Podcasts about sji

In this episode, I talk with James Fisher, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, consulting engineer at SJI and vice president of CSD Structural Engineers, about the core principles of structural engineering—showing how simple designs, precision, and collaboration can cut costs, meet deadlines, and deliver lasting quality. ***The video version of this episode can be viewed here.*** Engineering Quotes: […] The post Why Simple Designs Lead to Better Engineering Outcomes – Ep 143 appeared first on Engineering Management Institute.

In this episode of Coaching in Education, join me in conversation with Russell Bennett and Stephen Fantom, two dynamic educators from St Joseph's Institution International School in Singapore. Over the last decade, Russell and Steve have led the way in creating a vibrant coaching culture at SJI, transforming professional learning and fostering personal growth among staff. Listen in as they share their journey, the challenges they've faced, and the impact coaching has had across their school community. Whether you're just beginning your coaching journey or looking to deepen your practice, this conversation is packed with insights and practical takeaways. Genuinely, this is a must listen! Richard Reid – Podcast Host.

Šodien raidījumā Divas puslodes daudz runājam par Krieviju, par tās veiksmēm un neveiksmēm, mēģinot savā pusē iegūt vairāk sabiedroto kā pretpolu Rietumu demokrātijai. Šobrīd tā jau ir ierasta lieta, ka, runājot par notiekošo pasaulē, ir jāpiemin arī Krievija. Aktualitātes analizē Latvijas Radio Ziņu dienesta žurnālists Uldis Ķezberis un politologs Veiko Spolītis. Viedokli izsaka bijušais ANO Kišiņevas biroja darbinieks Oskars Kastēns. Moldova – līdz ar nagiem Eiropā 20. oktobra vakars, jādomā, daudziem proeiropeiski noskaņotiem Moldovas pilsoņiem kļuva par pārbaudījuma brīdi. Balsu skaitīšanai ejot uz beigām, izskatījās, ka uz jautājumu „Vai atbalstāt izmaiņas Konstitūcijā ar nolūku Moldovai iestāties Eiropas Savienībā?” vairums balsojušo ir atbildējuši ar „Nē”. Prezidente Maija Sandu sasauca ārkārtas preses konferenci, kurā runāja par „ārēju spēku” bezprecedenta iejaukšanos balsošanas procesā. Nevienam nebija ne mazāko šaubu, ka ar „ārējiem spēkiem” jāsaprot Kremlis un tā pakalpiņi. Krievija devusi patvērumu Moldovas partijām un politiķiem, kuri pretdarbojas proeiropeiski orientētās valdības centieniem. Šī gada aprīlī piecas šādas partijas Maskavā nodibināja aliansi ar nosaukumu „Uzvara”; tās politiskais mugurkauls ir Šora partija – kopš pagājušā gada jūnija Moldovā aizliegts politisks spēks, kura dibinātājs ir aizmuguriski par smagiem ekonomiskiem noziegumiem notiesātais, Krievijā mītošais miljonārs Ilans Šors. Saskaņā ar Moldovas drošības iestāžu pausto, mēnešos pirms referenduma caur Šora organizētu shēmu apmēram 130 000 vēlētāju saņēmuši naudu par attiecīgu balsojumu, kā arī par eiroskeptisku viedokļu izplatīšanu sociālajā tīklā „Telegram”. Grūti spriest, cik no šiem līdzekļiem ir paša Šora sarūpēti, cik – Kremļa sponsorējums. Eiroskeptiskā vēstījuma centrā bija tēzes, ka virzīšanās uz Eiropas Savienību izraisīšot tiešu konfliktu ar Krieviju, ka tā sola Moldovas ļaudīm vien dzīves dārdzības pieaugumu, kamēr draudzība ar Kremli – lētu gāzi un degvielu. Vēl viens motīvs ir bažas, ka eirointegrācija nozīmēs vēl ciešākas saites ar Moldovai etniski un vēsturiski ļoti tuvo Rumāniju, kas kaitēs apmēram astoņpadsmit procentiem nemoldāvu iedzīvotāju. Sevišķi izplatīti šādi noskaņojumi ir Gagauzijas autonomijā, kur dzīvo apmēram 125 000 tjurku valodu saimei piederīgās gagauzu valodas runātāju. Šeit pret konstitūcijas izmaiņām balsojušo proporcija pārsniedza 90%, savukārt krieviskajos valsts ziemeļu rajonos un separātiskajā Piedņestrā tā ir no sešdesmit pieciem līdz astoņdesmit procentiem. Savukārt par iestāšanos Eiropas Savienībā vairākums balsojis galvaspilsētā Kišiņevā un tai tuvākajos valsts centra rajonos. Kā izrādījās pirmdienas rītā, Moldovas eiropeisko kursu par mata tiesu glāba ārzemēs dzīvojošie pilsoņi, kuru balsis deva pozitīvu iznākumu ar nepilniem 50,4%. Līdztekus referendumam notika arī Moldovas prezidenta vēlēšanas, kurās Maija Sandu ieguva labāko rezultātu – vairāk nekā 42% balsu, kas nozīmē, ka otrajā kārtā viņa sacentīsies ar agrāko ģenerālprokuroru, Moldovas Sociālistu partijas atbalstīto gagauzu izcelsmes politiķi Aleksandru Stojanoglo, kurš ieguvis vairāk nekā 26%. Arī šajā gadījumā par proeiropeiskās prezidentes panākumiem nav pilnīgi drošas pārliecības, jo vēl vairāki viņas konkurenti pārstāv Aleksandram Stojanoglo tuvus uzskatus un varētu aicināt savu vēlētājus balsot par viņu. „Rietumu kapraču” saiets Kazaņā Šajās dienās Krievijas Federācijas autonomās republikas Tatarstānas galvaspilsēta Kazaņa uzņem BRICS organizācijas valstu vadītāju sešpadsmito samitu. Tāda mēroga un līmeņa starptautisks forums Krievijā nav pieredzēts ne vien pēdējos izolācijas un sankciju gados, bet pat pēdējās pāris desmitgadēs. Dibināšanas brīdī 2009. gadā organizācijā bija četras dalībvalstis – Brazīlija, Krievija, Indija un Ķīna. Gadu vēlāk pievienojās Dienvidāfrikas Republika. Visbeidzot šogad organizācijā iestājušās Apvienotie Arābu Emirāti, Ēģipte, Etiopija un Irāna; savu pievienošanos, kas arī tika plānota ar šo gadu, joprojām apsver Saūda Arābija. Attiecīgi visnotaļ reprezentatīvajā kompānijā, kas pulcējusies Kazaņā, ir Ķīnas prezidents Sji, Indijas premjerministrs Modi, Dienvidāfrikas prezidents Ramafosa, Apvienoto Arābu Emirātu prezidents al Nahajans, Irānas prezidents Pezeškiāns, Ēģiptes prezidents el Sisi un Etiopijas premjerministrs Ahmeds. Tāpat ieradušies vairāki citi reģionāli nozīmīgi vadītāji – tādi kā Turcijas prezidents Erdogans un Vjetnamas premjerministrs Tiņs –, kuru valstis arī izrāda interesi par dalību BRICS. Brazīlijas prezidents Lula da Silva savu ierašanos atcēlis, taču, cik var noprast, ne politisku, bet medicīnisku iemeslu dēļ – viņš esot nelaimīgi traumējis galvu. Skaidrs, ka šis notikums ir īsta medusmaize Rietumu sankcijām pakļautajam, starptautiskos noziegumos apsūdzētajam Krievijas vadonim Vladimiram Putinam. Pretstāve ar reitumvalstīm kopš plaša mēroga iebrukuma Ukrainā ir viņa politikas vadmotīvs, savukārt BRICS jau savas dibināšanas brīdī bija organizācija, kas pretendēja veidot Rietumiem, īpaši G7 grupas valstīm, alternatīvu ekonomiskās aprites un sadarbības struktūru. Līdz ar jaunajām dalībvalstīm tagad organizācija pārstāv apmēram 45% pasaules iedzīvotāju un apmēram trešdaļu ekonomikas apjoma, un Kremļa saimnieks var demonstrēt savu „iztiksim bez Rietumiem” stāju. Tiesa, kā ar smīnu norāda Rietumu mediji, var jau deklarēt, piemēram, mērķi atkratīties no ASV dolāra un eiro savstarpējos norēķinos, taču norādījumos samita apmeklētājiem minēts, ka līdzi ieteicams ņemt skaidru naudu, un to pašu, ļoti vēlams, dolāros un eiro, jo globāli izmantotās maksājumu kartes lepnajā Krievzemē nedarbojas, savukārt ne visas turienes bankas varētu labprāt pieņemt Indijas rūpijas vai Etiopijas birus. Kas attiecas uz Putina politiskajiem ieguvumiem, tad tādi, protams, būs – sevišķi jau Krievijas iekšējam patēriņam. Daudz pieticīgāk vērtējama samita ietekme uz Kremļa starptautiskajām pozīcijām. Korejiešu kājas krievu zābakos 21. oktobrī Krievijas vēstnieks Dienvidkorejā tika izsaukts uz ārlietu ministriju Seulā, kur ministra pirmais vietnieks viņam izteica savas valsts visstingrāko protestu par Ziemeļkorejas karavīru ierašanos Krievijā, acīmredzot, lai balstītu agresorvalsti tās kara pret Ukrainu. Saskaņā ar Dienvidkorejas izlūkdienesta pausto, pagaidām ieradusies pirmā grupa – apmēram 1500 īpašo uzdevumu vienības kareivju, taču, pēc tās pašas aģentūras ziņām, kopējais nosūtāmo skaits varētu sasniegt 12 000. Tāpat pirmdien Ukrainas Stratēģiskās komunikācijas un informācijas drošības centrs publiskoja video, kurā redzami it kā korejieši, kuri saņem Krievijas armijas aprīkojumu un formastērpus. Ukrainas prezidents Volodimirs Zelenskis, uzstājoties ar videouzrunu svētdienas vakarā, pauda atzinību tiem Ukrainas partneriem, kuri „nepiever acis un runā atklāti par šo sadarbību, kas vērš plašumā karu”. Tas ir zināms mājiens Savienotajām Valstīm, kuras pagaidām izvairīgi komentējušas publiskoto informāciju par ziemeļkorejiešu specvienību potenciālo izmantošanu karā pret Ukrainu. Jāpiebilst, ka vismaz formāli Ziemeļkorejas īpašo uzdevumu spēku apjoms ir milzīgs – tuvu pie 200 tūkstošiem, taču šis lielais skaitlis liek nedaudz šaubīties par šo karavīru sagatavotības līmeni. Tiek lēsts, ka pat šo it kā elitāro vienību kareivji ir vāji apgādāti, sagatavoti un motivēti, salīdzinot ar rietumvalstu armiju profesionāļiem. Apšaubāma ir viņu motivācija karot par savu totalitāro tēvzemi un tās vadoni, sevišķi tad, ja padošanās gadījumā viņiem tiks piesolīta iespēja pārceļot uz Dienvidkoreju. Ja ir runa par notiekošā politisko efektu, tad tas ir visai demonstratīvs žests, kam jāapliecina Putina iespējas būvēt globālu „totalitāro varmāku aliansi” savas agresijas atbalstam. Sagatavoja Eduards Liniņš.

