to alcohol um so you're saying that it can it consists of all of the different types of alcohols so uh because we mentioned wine what about beer or spirits or uh swisky and things like that of course any intoxicated liquid is haram to consume and nudges impure as well so beer is also as as known arabic faqaa that we have a narration with regard to this specific beer that the imam says it is a kind of drink or alcohol that the people made it didn't really care about it so there's some people who drink it some of the muslim sex they actually allow it and they drink it okay so the imam said no in the belief is actually haram to consume beer which is known as faqaa and it's nudges according to say Sadr Shirazi's fatwa okay sheikhna what about to alcohols uh because we know that there are many types of alcohols the ones that intoxicate us that's for for beverages or for those who want to consume it but we have alcohols that are industrial alcohols we have alcohols in shampoo and soap and perfume these aren't the same as in they have a different chemical structure also they don't actually intoxicate you at all is this alcohol are these alcohols also nudges these types of alcohols in used in such as in medicine in soaps in shampoos and so forth as long as they're not intoxicated and there's no muskir as they say then it's halal to use and it's tahr to use there's no problem with that at all it's just the issue of intoxication within the usage either to be eaten or used as a cream for example as a cream lotion for example for the body if it's intoxicated that's haram of course it's nudges to be used so you have to purify your hands from this najasa afterwards for the pray for the next pray for the wool for example so yes we can use soaps medications and so forth which has alcohol as long as there are no uh intoxication and as they say muskir inside the substance of these uh items and products shaykhana what about when people use alcohol in foods sometimes uh alcohol is added to the food and burnt off uh so you know i know with the italian food um they they when they're cooking they're putting some wine and stuff and they're cooking but as they're cooking it the alcohol will be burnt off is that considered nudges well the minute or the second the alcohol that intoxicated alcohol let's say champagne or wine or anything else touches that food in the pan makes that food nudges straight away okay so even if the alcohol evaporates still that food is nudges and haram to consume okay what about certain foods that we don't add alcohol to it but while we're cooking the food alcohol may be released for example if we're when you make apple pie we take apples and add a bit of water and you have to boil it and you have to like um you know uh i don't know what the proper word is for it but you have to make it into like some sort of a stew some sort of a paste so you're warming up the apples and stuff like that when warming up fruit there's always a danger of alcohol being released unintentionally not that we want to make alcohol unintentionally we're trying to make an apple pie so i've got the water i've got the apple i'm heating it up now it's cooking it's getting softer it's becoming a paste all about then if alcohol is actually released in that process unintentionally is that considered nudges as well well we have two issues here with regard to cooking or boiling fruits specifically and food with regard to let's say fermenting the process of fermentation of barley for example that actually produces uh as a result the beer which we just mentioned now and that becomes actually haram to consume and nudges uh also we have the the grape juice if it's boiled and also haram to consume wine obviously another issue as well but other items such as you mentioned the apple pie for example to actually cook and boil the apple there's nothing wrong with it i mean you can consume the apple which is being cooked and the only thing that is to do with the grapes grape juice which is haram to consume if it's boiled reaching that level of boil and even if that's for example apple produced some kind of acid as long as it's it's not intoxicated and it's halal to use and consume okay what about if um you know if i'm eating somewhere and a drop of alcohol falls into my food in fact what if a drop of nijasa of any sort eating and drinking and nijasa falls into this is this uh does this make my food um nudges or is it still tart and i can consume it basically there are two issues here number one if the food was solid okay all of it was liquid so if the food was like a soup and you have a drop of blood or alcohol uh dropped inside that uh specific panel plate for example if it's something liquid then you have to avoid eating or drinking that particular uh food because actually when it's uh dropped in that liquid the whole thing becomes nudges similar to the cup of water for example if it's a solid food such as meat rice um and so forth you can actually just remove that section that was uh contacted with the blood you just remove it and then you can consume the rest of the food uh peacefully without any worry about nijasa whole food okay that's that's fine sheikhna um if it was you know uh like a small chicken sheesh like kitchen cubes or if it was uh rice or something like that but what if it's a big piece of meat and that meat is moist as well it's got juices flowing from it um then what do i just cut the part that it's it's been touched with and i can throw that away and consume the rest or is the whole thing now been affected as long as that drop of nudges of blood for example did not reach the whole section of the meat then you can consume okay otherwise uh if it was in a way that you had many small drops splashed on the whole meat or the whole chicken then you have to avoid it or you just wash the chicken or the meat and then you can eat again okay so by purifying the chicken or the meat or the rice for example you can go back and eat again so that's another solution for those who wish to um eat something which became nudges so just wash it and eat again sheikhna final question and alcohol sometimes doctors do prescribe us to drink alcohol for our heart conditions or from certain other um diseases are we allowed to then consume this for medic medical purposes or should we as muslim still stay away from it no there's no justification for us or reason to use alcohol for medication at all as long as we have other medications especially in today's world where the medication has been developed and processed in different fields even you can have let's say vegetarian medications medicines all types of medicines are available in the market so no reason to use alcohol at all in medication even we have a regeneration that someone comes to the Imam he asks that I've got a problem in my stomach and the doctor prescribed for me to consume alcohol the imam refrains him from using this prescription which is alcohol so no there's no way for us to consume alcohol for the purpose of medication thank you very much for joining us and inshallah we'll be here next week with a new discussion please join us on the akam sos and if you have a question that you'd like to ask the sheikh please contact us on the details provided until next time


It's Tuesday. We're back. I'm Jay Fidel. This is ThinkTech. More specifically, this is Restaurants of Hawaii, and we have the Executive Director of Restaurants of Hawaii, Cheryl Matsuoka. Hi, Cheryl. Nice to see your smiling face. Hi, Jay. Thank you for having us on again. And we have the, what, former chair, but once you're a chair of the Hawaii Restaurant Association, you have that for life. And this is Tom Jones. He's heavily invested in restaurants. Hi, Tom. Good morning, Jay. How are you today? Good. So I like to say Ohio because I know that you speak Japanese, but first I want to ask Alexa a question. Alexa, how do you say restaurant in Japanese? Okay. Here's translated. Restaurant in Japanese is, you can say repeat, slow down, or just ask for another translation. What would you like to do? Alexa, stop. Enough. Tom, how do you say restaurant in Japanese? You don't know Shigataga Arimatsu, which means there's many, many ways, but Shokuten is one way. Okay. And your restaurant, and how do you say your restaurant in Japanese? Our newest restaurant is Kodomo, K-O-R-O-M-O, and it's a katsu and curry bistro out in Pearl Ridge. So here we are, talking about new restaurants in the time of COVID. And I wanted to turn to you, Cheryl, and ask you about this phenomenon. We are living in the time of COVID. No restaurant investor knows from day to week what's going to happen with the industry and with the government, and you could go crazy trying to figure out what's coming down the pike on rules about restaurants. At the same time, you sent me a list of like 20 brand new restaurants that have opened up even in the time of COVID. I do not understand. Cheryl, can you explain this phenomenon? Absolutely, Jay. Restaurant tours are entrepreneurs. And Jay, because of the love of the culinary art, restaurant tours will always be striving to create more culinary dishes to share with Hawaii and the world, right? Even during this relentless pandemic, and Jay, you know, as you know, just yesterday, a new strain has hit Hawaii. Even with all of the uncertainty, as you said, you know, I've been collecting a list and I get it, you know, there's a lot of restaurants that have closed their doors. But Jay, I want to focus on today, all the restaurants that have reopened, have opened their doors. And many restaurants who had shuttered down during our two shutdowns has also reopened. But today, it's all about, you know, it was a very difficult year. And even though the challenges that restaurant have with social distancing, they limited amount of people at a table, Jay, right now, we're only allowed to have five people in a party per table. So even though all those challenges, restaurant tours know the rules of the game, and they're still willing to open up their doors and welcome in you patrons. So I had a list and I shared with Jay because I wanted him to know the impact and how many restaurants open their doors. Jay, should I just mention a few? Yeah, would you? I'd like that. Sure. It was like Istanbul right over there in Ward, and there's Newt in Waili and Qaymuki, and there's Hayhoe House. I invited Thomas Ray to be here today, but he couldn't. He had another conflict. He is also a partner in Square Girls. There's also, I mean, there's so many restaurants that have decided to open their doors even during the pandemic. On my list, I have meal pastology over Makali Street, Papa Kurtz, which is over by the St. Louis Clubhouse on Eisenberg, and Kapahale, which is in Kahala, that have opened their doors. And I want to introduce Tom Jones, who has years.  