#but also the fact that big dan was captured by workers for a while... could help with this

[righteousenjoymentofthunder]

AU where eugene finds out that gun has expressed interest in big daniel before (the whole ui fight in the school, plus this post of mine) and gets daniel to seduce gun for his address/"home base" to find the workers weakness as part of the alliance only for daniel to then turn around after and do his whole trick with the junkyard

[kudosmyhero]

The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 3) #3: {untitled?}

Read Date: October 15, 2022 Cover Date: August 2014 ● Writer: Dan Slott ● Penciler: Humberto Ramos ● Inker: Victor Olazaba ● Colorist: Edgar Delgado ● Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos ● Editor: Nick Lowe ●

Synopsis: In a bunker, Silk is walking around on her ceiling saying to herself that she’s bored and has seen everything there is in the bunker. Then, she stops in front of a bunch of pictures, looking at them upside down. She notices her little brother in a picture and wonders if he’s in college, has a girlfriend, and if he wishes he had a big sister to seek advice from. She rips open a metal door and a warning system goes off, telling her to not leave zone one, although she still tries to crack the password. A video of Ezekiel Sims comes up telling Silk (whose real name is Cindy) to not leave the bunker, not only for her, but also for the rest.

Meanwhile, in the Upper East Side, the Black Cat breaks into Edgar and his wife’s apartment. She uses their wine and caviar while they’re tied up behind her. She says that it’s funny that she bought wine and caviar with what she stole and that she really needed to lose everything to realize everything is hers. Also, she said that she wanted to kill Spider-Man but wanted to torture him first.

Later, in Alphabet city, Electro is in an abandoned building where homeless people stay for the night. He has a nightmare in which the “superior” Spider-Man says, flinging him around carelessly, that Electro is his plaything and he loves to break his toys. Electro wakes up screaming “Nooooo!” just to realize that he had set fire to the newspapers he was sleeping under. He then says, while running out of the building, that it is all Spider-Man’s fault.

Back at Parker Industries, Peter’s employees are designing tech gadgets to stop Electro. They are talking about how they have the scariest boss ever, but then Peter walks in with a yellow t-shirt with orange flowers asking if anyone got the email about casual Fridays. One employee asks if he is bipolar. Than an employee shows Peter a device that tracks Electro’s energy signature. Peter says he’s going on a field trip to get energy readings from Electro’s last known location. Sajani then says she was happy that Peter was finished working with Spider-man because it would end the lunacy of all this. Peter says that the government contract wasn’t to capture Electro, but to develop tech for the people to catch him. Peter goes with some workers. Once Peter leaves, Sajani says that even though they spent all their time working on nano-tech he’s willing to throw it away on a whim. Anna Maria says that she could finish the project. When Anna Maria goes into Peter’s lab she realizes there is a lot of stuff she doesn’t know. Luckily, the Living Brain was able to give assistance or a tasty beverage.

Back at Alphabet city, firefighters are waiting for Ollie Olivera who is rescuing homeless people from a burning building. Then, Ollie saves a man whom the paramedics take away. A firefighter jokes that he was trying to make up for one day in the “Goblin War”, to see his girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson. When the firefighters turn to him he isn’t there. Peter arrives at the latest active scene and says he will go get snacks to really change into Spider-Man. His worker whispers, “He’s crazy”. He changes into Spider-Man and goes into the burning building. Black Cat is still at the house watching Spider-Man go into it.

Later, at fact channel studios, J. Jonah Jameson is sitting with a woman who asks Jameson if her producer told her why he was asked there. Jameson talks a lot about resigning and being the best mayor keeping the city safe and all. He says he will never have a teary-eyed apology and ends with, of course, it was all Spider-Man’s fault. The woman than says this isn’t an interview, but a job. He happily agrees saying the medium of television has finally justified it’s existence.

At Alphabet city, Spider-Man teams up with “Ollie” to save a kid stuck in the burning building. Spider-Man keeps the roof up while Olivare goes in and gets the kid. They save her on a web line lowering to the ground. The fire fighter than falls through the roof and the Black cat is in front of Spider-Man. Spider-Man doesn’t know why she won’t help and is hurting him until she says that he did something that ruined her. Spider-Man said he transferred minds with Otto and whatever happened was on him. Black Cat did not care and said that Spider-Man made her look like a fool so she was going to make an example of him. Spider-Man says, “Then the need for pretense is over” and almost takes her head off with his fist going inside a wall. He starts talking like Otto Octavius, saying he will kill Black Cat, which scares her away. Spider-Man saves the fire fighter, and then realizes when Mary Jane ran to see Olivera that she went through that nightly and needed a normal life.

Back at where the workers are, they realize they have lost the device and an employee’s wallet. On the rooftops, Black Cat finds Electro with the device she stole and persuades him to help her get Spider-Man.

(https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_3_3)

Fan Art: Silk aka Cindy Moon by portfan

Accompanying Podcast: ● Amazing Spider Talk - episode 0?

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

How Oceans Of Slumber went to the edge and back to make the most vital prog metal record of 2020

Oceans Of Slumber are redefining what it means to be a prog metal band in 2020. But the future remains uncertain for them

Between 2018 and 2019, all the original members of Oceans Of Slumber left, bar drummer/songwriter Dobber Beverly. He’d been the self-professed ‘shot caller’ of the band since they started in 2011, and later insisted they bring in female singer Cammie Gilbert, against two of his bandmates’ wishes (“there is a stigma in metal towards a boys’ club,” he notes). But with Cammie on board, they evolved from a loose, directionless project into a slick, soulful, progressive proposition that deftly incorporated extreme metal.

Dobber and Cammie are now the heart of the band, and are also engaged to be married. Together with keyboardist Mat Aleman (who joined in 2018) and new members Jessie Santos (guitar/backing vocals), Alexander Lucian (guitar/backing vocals) and Semir Ozerkan (bass), they are about to release their fourth album. Ambitious, honest and encompassing the personal and the political, it’s their best yet, ranging from thunderous black metal to gnarly death metal and powerful operatic drama. The fact that it’s self-titled surely stands as a statement about who they are in 2020.

“It’s to show this fresh start and this new generation, this new beginning of Oceans,” explains Dobber, speaking in a Southern drawl from his home in Houston, Texas. “We’ve made very confident strides in what we’re doing and the kind of music we’re making.”

Cammie met Dobber in 2015 when her then-band supported Oceans at a benefit show. She remembers seeing him in the middle of the crowd, glaring at her. In fact, Dobber was blown away by her voice and asked Oceans’ original vocalist, Ronnie Allen, to get her details. She duetted on some of Oceans’ songs, before graduating to frontperson when they ran into difficulties with Ronnie.

“Dobber is very serious; I found him quite intimidating,” she reveals today. “But watching him drum, then finding out he plays piano, then guitar, it was a cascade of my emotions falling into the band and my friendship with him. He’s one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met – he’s crazy musically talented, and he cooks amazing food! For me it was a pretty undeniable obsession that formed very quickly!”

Their friendship grew, but Dobber was married at the time. He calls it a “Walk The Line” moment, referring to the Johnny Cash biopic, where a mutual admiration and attraction developed between two musicians. He re-evaluated his life, ended his unhappy marriage, and the two got together.

“What Cammie and I fell into, was the fact that she had the same situation,” Dobber explains. “So when it became a friendship that was too interlinked, I was like, ‘I have to do the right thing to get out of the wrong situation.’ It was walking away from a long-term relationship that was shattered many, many years ago. And not repeating the things that I had done or gone through. There was an admiration for Cammie, and then the love that was between the two of us from respect and from everything else. It was very intense. I’m a very intense person…”

“He’s very driven and focused,” adds Cammie.