ASV prezidents Džo Baidens un Ķīnas līderis Sji Dzjiņpins tiksies Sanfrancisko. Rokādes Lielbritānijas valdībā. Aktualitātes analizē Rīgas Stradiņa universitātes Politikas zinātnes doktorantūras vadītāja, Ķīnas Studiju centra direktore, Latvijas Ārpolitikas institūta Āzijas programmas direktore Una Aleksandra Bērziņa Čerenkova un TV24 žurnālists Ansis Bogustovs. Ko var sarunāt ar Sji? Šodien, 15. novembrī, Sanfrancisko tiek atklāts kārtējais Āzijas un Klusā okeāna ekonomiskās sadarbības jeb APEC forums. Kā jau liecina nosaukums, šī Klusā okeāna akvatorijas sadarbības formāta mērķis ir ekonomiskās izaugsmes, investīviju un tirdzniecisko sakaru veicināšana. Forums tika iedibināts 1989. gadā, un sākotnēji tajā iesaistījās 11 dalībnieki: ASV, Austrālija, Bruneja, Filipīnas, Indonēzija, Japāna, Jaunzēlande, Kanāda, Dienvidkoreja, Malaizija, Singapūra un Taizeme. Nākamās desmitgades laikā pievienojās vēl desmit – Ķīna, Honkonga (tobrīd vēl britu koloniālais valdījums), Taivāna, Meksika, Papua-Jaungvineja, Čīle, Krievija, Peru un Vjetnama. Oficiālajā foruma protokolā tiek lietots apzīmējums „ekonomika”, nevis „dalībvalsts”, kas ļauj tajā piedalīties arī Honkongai un Taivānai, pēdējai gan ar nosaukumu „Ķīnas Taipeja” un ne kādas valsts amatpersonas pārstāvētai, ko nosaka kontinentālās Ķīnas nostāja Taivānas suverenitātes jautājumā. Šogad arī Krieviju pārstāv otrā ranga amatpersona – viens no premjerministra vietniekiem Aleksejs Overčuks. Gaidītākais notikums Sanfrancisko ir ārpus foruma pamatprogrammas – tā ir Savienoto Valstu un Ķīnas prezidentu Džo Baidena un Sji Dzjiņpina tikšanās. Iepriekšējo reizi abi aci pret aci runāja tieši pirms gada citā forumā – G20 valstu samitā. Starplaikā abu superlielvalstu attiecības spilgtinājuši tādi notikumi, kā ķīniešu spiegošanas zondes pārlidojums Savienoto Valstu teritorijai un tās notriekšana, ķīniešu hakeru veiktā Savienoto Valstu tirdzniecības ministres Džīnas Reimondo e-pasta sarakstes uzlaušana un Vašingtonas aizliegums eksportēt uz Ķīnu modernākās mikroshēmas. Siltumu šais attiecībās nevieš arī Pekinas nostāja Krievijas agresijas sakarā un militāro muskuļu demonstrēšana Taivānas virzienā. Kā norāda analītiķi, nekāds pēkšņs attiecību atkusnis Sanfrancisko neesot sagaidāms. Taču viņi arī izsakās, ka, ja tikšanās ļaus izvairīties no turpmākas attiecību pasliktināšanās abu lielvaru starpā, tas jau būs panākums. Visreālākā konkrētā vienošanās varētu būt abu valstu militāro resoru tiešas saziņas atjaunošana; Ķīna šo saziņu pārtrauca pērnvasar pēc Pārstāvju palātas spīkeres Nensijas Pelosi vizītes Taivānā. Kā norāda Vašingtonas administrācijas pārstāvji, prezidents Baidens sarunās pievērsīsies jautājumiem par Ķīnā ražoto bruņojuma detaļu piegādi Krievijai, par sankcionētās Krievijas un Irānas naftas iepirkšanu un iespējamu Ķīnas spiedienu uz Irānu, lai atturētu to no tālākas situācijas eskalācijas Tuvējos Austrumos. Tomēr Ķīnas autoritārā līdera gatavību nākt pretim šīm Vašingtonas gaidām, visdrīzāk, jāuzlūko ar skepsi. Kamerons atgriežas Pārmaiņas britu valdībā tika sagaidītas jau labu laiku. Pārāk daudzi no kabineta locekļiem premjerministram Riši Sunakam tika mantojumā no viņa priekšgājējas Lizas Trasas, un bija paredzams, ka agri vai vēlu toriju līderis pārdiegs valdību vairāk pa savam mēram. Tomēr pārmaiņas, kuras tika publiskotas pirmdien, dažā ziņā ir ekstravagantas. Tas noteikti sakāms par jauno ārlietu ministru Deividu Kameronu – Lielbritānijas valdības vadītāju no 2010. līdz 2016. gadam. Tieši viņš bija tas, kurš, breksitistu ietekmes spiests, piekrita liktenīgajam referendumam un demisionēja pēc tam, kad tas beidzās ar britu elektorāta lēmumu pamest Eiropas Savienību. Nav šaubu, ka viņa pieredze un sakari patiešām var lieti noderēt Sunaka valdībai, taču ekspremjera darbošanās viņam nesusi arī pāris reputācijas problēmas, t.sk. pārmetumus, ka Šrilankas galvaspilsētas Kolombo ostas attīstības projekts, kuru Kamerons aktīvi virzījis starptautiski, varētu radīt nozīmīgu Ķīnas ietekmes bāzi. Vēl viens problēmjautājums ir jaunā ārlietu resora vadītāja atskaitīšanās parlamentam. Kamerons ir Lordu palātas loceklis, un Parlamenta procedūra neparedz lordu iztaujāšanu apakšnamā. Jādomā, konkrētais katalizators valdības pārvedei bija vajadzība nomainīt līdzšinējo iekšlietu ministri Suellu Brāvermenu. Pagājušajā nedēļā viņa publicēja rakstu, kurā pārmeta Londonas policijai, ka tā adekvāti strikti kontrolējot labējo radikāļi publiskās akcijas, bet tikām caur pirkstiem skatoties uz līdzīgām izrīcībām no Gazas palestīniešu atbalstītāju puses. Tā kā publikācijas teksts, pretēji pieņemtajai kārtībai, nebija saskaņots ar valdības preses dienestu, ministrei tas maksāja portfeli. Viņas vietu jaunajā kabineta struktūrā ieņems līdzšinējais ārlietu ministrs Džeimss Kleverlijs. Līdzšinējais veselības ministrs Stīvens Bārklejs turpmāk vadīs vides resoru, savukārt finansiāli ietilpīgo veselības nozari pārraudzīs Viktorija Etkinsa, savulaik ministre Borisa Džonsona valdībā, bet Sunaka kabinetā ieņēma vienu no augstākajiem amatiem Finanšu ministrijā. Pārmaiņas skārušas vēl vairākus toriju valdības posteņus, un var secināt, ka tām ir kā gluži subjektīvi, tā plašāki politiski motīvi. Kā izsakās raidsabiedrības BBC politiskais redaktors Kriss Meisons: „Ja jūs esat Riši Sunaks un raugāties uz to, kas nupat izskatās pēc iespējamas sakāves vispārējās vēlēšanās, tad ir vērts mēģināt.” Var atgādināt, ka nākamajām vēlēšanām Apvienotajā Karalistē jānotiek ne vēlāk kā 2025. gada 25. janvārī. Sagatavoja Eduards Liniņš.  Eiropas Parlamenta granta projekta „Jaunā Eiropas nākotne” programma.* * Šī publikācija atspoguļo tikai materiāla veidošanā iesaistīto pušu viedokli. Eiropas Parlaments nav atbildīgs par tajā ietvertās informācijas jebkādu izmantošanu.

In an age pressing for cleaner energy, the pivotal role of gas utilities and the innovative strategies being adopted to adapt and thrive remain a central area of focus. While the gas sector can be a lightning rod for its use of fossil fuels, leaders recognize the role gas can play in stabilizing the energy future amid decarbonization of power and also unlocking unique decarbonization opportunities. To highlight this evolving role of gas, this episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives welcomes to the conversation Michael Renna, the President and CEO of South Jersey Industries (SJI). In this conversation, Michael helps to uncover the importance of public-private partnerships, the promise of Renewable Natural Gas (RNG), and SJI's bold and ambitious goals. As advocates urge for the phasing out of the gas sector, Michael presents a compelling case for the continued and transformative role of gas in the energy transition. From investments in the gas infrastructure of today to preparing for the demands of tomorrow, listen in as Michael shares with podcast host Jason Price and producer Matt Chester an exclusive insight into the roadmap charted by South Jersey Industries. Dive into a captivating conversation that spans the challenges, solutions, and future aspirations of the gas industry in the Garden State. Key Links: Energy Central Post with Full Episode Transcript: https://energycentral.com/o/energy-central/episode-146-pioneering-rational-decarbonization-gas-sector%E2%80%99s-role-new-jersey Did you know? The Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast has been identified as one of the industry's 'Top 25 Energy Podcasts': blog.feedspot.com/energy_podcasts/

Na de aanval van Hamas op Israël zijn de emoties wereldwijd zeer hoog opgelopen. Ook in Nederland zijn er pro-Israël en pro-Palestina protesten geweest, waarin er zelfs antisemitische leuzen gescandeerd zijn. Veel mensen zien dit als een conflict tussen het Jodendom en de Islam, de joden en moslims, en soms zelfs tussen het Westen en de Arabische wereld. Kortom, als een echte beschavingsoorlog.Toch ga je dit conflict anders zien, als je goed kijkt – vooral als het gaat om de geopolitiek van het Palestina-Israël conflict. Beide volkeren kennen verschillende interne onder- en bovenstromen, die tegen elkaar vechten en permanent op elkaar inspelen. Hoe ziet de interne verdeeldheid er bij de Palestijnen uit? Hoe spelen de Israëliërs hier op in? Wat is de rol van Fatah en Hamas?Natuurlijk maken andere landen gebruik van deze interne verdeeldheid om de eigen regimebelangen te dienen. Welke regimebelangen van Hamas, Iran, Qatar, Turkije, de Arabische landen en Israël zijn dan vaak bepalender in dit conflict dan identiteit? Hoe wordt met deze regimebelangen omgegaan? Hoe zetten regimes identiteiten in als 'assets'?Het dienen van deze regimebelangen wordt vaak overgoten met een ideologisch sausje. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan de steun, die Hamas en de Moslimbroederschap in het verleden ontvingen van onder andere Saudi-Arabië. De laatste jaren hebben zij vooral steun gekregen van Turkije, Qatar en Iran, terwijl Saudi-Arabië zich juist afkeerde van deze ‘aartsvijanden' en de samenwerking opzocht met Israël, Griekenland en Cyprus. Deze joods-islamitisch-christelijke as sneed dwars door religieuze identiteiten heen, zoals ook het geval bij de alliantie tussen het Alevitische Syrië, Sjiïtische Iran en Soennitische Hamas.Verkrijg dieper inzicht in de geopolitiek van dit heetste conflict ter wereld, beluister de podcast en neem afscheid van je ongeïnformeerde zelf

Today Trevor opens the show with a preview of whats in the works at CSHQ and then Ken and Mario jump on and the trio talk SJI comedy, and what sets it apart from other forms of stand-up and sitcom. Then in part 2 The Sharks dig in to 'Brick-gate' and all the trappings around it. You can read that article here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/brickgate-revives-age-old-argument-black-men-women-rcna104423 This is Part 1 of a two-part episode. Part 2 is free to all paid subscribers over at www.patreon.com/posts/90002175. Become a paid subscriber for $5/month over at patreon.com/champagnesharks and get access to the entire archive of subscriber-only episodes, the Discord voice and chat server for patrons, detailed show notes for certain episodes, and our newsletter. Co-produced & edited by Aaron C. Schroeder / Pierced Ears Recording Co, Seattle WA (www.piercedearsrec.com). Opening theme composed by T. Beaulieu. Closing theme composed by Dustfingaz (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRazhu_)

Sji Dziņpina trešais termiņš prezidenta amatā. Protesti Izraēlā. Klusā okeāna reģiona drošība. Aktualitātes pasaulē vērtē Rīgas Stradiņa universitātes Politikas zinātnes doktorantūras vadītāja, Ķīnas Studiju centra direktore, Latvijas ārpolitikas institūta Āzijas programmas direktore Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, Jakobs Luffts Izraēlā un Latvijas Kara muzeja Ieroču un militārās tehnikas nodaļas vadītājs Dainis Poziņš. Imperators Sji 10. martā ar Visķīnas Tautas pārstāvju kongresa balsojumu Ķīnas kompartijas ģenerālsekretārs Sji Dziņpins tika apstiprināts uz trešo termiņu Ķīnas Tautas republikas Valsts priekšsēdētāja, respektīvi, prezidenta amatā. Šī ievēlēšana gan uzskatāma vairāk par formālu soli, jo Ķīnā, kas faktiski ir vienpartijas valsts, būtiskā varas pozīcija ir kompartijas ģenerālsekretāra amats. Tajā Sji trešoreiz tika apstiprināts partijas kongresā pagājušā gada novembrī. Tādējādi viņš kļuva par pirmo komunistiskās Ķīnas līderi pēc valsts dibinātāja Mao Dzeduna, kurš ieņem partijas vadītāja amatu ilgāk nekā divus termiņus. Tagad, stājoties arī prezidenta amatā, viņš Mao ir savā ziņā pārspējis, jo pēdējais, kaut būdams faktiskais valsts vadītājs no 1949. līdz savai nāvei 1976. gadā, tomēr visu laiku neieņēma formālo valsts galvas posteni. Pašreizējais līderis arvien biežāk tiek salīdzināts ar pagājušā gadsimta diktatoru, kura laikā Ķīnas sabiedrība piedzīvoja graujošus sociālos un politiskos eksperimentus, kas prasīja miljonu dzīvības. Pēc Mao nāves viņa sekotājs Dens Sjaopins centās mazināt diktatoriskas varas potenciālu, ieviešot divu termiņu limitu valsts un partijas vadītājiem, kā arī striktāk nošķirot valsts un partijas varas funkcijas. Nācis pie varas 2012. gadā, Sji Dziņpins ķērās pie Dena politiskā mantojuma noārdīšanas, restaurējot sistēmu, kurā partija stingrāk kontrolē valsti, savukārt ģenerālsekretārs – partiju. 10. marts uzskatāms par zināmu šī procesa vaiņagojumu. 11. martā kongress apstiprināja arī jaunu premjerministru – agrāko Šanhajas partijas komitejas vadītāju Li Cjanu, kurš jau šī gadsimta sākumā kā partijas funkcionārs strādājis toreizējā Džedzjanas provinces partijas organizācijas vadītāja Sji Dziņpina pakļautībā. Viņš nomainījis šai postenī līdzšinējo valsts vadītāju Li Kecjanu, kurš savulaik tika uzlūkots kā viens no Sji iespējamajiem konkurentiem cīņā par valsts līdera vietu. Jaunajam premjerministram jāīsteno valsts aparāta reformas, kas, cita starpā, paredz personāla kvantitatīvu samazināšanu par 5% nākamo piecu gadu laikā. Paredzēts veidot jaunu finanšu sfēru kontrolējošu institūciju – Nacionālo finanšu regulācijas administrāciju, kura koncentrēs savās rokās funkcijas, kas agrāk bija sadalītas starp vairākām citām institūcijām. Kā norāda analītiķi, Pekina veido nozares superkontolieri, baidoties no finanšu sfēras destabilizācijas. Tā ir ne tikai reakcija uz pašreizējām ekonomikas problēmām, bet iekļaujas plašākā politiskā tendencē – panākt privātās sfēras, sevišķi informācijas un sakaru tehnoloģiju uzņēmumu darbošanos kompartijas noteikto stratēģisko mērķu labā. Tomēr jo vairāk koncentrēta vara, jo smagāka atbildība gulstas uz tās līdera pleciem. Un problēmas, ar kurām šobrīd sastopas Ķīna, nav viegli ceļamas – ekonomikas bremzēšanās, demogrāfijas situācijas pasliktināšanās, spriedzes pieaugums attiecībās ar Rietumiem. Atomzemūdenes, kam jāiegrožo Pekina Drošības pakts, kuru 2021. gada septembrī noslēdza Savienotās Valstis, Lielbritānija un Austrālija, šonedēļ ieguva konkrētākas aprises, triju valstu līderiem tiekoties samitā Sandjego, Kalifornijā. Tika oficiāli paziņots par kopīgu ar atomdzinējiem darbināmu zemūdeņu būvniecības programmu, kuras ietvaros šīs desmitgades otrajā pusē sāksies britu zemūdeņu flotes atjaunošana un papildināšana, bet nākamās desmitgades sākumā savas pirmās atomzemūdenes iegūs Austrālija. Jaunbūvējamo zemūdeņu pamatā ir Lielbritānijā izstrādāts dizains, t.sk. kompānijas „Rolls-Royce” konstruētie reaktori, taču tajās tiek izmantotas visās trīs valstīs radītas tehnoloģijas. Tāpat Austrālija plāno iegādāties vairākas visjaunākā dizaina amerikāņu t.s. „Virdžīnijas” klases atomzemūdenes. Uzstājoties samita laikā ASV prezidents Džo Baidens, Austrālijas premjerministrs Entonijs Albanīzs un Lielbritānijas premjerministrs Riši Sunaks pauda, ka šī sadarbība nākšot par labu globālajai drošībai un stabilitātei. Gluži citās domās ir Pekinā, ciktāl netiek slēpts, ka alianses mērķis ir līdzsvarot Ķīnas militāri politiskās ambīcijas Klusā okeāna reģionā. Vakar izplatītajā Ķīnas ārlietu ministrijas paziņojumā teikts, ka trīs pakta partnervalstis „iet arvien tālāk pa kļūdu un briesmu ceļu”. Tiek prognozēts, ka Austrālijas iesaistīšanās Pekinas militārā atturēšanā var ietekmēt ekonomiskos sakarus ar Ķīnu, kas ir Austrālijas lielākais tirdzniecības partneris. Izraēla iziet ielās Jau drīz pēc pašreizējā Izraēlas ministru kabineta apstiprināšanas pagājušā gada nogalē valstī sākās protesti pret valdošās koalīcijas rosinātajām likumdošanas izmaiņām. Tās paredz, pirmkārt, nozīmīgu Izraēlas Augstākās, respektīvi, konstitucionālās tiesas vājināšanu. Līdz šim tiesnešus, t.sk. Augstākajā tiesā, amatā iecēla komiteja, kuru veidoja amatā esoši tiesneši, Izraēlas Advokātu asociācijas, parlamenta un valdības pārstāvji, pie kam visu pušu ietekme komitejā bija līdzsvarota. Jaunā likumdošana paredz padarīt valdību par dominējošo procesā, attiecīgi tiesu vara kļūtu daļēji atkarīgu no izpildvaras. Tāpat tiek būtiski paaugstinātas prasības likuma noraidīšanai Augstākajā tiesā, proti, kvorumam nepieciešama pilnīgi visu locekļu piedalīšanās un četrām piektdaļām jānobalso pret attiecīgo likumu. Pie tam paredzēts, ka parlaments – Knesets – tomēr var no jauna virzīt un pieņemt likumus, kurus Augstākā tiesa atzinusi par nekonstitucionāliem. Ministru juridiskos padomniekus, kuri līdz šim bija neatkarīgi eksperti, paredzēts nomainīt ar ministru pakļautībā esošiem ierēdņiem, kuru ieteikumi valdības locekļiem būs daudz mazākā mērā saistoši. Augstākās tiesas priekšsēdētāja Estere Hajuta un valdības juridiskā padomniece Gali Baharava-Miara jau nodēvējušas valdības iniciatīvas par prettiesiskām. Februāra vidū, kad izmaiņas tika pieņemtas pirmajā lasījumā, Izraēlas prezidents Ichaks Hercogs aicināja valdību apturēt procesu un rūpīgāk diskutēt jautājumu. Tomēr kabinets, kura priekšgalā ir Izraēlas labējās politikas patriarhs Benjamins Netanjahu, spītīgi turpina izmaiņu virzīšanu Knesetā. Tāpat tiek virzītas izmaiņas, kas padarīs sarežģītāku premjerministra atcelšanu, balstoties korupcijas apsūdzībās, kādas, kā zināms, joprojām ir izvirzītas Netanjahu. Kā apgalvo valdošā koalīcija, izmaiņas uzlabošot Izraēlas demokrātiju. Tikām masu protesti pagājušajos mēnešos kļuvuši arvien daudzskaitlīgāki, pēdējās dienās sniedzoties simtos tūkstošu. Protestētāji bloķējuši vairākas automaģistrāles, notikušas sadursmes ar policiju. Tiek ziņots, ka 11. martā ielās izgājis pusmiljons cilvēku, kas, kā lēš, ir plašākie protesti Izraēlas valsts vēsturē. Sagatavoja Eduards Liniņš.   Eiropas Parlamenta granta projekta „Jaunā Eiropas nākotne” programma.* * Šī publikācija atspoguļo tikai materiāla veidošanā iesaistīto pušu viedokli. Eiropas Parlaments nav atbildīgs par tajā ietvertās informācijas jebkādu izmantošanu.