Tom Jones has five decades of experience as a restaurateur and currently a partner, and not only Kuromo, his most recent restaurant, but also in the Gyo Taku Japanese restaurant. And Tom Jones is a past chair many times of the Hawaii Restaurant Association. And if anybody can share with our viewers, you know, the challenges that restaurant tours go through, and why do they keep opening up their doors, knowing that there's going to be more challenges ahead? It's going to be Tom Jones. Yeah. Well, what an introduction, Tom. So the significant question here is why? We could ask you that question 10 times. Why? Why 50 years in restaurants? Why continue during COVID? Why new restaurants? Why do you spend the time with the Hawaii Restaurant Association? There's a million whys. Let's begin with, let's begin with, why did people open new restaurants in the time of COVID? Well, I think, you know, the economy certainly has changed, but people's appetites have not. And so the entire population of the state needs to eat, you know, three meals a day, pretty much. Where they eat them is really the trick or the answer to the question. And so there have been some restaurants that unfortunately, because of the financial situation, you know, restaurants operate on a very slim margin. And so depending on their financial situation, they were not able to survive, you know, the beginning of COVID. But there are still, you know, operations that can, that for, you know, they have low rent or they don't have any rent, they own their building, what have you, they're able to, to still provide food and meals for folks. And I think the big change for us, you know, as an industry has been the major shift from dine in meals to take out meals. And so typically your restaurants that are able to make the adjustment shifted from probably our restaurants were doing probably about 85% dine in and about 15% takeout. And now we're, our takeout sales have increased by 400%. And our dining room sales are down by 70%. And so we're still, you know, these, these are kind of national averages, actually. So what, you know, my restaurants are experiencing is similar to what you're seeing on the mainland as well, and around, around town. So we have to have more takeout and we had to adjust with, you know, online ordering and pick up these software and things like that. But we're making the adjustment. And so those that have been nimble and able to, you know, handle the financial crunch are successful still. So if I'm a restaurant entrepreneur and I see all this happening, and I see it happening on the mainland, and I see the numbers you're talking about, you know, it seems to me that I would, I would open a restaurant like one of those pizza places with a counter. That's it.  So are people doing that? Or are they hedging their bets with a sort of buy, buy focal kind of thing where you can do both in the anticipation that soon enough we'll get back to dining. Yeah, I think if you look at the list of restaurants that that Cheryl mentioned, they're generally relatively small restaurants and they are able to handle the takeout business. And I do, I do think though that there's an awful lot of pent up demand. And if you look back to the previous century when we had the pandemic and then immediately after the pandemic, you remember the roaring twenties? Well, I heard this morning on a, on a national conference, dealing with restaurant economy that they're anticipating a second roaring twenties in this century. So, you know, look out 2022, I think, you know, people are really dying to get back into the, to the restaurants and, and, you know, commune and share stories and all of that. So the restaurants that are able to adjust and stay in the game to later this year or into the next year, I think stand a chance of being very, very successful. Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder if, you know, for the benefit of our viewers and listeners, if you could just tell us what day that would be. Let me, I get my crystal ball right over here. Let me just double check. We don't know. There's always, there are always pickups and you know, when this first happened back in March, we were thinking, okay, we'll have a vaccine by September, we'll be back to normal by Christmas time. And certainly that didn't happen. And we can see, you know, how long it's really taking to roll this out nationally. So it's going to be a while and we have to anticipate some hiccups. And there's no question that, that people adjusted to take out or working from home. All these adjustments that we've been made that making on the last year, we're not going to rush right back to the way things were before. So some of these habits that we've developed are going to, are going to stay with us. And I think one of the things that's interesting about, you know, the size of the restaurant that you mentioned is prior to the pandemic, there was this new phenomenon called ghost restaurants. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but these are restaurants that open up that don't have a dining room.   But the food shows up. And so that trend has really grown, you know, a lot in the last nine months. I don't know why, but I hear you talk, I think about, I think about one of those movies where there's a fellow in prison, okay.  And then they talk through a telephone with a, with a glass barrier between the prisoner and the prisoner. Okay. And I'm thinking that, you know, maybe in here somewhere is this, it's this telephone in a restaurant in the middle of the table, the glass barrier, and a little telephone on either side. It could conduct a conversation. And the problem is it wouldn't be worth spending the money on that because soon enough we will, we will be emancipated. I knock wood. But make me an entrepreneur, make me a fellow who is always like restaurants. I've gone to restaurants. I have my own concept in mind. I'm very empathetic to, you know, the guys who haven't been able to keep going in the time of COVID. And I want to, I want to come back with them. I want to start a restaurant too. I have a concept in my mind, both in terms of space and food and, you know, the whole, whole new creative idea for my restaurant. How do I handle that now? Should I do that now? Should I do it later? Should I save my money? What's your advice to somebody? I know this would be a competitor, of course. But what's your advice to somebody who wants to get into it as soon as it's appropriate? One of the biggest challenges that the restaurant tours are having right now is rent. And that's one of the main reasons why restaurants are forced to close. And so when, you know, I think that's going to be one of the biggest changes in, in the restaurant, you know, economy world is what are rents going to be in the coming years? Because with the number of restaurants that have had to close and the amount of dining business going down, I think that there's going to be a lot of opportunity to negotiate on lower rents for newer leases, not necessarily your current lease because some landlords are very forgiving and some are not. But certainly anybody who's going to be getting into the business, you know, in the near future can probably look to lower rents, which is one of the biggest costs and one of the biggest hurdles to opening a restaurant. So that's, I think, one thing. We are, we are also seeing some challenges right now in the area of supplies. So because COVID's affecting certain industries on the mainland, we're not able to get, like rice vinegar last week, we were struggling to get rice vinegar. And I called all the providers and they didn't have what we were looking for. And, and so there were just going to be issues like that for a while. But I think that, you know, in six to nine months, it's probably going to be not such a bad time to, to try to get into the restaurant business. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, what about what's your advice to landlords? Because they're critical in all this, as you said. And it seems to me that the landlords now have restaurants in the past, you know, they're not making the same kind of money because the restaurants aren't able to pay them. So if I, if I make myself a, you know, a fly in the room of a negotiation between a restaurant landlord and a restaurant entrepreneur, how does that negotiation go? What is what right now today, if I'm planning to do this as a restaurant entrepreneur, what do I say to the landlord? And what kind of arrangement could the landlord make with me to, you know, be comfortable that he has a tenant or will have a tenant? And what kind of arrangement would the restaurant entrepreneur like to have to have the comfort that when he's ready, he can go in and start without having to look around for space? Yeah, I think, I think the big challenge is going to be the unpredictable level of sales. And so so many of the, the, the lease rents are based on a base rent plus a percentage of sales. And so typically in the, in the, you know, the negotiation, the lease negotiation arena there, there's always a little give and take. So what we will probably see as a reduction in the base rent, but possibly an increase in the percentage of sales so that the landlord is able to recoup some of that, you know, what they may be giving up at the beginning on the lower base rent. So I think we'll probably see more of that, which is, I