“To my own detriment,” Dobber shoots back.

“I can be very emotional and I have a lot of energy behind my emotions, and they’re not always focused,” confesses Cammie. “So it’s a good balance. It keeps me from being like a supernova.”

In the living-room-cum-studio of their farmhouse in the city, and at their studio an hour north, Dobber and Cammie crafted Oceans Of Slumber. Dobber, who also has extreme metal side-projects Malignant Altar and Necrofier, composes the songs before bringing in the other members for the finishing touches. He gives Cammie a title or writing prompt to focus her attention on the lyrics. There are immersive stories of grief, depression, womanhood and love, but arguably the most intense song is Pray For Fire, which inadvertently captured the zeitgeist. Starting off chilled enough, it peaks with a spoken-word monologue that sounds like an early Daenerys Targaryen issuing commands to free a city.

Dobber explains it’s meant to be an inspiring anthem about facing your fears and challenging the status quo, led by a figurehead who’s working for the greater good. While it was coming together, they watched a documentary on the ship-breaking industry in India, where impoverished workers salvage metal and wood from huge container ships under treacherous conditions.

“You look across history, and there are people that are held down, and it creates such anger, and we do the same thing over and over again,” says Cammie. “I wanted a song that was empowering to those people that felt forgotten or lesser-than or oppressed, whether by socio-economic standing, or race, or war. It’s a full call to arms and a call for flames. Obviously with how things changed, it feels like it’s become a bit more literal than the song was meant to be, but I don’t necessarily mind adding fuel to that fire.”

She’s talking about the upsurge of anger following the murder of George Floyd, and the subsequent momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement, which transpired after the song was written. There have been protests downtown at Discovery Green, and for Cammie it’s meant a change in mindset as she comes to terms with current and historical injustices.

“My day-to-day life has not changed, but how I view things around me has changed quite a bit,” she explains. “I feel like the most impacting thing has been the amount of history I’ve learned about the US. I’m not surprised by the things I find out, but it’s very disheartening and it makes me really sad. It’s kind of a peculiar feeling, because you’re a modern person and you have this modern life, and then you find out this sad history that perpetuates so many things in your life now, and there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance.”

This examination of the past and the present has spurred her into action. “It’s taking on a responsibility that maybe I haven’t felt the need to do before, to not necessarily be an activist, but to make sure that I’m informed, and I speak correctly, and I give good information, and I show that I do care and that I do have opinions about these issues,” she says. “But above all else, we have a generation of younger people that are seeing this and growing up through this. I think it’s important that people in leadership roles are spreading positive messages.”

Another standout song with similar themes is the blastbeat-ridden The Adorned Fathomless Creation – a title from Dobber that describes the hypocritical and indefensible treatment of black people in America. He’d been thinking about how basketball player LeBron James pours money into education – he has established a school in his hometown, provided kids with school supplies and funded college places - yet faces racism in his own country.

“Adornment is the robing and the royalty, but to a big portion of America, he’s just some black person, some racial slur,” says Dobber. “I’d set on this idea with Cammie, and I’m like, you are one of these people. And on top of being heralded and lauded and loved and worshipped, simultaneously you are also some creation of America that America hates.”

Dobber credits touring the world with opening his mind to the issues endemic in The Land Of The Free, and as COVID-19 rises significantly in his conservative state, he’s concerned about whether the live shutdown could spell the end of the band. His former members quit due to family and financial concerns, and he doesn’t want the new line-up to be under strain.

“The worry is that something like this could make this virtually our last record, and by that I mean we could have half of the band drop out,” he frowns. “Because if we’re shut down in the States for a year or two years, that can fully dishearten a musician.”

Life is hard enough for bands in a country that prioritises profit over people, and Dobber has balanced music with his 20-year career in removals. “You’re always juggling trying to be alive here,” he explains. “We don’t have public transportation, so you have to have a reliable car. It’s hard, and I have a full-time job, I have a kid, I’ve got my band, I’ve got everything else, and it’s 90 to nothing, constantly. And the only way that we’re able to continue doing the things that we do is touring, and we can’t tour. This is going to be far more detrimental than venues closing in our cities, which they already are. It’s going to run off or have lasting effects on the people who populate this industry.”

Now is the time to support music, especially when it’s this crushing, tender and illuminating, not to mention slickly mixed by Swedish legend Dan Swanö. And Dobber has a closing message to people who are stuck in metal’s boys’ club. “For those hold-out stalwarts, it is OK for you to listen to a metal band with a woman in it,” he says. “It is OK for you to listen to a metal band with a black woman in it. So please do be open-minded and have these experiences, because bands like us want and need an audience.”

[wetookanoath]

hi i just want to let you know youre amazing for writing the cap au cause i have been craving one for forever! I was also wondering what are your headcanons for shane and ryan before the war?? I like to think that ryan dragged shane to supposedly haunted places and shane would only go bc it was fun to be w/ ryan. also ryan would get into many fights with bullies and shane would always be there to save him :D

KNDKNIWENFIR, Nonnie this is so sweet! Thank you so much for your kind words! Now, about your question–

Ryan, being a mixed moc, would had probably been bullied because of this, let alone the fact that he was sick almost all the time and poor. Shane, on the other hand, is the younger of two, from a family of polish immigrants. He has worked since he was a teen and met Ryan while going home after helping in a lil store near their neighborhood.

First meeting: 

like in the MCU canon, Shane was walking home when he saw three kids in a fight with another one, younger and smaller than them. 

He recognized the bigger kid as the school’s bully who he already hated, and even though he doesn’t know how to fight and isn’t that intimidating, God knows what possessed him that was able to talk his and the kid’s way out of the situation.

At first, Ryan wasn’t very grateful, saying he had them on the ropes, but hearing Shane’s easy laugh and “you sure did, bud” that sounded way too honest, kinda made him accept his hand when offered.

Ryan found out Shane worked at the corner’s store, he started to go more often for his mom’s errands to talk to his new friend. They became inseparable growing up, constantly in each other’s places, becoming good friends with their respective brothers.

As teens, they would use their free afternoons to go “ghost hunting” to old and abandoned places, constantly getting into trouble, having to call Finn to rescue them. 

Shane had to buy his brother a cigs box to shut him up, otherwise his parents would had killed him that one time they accientally broke a window at Mr. Pearlman’s old basement.

Finn only said he was going to rat them out joking, but accepted the cigs anyway.

Instead of “punk”, “jerk”, they called each other “little guy” and “big guy”.

Shane is almost two years older than Ryan, they aren’t in the same classes but he always waits for him after school and they walk each other’s home. Since Shane’s house is just around the corner from Ryan’s, he walks the rest alone.

They stay at each other’s on the weekends, and when Ryan’s mom has to work the night’s shift at the hospital, he stays with the Madejs, which makes Shane’s mom the happiest because she adores him.

When they stay at Ryan’s, Linda has to take away their lights or they will stay awake, telling horror stories and giggling like lil shits about everything under Ryan’s covers.

Shane thaught Ryan and Jake how to make blanket forts and they are always building one when he stays over.

Linda also adores Shane and cried when he moved out his parent’s house, even when he wasn’t going too far.

Shane and Finn lived together in a small apartment near a fabric where both worked when Shane was 19 and Finn 22, this allowed their parents to open a little drug store where Ryan worked until he became Captain America later on.

Fun fact: only Shane’s parents, their neighbors Richard and his partner Mina, and their neighbor Susan were the only ones to know about Ryan’s “change”.

Shane’s mom fixed his Captain America suit. It was originally too thigh, and she fixed it for Ryan and told him to wear red boots for the show, not the blue ones they had given him at first.