Krievija atstājusi Hersonu, triecieni pret Ukrainu turpinās. G20 vai G19 samits. Aktualitātes analizē Nacionālo bruņoto spēku pārstāvis majors Jānis Slaidiņš un Ģeopolitikas pētījumu centra direktors un Rīgas Stradiņa universitātes asociētais profesors Māris Andžāns. Ierakstā uzklausām Krievijas žurnālisti Irinu Tumakovu. Kara novitātes Hersona bija vienīgais Ukrainas apgabala centrs, kuru Krievijai bija izdevies sagrābt pēc iebrukuma Ukrainā februārī, un Hersonas apgabals ir starp tām teritorijām, par kuru aneksiju Krievija paziņoja septembra beigās. Tāpēc diezgan negaidīta bija pēdējās nedēļas notikumu attīstība, kad vispirms 9. novembrī Krievijas armijas vadība paziņoja, ka nolemts Hersonu atstāt, un pēc tam nākamo pāris dienu laikā Krievijas spēku grupējums patiešām strauji pameta ieņemto teritoriju Dņepras rietumu krastā. 11. novembrī Ukrainas spēki iegāja Hersonā, kur viņus ar sajūsmu sveica iedzīvotāji. Trīs dienas vēlāk atbrīvoto pilsētu apmeklēja prezidents Volodimirs Zelenskis, piedaloties svinīgā Ukrainas karoga pacelšanas ceremonijā. Tādējādi nav piepildījušies pieņēmumi, ka Krievijas puse centīsies noturēt Hersonu par katru cenu vai vismaz radīt maksimālus zaudējumus pilsētas atbrīvotājiem. Vēl viens pēdējo dienu spilgts notikums ir privātās militārās kompānijas „Vāgners” kaujinieka, kriminālnoziedznieka Jevgeņija Nužina liktenis. 1999. gadā Nužinam tika piespriesti 28 gadi cietumā par slepkavību un citiem noziegumiem, bet šogad jūlijā viņš tika savervēts „Vāgnera” sastāvā un nosūtīts uz Ukrainu, kur krita gūstā. Pēc tam Nužins sniedza intervijas, kurās apgalvoja, ka jau sākotnēji simpatizējis Ukrainai un vēloties cīnīties tās pusē. 12. novembrī sociālā tīkla „Telegram” kanāls „Pelēkā zona”, kas saistīts ar kompāniju „Vāgners", publiskoja video, kurā redzama iespējama Nužina noslepkavošana, atriebjot dzimtenes un organizācijas nodošanu. Minēto video ironiski komentējis „Vāgnera” īpašnieks Jevgeņijs Prigožins, bilstot, ka „sunim suņa nāve”, respektīvi – Nužins šādi sodīts par nodevību. Par notikušo izskanējušas dažādas versijas, t.sk. pieņēmumi, ka video ir iestudējums un slepkavība patiesībā nav notikusi. Tikām vakar Krievija vērsa pret Ukrainu raķešu un bezpilota lidaparātu triecienu, kas tiek raksturots kā plašākais kopš kara sākuma. Uzbrukuma laikā divas raķetes nokritušas Polijas teritorijā, un Pševodovas ciemā Polijas dienvidaustrumos, dažus kilometrus no robežas ar Ukrainu, gājuši bojā divi cilvēki. Visdrīzāk, tas nav mērķtiecīgs uzbrukums, tomēr Polija paaugstinājusi gatavības līmeni daļā bruņoto spēku un, ļoti iespējams, iedarbinās NATO nolīguma 4. pantu, kas paredz dalībvalstu konsultācijas gadījumā, ja kāda no tām saskata draudus savai teritoriālajai vienotībai, politiskajai neatkarībai vai drošībai. Rietumu lielvalstu līderi, kuri šobrīd pulcējušies G20 formāta samitā Bali salā Indonēzijā, mainījuši dienaskārtību, pulcējoties ārkārtas apspriedei. Krievijas Aizsardzības ministrija jau paziņojusi, ka tās bruņotajiem spēkiem ar notikušo neesot nekāda sakara, un ka uzbrukumu provokatīvos nolūkos veikusi Ukraina. Bali: G20 vai G19? Starptautiskās sadarbības formāts G20 tika iedibināts 1999. Gadā, sākotnēji kā 20 ekonomiski ietekmīgu valstu finanšu ministru neregulāras tikšanās. Tas nozīmīgi aktivizējās 2007. un 2008. gada globālās ekonomiskās krīzes rezultātā, kad, pēc dažu domām, tam bija izšķiroša loma krīzes trieciena mīkstināšanā. Kopš tā laika tas ir ikgadējs valstu galvu forums, kurā pamatā tiek spriests par pasaules ekonomiskās stabilitātes, klimata pārmaiņu un ilgtspējīgas attīstības jautājumiem. No Eiropas formātā piedalās Vācija, Francija, Lielbritānija un Itālija, tāpat Eiropas Savienība kā kolektīvais loceklis un Spānija pastāvīgi uzaicinātā viesa statusā. Pārējo Eirāzijas daļu pārstāv Ķīna, Indija, Japāna, Dienvidkoreja, Indonēzija, Krievija, Turcija un Saūda Arābija; Ziemeļameriku – ASV, Kanāda un Meksika; Dienvidameriku – Brazīlija un Argentīna, pārējās pasaules daļas – Dienvidāfrikas Republika un Austrālija. Šī gada samitu, kas oficiāli sākās 15. novembrī, prezidējošā valsts Indonēzija sarīkojusi tropu kūrortā Bali salā, un, par spīti relaksējošam fonam, tas norit spriedzes pilnā atmosfērā. Drūmu ēnu pār Bali met Krievijas agresija pret Ukrainu un Krievija kā šībrīža pasaules problēma vispār. Neilgi pirms samita sākuma kļuva skaidrs, ka to neapmeklēs Krievijas līderis Vladimirs Putins, kuram tur neizbēgami nāktos piedzīvot negatīvas attieksmes apliecinājumus no vairuma pārējo dalībnieku. Kremļa delegāciju vadīja ārlietu ministrs Sergejs Lavrovs, un tā pameta Indonēziju jau vakar, samitam vēl ritot pilnā sparā. Savukārt Ukrainas prezidents Volodimirs Zelenskis, uzrunājot samita dalībniekus klātienē, uzsvērti lietojis apzīmējumu G19, akcentējot nepieciešamību izraidīt agresorvalsti Krieviju no starptautiskās sabiedrības. Liela vērība Bali tika pievērsta Ķīnas līderim Sji Dziņpinam, kurš klātienē tiekas ar citiem pasaules ietekmīgāko valstu līderiem pēc pandēmijas izraisītās trīs gadu pauzes. Sji tikšanās ar Savienoto Valstu prezidentu Džo Baidenu, kas notika jau samita priekšvakarā pirmdien, ilga trīs stundas, un lai arī neviena no pusēm neslēpa savas pretenzijas, kopumā tā tiek vērtēta kā solis prom no spriedzes abu lielvaru attiecībās. Pēkšņas izmaiņas samita dienaskārtībā ienesa ziņas par Krievijas raķešu trāpījumu Polijas teritorijā. Mainot savu šodienas dienaskārtību uz ārkārtas pārrunām pulcējušies Savienoto Valstu, Kanādas, Francijas, Vācijas, Itālijas, Lielbritānijas, Spānijas, Nīderlandes, Japānas un Eiropas Savienības vadītāji. Sagatavoja Eduards Liniņš.    Eiropas Parlamenta granta projekta „Jaunā Eiropas nākotne” programma.* * Šī publikācija atspoguļo tikai materiāla veidošanā iesaistīto pušu viedokli. Eiropas Parlaments nav atbildīgs par tajā ietvertās informācijas jebkādu izmantošanu.