think is a good sign because I think that's always the big challenge for restaurants is when sales drop down, you know, our rent, which would normally be eight, nine, maybe 10% of our sales quickly became 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60%. And there was no way that that restaurants could be able to pay that percentage of, of, you know, their income in rent. So I think that's probably going to be the biggest challenge is, you know, adjustments in base rent, but increases in percentage rent possibly. Yeah, yeah. So that would allow somebody to get into a contract now without having to write a big check. It would allow the landlord to know that he's going to have a real live restaurant owner in that space when, you know, and making money in that space. Right. And I think, I think, you know, I think that most rest, most landlords and the landlords that I've been working with are generally by and large understanding I work with four, four landlords on our properties. And most of them are really willing to work with us because they know that if we fail, it's going to be a long time before they can, you know, you know, fill that space again. And not only would they lose the income that they would be getting from us, but typically in Hawaii, we have what we call triple net rest, you know, leases where the restaurant, you know, pays the real property taxes. And you know, so in addition to losing their income, the landlord would also be then having to pay money, you know, on a some annual basis to pay their RPT. And that's not going to help anybody out either. So I think landlords by and large would be very wise to work with their tenants and help them through this so that there's a constant flow of, you know, income and then work with them to make up the differences later on or give them a break along the way. There's also some federal, there's also federal and city and county opportunities too to get grants to help cover rent as well. So they should explore all those opportunities. They should. And the worst result is when the restaurant closes, because when the restaurant closes under the stress of COVID, you're leaving behind all of that plumbing, right? All the drainage systems, you're leaving behind, you know, a deteriorating asset. I mean, I don't know.  That space is a wreck and it deteriorates. Yeah. So and the landlord, the landlord does, you know, really it's not in his interest to have that month go by and he's going to have to completely demolish the space and rebuild it later or try to keep somebody in there who will maintain it. It's like a ship. It's like a ship. You, if you leave a ship at the dock and do nothing with it, it costs you a fortune to maintain it because these are organic enterprises. And if you don't, if you turn your back on it, it's really bad for everyone. I also wanted to ask you about something you said about, you know, how there was this pent up demand. I find that a very interesting phenomenon. And I'd like to just confirm a couple of things about that. I believe that in Hawaii, people eat out more than in other other locations, except maybe overseas, maybe in, you know, in Asia, they eat out a lot too and maybe in Europe. But as opposed to the mainland, we eat out a lot. And I sure agree that people, if they had the chance, they wouldn't eat out. And so I guess what I'm asking is, can you break that down? What kinds of restaurants would have the most significant benefit if we let them all come back in, let all that pent up demand happen in Hawaii? Are they going to be looking for Japanese restaurants? Are they going to be looking for fast food? Are they going to be looking for high-end expensive restaurants? Where is that demand going to go? Well, I think it's going to go across all those spectrums. The restaurants that will be the busiest are the restaurants whose customers can afford to eat out. And so what we see a lot of times, like, you know, we went through 9-11. And so that was a very challenging time for us. And what we experienced during that time, my restaurants, the Gyotaku restaurants are kind of in the middle of the market. So we found a lot of our customers that would dine with us, you know, once a month, but, you know, eat at higher-end restaurants frequently would trade down into our area of the market. And so we picked up a lot of high-end restaurants. And then during, you know, really good times, people, you know, from the bottom side will, you know, kind of shift up and eat out a little bit if things are going well for them. So I think the big area that's the big question mark is going to be tourism because we have so many restaurants during the tourism sector, and they're going to be probably the slowest to recover, generally speaking, because it's going to, you know, their customers are quite large tourists. So I think that's going to be the area of the market that lags the most. And unfortunately, you know, the employees and the people that work in those restaurants don't have regular steady income, and they eat out also. So where they would normally eat will be affected by their inability to dine out on a regular basis as well. So we'll see how that plays out. But the sooner we can get our hotel and restaurant workers vaccinated and the airline folks vaccinated, and we can get the tourism industry moving along, that'll be a really, really big help to, you know, bring, you know, return to normalcy, if you will, to the entire, you know, restaurant industry. But I think shortly you'll see that the local restaurants that cater to the local customers will probably rebound the fastest. Yeah, I have an image in my mind of a restaurant with those five seat tables, okay. And then somebody enthusiastic about coming back to restaurant living. And he calls five or four of his local friends, his local friends. And he says, Have you been overseas? What's your temperature? And you have any symptoms at all? And have you been vaccinated? Have you been vaccinated more than, say, a month ago? And if you pass my little test, you can come and join me at my five seat table, because then I won't have any issues at all. That's an exaggeration, of course. But it seems to me that that level of comfort would really allow people to come back, local people, people who know each other, come back and have a social and restaurant experience in the intermediate term before we are able to deal with a tourism and all that. Don't you agree? So you want to be ready for that? Correct. Right now restaurants are already, you know, moving to outdoor dining. So you'll go around town and you'll see tents outside of restaurants. I think Murphy's has some outdoor dining now. I saw another restaurant that had a big tent, you know, next to their restaurant the other day. And also too, another thing that's moving along through the industry is this ionization air filtering that they're putting into the, and black lights that they're putting into the, you know, the air conditioning systems to kill all the viruses in there. And by doing so, we're creating a better environment for our customers and our employees to work and dine in. And so I think, you know, very shortly, you're going to see more and more restaurants advertising those steps that they're taking to create a safer environment. And if they do that, they'll probably be able to have larger parties and the customers will trust them and consumer confidence will increase and bring, you know, the business back faster as well. Yeah. But it's more than consumer confidence, although that, to me, that's central is right now a lot of people have no money. They haven't had jobs, you know, and they could be a substantial part of the restaurant, the restaurant population, you know, the restaurant goers, our state. So when we get back, you know, if they have jobs, they'll have some disposable income to spend in restaurants. If they don't, if the economy is still suffering, they may not have so much money to spend. The other element I want to raise with you is, so this is like, you know, years ago when I was a kid, they had a bus strike in New York. So was it a subway strike? Anyway, let's say a subway strike. They had a subway strike and everybody decided they were going to take the bus. They had no choice when they started taking the bus. After the strike was over, the subway said, okay, come back, now take the subway again. And people in general said, no, no, we like the bus. We're going to continue taking the bus, you know, change our approach on it. So the same thing, like, you know, I go down to Safeway. I buy my, you know, my gruel, right? I bring my gruel home. I eat there. I get basic nutrition at home. And it works for me and it works for my family. And, you know, I don't spend a lot of money on it. Now you tell me the restaurants are open. Maybe for a while I still like my gruel. You know, I've saved a ton of money eating gruel at home. So the question is, how do you deal with that? You've still got to attract them back to the romance and the social engagement of the restaurant because they may have found another way that they believe works for them and unlimited means that's appealing to them. So you need to take affirmative steps, don't you, to bring them back? Oh, absolutely. You'll see a lot of advertising and a lot of deals and discounts and coupons. And I think you're very right. You know, a lot of people said that the millennials really didn't know how to cook and they, you know, they're out dining all the time and eating out and so forth. And now they're forced to stay home. And so I'm hearing about all these millennials that are actually learning how to cook for the first time and they're actually really enjoying it and getting into it. And so I think you'll see that also too, the rise of the milk kit of business on television, where you can, you know, get the food delivered to your house. It's all ready to go, but you cook it yourself. And so I think you're going to see more of that and restaurants are actually dipping into that market as well.  