Finn gets married at age 23, Linda dies of TB that same year, Shane moves to Ryan and Jake’s after a long, long, loooong while convincing him that it was for the best of the three of them.

Jake moves to New York with other relatives to attend medic school. Ryan decides he is better away from them, it gives his uncles more chances to raise Jake properly. 

They write each other constantly.

He and Shane visit Jake at least twice before the war. They didn’t had much to spend, but it was during one of those trips when they spend all their money in Coney Island and had to borrow from Finn to get back to LA.

Shane’s mom always got Ryan horror books, he took his favorites with him to boot camp and then his Captain America tour, and then war.

When the States joined the war, Finn was drafted and his parents tried to persue Shane and Ryan to not enlist. Regardless, Ryan’s belief in doing the right thing and standing by his country isnpired Shane to follow him to their sure death.

Even thought he was totally healthy and so, Shane is lazy and hated to work out, yet he accepted to do so with Ryan before their got enlisted.

He knew Ryan wouldn’t be accepted, and he knew he was going to be taken. A part of him was prepared for it, the other was scared shitless of going alone.

When Ryan is first rejected and Shane accepted, they got drunk together with their other neighbors who were going to boot camp by draft or enlistment.

They cried together later, they never talked about it.

Boot camp was, by Shane’s opinion, the worst that could had happene to him (ha…). But he met Helen there, and they hit it up because he was reading her favorite book.

They never told this to Ryan, and none is sure as to why they didn’t. Ryan found out in the future, when Helen was older and still in her head, as she was telling him about how she had to give Shane’s things to his devasted mother who had lost both her children.

Helen and Shane often borrowed each other’s books and bothered Ryan about he didn’t knew how to dance or talk to Helen.

Once, they made a competition to see who could do more push-ups with one arm. Of course, Helen won.

Another time, when Ryan was away in a mission, Shane took Helen dancing and charmed the rest of the soldiers. Ryan was a little jealous of this, but wasn’t sure as for who he was jealous. 

What he didn’t knew was that there was seriously no bad blood between them, and Shane was able to tell Helen he was in love Ryan but knew it was not his place to intervine.

Helen confessed to him she was into woman, too. Later after the war, she married fellow Agent Dan Carter, who died many years after and stayed the rest of her life with her girlfriend, Angie, who Ryan almost didn’t met after waking up in the future.

Ryan kept trying to enlist, each time making Shane angrier at him lying in the form and wanting to expose his life that way. They constantly fought about it and once Ryan told Shane he didn’t understood because he didn’t took it as serious as him, Shane didn’t came home for almost a week after that.

Ryan never apologized, not in that life time at least. He was able to, many years later, when Shane didn’t had the same charming smile anymore.

They lived in a very poor neighborhood, often known for being the part of the city were immigrants, poor people, lgbt people and sex workers lived. So all their neighbors lowkey asumed they were together.

They weren’t, but they did kiss while drunk a few times, and other more when one of them would lie to be drunk.

Ryan wishes they would had been.

He both laughs, and sometimes cries, when he reads that on the internet, when kids like him who weren’t allowed to be at that time express how important is it for them that Captain America is also bi!

Shane was always dancing the house while cooking or making cores. They had a neighbor who was a sex worker, and she always had music loud enough for everyone in their building, so he would open the door to listen better.

In nights when shit wasn’t so bad, they would go “ghost hunting” to old fabrics and whatnot, constantly chased off my dogs or angry men calling them out for transpassing private property or whatnot. Shane found it somehow funny.

His last night in the country, he slapped himself mentally to not cry when they slept in the same bed and Ryan made him promise to get back in one piece.

Ryan wrote him often while in the country, Shane always asking in his own letters why he kept getting his letters with stamps from other states. Ryan said he was working with a insurance company, he just didn’t say as what.

The first time Shane saw a poster of Captain America, he recognized Ryan’s jaw and lips. He was captured that same night.

[terselylove]

30 Escapist Reads To Distract You From Your Real Problems

1. Circe and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

I am a fan of any Greek Myth interpretation or re-telling, but the way that Miller portrays and gets inside the heads of characters that have existed for thousands of years is incredibly unique and powerful. These books do not have to be read together as they just share a world, but would highly recommend both! Though just a side character in both, her Odysseus might be my favorite.

2. Contact by Carl Sagan, about a radio astronomer named Ellie Arroway who discovers extraterrestrial life. (There was a movie too which is also good, but different enough that I think the book is worth reading.)

3. Thud! by Terry Pratchett. Really all of the Discworld books, particularly the City Watch series.

But for me, Thud!- particularly the crescendo of the action in the last act of the book- it hit me in a way that’s hard to describe. I was crying from laughter, frustration, nervousness, and release. It was a truly great book.

4. The Martian. Hard (reality based) science fiction with a smartass protagonist in a desperate struggle for survival. Watney displays constant problem solving that shows real resilience of character, punctuated with moments of stupidity like anyone would have and humor that anyone would need to live through a disaster.

5. Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Fabulous scifi imagination, filled with characters, worlds, technology, politics, and innocence which invoke the most vivid movie reel of a story in my mind each time I read it and the others in the trilogy.

6. The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The first time I read it I thought it was the best post-apocalyptic book I’d ever read.

The second time I read it I realized it was the best love story I’d ever read.

The third time I read it is when I knew it was the best book I’d ever read.

7. All The Light We Cannot See. It was beautifully written and I could not put it down.

8. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin. Really shows how much possibilities there can be in scifi genre, it’s not always just spaceships and lasers. It talks about a completely separate alien culture where the concept of genders do not exist, and the different societal norms that come with it, it goes into some more stuff too, the premise of the story is very intriguing and it’s very well written.

9. American Gods from Neil Gaiman. It has lots of surprises.

10. The Percy Jackson series is my favorite series of all time. I’ve always been really interested in Greek mythology and right around the time I learned enough about it to get a grasp I got handed The Lightning Thief. Fantastic story to read as a kid and still a good nostalgia read nowadays.

11. The Series of Unfortunate Events series. I remember in 5th grade someone else was reading it and started where he left off last year which was at book 8 and I started at book 1. I ended up finishing the series before him. It’s a really fun series of books.

12. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I love the story of survival and perseverance. I have read this book many times in my life and have referenced it throughout my lifetime. I am now a social worker and I work in a psychiatric hospital and when I do my groups I will ask an ice breaker and have the patients tell me their favorite book. After that I’ll give them this book, tell them what it’s about, and use it as an example to continue on in life, to push through adversity and never quit.

13. Jurassic Park is the only novel I’ve sat down with and consumed within twenty-four hours. I love the movie, but the book is so much more detailed, and the characters so much deeper, and in some cases totally different.

14. The Time Traveller’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. I’m a sucker for time travel stories at the best of times, but it’s also comfortably my favorite fictional romance, as well as having some of the most beautifully lyrical prose. Henry and Clare are such a sweet couple dealing with what are truly exceptional circumstances, and the ending… yeah, it’s a tough one, but the fact that it hits me every read through (and I’ve read it at least ten times) is proof to me that it’s a classic in the making.

(There’s also a HBO series in the works with Steven Moffat as the showrunner, which I could not physically be more excited for.)

15. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I can’t even put into words how magical and enchanting this book really is. Absolutely mesmerizing.

16. Snow Crash. Real dystopian and Matrix. I love it. The Babylonian stuff is pretty interesting.

17. The Life of Pi. I read it in two goes, the first 10 or so chapters, and then the other 90 the next day, completely gripping.

18. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I remember enjoying reading it but when I finished it I didn’t think it would become my favorite book. However I found myself thinking about it pretty much every day for the next year. I then stopped and thought if a book has made me stop and think about it so frequently for such a long period of time and so much more than any other book then how can it not be my favorite book.