Lizas Trasas valdības manevri uz avārijas robežas. Vai Sji būs Mao Nr.2? Aktualitātes pasaulē analizē Latvijas Universitātes lektors un Latvijas ārpolitikas institūta asociētais pētnieks Aldis Austers un Latvijas Transatlantiskās organizācijas ģenerālsekretāre Sigita Struberga. Lizas Trasas valdības manevri uz avārijas robežas Vien pusotru mēnesi pēc jaunās Lielbritānijas premjerministres Lizas Trasas stāšanās amatā viņas valdības dienas, daudzuprāt, jau esot skaitītas. Smagi rudens padebeši pār premjeres galvu savilkās septembra nogalē, kad Parlamenta Apakšpalātā tika pieteikts viņas valdības t.s. minibudžets – finanšu risinājumu pakete, kas paredzēja lielākoties nozīmīgus nodokļu samazinājumus un atbalstu iedzīvotājiem strauji pieaugušās dzīves dārdzības situācijā. Bija iecerēts samazināt ienākumu nodokļa likmi no 20% uz 19%, atteikties no paaugstinātās 45% nodokļa likmes lielāko ienākumu saņēmējiem, atteikties no agrāk plānotā uzņēmumu ienākumu nodokļa palielināšanas no 19% līdz 25%, sociālās apdrošināšanas likmju palielināšanas, samazināt vēl vairākus nodokļus. Pakete ietvēra arī atbalsta mehānismu iedzīvotājiem energoresursu cenu kāpuma kompensēšanai. Attiecīgo budžeta ieņēmumu samazinājumu valdība pamatā plānoja segt ar aizņēmumiem. Jau drīz pēc tā brīža finanšu ministra Kvazi Kvartenga uzstāšanās Parlamentā uz proponētajiem pasākumiem negatīvi reaģēja finanšu tirgi, strauji krītoties britu mārciņas kursam un Lielbritānijas valdības parādzīmju vērtībai. Asu kritiku valdības plānam izteica ne vien opozīcijā esošā Leiboristu partija un britu arodbiedrības, bet arī Starptautiskais Valūtas fonds. Tika norādīts, ka valdības plāns sola ieguvumus turīgākajiem, kamēr sabiedrības trūcīgākā daļa var izrādīties pat zaudētājos inflācijas dēļ. Saskārusies ar šādu reakciju, premjerministre strauji pavērsa finanšu politiku pretējā virzienā, un šī manevra gaitā pār valdības bortu aizlidoja ne vien minibudžets, bet arī tā autors Kvazi Kvartengs. 14. oktobrī viņš tika atstādināts, viņa vietā stājoties kādreizējam Terēzas Mejas valdības ārlietu ministram Džeremijam Hantam. Jau nākamajā dienā viņš sniedza vairākas intervijas, paziņojot par atteikšanos no lielākās daļas minibudžeta plāniem. Tas ir glābis britu mārciņas un valdības vērtspapīru kursu, taču ne premjerministres Trasas un arī Toriju partijas reitingus. Pēc pēdējām aptaujām konservatīvo reitingi nokritušies līdz rekordzemam līmenim, un galvenais konkurents – leiboristi – viņus apsteidz vairāk nekā divkārt. Savukārt Lizas Trasas darbību premjerministres amatā šobrīd atbalsta vien katrs desmitais brits. Pašu toriju vidū arvien skaļāk izskan balsis, ka valdības vadītājai ar steigu meklējams aizstājējs. Pret neuzticības balsojumu no pašas partijas puses premjerministri gan sargā noteikums, ka šāds balsojums nav rīkojams ātrāk kā gadu pēc apstiprināšanas amatā, un arī nevēlēšanās tik drīz atkārtot laikietilpīgo partijas biedru balsojuma procedūru. Tomēr acīmredzams atbalsta trūkums partijā var likt Lizai Trasai pašai atkāpties no amata. Vai Sji būs Mao Nr.2? Ķīnas Komunistiskās partijas 20. kongress savu darbu Pekinā uzsāka 16. oktobrī un turpinās līdz 22. oktobrim. Nepilni 2300 delegāti pārstāv nepilnus 97 miljonus Ķīnas komunistu, tomēr viņu gribas paudums, kā jau totalitārā varas sistēmā, ir visai nosacīts. Viņiem piekritīs funkcija formālā ceremonijā apstiprināt amatos partijas vadību, kuras sastāvu noteiks aizkulišu cīņas starp vairākām ietekmīgām grupām. Šīs cīņas rezultāti noteiks, kas ieņems amatus varas virsotnē – starp 25 partijas centrālkomitejas politbiroja locekļiem un, kas sevišķi nozīmīgi, septiņiem politbiroja pastāvīgās komitejas locekļiem. Šie septiņi arī ir galvenie lēmēji par milzu valsts likteņiem, un tas, cik starp viņiem būs pašreizējam partijas un valsts vadītājam Sji Dziņpinam lojālu cilvēku, lielā mērā noteiks viņa varas robežas. Šim kongresam paredzēts apstiprināt Sji uz trešo termiņu ģenerālsekretāra tronī, lai gan visi Ķīnas kompartijas un valsts līderi pēc pagājušā gadsimta totalitārā diktatora Mao Dzeduna ievērojuši principu nepalikt amatos ilgāk par diviem termiņiem. Vispār Sji arvien biežāk salīdzina ar Mao, jo viņa varas koncentrācija un vadoņa stāja sāk atgādināt kādreizēja vadoņa personības kultu. Pagaidām gan Ķīnas līdera vara vēl nav tik konsolidēta, un pašreizējais kongress tiek uzlūkots šai ziņā kā izšķirošs. Tiek minēts, ka Sji piekritēju aprindām alternatīvi varas centri esot t.s. „Šanhajas banda”, kas grupējas ap kādreizējo Ķīnas līderi Dzjanu Dzemiņu, un otra, kas saistīta ar Sji priekšgājēju valsts un partijas vadībā Hu Dzjiņtao un pašreizējo ministru kabineta un arī komjaunatnes organizācijas vadītāju Li Kecjanu. Tiek lēsts, ka Li Kecjana palikšana amatā nozīmēs daļēju Sji Dziņpina plānu izgāšanos, tiek arī minēti vairāki scenāriji, kuri varētu īstenoties tā vai cita spēku samēra un iespējama kompromisa gadījumā. Sava ietekme uz norisēm partijā, protams, ir arī vispārējai situācijai valstī. Pandēmijas periods un valdības metodes slimības izplatības ierobežošanai ir pamatīgi iedragājušas pēdējo gadu ekonomikas attīstību, un daudziem zīmīgs šķiet fakts, ka līdz šim tā arī nav publicēti tautsaimniecības statistiskie rādītāji, kuriem vajadzēja parādīties līdz kongresa sākumam. Tikām pasaules mediji un analītiķi izvērtē divas stundas ilgo priekšsēdētāja Sji pārskata runu kongresa pirmajā dienā. Tiek norādīts, ka uzstāšanās neesot bijusi tik konfrontatīva, kā daži sagaidījuši, skopa detaļās, toties bagāta lozungiem un deklarācijām. Tā, runājot par Taivānu, līderis gan atkārtojis apņemšanos panākt tās apvienošanos ar Ķīnu, t.sk. neizslēdzot spēka lietošanu, taču nav minējis nekādus konkrētus plānus vai termiņus. Sagatavoja Eduards Liniņš.  Eiropas Parlamenta granta projekta „Jaunā Eiropas nākotne” programma.* * Šī publikācija atspoguļo tikai materiāla veidošanā iesaistīto pušu viedokli. Eiropas Parlaments nav atbildīgs par tajā ietvertās informācijas jebkādu izmantošanu.

WHAT WILL THE AUDIENCE LEARN?People will learn how they can help to transform lives, families and communities‍EPISODE SUMMARY:About SJI: We know education is core to rehabilitation and ultimately to individual, family and community restoration. As educators and community leaders we have firsthand seen the transformative power of education. And we are transforming lives and the way things can be done. About Kerry: Dr. Kerry Spooner is a professor, writer, founder and President of Sound Justice Initiative a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit that provides liberal arts courses in county jails and, through SJI's Education Pathway Program, help court-involved people into post-secondary educational programs and high-skills vocational training. Dr. Spooner worked for the Suffolk County Department of Labor helping clients become financially self-sufficient. Before teaching in the jails, Dr. Spooner has years of experience assessing the barriers of those who are in conditions that put them at risk of poverty and incarceration and creating a pathway out. Website: https://sound-justice.org/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sound-justice-initiative/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoundJusticeTune in for this sensible conversation at TalkRadio.nyc or watch the Facebook Livestream by Clicking Here.

On today's episode of IntHERrupt, Linda chats with Sabrena Jay-Songowa. Since founding SJI in 2016, Consultant and Coach Sabrena Jay-Songowa has helped individuals break free from defeated mindsets in order to allow true purpose and fulfillment to shine through.  Why do women in particular struggle with promoting themselves?  Women have many roles such as mother, wife, and employee When it comes to promoting yourself, a lot of women don't know who they are personally.  What advice does Sabrena have for those trying to figure out who they are? We are ever-changing, so reassess who you are and your strengths and weaknesses.  Think about how you can best maximize who you are.  What has Sabrena done in her career to self-promote?  Network. Sabrena holds free marketing and coaching workshops. She hosts events in her community She utilizes social media and provides value to those around her. What does Sabrena suggest to individuals who are looking for that next promotion? Take initiative. Go the extra mile so that you are recognized for what you are good at.  How can you feel confident when you aren't feeling confident?  Sabrena has struggled with confidence a lot throughout her career. Before meetings, she held ‘power poses' and reminded herself that she deserved to be there.  She educates herself on what she is working on.  Tips to build confidence Reading - knowledge is power Remind yourself of your past successes.  Make sure you are passionate about what you are working on.  How should you ask for a raise?  Keep a record of all your successes.  If you know that you are going above and beyond, you deserve to be paid for it. Has Sabrena ever been interrupted?  Sabrena was the only woman in a leadership position in her company.  When she was interrupted during meetings she would acknowledge their input but would always stand her ground.  Sabrena simply suggests “Be bold”.  Three leadership tips from Sabrena Let yourself off the hook. Don't hold yourself to an unrealistic standard.  Be open-minded.  Always be learning.  For more content and information from Sabrena, visit her website. Do you have stories to tell? Connect with Linda to share them. This podcast is produced by TSE Studios. Check out other podcasts by TSE Studios, including this episode's sponsor, The Sales Evangelist, helping new and struggling sellers close more deals and achieve their sales goals. Subscribe to the IntHERrupt Podcast so you won't miss a single show. Find us on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and Stitcher. Audio created by Ryan Rasmussen Productions.

Catholic school attendance numbers are rising for schools using a Classical Education curriculum (sometimes referred to as Liberal Arts Education or Liberal Education). What is it, and why is it taking the world of Catholic education by storm? Dr. Daniel Gibbons, Board President of St. Jerome Institute in Washington D.C. (and an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in English at The Catholic University of America) joins Clark and Laura to talk about Classical Education and its place in Catholic schools. In this episode: • What is Classical Education? • The Great Books movement and its relationship with a Catholic liberal education • How does a Classical Education change its students? • Is a Catholic liberal education for everyone? • What makes a great and effective teacher? --- The Society for the Renewal of the Catholic Mind is a program created by St. Jerome Institute dedicated to fostering intellectual community beyond the classroom, particularly for friends, parents, and supporters of SJI. More information can be found at https://stjeromeinstitute.org/society/ As mentioned in the podcast, the St. Jerome Academy Book Club is a collection of works endorsed by SJI as beneficial reading selections for children. You can find the list at https://sjabookfair.com/sja-book-club/ To learn more about St. Jerome Institute, St. Jerome Academy, and the Catholic Classical Education model, visit https://stjeromeinstitute.org/ --- The Simpleton Podcast is also on Rumble and Odysee! You can watch the latest episodes of The Simpleton Podcast by going to: Rumble: rumble.com/user/asimplehouseU Odysee: odysee.com/@asimplehouseU You can also find the video version of this episode on YouTube. Just search "The Simpleton Podcast", or go to https://youtu.be/OKfOHwLAeGw --- Like, subscribe, share the podcast, and most of all, send us your feedback! We want to hear from you about what you loved, what you didn't, where you want to see the podcast go, and any other thoughts you have. Send us an email at asimplehouse@gmail.com with the subject line "The Simpleton Podcast Feedback". A Simple House is a Catholic ministry that serves project and Section 8 neighborhoods in southeast Washington, DC and Kansas City, MO. Our Catholic missionary work involves meeting people in their neighborhoods and in their homes. Missionaries strive to meet the material and spiritual needs of the poor. While missionaries serve at A Simple House, they live a simple religious life. Each missionary attends daily Mass, says morning and evening prayer from the Catholic Church's Liturgy of the Hours, and makes time for personal prayer and scripture study. To learn more about A Simple House and The Simpleton Podcast, visit asimplehouse.org. You can also follow us on these platforms: YouTube - A Simple House: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6LYNoV7AFGhKP4LR0Qqgnw YouTube - A Simple House U (home of The Simpleton Podcast): https://youtube.com/asimplehouseu_2022 Facebook: @asimplehouse Instagram: @asimplehouse.catholic

This week Liam and Erica talked about the progress in regard to an oil spill as a result of the vessel sinking with 2,600 gallons of off fuel near SJI. They also discussed chapters 17-19 of Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton. Note: We uploaded the wrong episode last week, whoops :)

This week Liam and Erica talked about the progress in regard to an oil spill as a result of the vessel sinking with 2,600 gallons of off fuel near SJI. They also discussed chapters 17-19 of Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton.

Mike Curtis is entering his first season as the beat reporter for the Detroit Pistons for the Detroit News. He joins me to share his journey in sports and Journalism (04:10), how SJI (18:40) and NABJ (28:47) changed his life what he is looking forward to when it comes to covering the Pistons (38:07) and more! Follow Mike on Twitter and Instagram Apple: http://bit.ly/BGBW1AP Spotify http://bit.ly/BGBWSP1 Anchor http://bit.ly/BGBWAnchor iHeart Radio http://bit.ly/BWPIHR Google http://bit.ly/BGBWGP Pandora http://bit.ly/BGBWPandora --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brianhwaters/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brianhwaters/support

  * Ar pedagogu streika draudiem fonā mācību gadu sāk vairāk nekā 219 tūkstoši skolēnu * Cenu kāpuma dēļ ģimenes skolai gatavojas ar pārdomātākiem pirkumiem * Zaporižjas atomelektrostacijā Ukrainā ierodas Starptautiskās Atomenerģijas aģentūras misija, * ANO konstatē vairākus cilvēktiesību pārkāpumus pret uiguriem Ķīnas Sjiņdzjanas reģionā

Hello! We are SJI's first ever radio show. Hosted by DJ Giln, DJazz, Romeo, Rose, PatMatt, and DJ Bust, today's episode will dive into the inequities within discipline in Boston schools. Between satirical ads, open format discussions, two interviews with disciplinarians (a high school Dean, and a high school Assistant Principal), and today's hit music, this isn't something you'll want to miss.

On Monday, 10th January 2022, Social Justice Ireland published our policy briefing 'Housing and Poverty 2022'. This briefing, which can be accessed on our website  HERE analyses the impact of housing costs – mortgage interest and rent – on the poverty rates of various household types.   In this latest episode of our SJI 10 Minute Lessons Series, we take a look at the post-housing costs poverty rate of various household types as well as our proposals for what needs to be done.

On Monday, 10th January 2022, Social Justice Ireland published our policy briefing 'Housing and Poverty 2022'. This briefing, which can be accessed on our website  HERE analyses the impact of housing costs – mortgage interest and rent – on the poverty rates of various household types.   In this latest episode of our SJI 10 Minute Lessons Series, we take a look at poverty,  how it's calculated and what it looks like and the impact of rent payments on the poverty rate of people receiving housing subsidies.  

Jonathan Mattiello, Executive Director of the State Justice Institute, shares changes to SJI's Priority Investment Areas, as well as SJI Grant Opportunities.