But I think by and large, especially in Hawaii, one of the reasons why people out here so much is because of the economy forces so many people to have to have two jobs.  They're grabbing a bite between, you know, one job and the other job, or they got to figure out how to feed their whole family. And so dining out is a pretty, and actually it's quite economical. When you take a look at the cost of food in the grocery store, and by the time you have leftovers and all that, you know, you can eat at a moderately priced restaurant for a pretty good value. So I'm confident that they'll be back in droves that, you know, that social, that social experience will prevail and they'll want to be with their friends and family again. I also want to refer to one other thing you mentioned about the roaring 20s, you know, we had the pandemic of 1918 and 19, I don't know, you went to 1920. And then after that, people wanted to come back and have those social experiences. And it was remarkable that it happened to be the same time as, you know, we outlawed alcohol, which was a huge mistake. But the thing about it is I see that pent up demand as including a special interest in alcohol, that's euphemistic. And so some restaurants, you know, are well more on alcohol and some less. I mean, for example, if I went to your restaurants, I'd be, I'd be looking for cold sake. I mean, badly, I would be looking for that sake right now. In fact, I could, I can actually taste it right now. So the question is, don't you think there will be a significant interest or re-interest in serving alcohol with meals when we get back to our roaring 20s again? Oh, no question about it. And it's really unfortunate that, you know, so many of the bars and, and the restaurants that have, you know, higher levels of alcohol and service are not doing well right now. I think they're probably one of the most hardest hit areas of the market. And part of it's due to the fact that once people start drinking, you know, they lose their inhibitions a little bit. So it's a little harder to comply with your social distancing regulations. But I'm more confident that the bars will be successful or more successful after this is over than the restaurants, because there are a lot of people that just want to get out there and have fun and drink and, you know, party, if you will. And so the bars are going to make a big, big, you know, come back when this is all over.  You know, the host, so to speak, of the restaurants. You do that because I can envision you doing that. I do like to walk through the restaurant and touch base with my guests. Quite a few of them I know personally. They're friends or they've become friends over the years. But yeah, I do like to walk through the restaurant and I, you know, watch what's going on at the tables and I'll make eye contact with customers sometimes and go over and have a little chat with them. And of course, if there's some, I think the, you know, the older, you know, Yisei Nisei Japanese women love to, you know, talk a little Japanese, so I'll surprise them and we'll have a little, you know, Japanese conversation. It's always fun. Yeah. Reminds me of a restaurant I went to in Strasbourg years ago where the owner of the restaurant stood at the door and he shook the hand of every, and he was clearly the owner. He shook the hand of everybody who came in and then he shook the hand of everybody who came out. And I remember that from, I don't know, 30 years ago, I remember that. So he had an effect on me. Okay, it's time for you, Cheryl. We have to try to make sense out of all this. We have to, you know, I mean, I think I understand why Tom has been chair of the Hawaii Restaurant Association in the past and so many times it all, it's all coming clear. But can you make sense out of this whole trend? Can you summarize our discussion today? Yes. Even with the obstacles that this whole pandemic brought on us so suddenly, because this was such an unexpected event, restaurateurs will always find a way to continue pursuing their passion. And their passion is food. It's serving people. Restaurant tours enjoy seeing the pleasure of people enjoying their meals. So restaurant tours are entrepreneurs. And even during a pandemic, restaurant tours are continuing to open up their dining rooms. So please, everyone, come back and enjoy our dining rooms. And we can't wait to enjoy a meal with you again. We are the Hawaii Restaurant Association. We are the voice of Hawaii's restaurants and food service industry. And if you have any questions, please reach out to us on our website. Thank you, Cheryl. Cheryl Matsuoka, Tom Jones, thank you so much for joining us today. It really does clarify things. And for me, I'm going to go have a little glass of cold sake right now. Thank you so much. See you in the restaurant.


Spin squeezing can improve the stability of quantum sensors by inducing interparticle correlations that reduce quantum projection noise, but potential gains in clock stability are substantially reduced when the spin squeezing is non-unitary and analytic formulas for clock performance can be derived. This article was authored by Boris Braverman, Akio Kawasaki, and Vlaidan Vuletic.


This is a warning. What's up, money geeks? Mr. V here. Welcome to another video, guys. So into this video, I want to talk to you guys a little bit about some news that I actually read early this morning. So it's all about the stock market and what to expect. So if you guys know back in March when we had that huge crash in the market because of COVID-19, there was one Wall Street investor that made a ton of money betting that the market was going to crash. It looks like he saw it coming and he made a ton of bets on the market and it turned out the market did crash and he made over $2 billion. That same Wall Street investor has now predicted again that even with the vaccine in the making, we are expecting another crash, that he sees another crash coming.  So now that he's saying it again, should we take his word for it or maybe he just wants to make some money again or scare people? Who knows?  So that's why I want to share that with you guys today. But before we get started, guys, if you're new to the channel, we talk about how to earn money, how to save money, how to invest and build wealth. So if that's something that interests you, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and your notification bell so you don't miss out on new content. So I want us to jump right in, take a look at the articles that were written back in March when he first predicted that hell was coming. So this is the first article that was written back here. If you see here, it's March 25th, 2020. So Bill Eggman actually made over $2 billion, betting that the market was going to crash.   He's one of the top Wall Street investors. He's made a ton of money investing in the market. As a matter of fact, one of his pack, I did a video here, Persian Square, it's right now looking for a good company to take public. So I'm actually watching this one to tick a symbol, P-S-T-H. So I did a video here about it so you can definitely go check out that video. I'm still waiting for him to pick what company he wants to take public. But today we're talking about his predictions.  Hell came. And now he's at it again, another predicting another hell. We looked at it, it's like, we have companies telling us that they have vaccines coming. Pfizer, as a matter of fact, this past week really said they are so close to getting a vaccine. And we have other companies like Johnson and Johnson and working on vaccine, but yet he's predicting that hell is coming, that the market is probably gonna crash and he's betting money on it.  This guy says hell's coming and he put his money right there and take a bet on it. So, a boy. So for me personally, I am gonna take this serious. What does that mean for you and me as investors? Basically it means that if you are right now in the market and you have some profit, you have some good gains, I would say protect those gains. Look for some stop losses and say, hey, if this happens, get me out. You can always buy it back at the bottom. The market doesn't go anywhere.   So I'm taking this deal very, very seriously. Again, this is the article that just came out.  He's not just saying it. So I don't know if he has some inside information that most people don't have. I have no idea. I don't know if he's a magician. I have no idea. I don't know. I mean, like if he's a psychic, no idea. But I would take the fact that he had predicted it before and he came to fruition. So I'm gonna take him serious. I'm gonna take his words very serious that he can predict again and this thing will come to fruition. So as a matter of fact, like I said, I am right now cautiously investing. I'm still trading, like day trading, but investing-wise, I'm cautiously investing. I'm gonna go in my portfolio, protect a ton of the gains that I have right now so that if the market were to crash tomorrow, I would secure myself some profit so that I can use that by law and then ride back up to the top. So that's what I wanted to share with you guys in this. And again, this is an article back in March. He made over $2 billion betting that the market was gonna crash and then now he's doing it again, betting that even with COVID, there's a crash coming. So we should be very careful. And this is his spack that it's currently looking for a good company to take public. So I can't wait because I know he's not just gonna go pick out any lousy company. He's probably looking for a really good company to take public. Again, if you don't know who Bill Eggman is, you can read about him on Google. He's a top Wall Street investor. So let me do the comment section, guys. What do you think about this? Do you think, oh man, it's just these Wall Street guys or I'm gonna take this guy serious because you never know. I'm gonna protect my investment, protect my gains so that if anything would happen, I could take that money and buy again. And as always, guys, do your homework, do your research, make sure that you understand the risk of investing before you go out there and start investing. Stay motivated.