I found the story so warm but so painfully sad and the ending just absolutely destroyed me. It was a crazy ending which was worded so beautifully and was set in a beautiful place. I live in England and I do this weird thing where if I’m driving down a country lane and I see a beautiful field I will stop the car and go out and look at it for a while. That is exactly what the main character was doing when she remembered her friends and considered her fate. Seriously… it utterly destroyed me.

19. Stephen King’s The Stand. It’s big and intimidating but the story is so good and written so well I found myself wanting to savor it. The story and world change throughout the book. I’m excited to leave it a few more years so I can read it again without knowing quite what is going to happen.

20. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Fuck, I don’t even know how to explain it. This is some real stuff that’ll make you hurt in places you never knew you could hurt. If you’re a sucker for a sad/melancholic, but real and honest novel this is what you need.

21. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. Absolutely fabulous novel that is a greatly entertaining read. It’s hilarious, relatable, and enthralling. It shows that we are connected to each other across centuries. Written in the early 1600s, but it still holds up!

22. The Book Thief. It’s equally heartbreaking as it is wondrous in showing the strong bonds we can make with one another.

23. Slaughterhouse-Five. It reads like silk poetry. So it goes.

24. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. If you actually enjoy troubleshooting as a hobby, it’s a wonderful book.

25. Walk Two Moons. I feel like I lost my innocence with the main character.

26. Dune by Frank Herbert. If there ever was a book that could guide my life choices, this is it. It teaches me resilience, and that there is a big wide universe out there. There’s a lot of philosophical and spiritual guidance out there, and I’ve been exposed to a fair bit. But the Dune series is one of enduring wisdom. And the layer upon layer of world building! Herbert was a linguistic genius.

27. Catch 22 because I love satire and no other book I’ve read captures the absurdity of things quite like Heller did.

28. Flowers for Algernon. That book was a roller coaster of emotions at the end.

29. The Redwall series by Brian Jacques. I love the adventure and questing and figuring out riddles. The way he described the feasts… god I always wished I could experience a feast like that. The way he would write the different dialects for the different animals was so much fun. They are young adult books, but I’m nearing 4 decades and still love them. Been reading them since I was just a wee lad.

30. The Phantom Tollbooth. It was fun to read as a kid and then I picked it up again as I got older and noticed so many little details that kept it fun and interesting.

[ytlinkscom]

President Trump, You are Going To Have To Do The Unthinkable: Your Job

Welcome to a Late Show I'm Steve Colbert happy birthday everybody today is a big one because it is the 50th birthday the big 5 oh and I got to say earth is still looking good she's just getting hotter every year I mean even with the receding glaciers and put on a little water weight around the coastline and earth is having kind of a moment right now cause with people staying home the earth is turning wilder cleaner with reduce CO2 better air quality and animals roaming the city streets turns out the best present for Earth Day is the same as the best present for Mother's Day time away from her children just get all the unruly humans out of her hair so mother earth can sit in a bubble bath and watch Outlander now while human stay inside the world cities are getting reclaimed by the animals a Puma roamed the streets of Santiago Chile in India hungry monkeys have been entering homes and opening refrigerators to look for food and coyotes have been seen along Chicago's Michigan Avenue a coyote on Michigan Ave that's crazy usually what with the traffic they have to take Lakeshore drive so don't be surprised if you see a wild animal wandering into your normal environment oh God here's one now come here come here oh God is the wild snuggle spaniel he scavenging for smoke Jays oh who's reclaiming the earth from the humans you are art he loves Maine he loves this here bye no now you have to leave you can't just chew on the electrical cords out out go mush thanks Benny I might need a lint roller the chaotic the coyotes weren't the only wild animals doing their thing said was president trump who celebrated Earth Day by holding a tree planting ceremony or as he said we're doing something I love doing planting trees I've always loved it yes two things Donald Trump has definitely always loved manual labor and the thing we're fruit comes from trump finally got around to actually planting the tree here he is getting his exercise for the decade I've gotten a lot of practice at my press conferences every day I just dig that hole deeper and deeper and deeper trump also celebrated Earth Day by threatening to blow up chunks of the planet tweeting I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they're asked our ships at sea you read that right he's going to shoot down boats we must respond to Iran’s flying gunboats there just as dangerous as their flying carpets it's a whole new world a new fantastic point of view no what how's it go no no or where do you go don't you dare close your eyes what trump's responding to is video from the Navy showing that Iranian vessels harassed American warships in the Arabian Sea OK that's not good but why tweet about Iran now for that matter why in new ban on immigration no one can fly anyway right now you might as well ban mosh pits but I have a theory a theory I tell you about these random tweets trump's approval ratings are falling and 2/3 of Americans say he was too slow to respond to the virus disapproval of trump is spreading faster than than something whatever spreads really quickly if you're dumb enough to ignore it so he is desperate to change the subject and I’m not the only one who is noticed it House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this yesterday ignores his own responsibility and assigns blame instead of taking responsibility paying attention to science recognizing the word of the role of governance and all of this to get the job done for the American people and so he's engaged in distractions like immigration distractions like supporting people in the street they're all distractions away from the fact that known fact that he's a total failure when it comes to testing Mr. President you may want to get tested because that was one sick burn trump fired back with an official response to the speaker lookout flying around in gunboats run for your lives sincerely president Donald J trump CC Jaffar here's the thing trump's attempt to change the subject to immigration or to China or Iran or do anything is not going to work one Republican close to the White House told Politico that messaging alone cannot solve the political challenge the pandemic presents for trump OK how 'bout messaging and sitting on my enormous dampers keister cause I'm willing to do anything as long as it doesn't involve doing anything the unnamed Republican predicted if the testing does not get sorted out as soon as possible it will be another nail in an almost closed coffin well that's an unfortunate metaphor during a global pandemic plus if you want to get trump's attention I'd say it's a nail in an almost empty chicken bucket trump's normal tricks he uses to change the narrative aren't working because it's hard to come up with a more gripping narrative than stay inside or you might die you can tweet all you want but it's hard to capture people's hearts and minds when they're worried about their hearts and lungs you can't have bill Barr redact the virus or call Ukraine to get dirt on Hunter virus or get Mitch McConnell to have 50 one Republicans vote that there is no virus you can't even pay the virus $130,000 to stay quiet which is too bad because this virus is definitely spanking your *** so if you want to keep your job you're going to have to do the unthinkable your job you know make America great again trump held another one of his coronavirus distracted phones last night and he tried to put a positive spin on how things are going we continue to gain ground in the war against the unseen enemy and I see light at the end of the tunnel I rationally see a lot of life at the end of the tunnel and we're starting the process so the light is getting brighter and brighter every day the light is also making a really really fun train noise everybody keeps yelling Mr. President get off the tracks but I'm staying focused on that approaching light it's coming pretty fast whatever trump is seeing in that tunnel certain states like Georgia or ignoring the advice of experts and starting to reopen already so he and his team were asked about how exactly that supposed to work safely have hair salons in nail salons and tattoo parlors where people where where is this is in Georgia where where people have to inherently be close together so if there's a way that people can social distance and do those things then they can do those things I don't know how but people are very creative yes barbers and hair style is just need to be very creative like duct taping hair Clippers to a couple of yardsticks or just submerging all their customers in barricade Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin the nun also took some questions during the briefing about large companies accepting small business loans and trump jumped in with his own thoughts Mr. secretary are you going to request that those other companies obviously Shake Shack was not alone in being a big company that got money in this region that money or we could pay back the money and they shouldn't be taking it they almost only going to see that means you'll naturally engineering they started doing it in Spanish yeah Harvard you know the deal you don't get to take millions of dollars unless you also agree to take Jerrod swell Harvard responded to the president's attack saying that it had not received any funds through the PPP but had received funds through the cares act to provide assistance to students facing urgent financial needs due to COVID-19 OK that's a solid Fact Check sounds like somebody at Harvard went to Harvard her trump was also asked about how the pandemic is affecting workers at his own properties your Florida clubs have had to furlough have you thought about asking her family members workers on the payroll to help him into the federal is around you not allowed to have the golf courses open you can't have the clubs open you can't have anything to have a lot of different properties but again my children run them and I love my children and I wish them well I look forward to comparing my numbers to my children's numbers I think I'll do better that's an insane thing for a father to say Can you imagine someone saying anything like that on their deathbed children gather round I just want you to know that I love being better than all of you look at my numbers you're human garbage end scene one guy who super gung ho about risking other peoples lives is Texas lieutenant governor dan Patrick lieutenant governor went on the TV Monday to make the case for states reopening their economies and here's how... 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[papersandkeyboards]

5/20-22: Time Getting Short? Time to Get Ice Cream

(STILL) 34TH WEEK, MAY 20-22, 2016.