Social Justice Ireland published Social Justice Matters Policy Brief - Education and Covid-19.  These Policy Briefs are a series designed to provide independent and in-depth analysis on important social policy issues and to present policy options that should be prioritised in the coming years.  This issue looks at the impact of Covid-19 on education at primary level and second level in Ireland.  In this episode, to coincide with World Youth Skills Day, Michelle Murphy and Susanne Rogers, Research and Policy Analysts with SJI discuss the findings and policy proposals set out within the brief, which can be accessed HERE. In other news, we are delighted that Social Justice Matters has been recognised by FeedSpot as one of the 20 social justice podcasts you should be following in 2021. Check out the list here: https://blog.feedspot.com/social_justice_podcasts/

Social Justice Ireland  submitted our 10 Point Plan to deliver Housing for All, as part of the Government's anticipated new housing strategy. Our proposals move away from housing as a commodity towards housing as a home, addressing deficits in homelessness prevention and supports; necessary increases in social housing provision; affordable housing; strengthening the private rented sector; and ensuring that housing developments are providing for sustainable communities.  In this episode, Colette Bennett, Economic and Social Analyst and Susanne Rogers, Research and Policy Analyst with SJI discuss the plan, exploring the data and reasoning behind the plan.  In other news, we are delighted that Social Justice Matters has been recognised by FeedSpot as one of the 20 social justice podcasts you should be following in 2021. Check out the list here: https://blog.feedspot.com/social_justice_podcasts/

The National Showjumping Grand Prix moves west this weekend and with the good news that Gain Alltech with the support of SJI will sponsor the series. Taking place in Galway Equestrian, it promises to be an exciting weekend of jumping with a full schedule of classes. On Sunday, the Gain Alltech Grand Prix, which is sponsored by Galway EC on the day will take center stage with a prize fund of €4000.00. On Saturday, the ISH Studbook Series qualifiers will prove very competitive as it also enters its second round. The action in this series will continue early on Sunday morning with the finals. Chairman of National competition Tommy Gibbons spoke to John Mulligan...

SJI looks good for today, looks like more than one percent this week. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

This Reboot Republic podcast provides the best and most in-depth economic and social policy analysis of Budget2021 you are going to find. It also talks about the impact of the COVID19 driven recession on those in poverty and provides a social justice analysis of Budget2021 with Tricia Kielty, Head of Social Justice and Policy at the St Vincent De Paul and Eamon Murphy, Social Policy Analyst with Social Justice Ireland. Tricia outlines the rising household debt crisis and the impact of the lifting of the moratorium on disconnections of utilities - as they are receiving calls from people who are experiencing cut-offs of their utilities due to being unable to pay off the arrears build up. Eamon provides the analysis of the Budget from Social Justice Ireland - an in-depth analysis of the macro economic position - which doesn't represent a paradigm shift, the missed opportunity to borrow and invest, and lack of progress on core welfare rates and disability support. Tricia highlights issues around the carbon tax and welfare, and calls for an Oireachtas Committee on Poverty and Inequality to hold the government to account and achieve progress on addressing Poverty and Inequality. Link for the SVP case studies: https://issuu.com/svp15/docs/budget21svpcasestudies/1?e=25010855/81437780 Link for the SJI full analysis: https://www.socialjustice.ie/content/publications/budget-2021-analysis-and-critique Support and help fund this podcast and platform by going to: patreon.com/tortoiseshack

Sji

Sji

Pēteris Pildegovičs grāmatu "Mans Ķīnas stāsts" uzrakstījis dienasgrāmatas formā, viņš dalās ar saviem vērojumiem, kas radušies, gan strādājot par diplomātu Ķīnā, gan "Sjiņhua" aģentūrā, gan daudzajos ceļojumos pa Ķīnu, gan veidojot Lielo ķīniešu-latviešu vārdnīcu kopā ar sievu Gaļinu. Grāmatu "Mans Ķīnas stāsts" izdevis LU Akadēmiskais apgāds. Raidījumu atbalsta:

SJI grantees Danielle Malangone (Center for Court Innovation), Jeff Rinard (Texas Office of Court Administration), and Courtney Porter, PhD (Fairfax County, Virginia Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court) discuss SJI funded projects and share experiences with the SJI grantmaking process.

Michelle White, Senior Program Advisor at the State Justice Institute, discusses SJI's recently released Request for Applications for Court Pandemic Response and Recovery. Access the RFA at https://bit.ly/31YtTsj for additional information.

The inaugural episode of Court ¢ents features a conversation with Jonathan Mattiello, Executive Director of the State Justice Institute, about the SJI grant making process.

Social Justice Ireland is a key partner in a Masters programme that is run in conjunction with Waterford IT, and delivered in Dublin city. This programme is called the MA in Social Justice and Public Policy.This special episode of Social Justice Matters should be of great interest to anyone considering enrolling in this MA. The episode is anchored by MA Programme Leader Paul Clogher of WIT, and includes information on the evolution of the programme and the major ideas and themes behind; the student experience of the programme, where you’ll hear from Susanne Rogers and John McGeady who are currently in year 2 of the MA.More details about this programme are available on our home page, socialjustice.ie, or feel free to ring SJI on 01 290 3597 to speak to one of our staff, all of whom have been involved in delivering parts of the programme at some point

Father Nathan Cromly is a soul on fire to help raise up Christians to lead their families, their Church, and their world and, as he said in this episode, "fight the good fight, to sharpen their swords and swing them because at this moment in time, souls are going to their peril because there is a lack of leaders willing to fight for them." Father Nathan is an informative and engaging speaker, writer, retreat leader, explorer, innovator, educator, and fire-starter for the Lord. He's appeared multiple times on Catholic Radio and EWTN's Life on the Rock, Father Mitch Live, and Women of Grace, and co-produced documentaries.  Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, he has joyfully served as a Catholic priest of the Brothers of Saint John for 12 years, and currently ministers in Denver, Colorado. Father Nathan's spiritual direction, teaching, and dynamic witness has touched the lives of tens of thousands of children, teenagers, married couples, business professionals, and families. Father Nathan's ministry has flourished by God's grace. He began Eagle Eye Ministries in 2003; it is now home to six forms of outreach to teens and young adults. In 2015, he opened the Saint John Institute (SJI) —a unique program in which young adults earn an accredited Masters degree while receiving spiritual formation from the Brothers of Saint John.  In the Spring of 2018, SJI celebrated its first graduating class, sending its graduates to work for the Lord in the for-profit world.  Inspiring and equipping great talent for the Lord's harvest, Eagle Eye Ministries and the Saint John Institute serve to raise up the spirit of the new evangelization in young people and send missionary entrepreneurs into the Church. This ministry, carried by his passionate concern for forming and sending prayerful Catholic leaders into the world, has blossomed into the Faith and Leadership Consortium.  Through formation and fellowship and prayer, leaders in business and in culture can find the help they need to dare great things for Christ.  Above all else, Father Nathan is a Catholic priest. He has dedicated his priesthood to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and is humbled to serve Christ's people so long as God gives him the opportunity.  How to reach Father Nathan: Website:  Eagle Eye Ministries  https://www.eagleeyeministries.org Website:  Saint John Institute  https://www.saintjohninstitute.org/ Email:  info@eagleeyeministries.org Phone:  (303) 876-7695 ext. 1

Social Justice Insomnia (SJI) is a condition in which people have a heightened empathy and hyper-awareness to social and culturally inequitable behaviors. SJI is typically followed by difficulty falling asleep, irritability, and an assertive online presence. SJI can severely disrupt normal levels of wokeness (wōk-nes) and affect the quality of online presence. Those with SJI show one or more of the following symptoms: • Difficulty falling asleep with the knowledge of unapologetic, discriminatory content posted online. • Waking up at night thinking of sources you can cite to fight online oppression. • Waking up too early in the morning to start drafting a thesis paragraph in reply to a potentially disrespectful facebook post. • Constantly feeling tired of the system and inflammatory abuse of our country's free-speech privileges. SJI may be characterized based on its duration. Acute SJI is brief and often happens because of stress, or life circumstances (for example, when you can't fall asleep the night before reading a particularly transgressive comment about which lives matter.) Chronic SJI is disrupted sleep that occurs at least three nights per week and lasts at least three months. If you think you have SJI, just log off for a while and stop letting the internet destroy your peace of mind, and healthy levels of wokeness. Remember, actions speak louder than 140 words or less. [follow us on IG @paid.artists]+++[donate to our patreon at patreon.com/artprospodcast]+++[artprospodcast.com]+++[artprospodcast@gmail.com]