Hello there, little Christmas sprites of merriment and capitalism, and welcome to the first annual Chapmus special. You see, in my davious nature, I descended down into the tavern of my discord and asked the good little boys and girls to write me the most chappiest of tales, which I would then share to the world. So, prepare to have your bells jingled and your halls decked, as we attend the tale of the night before Chapmus. It was the night before Chapmus, enduring the blizzard. The whole town was stirring, especially the wizard. For a burr hag, the village her vengeance had wrought, as it seemed that for her no Chapmus presence were bought. The hag was enraged, for no one had told her the true meaning of Chapmus, not even a whisper. Why do they hate me? She snarled. I'm no fiend. Well, I am a hag, but you know what I mean. In the village below, the Chapmus bells were ringing. The adventurers gathered with merriment and singing. So you have a problem with hags, the bard, he exclaimed, then we'll slay her for thee, the fighter proclaimed. The paladin shined, we'll give some festive cheer, to which they all sang, this will be a most chappy year. The party then shrieked to the hag's home in the mountain. It seemed a battle was coming, a tough one to be certain. Bearing the trust of the town, they readied their weapons. For they mustn't dally, the burr hag she beckons. A burr asked the town drunk, who had followed for some reason. I thought you said beer! So I came to get drunk this season. The perilous journey lasted through the day, although maybe it would have been shorter if they had used the Ranger UA. The fighter sighed as the frigid air grew colder, where is the Lord Davies blessing? The drunk is getting bolder. The paladin was confused, for the drunkard was godless, and making advances on the wild magic sorceress. But the sorceress responded by turning the drunk into a rabbit. Sorry, she said, it's a bit of a habit. They untied the cave, which was dark and dreary. Luckily the wizard brought a lamp, albeit rusty. As the cave was lit, the hag let out a hiss, turn those lights off! I don't like it, one bit! The party stepped into action, poised for a fight. Come forward, you witch! Step into the light! The barbarian cried, I've got you a gift! It's a really good one! I call it my fist! The hag gave a snarl, with no hint of fear. Bah! I truly hate this time of year. The sooth, the bard paused, if only a moment. Chappness is the best, so please, come off it! The hag replied, I care not for Chappness, I do not. Leave me to my solitude, tis all that I've got. Just then the wizard had a revelation. Friends, why not let the hag join in our celebration? No they rejected, for her nose was too long. Now please, battle bard, sing us a fighting song. Just then, in a flash, the Lord Chappness himself interrupted the party as he sat on a shelf. Friends, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Chappness is for all, be they hags, humans or elves. For you see, the true reward is not the XP, but the memories together, that you make as a team. And then old Chapp vanished as he said with a shout, married Chappness to all. But yeah, Debbie out.


Away from all of that now, the Forum of Former Members of the Kogi State House of Assembly has declared its support for the governorship candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress Usman Ododo ahead of the November 11 election in the state. The forum, which comprises the entire past lawmakers in the state from 1999 across political parties, also resolved to go back to the different communities to ensure resound and victory for the APC candidate. Addressing the press conference in local chat today, the chairman, Salisu Adakeke, pointed out that Kogi was too central to Nigeria to be left in the hands of candidates who are out to disunite the state and truncate the widely acknowledged achievements of the current administration.


I'll make it quick, and then we'll go to the exercise. So in the interest of time, so there's four stages in the Taiwan process. And the parts that at least for me have been sort of like said, that I've been saying, like in learning about this, have been the Polish school that is able to specifically, like this aggregate opinion, show where the points of consensus are, and just generally, like, generate that collaboration in a way that humans actually can't do, even if, like, what makes it work is ultimately in a human-centered facilitation. So, like, our role is going to be awesome, and basically give us a bit of an overview on that opinion stage, especially as well as the succeeding stages of reflection where the integration happens. I think the part we came out in the presentation, but something also that I think she'll be expanding on, like a little bit, is while the in-person consultation is happening, there is a lot of facilitation going on between the digital environment where people are participating, and, like, this lotteriness that are converting that right onto, like, so their life facilitating, like, all the questions that come in, their shepherding goes into the room, making sure that that online interaction is being brought into the physical space, and obviously, like, there's, like, that interchange of, like, what's happening here is also the life stream done. So, that online-offline interaction with the reflection stage is also really interesting. So, we skipped the puzzle stage just for now, just because I think so much of this is a fairly context-specific, like, the way that trauma issues get picked up, and probably very different from the way that issues get picked on time that day. So, going right into the opinion stage, we're going to give a small review, and then we're going to build, like, a... I was going to talk about the follow-up of the stage, yet, but I'm really sure, and I'll define these two, and then we currently go through the trial. Yeah, so, and here's the review of the process, those are the four stages, and these are the tools that we use to enhance participation. So, as I said, there are hundreds of ways to look at the process of being Taiwan, so here's the picture, no, I meant the drawing. And we have this, Su-Yang, just another colleague of MPD's, she ranks these four stages into smaller steps, so this is just another way to describe the process of being Taiwan, but here's two, to show how we use these tools throughout these smaller steps, and the point is that these tools are mostly open source, and here are, for the three concepts behind these tools, so here are interpretation, facilitation, and documentation, so these are the three concepts that we apply to use these tools, and interpretation is to reach the communication gaps among people, because people are from a lot of lives, so they have their own domain-specific language, so we have to use the idea of interpretation to help get the idea across to the layman, and facilitation is the art of Filipinas from the public, and documentation is really important because it highlights the importance of transparency and accountability, so at each mini-hackathon we will definitely have open a page, a new page of Hackpad, and everything that will be written will be recorded as the meeting minutes of Hackathon on PTA-1 on Hackpad, and also the facilitation meeting will also have a stenographer to help us record and to put it into transcripts, and of course we'll put it online, so documentation highlights the transparency that is of other core value that we emphasize. And so, okay, State Plan Proposal, so at each hackathon, a particular group, if they have something to, or they want to pitch, so they will develop a proposal, so as I said, we will actually have a top-down proposal, and the CIS is a bottom-up proposal, and so firstly, a contributor has to develop a paper or a tract to convince the other contributors that this specific issue is really important, so it has to make a statement, and secondly, once the topic is set, then all the contributors have to come up with a good name or the title, because this is like the attention grabber on the internet if you want to host a survey online, so the topic, like for example, if it's Uber, and maybe you could set the title as should Uber be to Google, for example, is quite a simple one, and as for the NCI case, because the original the most well-wide known, widely known title of this issue is Nonconcensual Pornography, but it's actually quite hard to translate pornography into Chinese, which obviously means porn, but what we want to discuss isn't about porn, so it's really hard, so we have spent so many times figuring out how to translate pornography, and then we decide to use intimate images instead of pornography, so I mean, the term and the title or the name of that topic is quite important, and if it were set in right, and then people would be able to translate, so a good name and a good title and a right term is really important, and third, and they are the other steps for the same one, we have an hour down the slope of the pop topic, but it depends on various case-by-case, because sometimes a specific topic should be narrower, but sometimes we need a broad, if you want to collect general opinions or you want to know the general sense of the general public about a specific issue, then it shouldn't be too narrow, so it depends, and we have to be sure the scope is fit for the purpose, and we have to map out the strategy, for example, how we spread this survey and what it's like, the events that we're going to do and find out the competent authority, and all of these steps should be determined and should be thoroughly discussed and be happened on, and find out the competent authority is when we reach out to the public sector, and for Vitaoan, we need to find an authority, and the authority has to be willing to take on, and to be responsible for that issue, if there is no competent authority willing to do that, then we cannot go on, because this Vitaoan, it's just not a facilitation of discussion among community, or among private sectors or community, we have to have public sector engaged in the process, so we need to find out the competent authority, and this is where we really need Audrey as a digital minister to sometimes put a little bit of pressure on the ministry, and gently force them to join us, and this is the screenshot of PackPad, we used this one quite frequently to have our meeting minutes posted