Once upon a day, I was bored, because I had bought a ticket for a movie I’d been dying to watch (but as of now I forgot what it was) (it might have been Captain America) but I had an hour or more to kill. So I went down to the mall’s Barnes and Noble.

Barnes and Noble is one of the best bookstore I’ve ever encountered, and the reason why it’s so special to my eyes was because I couldn’t find one in even the biggest mall in my beloved home country. Since the best bookstore franchise in the country, although great, is not so reliable in providing me with non-translated books, I counted three most reliable bookstores for such things: Periplus, which are mainly spread in big airports throughout the country, thus the most easily accessible for me; Kinokuniya, which is basically Japanese but is great for two things—legit English books and legit cute Japanese stuff (including full-on non-translated Japanese comic books, but I’m not a manga fan to be freaked out by that fact); and Books & Beyond, which provides a whole shelf of classic English literature but too bad my interest isn’t really in Jane Eyre or Moby Dick and their friends.

Bottomline is, if Indonesia had a Barnes and Noble, I would totally freak.

Anyway, as for the lack of money (I’d also been thinking about space in the suitcase—what’s the use of all the great books I’d bought if I couldn’t fit them all in or if they could cost me a lot of bucks for luggage overweight?), I, as usual, strolled around the shelves, sifting sheepishly through the New Arrivals and Best Seller section. (one fact about me: I like to read but I’m aware that I don’t read as much as most people do—I just like to hang out in bookstores more than actually buying books)

I found a book and read the back cover. For some reason, I was interested, so I took the uncovered-by-plastic-wrap book to the nearest chair and started reading.

Next thing I know, I was hooked. Real bad.

The next visits to Barnes and Noble after that were to solely read the very book. It took me like three visits to finish the not-so-thick book, as I thought about getting caught reading the whole book without buying it if I stayed too long. I didn’t realize how badly I was going to be hooked to the book. The suspense (of the book, not from avoiding the store workers) was so real and I stayed in book hangover for days after. I loved it.

But if I loved the book so much, why didn’t I just buy it in the first place?

You see, the reason why was because I, at first, only wanted to see if the book was any good to spend my hour before watching that movie in the first visit. I didn’t want to waste my money on a book I would find disappointing at the end. Turned out I was wrong. Book was awesome. But now that I’ve read the whole thing, I didn’t feel like buying it anymore.

Sorry for the author, but I gotta say, kudos on that novel, I’m not a keen book reviewer but overall I praise it, and let me just say that I’ve been trying to find your other works and found jack and was a bit disappointed by that.

Oh, the book was entitled “The Truth”, by Jeffry W. Johnston, by the way.

Moving on to the next big agenda besides Multi and reading off books in a bookstore without buying them (God bless unwrapped new books), is the End-of-Stay AFS Orientation. It was from Friday to Sunday, and it was in a place called Port Townsend, and to reach it from Seattle one must take a ferry from Downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island, and then take a car for some hours before reaching the campsite.

It’s a different kind of fun to hang out with other exchange students. We had sessions that everyone silently agreed were boring (sorry for any AFS volunteers who see this, but c’mon, even my local chapter back home did way better job in orientations). We played games of capture-the-flag, but instead of flag we had baseball mittens. That went crazy, by the way. We were awful at setting up territories and rules and someone had their ankle twisted or something. We played catch and soccer and badminton for a while before it started raining.

Oh, wait, a piece of memory just came in. My session group was fun, maybe because we held one session in the boys’ bunk, in which everyone can sit on the bed and get comfy, and because we had fun volunteers as our group leader (spoiler alert—and sorry for those who might take offense—I meant young, fun volunteers, which we all could relate better and they were more laid-back on telling stuff that older volunteers would not).

After rain was another session by the fire (this one was particularly not boring, though, haha). Each of us had to say what did we learn during the exchange—like what did we especially like about it that we decided to bring it home, what changed of us throughout, usual stuff but interesting. Some people brought up the idea of healthy lifestyle (apparently we all lived in a healthy part of the state, I guess). The Europeans all brought up the point that Americans are friendly (i.e. in grocery stores) and they wanted to bring that ‘warm’ attitude back to their countries. (except Italy, I guess? ...because Italians are already so friendly in general) Some people also mentioned how are they changed throughout the year—healthier, stronger (mentally), more outgoing, all the good stuff.

(among other points, I brought up the idea of waste separation and recycling that I came to love, but who knows that one small idea in mind could steer my one of biggest decisions of my lifetime)

Then the volunteers held a small quiz, through which I earned an extravagant American flag-themed LED glasses (which I traded with a friend for a notebook and a pair of 3D glasses). Our group of exchange students seem to have an obsession on hot chocolate, and particularly whipped cream, so what we’ve been doing if nothing else was hogging on the whipped cream and hot chocolate. We also wrote things in our language on a blackboard in the session room. We walked around the site in the morning, passing through people’s vacation homes and by this old military site with unused cannons, and we ended up at a beach beyond the bushes and took pictures.

capek, Mak.

After that session by the fire, at night, we played with our given glowsticks and had s’mores. Classic.

On the last night (that’s Saturday night), some of us girls decided to walk farther, way down the site, through the long and winding down road to another beach. I remembered something about it being illegal (as in we were not really allowed to go down there or at a certain distance from the cabin or whatever), but I guess that was exactly what made it much more fun.

We left Sunday morning.

Tania and Nouha carried their home country’s flag around so people can sign it. Raya passed around Indonesian-themed keychains. I also carried my flag around, asked people to sign it, and gave them wayang—shadow puppets—bookmark afterwards. (the funny thing is that Raya gave me an Indonesian keychain and I also gave her the wayang bookmark, because who would’ve guessed I, or she, would have someone from the same country in their chapter, hahaha) It’s not like that day was the last day we saw each other—there’s still departure day—but YES students—Tania, Nouha, Soha, Mubasshira, Raya—would leave earlier than us (around the first week of June), so it WAS the last time we would see the YES kids on an AFS orientation.

It took another 2-3 hours in total to get back from Port Townsend to Seattle, but right afterwards Cece, Hinaho, and Nouha planned to go to an ice cream festival which was apparently held in Capitol Hill, which was like, only 8 blocks from my house. And who on earth would miss free or discounted ice cream? Hell yeah I tagged along.

We got there to only find that the line to the ice cream trucks were as long as my list of never-ending responsibilities, so we gave up free ice cream and got paid ice cream from other ice cream shop instead. ... gpp lah ya yang penting makan es krim gitu.