This week we're diving deep into game creation as Danny sits down to talk about design with Lucas Pope, the creator of Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn. iTunes Page: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/noclip/id1385062988 RSS Feed: http://noclippodcast.libsyn.com/rssGoogle Play: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/If7gz7uvqebg2qqlicxhay22qny Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5XYk92ubrXpvPVk1lin4VB?si=JRAcPnlvQ0-YJWU9XiW9pg Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/noclippodcast Watch our docs: https://youtube.com/noclipvideo Sub our new podcast channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSHBlPhuCd1sDOdNANCwjrA Learn About Noclip: https://www.noclip.videoBecome a Patron and get early access to new episodes: https://www.patreon.com/noclip Follow @noclipvideo on Twitter Hosted by @dannyodwyerFunded by 4,756 Patrons. -------------------------------------------------------------- - [Danny] Hello and welcome to Noclip, the podcast about people who play and make video games. Our guest this week is an independent developer responsible for 2013's political passport checker, Papers Please, and the recently released seafaring dither punk solve-'em-up Return of the Obra Dinn. Today he lives on the island nation of Japan which makes me even more grateful for his time today as it's currently 9:00 a.m. here in Maryland, which makes it around 11:00 p.m. in Tokyo. But if the conversation flows we should hopefully get him in bed before midnight. I'm delighted to be joined by Lucas Pope. Lucas, thank you so much for making the time today. - [Lucas] Yeah, thanks Danny, I'm happy to be here. - [Danny] Do you feel like you have sort of a less busy schedule these days? I mean, you finished up on Obra Dinn and then I'm guessing you then spent a lot of time sort of fixing bugs and what not, has it eased off a bit now? - [Lucas] Yeah, definitely, it was exactly that basically, where I released the game and spent a long time fixing stuff that was broken, more or less. And then that's cooled off a lot now. I mean, the work stuff has cooled off but I was sort of holding off so many other things in my life with family stuff and everything else that once even that work stuff was done, there was a huge stack of things I needed to take care of after that so most of that also was sort of out of the way so now I'm finally able to kinda cool down a little bit and take it easy. - [Danny] Now you're able to do your podcast backlog for the previous four and half years. - [Lucas] More or less yes, actually exactly that. - [Danny] How's the game backlog looking? Did you get much time to play stuff over the development of it or? It sounds like it's a lot of work making these games, especially on your own, so do you sort of like disconnect from mainstream game releases for awhile? - [Lucas] A little bit, yeah. On the things that I would normally play, yes. I was still playing things like Mario games with my kids and Switch games and stuff like that but on the stuff that I should be checking on, most of that, yeah, was just stuck in a pile somewhere and I'm kind of going through that now very slowly. - [Danny] Awesome, let's go back in time just a little bit before we sort of dive into the design of the two games that most people will know you from. I feel like if there was a Venn diagram of people we talk to on Noclip, the biggest one sort of section would be folks who worked on Quake mods and you apparently fall into that department as well. - [Lucas] Yeah, represent. - [Danny] Was that your first sort of foray into design, what did you work on? - [Lucas] I wouldn't say that, it was my first foray into 3D design and also where you could put a tiny bit of effort in and then see it in 3D was just mind blowing. So I had done like small sort of C64 games or HyperCard games or basic type in kinda things before that but Quake was the one where you could just open up a texture in an editor and draw a few things and then you could play it in the game in 3D. It was like the kinda stuff you would dream about with SJI work station kinda things or when you see N64 and just blown away by the fact that it's 3D, Quake was where you could edit that stuff in 3D which was just kind of a revelation for me and a big change from what I was doing before, which was just kinda 2D simpler expected things in '96 or whatever, by that time most of the other kinds of games were pretty mature 2D stuff so Quake was yeah, kinda mind blowing. And again, it wasn't just the texture stuff, it was everything, you could make models, you could do animation, you could write code, it had this really nice Quake C system. So it was just really the perfect thing for me at that moment in time, just to be able to do that kind of stuff easily and then get it right into the game and actually play it. - [Danny] What was the aspect of it that appealed to you back then because, you know, you seem to be the type of person who enjoys many facets of this type of work, was there an aspect of it that spoke to you in particular back then, was it programming or was it, did you just like, I don't know, making something that actually sort of existed as quickly as possible in that process. - [Lucas] Yeah, probably that last one. I started doing textures which was the easiest thing, you could just take one of the textures and there were tools right away that would convert to the, you know, some PNG or BMB that you could edit and then it would convert back to the Quake format. So that's what I started doing. I guess at that time I fancied myself an artist, although it really wasn't very good. You could be not that great and it'd still look okay 'cause it was transforming so much to put in 3D. So I started with textures and I was at the time actually studying compute science so it was kind of a natural slide right into the Quake C stuff and programming some of the logic when maybe our programmer had too much stuff to do or something on a couple of the mods we were working on and I decided to just like slip in and write some system or fuck around with the code a little bit. And once I was kinda in that position of being comfortable doing art and then programming I, I mean, I kinda realized this before that time but it was I was very comfortable, basically, doing lots of different stuff and sort of not killing myself on any one thing. Kind of trying to decide where I should spend my energy and what would be important in this case, would it be better looking or better behavior or better sounding, I kinda like that engineering challenge of allocating resources and it worked out for me because, not that I could all those things very well but I was at least interested in doing all those different disciplines when making a game. - [Danny] Right, and I can sort of appreciate how you ended up then working as an independent developer. What I'm kinda interested in then is what was it like working at Naughty Dog where I imagine you were probably pigeon holed into a specific type of work, right? - [Lucas] Sort of, Naughty Dog was really nice because when I started there I was the GUI tools guy, which means making the graphical tool for the designers to use or the artists to use or things like that, and that was not a popular position. - [Danny] Right. - [Lucas] So, maybe I was pigeon holed but my hole was huge and on the other side of that was a huge space for me to play around in 'cause nobody else was directing me at all basically. I could decide, okay, the designers need this kinda tool and I'm gonna make and then they're happy with it, great, they need these features, I'll do those too, that sorta thing. So for me Naughty Dog was very liberating because I had all that space and no one else was really telling me what to do, but at the same time I was working alongside just brilliant programmers and amazing artists and it's kind of a dream position basically because I needed to integrate really well but kinda on my own terms and it just worked out perfectly for me 'cause I could make these tools and then the designers and the artists could use them and I could see the final result and when you have that caliber of artist or that caliber of designer they could use anything and it'll look good so, you know, maybe it wasn't even my tools that were any good but at least I got the satisfaction of seeing the awesome stuff they were making with my tools, so it was perfect. - [Danny] When we talk to independent developers, sort of these days you're getting a lot more, I feel like graduates who are jumping straight into it but of a certain generation. Like for instance, I was just over with System Era in Seattle, they're working on Astroneer which is coming out this week, and a lot of that crew are ex-343 people. Do you think that having that sort of triple A experience is kind of like, was very important to your professional development or was it the type of thing that just, you know, even if you were learning independently you feel like you would've got to where you are now? - [Lucas] That's a good question, I think, I wouldn't generalize and say triple A but I would say specifically Naughty Dog taught me a lot about production and about kind of seeing what's important in your game as you're making it and using that to triage and to cut things and to really focus on what you have decided is important about your game, that was all critical. I think there's a slight danger in working in triple A, the quality of things that the artists and designers and sound guys and everybody and the programmers create is super super high and just the sort of production style in general is that you have very skilled people and you can give them difficult tasks and they will do a great job. And that, in my opinion, does not scale down to smaller studios, you kind of have to cut more corners, you have to rely more on your tools and your pipeline and you have to make more concessions to just produce the same amount of stuff and that's kind of, I mean, a snapshot of what I do is I try not to compete in that way. I consciously say, there's no way I can match the art skill of a Naughty Dog or a triple A studio so I'm gonna try to kinda leap, not leap frog, but I'm gonna just gonna go a completely different way and not compete on those same terms at all. So part of the challenge of making a game for me is finding that way to not compete and to make sure that the things that I create are not gonna be compared one for one against what a bigger, more resourceful studio can do. So I wouldn't say like working at Naughty Dog taught me that I can just do anything with the art, like the artists can make the most amazing things and the game is gonna be awesome for it. It was more about just the style of production that they had there taught me a lot about focus and real kind of, think about what the final result is gonna be, don't think about the components that make it up as much. I mean, the components are important but one problem I used to have as an engineer is that I would want the code to be perfect, I wanted the systems that I was designing to be elegant and to, if an engineer looked at them I wanted them to think, yeah man, that's pretty good code he's got there. But what I learned at Naughty Dog was none of that matters, what matters is what happens when the player puts the controller in their hand. And a lot of the times those two things are connected but a lot of times they're not and it's a difficult lesson to learn if you're strictly an engineer all the time, to sort of back off on your number one OCD skill. - [Danny] Right. - [Lucas] Actually, what's more important is that, even if this is kind of shitty code here, it works pretty much, I can predict how it works and I know that the end result will sorta be like this and that feels really good to the player so that was a good lesson too. - [Danny] Right, yeah, we'll get into the sort of, the economy of independent development in a second 'cause I'm very interested in talking to you about that, especially somebody who sort of works from home, myself as well. But first of all I guess, that initial leap to go your own way, to leave the collaborative workspace of Naughty Dog, where did that come from? - [Lucas] Well, it started before Naughty Dog actually because in college I was working on Quake mods with a couple of friends, international friends, we decided to start a company in Virginia, not far from you actually. - [Danny] Yeah, was it Richmond where you grew up, in that area? - Yeah, yeah, in Richmond. - Yeah, cool - [Lucas] We decided to start a company together and we were small, you know, four or five guys, and we were workin' on weird games, different games that we thought could sell. So that didn't work out in the end and I ended up going to LA to get real work where somebody could just pay me but in the back of my mind, even working at Naughty Dog or working in serious games, I had always kinda felt not out of place, but man I really wish I could be working on my own stuff. And when it came time for Uncharted 3 I basically thought, well, I have a bunch of ideas that I want to do, small games, experimental stuff that I can do by myself or with my wife, who's also a game programmer so I'm just gonna try to do that now instead of staying around for the next sequel or whatever, I'm gonna try to do that instead. So it wasn't so much that I was rejecting anything about Naughty Dog, it was just I was kind of pining for the old times when I had less responsibility but also not a small piece of a big picture but kind of the only piece of a very small picture. - [Danny] At that stage was there projects that you had sort of on the horizon, like on your mind's horizon that you wanted to do or is it more a case of just having that sort of process where you could, you know, set your own destination and work on things the way you wanted to? - [Lucas] Well at Naughty Dog on Uncharted 1 and Uncharted 2 was pretty crazy, it was a lot of work so I didn't have a lot of time to think about other stuff. I was totally occupied with those games while I was working on them but there was a time when we had shipped, I don't remember the date exactly, but there was a time when I had some free time, basically we had just shipped something or we were about to ship something, some big milestone had finished, and I wrote a game called Mightier with my wife and it was experimental kind of puzzle platformer game. That was a lot of fun and just working on that was kind of the culmination of an idea I had been thinking about for awhile and we made it and it was a lot of fun and we got nominated for the IGF and that kind of put a little seed, you know, planted a little seed that maybe I should start thinking about these sorts of games more. And that's kinda just what happened over the next year or whatever when I was still working at Naughty Dog, thinking, you know, I gotta couple ideas here and there but actually none of that was a reason to leave, it was more just that Uncharted 2 had shipped and if I'm gonna leave now is really the best time. I don't wanna start working on a new project and leave in the middle of that, if there's gonna be a sever it's gonna be now so. We hadn't really figured out what we're gonna do when we left our jobs until we left, we left and we kinda just played around with a bunch of ideas and then came up with Helsing's Fire. It wasn't, you know, oh man, I really wanna make a Helsing's Fire, I gotta leave Naughty Dog to do it, it was more, okay now what are we gonna do with it, we've left and we decided to try this independent games thing, let's try this, a couple different ideas, and okay let's do this one sort of thing. - [Danny] It's been fun diving back into your design history, especially on your website, you have a bunch of games on there, sort of Flash games that people can go play right now. And it's been fun I guess backwards charting maybe some design influence that came from those early projects too, but the game that most people sort of know you from, even now perhaps, is Papers Please, which is interesting because it's a game that's sort of the elevator pitch for, not necessarily something maybe that you'd imagine people would get very excited about but obviously, as game playing experience, it's incredibly compelling. What do you think it is about Papers Please that actually sort of cemented its place within the gaming zeitgeist when it came out in 2013? - [Lucas] Good question, if I knew I could sell it in a packet. I mean, I think, you know, if you ask me I would say it's very different from the other games that are available so if you in the off chance want a game about checking passports you gotta come to me, basically and that was kinda my theory about me making games alone is my only chance is really to make something you can't get somewhere else easily. So Papers Please was kind of that and it was, I didn't have visions of grandeur with that game, I was sort of making the game that I would wanna play as a kind of analytical kind of OCD-ish kind of details oriented person. And I tried to capture good gameplay and weave it with a narrative just kind of, you know, as I would want to be in a game I play so I didn't kind of think, I'm aiming for a zeitgeist here, I was thinking, okay, I need to make something different and these mechanics I have work pretty well for this kind of story and if I can put them together in an interesting way then I would like the way it turned out in the end and yeah, it's a little bit of luck I think as well. The timing kind of worked out with the explosion of streaming games or YouTube let's plays and sort of things where Papers Please I think works pretty well in that format because you can role play as the inspector and, you know, somebody who's playing that game can be funny and can be fun to watch when they play it and I think that lined up pretty well with just the timing of when I released the game, which is pure luck, you know, that's not something I had planned. Marketing wise I didn't do anything for that game that you would actually consider marketing so, you know, there wasn't a whole lot of clever planning on my part for that, I was really just trying to make a game that I thought I would enjoy and everything else sort of, you know, fell into place. - [Danny] You say that that wasn't a lot of sort of marketing done around it, but it did have a very strong trailer, like I still remember the music, you know, maybe it's just 'cause I'm a video guy or whatever but I remember it was very well cut to the music and compelling, did you work on that as well yourself? - [Lucas] Yeah, I made that too. So, one of the things about picking game ideas for me, when I sit down I collect, as I'm doing anything I'm always thinking, okay, that might make a cool game, and I'll just write down a quick note about it. And I sort of collect those over time and then the ones that stick in my mind the most I sort of focus on those more. So something like Papers Please or even Obra Dinn, when I'm even thinking about the idea I'm thinking, how could I express this in a trailer? If it can't imagine right now a cool trailer for this then it's probably not worth pursuing. And it's kind of part of the decision I think about making games is at the very beginning like that. So it's not the idea that I like this other game and I wanna make a game like that, only better, it's that I wanna make this game and I can sort of see all the way through how it's gonna be, how I can market it, in air quotes, or how I can talk about it or how I can think about it for, you know, a year or four and half years or whatever it will take to get it done. So the initial idea is very important to me. So something like Papers Please where it's a game about checking passports, I can already kind of imagine that it, you can have a trailer just showing the guy denying passports the whole time and it can be interesting, basically. - [Danny] Last week had Marijam Didzgalvyte on who works for Game Workers Unite and we were talking about politics and games and political games and we talked about Papers Please 'cause it was actually something she wrote an article about years ago. Sort of, she's Lithuanian and she was quite critical of it because she felt like wasn't political in the way that she was maybe expecting. Were you trying to make a political game or were you literally trying to make a game about checking passports and the sort of, the wider theme that's very well presented in the game sort of came from that, like what was the impetus of this? Was it meant to be political or was it something that you were just compelled with that sort of, you know, that OCD nature of checking passports at border sections? - [Lucas] Yeah, I never set out to make a political game and I think for me personally, I couldn't start with the message and then make a good game out of it. If you gave me an assignment and said make a game that projects this message I probably couldn't do it very well. It was really the core mechanics that I had that I felt, first I can make a fun game out of it, for me, I can make it where you're just checking, you're correlating information, that could be fun, the mechanics of that could be fun. And then I started working on the narrative and I wanted that kind of complexity of that lack of clarity 'cause a lot of politics is about lack of clarity in my opinion so I wanted to express sort of how, not both sides are equal but both sides believe in their cause fairly strongly and it's hard to present that in a movie or a book but when you have an interactive medium like games it becomes a lot more possible to put the player in the position where suddenly it's not so clear cut what they would do in the situation. And it wasn't until I had the mechanics and some idea about the narrative that that became important to me to express that. And I didn't wanna make it very