online, and lastly we should choose the right tool for media collection, and this one will be discussed on the proposal stage, and once it sets, then we can go on to the stage two, so as the tools, and I'll briefly introduce these tools later, but if the air is not clear, and by the air, I mean the consensus or the general public about specific issue, and if it's not clear and still vague, so we use Polish, and Polish is really a good tool to discuss about a topic that is still unorganized, or we have no clue at all of what the general public will be and to the specific issue that we should use Polish, and let them decide what should be posted, and they can discuss, because traditional online questionnaire, all the questions and options are all set by the editors, but Polish contributors can decide what to discuss about and what to vote on by themselves, so these are also one of the key features of Polish, so if the air, the consensus is clear enough, then we can use this course and organize online form, and it's both mainly traditional online questionnaire, and if you're not sure, you can just go traditional, like use slide or type form, or like Google form to run the survey. Oh, there's another set, because at the proposal stage, the contributor or the proposer, or maybe the competent authority goes to the mini hackathon to propose, then some of them may have already had done some research, so they should publish their presentation document or research paper online on the telephone platform, so that any online researchers can have a look on what has been discussed about and what kind of research is done, and then they can use it as a reference, so it has also lots of links to lots of research or paper and presentations. And the tools, we have, we will briefly just introduce Polish discourse, slide of this, I believe, you guys are all familiar with, and time for me just another traditional online questionnaire, but it's just a traditional one, but it has fancy layouts, and it's quite similar with Google form. And discourse, and Polish, I'll leave that to Chopin later, and I'll skip that one. And discourse, it's like online form, so you can have a brief explanation on the topic, on the page, on the side, and then you can have an online and men topic and self-topics, so once you click on the men topic, then it will have self-topics, and in here it looks like a Facebook post, so people can reply and like that specific post, and we can also tag the ministry, because the Asian ministry has its account on discourse, and this is a rule set by the minister without portfolio jacqueline. She requires all the ministry to have an online account on discourse, so if the men ministry was tagged by the editor, then they should, they're obliged to reply within seven days if online users have some questions about specific topic. And the slide up, yes, all of the men who looked at, and type form, it's like, it's a form MC, a fancier online questionnaire of Google form. Okay, so, no, there's no exercise. And stage two, then we go to a previous stage, so based on the consensus that we reach on stage one, that we have the topic, we have the men and title, and we narrow down the scope, and we find the common authority, and we choose the tools, and we have published our research paper or other presentations, and we move on to stage two, which is the online competing collection. And here, Tankpolis, for example, Tankpolis is an example, we set up a good guidance as like a user manual on the welcome page of Polis. So we have to set some rules so that the online users can easily understand how to use these tools. So if it's Uber, then you can tell the online users that to post comments, always start with a feel, and one single idea, or one single post, or one single comment. And every comment is independent, so there's no need to reply to other comments because there's no reply like the button. You can only agree, disagree, or ask. And post opinions separately, as I said, every single comment contains only one single idea. And then I use question marks, so it should be a positive statement, so it makes it easier and not misleading. And write a brief introduction on the welcome page. So, yes, those DRs are just some reminders that you have to briefly describe the issues that we're going to talk about with these tools. So if it's Uber, then we can briefly have a short introduction of why we want to talk about this and, like, for example, the forum point described what's the next process. If you want to let the online users feel that they are respected, then we need to let them know what their opinions holds a certain level of value. So you have to let them know what we're going to do after this survey so that they feel that this is not just something that will end here. And it has an ongoing process. And explain the purpose and use of the result and friendly for all, of course. So, like, for example, if it's Uber, then you can have, if there's some, like, news, then you can start with the news link and tell people that it's quite controversial, so it makes the content more friendly for all of the contributors. And city comments are also quite important on Polish because it's a tool that encourages autonomy. So if there aren't any city comments, then there were no comments at all. And I'll later show you why. And so, for Polish, the editors or the contributors can post on city comments. So to end here, you can attract them and show them as an example of how we can do this. Like, for example, if there's the IFAs, the first statement can be, I feel that the non-essential distribution of bodily intermittent juices of crime, so it's a simple idea and a positive statement and there's one legal idea. So, here it can show the online user how to post comments. So, yeah, the other insane comments are quite important for Polish tools. And for this course, as I said, you can attack the authority. But this is the, if the tools that you use have the function of tagging and you can use this kind of, yeah, but good, because here a discourse, I think it's, Jacqueline Tsai has requested all the ministry to have an account, so that's quite unusual in words. But yeah, this is just the feature of discourse, of discourse. And of course, because of the privacy issue and the non-protection, so you have to ask for contribution in this survey. So, we have to ask if the participant is willing to publish their opinions or if they want to stay anonymous. So, like, for example, every online questionnaire should have questions regarding the openness of anonymity or whether they would like to subscribe to VITALON letter. So, this is for the future of contributions and just a reminder that it has to have this kind of questions to that, the process, for example, like for VITALON to keep growing. And each online opinion survey should last for at least a month. So, and if one month is enough, you can't extend it, but it's also decided by all of the contributors. So, you have the duration of the survey has to be thoroughly discussed and we can have a problem too. And here are some of the writers that because we need to promote and to spread the links of the survey. So, as I said, at the proposal stage, we need to map out the strategy and to try to draw more attention. And for Polis, the editor or the newsletter should keep the records by using Screenshot for Polis because the online users can we'll have a proposal that will show the visualization of the clustering. So, I mean, every minute it kind of changes all the time. So, the editor or the facilitator can use Screenshot to record the Polis visualization and set that up. And at the end, we should publish the report. We should be clear that there are raw reports and second-hand reports based on this survey. So, if the facilitator joins the process really early, so the facilitator can interpret these reports and generate the second-hand reports. And it will be like a presentation or like a research report. And so, these reports should be all uploaded on the Taiwan platform so that the Internet users can get the results, the raw results and the second-hand results of these reports generated by these rules. And of course, because there it is a public authority, so we have to remember that submitting these reports to the public authority for them as a reference so that they can move on to the next stage. Okay, so, any questions? Yeah, I believe there are great questions, but we want to let Michelle Ban show them. Or maybe just take one question. Take one question. Okay. Yes. Yes. Okay, I just was curious the exercise we did yesterday, does this fit into this process at any point? For now, it's separate. There's that for PO Network and for the Facilitation Workshop and here is for VITAM. For now, because there are some voices supporting that we should combine these two and process and like do an experiment, but we haven't done that yet. Maybe we should do that in the future. Yeah. Okay, so, Rachel will help us do the trial on Polis and maybe after the trial we can get more. Has anyone here ever heard about Polis before? Before today? Okay. Oh, yeah. Then we will answer. I'm sorry, what is the relationship with Polis? Before Audrey was appointed as digital minister, VITAM has already existed. So, like I said, after some problems in the end of 2014, because of Jacqueline sign and then minister of portfolio, VITAM was born and he has been run by community with the help of national development council. So now it's a cooperation and partnership between community and national development council. But the previous we sort of like played the role of as a facilitator in trying to communicate and help to communicate with public sectors and private sectors and community. So we are like a password for run VITAM. But field network it's something after Audrey was appointed as digital minister and field network exists inside the government inside the central government. Am I right? So, if I can add it that please, if I'm wrong my understanding just based on Eric's perspective was field network is more specifically within the cross-ministries where they have a lot of specific community stakeholders that the government is doing on each floor in the facilities that are in the central government from government to outreach outwards and within the process. In Taiwan it's collaboration with national development council. And just a little bit of context