All in all, this week seemed like a long week, writing-wise, but it was because there was so much happening (BOTH on weekdays and the weekend). ‘Twas the week I did something I had never done before, stepping yet farther out of the comfort zone, and receiving the utmost fun at the end.

...maaf euy kalau cheesy abis. But it essentially reminded me of why I went on an exchange, because the chance of performing a collectively-performed traditional dance alone or being in a night color run do NOT come where I come from. Or interacting with exchange students in general. Karena di kota asal di Indo simply nggak bakal datang kesempatan nari saman di depan umum sendirian dan ikut color run. Dan berinteraksi dengan anak-anak exchange in general.

Lagian bukannya emang itu salah satu tujuan internal ikut pertukaran pelajar? Bukan ke arah seneng-senengnya sih, tapi lebih ke expanding comfort zone nya itu. Sekalian belajar budaya negara lain, lebih dari budaya negara tujuan.

Salam dari satu-satunya orang yang ikut color run dan hacep sampai tengah malem yang pakai jilbab,

Nabila Safitri.

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/business/is-uber-really-worth-100bn/

Is Uber really worth $100bn?

Image copyright Getty Images

Everything about Uber is big.

The taxi app and delivery business is America’s biggest venture capital-backed company.

It is forecast to raise $10bn ($7.6bn) when it sells its shares on the New York Stock Exchange – one of the largest amounts on record.

And the 10-year-old company could be valued at as much as $100bn when it floats.

However, the other big thing about Uber is its losses which, although down on the previous year, hit $3bn in 2018.

And that raises the biggest point of all – when will Uber make a profit and perhaps justify that massive market valuation?

It is the question that Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, will face over the next few weeks as he embarks on a roadshow to visit potential investors ahead of the flotation, which is expected in May.

What reception will Uber get?

Uber is not the first of its ilk to float this year.

Of the so-called unicorns – venture capital-backed businesses valued at $1bn or more – Uber’s closest US rival, Lyft, floated at the end of March, while online scrapbook company Pinterest is expected to list its shares next week.

But so far, those initial public offerings (IPO) have shown that there is some caution over valuations. Lyft’s stock price has fallen 15.2% since it floated.

Pinterest has priced its shares at between $15 and $17 each, which gives it a value of up to $11.3bn. However, that is still below the $12bn valuation the company had during its most recent round of private funding two years ago.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Uber’s chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi will soon face potential shareholders

Against this backdrop, will Uber be able to hit that $100bn valuation?

Kathleen Smith, from Renaissance Capital, says: “I think sometimes they are a little bit tone deaf because they’ve been in a world where everyone has been climbing all over themselves to get to invest in their companies.

“They think then ‘oh, that means they’ll roll out the red carpet in the public markets’ – and it’s not that kind of place.”

When will Uber make a profit?

The company is unlikely to make any money soon, according to the IPO documents it filed on Thursday.

“We have incurred significant losses since inception, including in the US and other major markets,” it said. “We expect our operating expenses to increase significantly in the foreseeable future, and we may not achieve profitability.”

It expects losses to continue in the “near-term” because of higher investment in areas such as increasing the use of its apps, expanding into new markets and continuing to develop its autonomous cars division.

In a letter to potential shareholders, Mr Khosrowshahi said: “We will not shy away from making short-term financial sacrifices where we see clear long-term benefits.”

Jordan Stuart, from Federated Investors Inc., says investors are willing to be patient when it comes to profit, but only if a company can spell out how it intends to get there.

Amazon, for example, didn’t make an annual profit until six years after its 1997 flotation. Even then it took while before investors could see a sustainable path to profitability.

Image copyright Reuters

Image caption Lyft celebrated as its shares began trading but the price has since fallen by more than 15%

Mr Stuart said: “The stock really moved let’s say five or six years ago when they were really able to show ‘hey, we can turn off investment to show profitability if we want and give up top line growth for bottom line growth but we’re not going to do that’.

“Some of these companies, if they can show that scalability, that ability to turn that profit nozzle on or off, then I think investors… are going to give companies a chance to say ‘this is worth X amount of billions of dollars’.”

Uber’s sales are growing. Revenue has risen from $3.8bn in 2016 to $11.2bn in 2018.

Gross bookings from Uber’s core business – which accounts for the majority of sales – jumped from $18.8bn in 2016 to $41.5bn last year.

In its filing, Uber says it expects people to move away from the expense of owning a car to using services to get around.

Uber is also investing in e-bikes and e-scooters where it hopes to capture customers who make shorter journeys.

But investors want to see a plan.

Mr Stuart said: “I do believe [investors] have raised the bar and said ‘we’re not going to look at clicks or eyeballs or users anymore unless you can show us where is that profitability’.”

What do Uber’s IPO documents reveal?

Dan Ives, managing director and equity analyst Wedbush Securities, said the company’s IPO filing is the first time people will be able to “really get under the covers of Uber to understand the financials”.

But there are some areas of concern.

The firm’s US and Canadian business does not appear to have recovered from the #DeleteUber campaign in 2017 – not a stellar year for the company – which was first spurred by claims that Uber attempted to break a taxi strike by New York taxi drivers.

Image copyright Getty Images

The hashtag then reappeared on social media when former Uber engineer Susan Fowler wrote a blog which alleged a toxic work environment at the company.

Uber said “our ridesharing category position generally declined in 2018 in the substantial majority of the regions in which we operate impacted in part by heavy subsidies and discounts by our competitors in various markets”.

Another potential concern is the employment status of Uber’s drivers. They are classed as independent contractors, but Uber is still facing legal issues about this and if workers were to be considered employees then Uber could face higher costs.

What now for Uber?

Uber did not specify what price it will sell its shares at – that is something to be determined over the coming weeks as Mr Khosrowshahi meets potential investors.

“A lot of technology investors are looking for is who is going to be the next FAANG,” said Mr Ives, referring to the acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet, which is the parent company of Google.

But Ms Smith said: “In light of the fact that we have seen Lyft and its very poor trading and then in seeing what Pinterest is doing tells me that investors may be a bit more ‘wait and see’ about Uber.”

[goldeagleprice]

Legendary 1888 Cocobola Surfaces at Sedwick Auction 27

By Tom Michael

With Daniel Frank Sedwick LLC Treasure auctions, you can always expect to find a wonderful selection of silver cobs; those irregular, chunky silver coins produced so quickly and in such quantity through the Spanish mints in the New World. While many date, assayer, and mint denomination combinations are common, there are many others that are extremely scarce and still more being discovered as the years go by. I always take a look at the DFS Treasure Auctions to see what’s new in the cob market and to peruse the odd shipwreck finds, hoping to expand my knowledge. 

With DFS Treasure Auction 27, it was not until the last week in May that I was reminded, by a fun CoinWeek podcast interview with Dan Sedwick, conducted by Charles Morgan, that the sale would be closing at the end of the week as I write this. As I worked on a project I had the podcast running in the background and was moving right along until I heard Dan say “Cocobola.” Being a fan of Colombian numismatics, this caught my attention. 

The “Cocobola” Cincuenta centavos struck at Bogota in 1888 is one of the great rarities in the Colombian half dollar series. Only five are known and only two of them have surfaced at auction to the best of my knowledge. (All images courtesy Daniel Frank Sedwick, LLC.)

The Cincuenta centavos known as the “Cocobola” was struck for circulation in 1887. The recorded mintage is quite high, but the coin was extremely unpopular due to the continued reduction in fineness to 50 percent or .500 fine, which had been instituted by Colombian President Rafael Nunez in 1885. To top that off, a new bust of Liberty had been designed for this 50 centavos piece, which was modeled on the likeness of Nunez’s wife, First Lady Soledad Roman. Soledad was as politically active and influential as her husband and the two of them had been moving Colombia in the direction of a very authoritarian nation as a response to a near chaotic, yet freedom enhancing liberal period.