clearly for one side or the other because, I don't know, to me the game is a lot more powerful when the player's kinda stuck in the middle there and they're not, they don't have enough information really to even decide who are the good guys and who are the really bad guys so to me that's like life, you don't ever really know the whole story of anything and you still have to make decisions, you still have to live and work that way. So, yeah, I did not start out with a message and an idea that I wanted to teach the player something, it was more, with the tools I had I recognized there was an interesting way to construct an interactive narrative here that the player could enjoy. - [Danny] And then obviously the game went onto great critical and commercial success as well, and I believe the only other time we've ever talked actually was I believe you received, was it the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the IGF that year? - [Lucas] Yeah. - [Danny] Gamespot had me backstage interviewing everyone coming off and we talked for probably about 30 seconds but obviously you know, then you know, you were well known within the industry and within the independent industry but then you became sort of infamous within the wider game player community. So what was it like then trying to make a second game? Because suddenly, you know, you've got a lot of eyes on you and there have been many creators who have created a game that has been very successful and then the pressures of having that follow up prove to be too much, how did you sort of deal with it and how did the concept for Obra Dinn sort of come out of that? - [Lucas] That whole follow up thing, sophomore effort, you know, it's not my sophomore game, I've made a lot of games so there wasn't as much pressure in that sense, the can I even do it, or can I even make a game, that was fine, there was a lot of pressure of about how to follow up with Papers Please. I spent a couple years worrying about that, and that's, you know, one of the reasons why Obra Dinn took so long, it took me a long time to get tired of worrying about that, more or less, which is what happened. You know, I stressed out about it for two or three years and then finally said, I just gotta finish this game. Not, fuck it, but very close to, fuck it, I gotta finish this game, more like, damn it, I've gotta finish this game. - [Danny] You got kids, you know, you gotta be careful. - [Lucas] Yeah well, that's a good point, I got kids and they're growing in front of my eyes and if I don't just finish this game then I can't sort of focus on them again. I wanted to put the game away and focus on the kids more so that was a good incentive. And that's enough, you know, having kids was actually really important for me because even if Obra Dinn sucked and was a huge failure my kids don't care, they don't even know about any of that stuff and so that support was always there, whether Obra Dinn was good or not, so that helped a lot and that took a couple years to even see because of just kind of Papers Please was a whirlwind for me and it wasn't until things cooled off and I'd been working on Obra Dinn for a long time that I realized that like, even if it sucks I'm just gonna finish it and release it. But the other thing is kind of the way I make games is I try to get a lot of pieces together that I think will make a good game without actually knowing exactly how the game is gonna turn out in the end and changing things along the way, maybe the way I envisioned the game originally is not how it ends up but what I envisioned was made of these parts and then I just reshuffled them along the way and added a few things and took away a few things and then I released the game. And Papers Please was like that, and Obra Dinn was like that too. So from very early I had pretty good confidence in the pieces I had for Obra Dinn. I wasn't confident that I could actually make a good game out of it but I thought the individual pieces, there's probably a good game here, maybe I can't find it but I feel like these elements could come together and could make a good game so it's worth working on the elements sort of independently without seeing exactly how they're gonna work together, just having kind of a little bit of faith that they're gonna go together okay. And that pulled me through, you know, a couple down periods over the years as well. - [Danny] I've read before about how Papers Please sort of came from, you know, your travels and going to border guards and having that experience and, you know, that the idea sort of springs from that. How about the Return of the Obra Dinn, where did you come up with the sort of overall concept? There's one game actually that's on your website dukope.com, the Sea Has No Claim which I've really enjoyed playing, which has some sort of both graphical and sort of thematic connections to Obra Dinn, is there any connective tissue there or where did the idea for Obra Dinn sort of stem from originally? - [Lucas] I mean, the project itself started with, I wanna make a one bit 3D game. So I didn't have the idea of the ship or anything, the murder mystery, the watch, the flashbacks, none of that, it was really, let me sit down and try to make a one bit 3D game. And once I started doing that I had a couple different ideas I could do with it, one of them was set in Egypt, one of them would be on a ship, one of them was somewhere else, a power plant, and just sort of thinking about having to do everything I thought, well the easiest thing is gonna be a ship 'cause it's a contained space so I kinda just decided, okay, it's gonna be a ship and then I started researching. And at the same time I was getting my chops down with Maya again, I'd used Maya a long time ago but I hadn't done a lot of 3D stuff recently so a lot of learning was happening on the tool side which meant less focus on what am I actually gonna do with this so by the time I realized the ship was gonna be a huge pain in the ass and a ton of work it was too late, I was already committed to it. So that kinda gave me the ship idea, and you're right that there's kind of vapors of Obra Dinn in my other games, there's another game called Six Degrees of Sabotage which is kind of where you're recognizing connections between groups of people, which also is thematically similar to Obra Dinn. I thought about this a little bit when I was giving, somebody asked me for some advice about their game and my advice kinda boiled down to add a lot more people to your game and so when that happened I realized that the way I think about narratives I guess and gameplay really falls back on just having lots of people, something about having a lot of people and characters and interactions, to me is mechanically provides a lot of opportunity and also gives me kinda motivation for building an interesting narrative. So Obra Dinn is just a ton of people, and like I said, I didn't know exactly how they were all gonna fit together but I kinda felt, if you gave me 60 people there's gotta be something I can do with that, there's gotta be some way I can put this together. It's kind of like establishing the problem space and then recognizing not the solution, but that okay, I seen the shape of that problem before and it looks really interesting, I wanna try to solve that. - [Danny] When you look back at that, you know, the manifest of all those names, those 60 people, is there any ones that stand out to you, that became like little favorites of yours? - [Lucas] Well, an interesting element of the game is that I did not attach the names to those characters until kind of late. I modeled them randomly, I just created a bunch of random characters, dressed them randomly as well and then named them randomly at the end, or near the end at least. But what I tried to do is I tried to make a lot of people kind of human, so not black or white or not clearly evil or clearly good, maybe there's one or two fully evil guys there but you know, they have motivations that maybe could be justified in some way. So one thing that surprised me is that when I created the characters and I kind of assigned their stories and wrote all the scripts and things like that, I was thinking very mechanically at the low level, so I need to sprinkle enough clues around that the player can figure out who they are, and also at the high level of what do these characters mean to each other and how are they interacting and who generally is on this side or on that side. And I wanted to show that on these ships that it's, first off, they're very dangerous, people die all the time, and so your survival depends on, to some extent, getting along with people. And you know, you spend a very long time in a very small space with these people and it just by the nature of it, you have to get along. If you don't get along then someone gets hurt or someone dies or they get off at the next stop or something like that so I wanted to express that in the game, I'd read a lot of literature about these ships before designing the story and the characters and things, and some of the characters, when the player meets them initially they look like bad guys and I wanted to sort of set that up where your first impression is that this guy is a murdering asshole but as you see them more and more you realize that they're human and they have friends who were killed or they were put in these difficult situations that sort of flipped the switch in them or just made them worry more about their survival than everyone else's survival or things like that so one of the good examples of that is this guy Brennan, Henry Brennan, who when you first meet him seems basically just like a tough guy who's bloodthirsty and wants to kill people but if you think about in the context of a ship and what people's duties are, he's not doing half bad, you know, maybe he's a little bit aggressive but you kinda need somebody like that on a ship or you need people to do that sort of thing in these situations when there's, I can't say these kinds of disasters 'cause it's pretty fantastic, but when there's that kind of trial, you know, these guys are not necessarily bad guys, they're just the ones who have a clear vision of what to do and if some people get hurt in the acts then kind of that's something they also calculated. So Brennan was one of those guys and what surprised me actually is my wife was the first person to play the game all the way through and the whole game didn't come together until maybe two months before release, to be actually be able to play from beginning to end. And she really liked Brennan which was kind of an indication that the kind of set up that I was going for worked because he, yeah, he's pretty, he kills a lot of people, basically. - [Danny] His face kind of keeps appearing. - [Lucas] Yeah, he's a pretty aggressive dude but he has qualities enough that my wife was, liked him, basically. - [Danny] That's awesome, yeah. You know, I encourage anyone who's played the game to Google Henry Brennan and once the face pops up you'll know exactly who we're talking about. One of the things that stood out to me as well as an Irish person who, you know, I lived in London for a number of years too, was the voice cast for this game was tremendous. And, you know, even outside of that I felt like I sort of had an unfair advantage in that, you know, accents were very cleverly delivered. There was one actual accent that was from the north of Ireland that I thought, oh, that must be somebody from Ireland, there's a character called Patrick O'Hagan in the game, I actually went to school with somebody called Patrick O'Hagan so, can you talk about the, I guess, the work in getting all of those voices? How much did you know about different voices in the British Isles and Europe I guess as well, and also abroad, there's quite a complex number of languages being used as well. How much work went into that and did it come easily to you or was it the type of thing that took a lot more work than you were expecting? - [Lucas] That's a good question, actually it's one of my favorite questions about Obra Dinn and it's good to talk to you about it 'cause you know these accents. I do not know any of these accents but I knew that they were important and one of things I like about making games is to pick something like that that is normally not important and make it important. So, normally when you hire a voice actor they can do lots of different accents and it would've been very easy for me to hire a few Americans to do all those accents and just call it a day, but I knew that, first off, I would be torn up in the UK because they would know they were all bad. - [Danny] Absolutely. - [Lucas] I personally have heard people, foreigners do bad southern US accents so I know that feeling when it's wrong and I didn't want anybody to have that feeling but I had made this sort of critical importance on the accents. And it's the same thing with the audio in the game, I wanted to make a game where, it's not just that I wanted a game with great audio, I wanted a game where the quality of the audio was actually critical to the, I mean, it's kind of making it hard for me but the quality of the audio is important to the actual mechanics of the game. So in this case the accents of the characters was important to the mechanics of the game. So I basically had to just find native voice actors for every case and because I don't know those accents myself I have friends who were there at least who could help me decide if they're, you know, if it's not somebody, if it's somebody doing a Welsh accent for instance, it's actually kinda tricky to find good Welsh actors easily. One of the things I didn't do was I didn't hire a casting agent to go out and do this for me, I basically just went to Voices.com or Voice123.com and talked with their casting people and they would do it but all of those actors there kinda skew for a certain region so some roles were hard to cast and like I said earlier, a lot of different people can do a lot of different accents so it's not that when you say you have an Irish character you may get lots of people who are not Irish auditioning for that. And in some cases I would use those guys if I could play that there audition for a native speaker and they could tell me, that dude sounds Irish, then okay, he's good. What was most important to me was the performance. If their performance sounded convincing I wanted to hire them for the role. Then I would send it to somebody who could recognize that accent and they would say it's good or it's bad. Hopefully they would say it's good and I could use that performance and that actor. Sometimes they would say it's bad and I would say, well, okay, I'm sorry, I have to find somebody else. In one case, it was bad, or it was not the accent that I wanted for the region that I wanted but the performance was so good that I changed the character to be a different region, basically. So he was supposed to be Welsh but he had a straight up English accent, RP maybe, and so I decided this guy is, for the purpose of this character, I need the performance to be very good and his performance was excellent so it's more important to get that than it is that his location is correct so I changed his location in the game. - [Danny] Yeah, and I guess then sort of how that reacts to the mechanics of the game in that, you know, I felt like I had an unfair advantage 'cause I could pick out a Welsh accent and a Scottish accent as opposed to say, a north English accent. But then also, there's a lot of sort of classism going on on a ship, right, so you have second mates and the captain and all them, you know, and the bosun sort of had a, they're a certain strata of English society, well I guess in the case of the bosun he's Austrian, but you know, you're talking sort of well to do private educated English people but then you also have like you know, all of the midshipmen who were from sort of more working class parts of England. So, like, how did you account for the fact that people in the British Isles would probably have basically more information to solve these clues than, you know, people who weren't from there? - [Lucas] Well, it's a good point about that, and what's interesting to me is that I didn't know all that stuff, really. I didn't know that most of the people in the UK can pick out, within 100 kilometer radius, where somebody is from based on their accent. - [Danny] Totally. - [Lucas] And not only that, but their class within that region, they know where they are on that scale of, you know, working class or well to do. I had an idea about that but not really how specific it was, how powerful that skill is in most British people so, luckily, when you hire native voice actors and you tell them about the character they know, so they know how to read, they know how to perform, the actors know this stuff so on that side the authenticity was okay because I didn't know but the actors knew, that's one reason you know you hire good actors. On the gameplay side I didn't know any of these things. So for me, I can assume those clues are there but I can't rely on them, personally. So I had to supplement all those places where this guy's identity is revealed by his Scottish accent, I had to supplement that with some other clues somewhere else, for me personally but also for anybody else who's not from the Isles. So that was just kind of naturally baked in to the way the game was made by an American who doesn't know these things as well as a British person would. So I knew it had to be accurate but I also knew that I wouldn't be able to tell and it wouldn't help me personally so kind of a tricky thing to think about but it basically meant that I had to be okay with people in the UK would play the game and would have more clues than other people who didn't know those accents, which was, you know, I think a small sacrifice in my opinion because I didn't know how useful those clues were I couldn't really consider them as something really that I should worry about. - [Danny] Yeah, and I mean, as you've said, you know, having sort of accents in games are so often the opposite, they're kind of misleading, you have to kind of read the intention of the author in a way where as, I can definitely say that from my perspective, it added a richness to the experience that I really appreciated. So too did the just general sound effects of the game. A lot of this game involves, you know, sort of stepping, you know, not using your eyes at all and just kind of going into your minds eye and imaging the scene before it's eventually sort of presented to you at the end of the sound clip. Can you talk about the process of doing that because, you know, the production value on those is very, very high but also there's lots of clues. Like, you're telling clues in audio which we're not really used to in games. - [Lucas] Yeah, that was, like I said earlier, that was kind of a thing I recognized I could do and I really wanted to try it, basically. It was a really interesting challenge for me, is to make the audio mechanically important. I have done sound effects in a lot of games for myself over the years so it's something I enjoy doing. When starting this project I didn't realize the challenge really, the full scope of the challenge, it was extremely difficult and one thing that made it harder was I didn't record much of it myself. I recorded a few full effects here and there but most of it was sourced from sound libraries. So what I would mostly do is just spend a long time, a long time, searching sound libraries for just the right sound effect. And a lot of times not finding it and deciding to rewrite things or change things a little bit so that I could express what I wanted, something useful or some kind of clue or something. And I wrote the whole game so instead of, like you can imagine if it was a team of multiple people with the sound guys here and the story guys and design guys separately, it would be a lot harder I think, but for me, because I wrote the whole game I had every scene in my head, I can close my eyes and see the whole thing, in movement and where they are and what the ship is doing and everything else, it's all just in my head. So pulling out from that what's important sound wise was a little bit tricky. Sound is about focus, if you actually stick a mic in one of those situations you would be overwhelmed with the amount of things that you would hear. So part of the challenge there was figuring out exactly what I need to be playing for it to give the information to the player but also enough sounds that you feel like you're there. So it's not just the key sounds that you would need to figure out what's going on, but also to make you feel like you're on a ship in this place during a storm or whatever. And then balancing all those things together, yeah, it was a pain in the ass. And it was the kind of thing where I normally when I work on a game I jump around from here to there, so I work on some art and then okay, get tired of working in Photoshop so let me do some programming, let me do some sound, I do some music. For the audio sound effect stuff I had to sit down for a month and a half basically and just work on it straight. So yeah, it was hard and it required a lot of focus over a long period of time which I wasn't used to at that point so it was kind of a production wrinkle for me but in the end it was a lot of fun, it was a lot of fun and I, the thing I like most about it is that it's, it's like I said earlier, I wasn't just trying to make it sound good, I had a gameplay core mechanic goal with the sound that I tried to execute. - [Danny] You talked about how the ship, the idea of the location for the ship was sort of born from an earlier process and then you sort of went into that, the story telling process to try and flesh that out, one of the interesting things you said, like sort of making something that's not