with people that came in today Minister Audrey Tang sits as the digital minister without portfolio that she is above the other ministries in the theme position even though because she's without portfolio she has a technical budget and she has ministry obligations which gives her the unique position in her case she also talked a little bit yesterday about how she crowdsourced her literally from job description pretty much from the communities that she is above and that basically then her relationship to the government gives her speaking power sort of like more public representation of what digital government should be like and so there's that sort of getting more ministries to collaborate with processes like in Taiwan was basically my understanding so that like B-Taiwan itself exists outside of government but then it's able to bring in ministries with accountability. A quite important role here for B-Taiwan she was a volunteer and main contributor for B-Taiwan when she was still a contributor of GOBS in our community but once she was appointed as digital minister she sort of like introduced B-Taiwan into the central government and well recognized by these ministries below her but she's an editor so she doesn't like this kind of saying and she's not here anyway so and with the help of digital minister so if we like I said we need to reach to competent authority to take on what specific issue other will be like a really good channel to between community and these ministries so she plays a quite important role here between all of these different forms and networks. So I'm from a community I'm not a public service community or a sense of point of view B-Taiwan is a co-creation process with the community which makes B-Taiwan you can just walk in a mini hackathon on Wednesday and eat pizza together and set the agenda and help typing and you can suggest and sing and you can be a next facilitator for the next meeting that's very different from PO PO you have to have 5,000 petition or it's no it doesn't have to but you have to go into a government that is not so any conclusion or discussion on B-Taiwan the government is not obligated to have to do those things that way but it's an open consultation process so and the connection is that PD is the address office is helping these two projects as in and so I want to invite you to use Polis how many of you can scan the QR code right here so for Apple phone you just need your camera to open your camera and scan the QR code it's the link on the head folder so we got some slides it's also on the slide so with the laptop you don't have to scan you just click the link on the slide if you're in Slido I already have this is the QR code for Slido and I made this Slido here there's a link as well can everybody connect to this is the QR code for Slido how many persons getting to Polis right now okay so you can go to Slido you can either scan the QR code or do 1106 Toronto okay so how many are struggling to get to Polis I mean struggling three okay so you can see here this is a description right here so like what province Uber is trying to solve, what province Uber is closing what policies also can be something like that in some instruction that you should post a comment like Starwood I think and every comment is independent so there's no need to reply to others and please use positive statement don't use double negative statement that's very hard for people to recognize and one statement for one comment I want to assure like for example I can start with I think sharing economy is is not trained so governments should modify regulation instead of business every sharing service so this is my this is my statement so I can write this statement and I don't even have to log in so I can write oh I want to show you how to okay I think we can go on this go for an hour show to see how to write your statement so please someone write a statement I can from my personal experience do anyone write a statement do you see you can see me write a statement and you can say you agree disagree or pass and you can write your own statements so I'm looking oh yeah so I think Uber should be taxed at the same level as tax company should be enforced so I agree on this so we have to log in so you can put the common statements you have yesterday into this into this practice so if you want you can go back to see the problem statement or the solution statement you have for the yesterday practice and we can see how people react to a solution it can be a statement or you can give a reason why you think that I think a lot more because we can see we start to have some group like two people at the age so okay now we have two groups of course social media login but I don't know why now it's not that's okay you probably need to log in on a public page yeah it used to can be logging in Facebook and also of course they have some integration with Twitter right now you can use the hashtag to provide your statement on Twitter and it will be collected in all this system there are three groups also a reminder to submit statements starting with IP IPL is also there so you can say how does this work how does this work so for the gigforks the algorithm is called PCA so basically your one statement is one dimension so when you don't agree disagree and pass it's according to minus one and zero and it's a matrix so it's like if we have 10 questions and there are 10 dimensions and on each dimension your answer is the vocation so then I have the coordinate of your opinion position so this grouping is based on your current position in this 10 dimensions matrix and then we calculate the distance of each person and put each person into a grouping I hope this is understandable how does this course integration work so if you see a statement and you feel like there are multiple ideas in there or you want to suggest a different way of doing it can you consider a place that I can go to to see that discussion can you rephrase your question again like for example if there's a statement and I feel like generally I can't do it but then I have something to add to it then the better way is you form a better statement and then because in polis they don't provide you to directly reply to that comment you need to phrase a new statement these are equal chambers for farts sorry I'm trying to be actual I figured there would be a 12 hours what does that mean so you can just click past wait so what it was like that I didn't even say that she's got the editing again so we are merging to two separate okay I just got one of two minutes so if you can finish we can go on this that's polis so far so let's see so now we have three groups so we have around 21 people people in the room and we are opinions defining to three groups so you can see the story out of Hawaii in chinese but you can see the this is the common one so 90% of people agree that sharing economy is the trend so the government should modify regulation instead of banning every sharing economy and then also it's a our common ground I want to know the up-round how much I might be charged in this case so I think there needs to be regulations and the ability to protect the personal safety of possible passengers 100% whoa we have 100% agree on this yeah and then I think my sourcing should be better integrating to a public transit system that's very interesting I don't see using the discussion term one and I think Uber driver should have some safety trend so we can now see among group A is that I think Uber can reduce the need for car ownership and among group B the common statement is I think a fee should be added to all the first on the ground that goes to or found to go with your safety and you can see some people in group A disagree with this statement that doesn't think that the Uber driver's right feet needs to go back to a public transit so this is one way to look at the map so so you can see this map focus on the common opinions of different groups so we have group A this is one of the almost past so keep that version that version is here Uber Uber drivers should be licensed like taxi drivers so will be people think yes but a taxi driver needs to be licensed by a large group of people here in Uber I'm sorry if you already explained this I'm just confused so how are you determining who is in A and who is in B so it's done by the algorithm so I'm going to explain the algorithm again because I explain you are using so each statement, each questions you can fill a green disagree the coding in the computer system is one minus one and zero and you take this so if the coordinates so if f1 line here you have one, zero, and minus one on the line and if one question is one dimension now we have around 30 statements then we have 30 dimensions and each, you're voting on each statement is the coordinate of that dimension I will have your personal opinion a coordinate position a coordinate position and then we can count the distance to each person so the algorithm decides who is closer their position is closer and they group them together so the voting faces are left like there's share of opinions on statements so far you mean in front of me and I see that there's more little faces on the b side that's telling me that these people are similar statements and therefore they're physically close to one another in their opinion ultimately or so if it's in the b sides they if it's b sides they are closer so you can see here they are closer but because it's a search for this poll it's a 30 dimensions it's it's a 30 dimensions projection of two dimensions playing still here closing doesn't necessarily mean that their opinion are closer but the group so only a group so you can see this another way to see that is pollers they have a backstage like this you can go to see a report so this is an overview report and everybody can see so I have a question about that back in the poll sorry okay so the shapes are kind of like I've kind of voted myself purposely out into being the top outlier there which means that I've pulled the entire group up would that be considered probably the outlier eventually or is everything grouped they put everybody not everything will be grouped everybody will be grouped there can be people outside yeah they can be people outside but I have to say again because it's a 30 dimension projection on the two dimensions you seem like it doesn't necessarily mean that you are on in this machine so so we have 23 people 