Colombia has a rich and confusing political history, which is truly a marvel for historians to study. For purposes of present explanation, suffice it to say that in 1863 following a two year Civil War, the liberal winners renamed the country Estados Unidos de Colombia (United States of Colombia) and created the Constitution of Rionegro, which brought the citizens of the country a great deal of freedom and the states plenty of autonomy. 

By 1876 these freedoms and independent rule had begun to create problems at the federal level and more conservative politicians repealed the Constitution of Rionegro. They renamed the government the Republic of Colombia since separate state rule had been a big part of the problem for the federal government, and wrote a new constitution in 1886 to back up this federal control. The President became a Congressionally elected position and his term expanded from two years to six years. State Presidents became Department Governors and once their terms were served, the Federal President appointed new people. Those appointed Governors, in turn, appointed mayors throughout their departments, except for Bogota’s Mayor, who was appointed by the Federal president. Elections by the public were basically limited to department assemblies and municipal councils. In effect, the countries’ direction fell under the control of a limited group of people and stayed that way for a very long time.

So back to our coin, the Cincuenta centavos of 1887; why was it referred to as “Cocobola”? 

During the long conservative period following those 23 years of expanded freedoms there were folks who fought to regain what they had lost. In 1885 Colombia found itself in Civil War, with rebels led by Pedro Prestan clashing with Colombian federal troops in the department of Panama within the city of Colon. An American delivery of arms was held up in port, Prestan got mad and arrested some Americans, negotiations ensued, Colombian troops took the opportunity to move in and in the end Colon burned and the American garrison pulled back as there was no hope in saving much of any foreign-owned property that they were there to protect. Afterwards, United States troops returned and occupied both Colon and Panama cities and Prestan was hanged for having given the orders to burn Colon.

It’s rather difficult to determine exactly who was responsible for the Burning of Colon and Prestan was eventually absolved of having given the order, though his life had already been forfeited. At the time however, it was believed that, as the DFS Auction 27 lot description explains, “Prestán’s revolt, ostensibly opposing the involvement of the United States of America in the conflict (the US’s interest, of course, being the construction of a canal connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea), employed two Caribbean liberals, the Haitian Antoine Pautricelli and the Jamaican George Davis, to burn down the city of Colon. George Davis, later hanged for this crime, was better known as “Cocobolo.’”

The French had begun work on a canal through Panama in 1881 and all countries, particularly the United States, were watching closely. George Davis was in Panama to work on the Canal, having been hired by the Kingston, Jamaica, agent of the Canal Company, a Mr. Gadpaille. Davis came in on the Royal Mail Company’s steamship, the Dee. He was a big guy, and a big drinker, as many of the Canal workers were. 

At some point Davis and Pautricelli had left canal work and  joined Prestan’s rebels as they were there in Colon with him. However, after Prestan’s retreat, Davis and Pautricelli were captured in the city by Lieutenant Robert Doyle of the U.S. Navy, arrested, court-martialed, and hung. While Pautricelli denied guilt in a letter to Prestan and in a gallows platform speech, Davis simply said “adios” before being hung.

Afterwards, Davis’s nickname of “Cocobolo” was used in Colombia as a derogatory term, meaning “no good.” So when the public realized that the 1887 Cincuenta centavos, a coin already known to be of limited silver content, had a debased piece of currency, and featured their disliked First Lady, they gave it the feminine gender nickname “Cocobola.”

But knowing the history of this intriguing coin’s nickname does not complete the story. As I tuned back into the podcast with Daniel Sedwick, I realized he and Charles Morgan were talking about an 1888 Cincuenta centavos of the Cocobola style. While the 1887 date of this type has always been a difficult coin to find, presumably because of its unpopularity at the time of circulation, the 1888 issue is almost unobtainable. Production for the 1888 dates began, but was halted due to public distaste for the type. A few of the 1888 dates were released and remained in circulation, while the rest were recalled.

The standard reference for Colombian half dollars, written by Jorge Emilio Restrepo and published in volumes over time until it was combined into a single edition in 2006, indicates that only five examples of the 1888 Cocobola are known to exist. This particular example is the plate coin from Restrepo’s book.  

I had never seen any of the 1888 Cocobola types on the market, but while researching for this article I did find an AU Detail, but cleaned example, had sold at the Stack’s Bowers Galleries ANA Auction in August of 2018. That example sold for $22,000 and it was the first auction appearance I could locate. 

The Restrepo plate coin auctioned in this Daniel Frank Sedwick Auction 27 in May 2020 was graded VF-30 and realized $10,000. I will be shocked if another example surfaces over the next 10 years, but who knows. 

Overall, the DFS Auction 27 was a very successful sale, with many rarities to offer. Connor Falk let me know that they had many more bidders than ever before and achieved total sales over $2.4 million. That’s fantastic news and a great sign for the Latin American area of the numismatic market. 

So now, in addition to cobs and treasure coins, I will need to be closely watching Daniel Frank Sedwick sales for a new specialty; rare Colombian coins. In fact, while looking through Auction 27 I noticed a few other Colombian coins that should be mentioned here.

The finest known example of the extremely rare Medio peso of 1868 struck at Medellin went to a new home and will probably remain there for a very long time.

There were several extremely tough coins from the Restrepo half dollar series in the sale. One standout was the Medellin Medio peso of 1868, which is a very rare single date type of the Estados Unidos de Colombia period. You don’t see this coin often and the auction catalog description reminds us that only six are known. Most known examples are well worn, but this piece is PCGS graded MS-62. It’s the only mint state example and was the Restrepo plate coin. The final hammer price was $32,500, so $38,675 with the juice. Similar to the Cocobola coin, you have to go back to the Stack’s Bowers Galleries ANA sale in 2018 to find a comparable piece, the second best example, a PCGS graded AU-50 that sold for $17,000. I could find no other examples at auction.

Many of the other Colombian highlights from this sale are also Restrepo plate coins and of the highest quality. I’ll rattle them off here for reference. The Popayan 5 decimos KM-153.6 is a very rare type with two extremely rare dates in its run. The 1880 strike, of two believed to exist, sold for $3,250. The 1886 dated varieties of Colombian 5 decimos are extensive and one of the rarest has a curl of hair on top of the Liberty bust and lacks stars or dots at the sides of the Medellin mint name. It catalogs as a Restrepo 304.1 and KM-164.2. The Restrepo plate coin sold in DFS Auction 27 for $1,700, which is a fine bargain for its astute new owner. Not a rare type, but a real grade rarity, a little Medellin half decimo of 1868, recognized as the finest known example at PCGS MS-64, sold for a stunning $950 to a collector of high-quality coins. Another connoisseur grabbed the Bogota half decimo of 1871, also finest known of its type grading PCGS MS-63 for $475 at closing hammer. Restrepo’s plate coin for his 401.1 and KM-167, the unique Medellin 1888 5 decimos with elongated head and slightly shorter hair, sold for $2,600 or just over $3,000 with the juice. That is a great bargain for a coin that will be the centerpiece of any Colombian half dollar collection. Finally, the plate coin for Restrepo 404.1 or KM-168, a Medellin 5 decimos with large bust and stars and leaves in the legend sold for $5,500, also a great bargain, as I have never noticed this coin selling at auction or even been able to get an image for the Standard Catalog of many years of looking. One final note regarding all the varieties cataloged by Restrepo for the half dollar series is offered in the DFS lot description, “Restrepo’s theory as to why there was so much variation in design in the Medellin 5 decimos of 1887-9 is that “the engraver was sent to jail and nobody else had a good understanding of die production procedures.”