important important, one of those things in this game is I guess the language of seafaring. Like, I feel like everyone, once they've completed this game they sort of get boats in a way that maybe they didn't when they started. Was that an advantage maybe of, you know, from like a world building perspective or even from a puzzle perspective, that fact that like people don't know what a bosun is maybe or a midshipmen or topman. - [Lucas] When I started, when I decided I'm gonna make a game about an East Indian trade ship that has this problem I researched a lot about it and when I was building the ship itself I had to do a lot of research about how those ships are constructed, and that is a deep, deep. -Yeah, I bet. - [Lucas] Deep rabbit hole, let me tell you. People have been making model ships for hundreds and hundreds of years and those guys are crazy, full on 100% nuts. So every single piece of a ship has a specific name and they're all weird and funny and they're usually like, it was heard in Italian and then repeated by the Portuguese and then British started using it kinda thing. So that to me was super interesting, just how deep, how both wide and deep the custom knowledge is for sailing ships. And I didn't even begin to scratch the surface of that with the game because I knew that I couldn't, there was just too much crazy shit in there that I could've referenced that I didn't. I basically wanted just enough to add the flavor, like you say, but without confusing the player too much, or at least in cases where it wasn't that important. And what's funny is there's a glossary in the game that defines a couple of these terms, that was like in the last two weeks of the game I added that glossary. - Oh, really? - [Lucas] That wasn't in there, yeah. I had this idea that people would go search for it on Google or something, which, you know, what a terrible idea. - [Danny] I think I did, I think, yeah, I remembered looking at the glossary maybe 40 minutes in and I was like, all right, you know what, fuck this, I need to like learn about this sorta stuff. But I had Googled on my phone I think what something was, like a midshipmen maybe or. - [Lucas] Yeah, all the terms, nobody else uses them so you just gotta use a few of them and suddenly you feel like you're there kinda thing. So I recognized that very early, that the potential was there and I really wanted to do that. And, again, that's the kinda thing where there's not a lot of games that are gonna reference these terms as if they're important. They may throw them around just for some flavor but in this case you actually need to know what a topman is or what a midshipmen is so I also like that aspect of it, and I tried to pick words like that where they weren't totally abandoned words, they were kind of maybe, someone might've heard them recently if they read like a Patrick O'Brian novel or something like that, they would get the references. - [Danny] I could see that, yeah, there sort of evocative of what they are as well, some of them, you know, other ones maybe not so much. I've got a million questions for you about Return of the Obra Dinn but I feel like I should throw in a couple of Patron ones, seeing as they're the ones funding all this, is that okay? - [Lucas] Yeah, absolutely. - [Danny] Thanks so much to all of our Patron to help make our work ad free and they all get this show a day early, but of course, like all of our stuff, it's all free for everyone. Patreon.com/Noclip if you're interested in helping us out. The first one comes from Brett G, says, what do you consider the cannon monitor choice for Obra Dinn, Macintosh for the win. The art style of the game, very unique, I can sort of, I'm reading into what you're talking about, it's maybe a way for you to do a lot of art on your own in a 3D space without going absolutely insane. But yeah, what's the cannon monitor choice for you, which way do you play? - [Lucas] Definitely Macintosh, he's right, of course. That was the first color, that was the first and only color I had for a long time until somebody asked me, or a couple people asked me for RGB sliders-- - Oh, really? - [Lucas] For the black and white colors and I'm not a guy who's gonna put RBG sliders in because there's too many ones that look terrible, basically. - [Danny] You literally made GUI tools, like that should be right down your alley. - [Lucas] Yeah, my solution would be to give like the nine colors that looked good basically and not give those sliders to make the bad colors. And that's kinda what I did and I, so the Mac colors are the ones that for me, I developed a whole game on the Mac. And then when I was sort of playing through the game and testing it a lot I would try one of the other colors and the one I like the most, after the Mac, 'cause there's an IBM sort of brownish brown and white one that I like as well, I can't remember the name of it but it's not the green IBM one, it's the other one. It is a nice soothing color as well. - [Danny] Next question comes in from Chris Petter, says, did you draw inspiration from other detective games when designing Obra Dinn? If so, were there any aspects in how that genre has been tackled in past games that you wanted to rectify on your own? I was watching a live stream you did on the GDC channel recently and I was interested to hear that lots of the games that have come out over the past couple of years are first person detective games like the Vanishing of Ethan Carter, you actually hadn't played. Yeah, was there any games that did sort of inspire you with Obra Dinn? - [Lucas] I don't think so, not with the detective aspect anyways. I was visually inspired by the Macintosh games I played as a kid but design wise, no, I was trying to do something different and then games like Ethan Carter or Edith Finch or some of the Sherlock Holmes games, people would tell me that they're kinda similar to the old demo I had or they would suggest to me, check them out. But I kinda just, I felt like if I look a those games I'm either gonna change what I'm doing or try to do something different. I figured like the best thing to do was just not play those games until I'm done with. - Right. - What I'm working on here. Yeah, and Obra Dinn, like I said, I had the pieces of what I felt could make a good game but I didn't have the whole thing together in one piece until very late. So you could kinda say I didn't know what I was doing for a long time, which meant, if I'm inspired then I kinda would put them together in a certain way but I was putting them together in lots of different ways trying to figure out the best way to to do it, yeah, on the one hand I'm trying to make a different game so I don't want to take too much inspiration from anything. But on the other hand I don't really know what I'm doing so I'm even not together enough to be inspired properly I guess. - [Danny] Ben Visnes asked, when I played Obra Dinn I was struck by how consistent everything was. I didn't notice any information that would be misleading or a red herring, so my questions are, what was the writing process like, did you write every crew members story up front? - [Lucas] No, definitely not, and it's a good point he makes because I intentionally avoided red herrings. There were a lot of places where I had the opportunity to fool the player into thinking one thing but then revealing another. And I actually do it in I think, there's one death where the means of death is not totally clear and I did that intentionally there but for identities I tried very hard to make your first sort of supposition the right one. So not trying to fool the player, just because there's 60 people, it's just too much. When you start trying to put red herrings in and kind of tricking the player I felt like that was just way too much. I was really worried the whole game that I'm asking way too much from the player and the book itself is kind of my solution to that to help the player understand what is going on, who is who, to let them traverse the web a little easier. So I was very worried that the game is just way way way too hard the whole time I was working on it. So I consciously avoided red herrings like that. That doesn't mean there aren't any in the game, actually, there is an unintentional one, a pretty big one near the beginning of the game where I didn't realize it but there's some dialogue about a character that's referring to one character but actually if you play the game and you're not me who doesn't know everything you would think it's referring to a different character and you would be confused about that for a long time, and that's, yeah, I regret that that slipped through. My wife didn't catch it, I didn't catch it, it's only later on when people started talking about the game they thought, oh, this guy was that guy for the longest time and I, you know, kinda just sighed and regret that a little bit. So I really didn't want that to happen, I wanted it to be not tricking the player just because, not that I love the player but I was sure that it was just way too difficult and I shouldn't be fucking around like that. - [Danny] I mean, how did you even play test this? If you're saying your wife is the first person to play the game from start to finish, were you still like sending it to other people and having them give you feedback? 'Cause like I just can't imagine how you would possibly be able to put your self in the position of a new player when you know how everything works, you're the puppet master. - [Lucas] Yeah, this is another question I like. I didn't play test this game very much at all, I play tested and old build without the book and that's when I realized I need the book. But my solution was tools, lots and lots of tools. So one of the things I do when I try to solve a problem is I need to visualize the problem. So in the case of this game, there are ways you can build tools that let you visualize that there are enough clues everywhere for this character, for example. So you don't need to play through, you just can see, okay, there's a clue for this guy here, here, and here, that's enough. This person's identity is revealed at this point and then he, once you know his identity you can figure out this other guy's and this other guy's identity. And you can, without playing the game you can graph that on a directed acyclic graph, you can graph when identities are revealed. And that hooks into my kind of heavy dependence on tools to make this happen, is that I can write a tool that generates that graph, then I can just look at the graph and I can see, there's a problem here, this guy, you're not gonna know who this guys is in order to figure out who this guy is so okay, I need to add more clues in the scene. So basically figuring out sort of the problem space and then the way to visualize it for me was the solution instead of building something and having somebody test it, building it again and having somebody play it, that sort of loop of play testing I didn't need for this particular thing because I could express it and visualize it in a way that allowed me to just check it instantly, basically. - [Danny] Wow. The book is obviously a massive part of the design of this game which solves a lot of problems I'm sure for you, but I can't imagine how difficult it was to sort of figure out how to use it. It's almost like a diegetic interface in a way and also the ability for you to, I guess travel on the pages at least between the different death scenes. I remember hearing a bunch of people getting frustrated that they couldn't just, you know, bounce between, you know, teleport almost between the different death scenes after a certain point, but can you just kinda speak to the design philosophy of the book, was it really important that people, you know, got familiar with the boat and walking around it and that the death scenes themselves were sort of more isolated little pockets that they couldn't get too lost in? - [Lucas] I think so, yeah. That decision is kinda rooted in the original concept of the game where you didn't have the book so how are you gonna fast travel if you don't have the book? The book seems obvious in retrospect but I was pulling my hair out for a long time about how to structure and arrange the events on the ship for a long time in a way that the player could reference and understand easily. And actually if you look in the book there's a deck map which shows all the flashbacks, the location of the body of each flashback and there's like this, once you've finished them all there's like this really crazy system of arrows that connects them all and if you look at it it's just a jumble of spaghetti arrows and Xs and shit. That was originally my solution to letting the player understand, there was no book, it was just that map with arrows everywhere on it. So you can see, it took me a long time to get from that to a full book with a page for each flashback, divided into chapters with referencing and bookmarks and all that stuff. But once I had the book I realized how useful it was and how it contextualized almost everything in the game and the metaphor is so easy to understand that I got a lot of things for free basically by doing the book. And, you know, even having like a death on each page wasn't obvious from the beginning, I had tried a lot of things for how to arrange the structure of the book and sorta ended up with this one. So in my mind the book was always a supplement to helping you understand the story, it wasn't a way to navigate. And I have this long term problem with the Obra Dinn that there is frankly way too much magic going on. There was a real conflict for me between the watch and the, spoiler, the mermaids. And, you know, let's be real, if you had that watch you would get right back on that rowboat, go straight back to the mainland and just rule the world, basically. So I had a lot of really cool ideas about things to do with the watch and I cut them all. I decided, the watch cannot be the star here because if the watch is the star here then nothing else about this story is important at all. So I tried to downplay the watch a little bit, and likewise, the book, to me, being able to fast travel with the book is just too video gamey, too magical. Now, that's kinda dumb because it's a video game and there's a lot of stuff about this that's very video gamey and I personally usually lean towards being more video gamey when it's convenient to the player. But for some reason, maybe because of the way that the book came about and the way the game was developed, I just could not give up the player having to walk around the boat to go to different areas. To me, that way of showing the player's intent was just too good. To say like, you don't flip to a page and click a button to say you wanna see this thing again, you put the book away and you walk to it on the ship. And yeah, it was a really tough call for me because it is inconvenient for the player so it wasn't easy for me to say you're not gonna use the book but it just, to me I couldn't have you skip right to the flashback. I felt like, one of the problems is like, you skip right to the flashback let's say, through the book, and then you're, the way you're playing the game is by skipping around, so you would wanna skip out of the flashback too. But I've got this system where you walk through a door to get out of a flashback, so I could satisfy the first one and say you can travel to the thing. But then I've also gotta satisfy the fact that you can get out of it quickly. That kind of slippery slope to me was just, especially at the point where I finished this game, I was beyond done with this thing. I was so exhausted from working on this, and I made so many very big design changes near the end that it was basically like, I don't care if this game gets like a 0% because you can't fast travel, I can't deal with the design changes that that's gonna inject into this game. So, you know, I could justify it now and say that I don't want the player traveling around but really one of the really important parts of that decision is that it would've changed so many things so late at that point in the game that I just couldn't manage it. - [Danny] Another sort of, I feel like, aspect of the game that gives the player a little bit of help is the verbs. Am I right in saying that there are some deaths that you can sort of say stabbed or speared or there's a little bit of wiggle room there? - [Lucas] Yeah, there's a lot of wiggle room, actually more than I anticipated at the beginning. It's funny, when I first had the idea for the design of this game it was mostly about figuring out how people died, it was the means of death that was the important thing. It wasn't until I had a lot more of the game together that I realized, I mean, you can see how he dies, there's no challenge there, that's not fun, and so that whole idea of constructing a sentence became kind of perfunctory, I don't know, became kind of unimportant. The identity's important but how he died, maybe we don't really care how, not that we don't care, but you can see it, it's like okay, he died this way, maybe the book can just tell me, I don't need to answer it. But for me, always, the act of building a sentence as fun. This is one of those kind of like really carnal sort of low level joys, is just selecting those verbs and those nouns and those subjects from a list and then having a sentence at the end that you could read was fun, that very low level thing was fun for me. So I never wanted to give it up, I wanted you to have to select. But I didn't want you to get hung up on it, and that was a real, real big problem actually because I didn't, when I designed, there were too many things pushing on this games design basically. So when I designed the way people died, it was on context of how to make it interesting for the player to see and how to make it fit within the story of the events of what's happening. And it was not at all how to make a sentence, how to make it easily describable with a sentence. So there are a lot of cases where, yeah, he's getting hit by something thing, what is that, is that a spear, is that a spike, what is that? And I didn't want the player to get hung up on that so what I did is I made it you could say either speared or spiked. Now the problem with that is that actually doesn't help you get hung up on it or not, you still get hung up on it, you still need to select one of those, they're both right, but you don't know that when you're worrying about which one to put in, so that is kind of a failure but I still really like just the act of building grammatical sentences with the kinda cheesy book interface, I like that. And it became I liked it so much I put a lot of work into keeping it, so doing the things where multiple fates are possible or rewriting the fate system multiple times to support localization, which was a huge can of worms. - [Danny] Got it, yeah, I can imagine, especially with the subtleties involved in those words. You know, I'm not sure if I've picked the right one but you said there was one character where their death was maybe a little bit difficult to deduce, 'cause it could've been a few things, was that by any chance Charles the midshipmen? - [Lucas] No, but he's another good one. Actually, that was a case where he died in a very cool way which is little bit undescribable in the very simple sentences that I had. So yeah, I just had to kind of put a lot of options in for that one. - [Danny] Oh is there multiple options for how Charles dies that you'll get? - Yeah. - I was wondering, 'cause like at the point of his death he's like being burned and spiked and is just like. - [Lucas] Yeah, what's kinda cool about that one is that one made me realize, and I implemented this ina few other deaths, but this one kind of opened it up a little bit, he's getting spiked, he's getting burned, and he's also getting potentially stabbed by a crewmate. So I realized that your selection says a lot about how you interpret this situation in the scene and the guilt of people. So if you think he's being stabbed by, say you don't like this character who is maybe stabbing him, then you would put in, he's being stabbed by this guy and that would be in the record, and noted by the crown or whatever. And that kinda opened up a nice extra aspect of the game that I didn't originally intend. And so I went through and I kind of tried to grow that a little bit in a few more of the deaths. But the one I'm talking about that I intentionally made ambiguous it's somebody who's dying who you think is bleeding out but actually at the moment he dies something happens that is hard to notice. And his original death was, he is bleeding out. I wrote the whole thing that way, the scenes written like that, the voice actors recorded it that way, and it wasn't until very late that I realized the potential for a small subversion in what the player expected here. Which actually ended up working better because I had this kind of, I had this problem that I needed to kill people in lots of different and interesting ways, which is a weird problem to have. And some people die in really cool ways, really quickly, you know, an explosion or their head's cut off or what not, and some people bleed out. And I gotta tell y

The Irish philosophy, breeding & showjumping w. Ger O'SullivanTo get in touch with Ger and Michelle O'Sullivan at DOS SportHorses:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dossporthorses/?ref=br_rsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dos_sporthorses/Twitter: https://twitter.com/doshorsesEmail: doshorses@me.com

The Irish philosophy, breeding & showjumping w. Ger O'SullivanTo get in touch with Ger and Michelle O'Sullivan at DOS SportHorses:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dossporthorses/?ref=br_rsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dos_sporthorses/Twitter: https://twitter.com/doshorsesEmail: doshorses@me.com