21 people are grouped so there are two people and I grouped it anyway and we have 42 statements so we have 708 so on average people give 3 statements and you can see here is how diverse the conversation is wait what was the last one so this is the statement this is the statement this is the statement this is the statement that very very diverse I think everyone should should should get the right here and the most agreed one is right here so you can see we have quite close agreement about here is there over 50% and over this this is a topic that have really large diversity and this this is extreme one so Audrey in the afternoon she will host a session on how to facilitate further discussions through this report I don't know how she is going to do that so I have I have tried to personally I have tried that we go for the most diverse statement we go see this one in the common group here and ask people from a different group about what this opinion is and sometimes it usually is you are in different context for example there is a context you didn't mention in the statement so when you explain the statement sometimes the problem is solved and sometimes you can further know why it's the different of value so yeah and then you can see that so this is non-production so efforts suggest you mean we can cross-source the topic she will say we should cross-source the topic out of the beginning so go to the backstage so in the backstage you can add the topic you can add the description and the URL so let's read that so but I think we already we already have this title or we want to we want to change the title yeah we do like to cross-source because this is the first step of initiating a public survey so currently it's just a big shopping Toronto but that's how to try to you know reach a consensus of how we should name this survey if you would like to for example if you are a policymaker or a legislator at a city Toronto city level and you want to host an online discussion of how we should regulate Uber or how we should respond to Uber and how we should name the title if we want to initiate this public survey for the citizens of Toronto city of Toronto any suggestion this is I mean as many have not known this is what we do okay now we are going to talk about this the public sets how we have information is it in Toronto also transportation and okay so we have the stakeholders and now we need to provide a really good name how would you name that yes how should we regulate right sourcing how should we regulate right sourcing say sourcing how do youiam please say sourcing i would be glad to share this how about right howling can we change regularly to operating how should we alternate right sourcing as Civic I don't know if you're right, so I think you're right, Gary. And then we don't know where you're coming to know. Yeah, he's coming to know. So E.J., Uber, and Lyft. Maybe just remove the right source from the stove, or do we need to clear it? Clear it or come here? How should we operate Uber and Lyft? Antensis. Antensis. How should we operate Uber and Lyft? Are we crossing the right sourcing out? So we can't be removed from the stove? We're crossing out. How should we operate Uber and Lyft? Antensis. Antensis. How should we operate Uber and Lyft? Antensis. How should we operate Uber and Lyft? Is that a local one? I don't know where you're going. No, not at the time. Yeah, that's better. I think we should probably have it here in turn. So I think maybe the term the city uses is vehicles for hire. Vehicles for hire. So how should we do that? Vehicles for hire. Yes, there is a pipeline. Is that right? No. Vehicles for hire. It's like this one? No. There's no D. Is there a D? Oh, not no D. So that should be understandable for most of the citizens of the city of Toronto. I think you should put Toronto under there. Toronto. Toronto. Toronto. Toronto. Toronto. Toronto. Toronto. Toronto. Toronto. So I think if we... So I think this is better. I mean, it's this state. So I've just demonstrated that we should further questions first. And so with this question, if we continue to do this, I think we will have more concise ideas or statements on the topic. We can continue to do that. You are welcome to add any statements in between. And all three will host a further discussion afterwards. And any questions you want to ask so far? Please keep voting or submitting your own statements because this will be the main material for the demo consultation meeting in the afternoon. The report was generated by several minutes ago. But it's real-time, so you can still keep voting and submitting, and we can have the regenerated grant offering arrived here. So you can keep on doing that. And any questions? Also regarding the Taiwan State one and State two. Or have we already got... I don't know. People can keep asking comments like, because now we need to taxi in this, then we should have some statements on the taxi information. Because at first it's only about working. Is it okay to change the question happily through or would you serve a new voice if you were to change the question? Yeah. No, it's the same. Like you wouldn't change the topic halfway through? Will it influence the tomorrow? It's not influence the tomorrow, but it's not supposed to change the questions happily through. But because I missed the step that we should cross-sourcing the question first so that we modified this one to make it more precise. As you can see, here's the backstage of the police survey. So at any hackathon, we need to specify or to name the topic and then we go on to the description and we should cross-source what we should of what we write in this... in here. And we should have our own rules for this police survey. And also we can have our own CD comments. If we have time, then we can try to submit some CD comments as an example to other online users to understand how to use this on a police survey. So this is what the backstage looks like. We can also monitor. Do you always see comments in advance or do you see where the conversation goes? We usually do that first. Yeah, as an example. I have acts around with my friends and my relatives whether they feel this is friendly enough or they still think it's not that easy to use.  So if there's no CD comments in zero statement, then there isn't any agree or disagree button to click. So it's quite confusing. So one statement is good enough to show as an example so that there's a click to, a button to click to show them. But somehow the mobile version might look a bit confusing. I don't know. But we have worked with some of the colleagues. They are working for police at this station in New York City and they are still trying to make it better. In the past, the report wasn't like this but now it's getting better. So it's still improving. And you can also moderate the comments here that you can reject. So if it's like really insulting or discrimination. Reject that. We seldom do that. If you do reject something then it's getting subjective and it won't be controlled by some editors or facility. So we haven't had that kind of insulting comments yet so far. But I mean there is a function to moderate the comments so that we won't get messy. You have examples of I would say like local municipalities that have used quotes for public consultations. Because the irony is that the usual licensing standards in the city of Toronto is currently doing a beautiful prior review of public consultations. So something like this would be not to the level that you would use in Taiwan like just a human attest of having a person an ID or something. Do you have examples of jurisdictions using? What was the first way? Besides in Taiwan? Yeah. What did you mean jurisdiction? For me? Or what did you mean have a symbol in jurisdiction? Just like this is what I'm just wondering if there are case types in Point 2 to help public servants for example in Toronto that is not probably but just examples of people using a tool like this. So it's not only in Taiwan there is an internet not talk show. Internet political talk show they use this to collect their audience opinions before they they're recording they're recording the show so that they can, you know, sort of issue and see what they find it and they can talk about opinions in this. And also sometimes we have huge debates so there was a time that a little girl was just randomly picked and caught us on the street. So it generates a discussion on that kind of thing. We still have that kind of thing in Taiwan. So it's not any government that asks what's your opinion on the capital team. As I remember it's around 2,000 people joining the discussion. Yeah. We have one specific canning for drum drivers and the use poll is the facility that I use poll is to have a previous research on what's the general sense of the general public on the canning for drum driver. Can we get back to that question later? I have to look at the data again. Okay. The join, the drum platform we have a case about whether we should have canning for drum drivers and sexual sexual assault of children and the facilitator she that it's not it's not mandatory. But because there were too many signatures on the e-pedition website. Like won the government to have canning to be in the mall. Okay, sorry. One of the petitions on the e-pedition website in Taiwan is our proposal want and tradition is won the government to have canning in our mall to punish those people who does child abuse and driving and because there were I think that's the we got most signatures for that case in Taiwan in the e-pedition website. Yeah, it's the highest number one. We have the comment where you can for or against the petition you can just sign so we would like to know what people are for or against for, not just yes, I want to sign an e-pedition. That's why we open the policies to gather deeper insight about why people are signing to that e-pedition. That's the reason why we use that and combining the policies with the e-pedition website. We did that in the in Colombia. Yeah, yeah. So I like this the long journey here. Okay. So, Fong, would you share with us after launch break? Yes. That's a really interesting one and I think that's also has lots of track and lots of contributors of that service. So there's a really controversial issue and drunk driving has been a really controversial issue in Taiwan. Okay, so... Lots of time? Yeah. Okay, so lots of time. Thank you.