A stunning MS-65 example of one of the three issued dates of colonial Pillar 8-reales struck at the Nuevo Reino Mint in what is now Bogota, Colombia. This is the final date, assayer and mint combination of pillar dollars from this mint – 1770 NR VJ.

Not to neglect the colonial period of Colombian numismatics, I really also have to include the fabulous Nuevo Reino 1770 VJ 8-reales of Charles III that featured in the DFS Auction 27. This coin is gorgeous, graded by PCGS as MS-65, and displays bright fields and proof like qualities. It is crazy to find a coin like this, as all milled colonial pillar dollars of Colombia are quite rare and very desirable in any state of preservation. They were only struck in three years; 1759, 1762 and 1770 and you hardly ever come across examples let alone mint state strikes preserved like this. I just can’t emphasize this strongly enough. So the hammer price of $85,000 or $101,150 with the juice is not at all surprising. This coin is worth every penny of that and will only go up in value as time goes on. 

The lot description gives a little background. This is “the only MS-65 over a handful of choice MS-62 – MS-64 pieces at NGC (and a single MS-64 at PCGS), all from the same group discovered in Bogota in the area of the foundation of the forgotten former location of the Nuestra Señora del Pilar convent, for whose dedication in 1770 these pillar dollars were supposedly specially struck.” This is the second one from this group sold through Daniel Frank Sedwick LLC and was also the plate coin for Jorge Emilio Restrepo’s seminal Coins of Colombia published in 2012. 

For more information on this and other auctions, visit auction.sedwickcoins.com.

  As an Amazon Associate, Numismaticnews.net earns from qualifying purchases made through affiliate links.

The post Legendary 1888 Cocobola Surfaces at Sedwick Auction 27 appeared first on Numismatic News.

[neptunecreek]

Investigative Scoops Worth Rereading: Year in Review 2018

In an era where political and corporate leaders are attacking the free press as “the enemy of the people,” it’s crucial that we recognize the truth: journalists every day are uncovering stories that protect our rights and hold those in power accountable. Meanwhile, as the media landscape shrinks, non-profits are also stepping in to carry the load. Here are some of the investigative bombshells that we read, re-read, and shared this year. (And a big thank you to our friends and supporters on Twitter who helped us remember all the great scoops from 2018.)   

Give Me My Data

Engadget reporters undertook a massive task to find out who controls your online data:

A team of nine Engadget reporters in London, Paris, New York and San Francisco filed more than 150 subject access requests—in other words, requests for personal data—to more than 30 popular tech companies, ranging from social networks to dating apps to streaming services. We reached out before May 25th—when previous laws for data access existed in the EU—as well as after, to see how procedures might have changed.

 The result was one of the most comprehensive examinations of the state of play of consumer privacy across the major platforms.

Who Controls Your Data? - Engadget

Georgia On My Fender

One of the nation's most ubiquitous surveillance technologies—automated license plate readers (ALPR)—proliferate in the Peach State. Following in the footsteps of EFF’s research in California, reporters from different Atlanta media outlets teamed up to generate the first comprehensive portrait of ALPR data collection across the state. They filed numerous public records requests with jurisdictions deploying the technology, including obtaining two days worth of data from the Georgia Department of Public Safety. They created maps of how and where this data was collected and generated a visualization showing how one car can be tracked in near real-time over the course of a single data.

Follow The Trail of a License Plate - Knight Lab

Eyes On The Road - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Fake Friends on Facebook

EFF has long raised concerns with the practice of law enforcement officials creating fake profiles to infiltrate private groups on social media sites such as Facebook. This year saw incredible reporting on this epidemic, most notable from The Appeal, which revealed how Memphis Police Department created a “Bob Smith” profile to spy on Black Lives Matter activists. This lead EFF to successfully pressure Facebook to send MPD a cease and desist letter and update its online guidelines for law enforcement. Meanwhile, NBC News also probed the issue nationwide, while Gizmodo filed public records requests around the country to gauge how departments are writing policies for these types of covert investigations.

Meet ‘Bob Smith,’ The Fake Facebook Profile Memphis Police Allegedly Used To Spy On Black Activists - The Appeal

Very Few Police Departments Have Rules for Undercover Cops on Facebook, The Wildly Unregulated Practice of Undercover Cops Friending People on Facebook - The Root

Propaganda Bonanza

Visit EFF’s offices and you’ll be amused to find printouts of vintage National Security Agency posters taped to the walls (particularly in the restroom). These propaganda artifacts were obtained and released by GovernmentAttic.org, a transparency organization that does incredible work. 

The NSA Just Released 136 Historical Propaganda Posters - Motherboard

Facing Down Amazon

The American Civil Liberties Union kicked off multiple national and local news cycles—and energized an internal worker resistance—when it revealed through public records that Amazon was providing real-time face recognition (“Rekognition”) technology to local police departments. Documents obtained by the ACLU detailed how the program "can identify, track, and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image" and "quickly scan information it collects against databases featuring tens of millions of faces."

EFF called for Amazon to stop providing its technology to law enforcement to power surveillance. We also called on technology companies to adopt a "Know Your Customer" program and for employees as those companies to advocate for implementing these programs to protect against future corporate involvement in these sorts of government efforts.

Amazon Teams Up With Law Enforcement to Deploy Dangerous New Face Recognition Technology - ACLU of Northern California

I’m an Amazon Employee. My Company Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police. - Medium Power Trip

Scooping the Messenger

In August, Reuters published a bombshell in the battle over encryption: the U.S. Department of Justice was trying to force Facebook to break its Messenger encryption in a sealed court case. As Dan Levine and Joseph Menn reported:

The potential impact of the judge’s coming ruling is unclear. If the government prevails in the Facebook Messenger case, it could make similar arguments to force companies to rewrite other popular encrypted services such as Signal and Facebook’s billion-user WhatsApp, which include both voice and text functions, some legal experts said.

In November, EFF, the ACLU, and Riana Pfefferkorn of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society teamed up to file a petition asking the court to release all court orders and related materials in the case.

U.S. Government Seeks Facebook Help to Wiretap Messenger - Reuters

FBI Exaggerations

Speaking of encryption: for years, FBI and Justice Department officials have pursued backdoors into the crucial technology that keeps our communications safe. They complain about the problem of “Going Dark,” the idea that encryption prevents them from investigating communications and devices. But it turns out that the FBI egregiously exaggerated in Congressional testimony. As The Washington Post’s Devlin Barrett reported:

The FBI has repeatedly provided grossly inflated statistics to Congress and the public about the extent of problems posed by encrypted cellphones, claiming investigators were locked out of nearly 7,800 devices connected to crimes last year when the correct number was much smaller, probably between 1,000 and 2,000, The Washington Post has learned…

The FBI first became aware of the miscount about a month ago and still does not have an accurate count of how many encrypted phones they received as part of criminal investigations last year, officials said. Last week, one internal estimate put the correct number of locked phones at 1,200, though officials expect that number to change as they launch a new audit, which could take weeks to complete, according to people familiar with the work.

In May, EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI to get to the bottom of this misinformation, and we currently working our way through the tedious FOIA process.

FBI Repeatedly Overstated Encryption Threat Figures to Congress, Public - The Washington Post

Silicon Valley Scandals

It’s been a year of huge scoops revealing how Facebook, Google, and other Silicon Valley companies have routinely failed to protect the privacy of their users (or actively violated it). In fact, we’ve had so many tabs open that we can’t adequately capture them all. However, here are a few that really stuck out:

Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis - New York Times

Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access to Your Shadow Contact Information - Gizmodo (and just about everything else from Kashmir Hill this year)

As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants- New York Times

Google Tracks Your Movements, Like it or Not - Associated Press

Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret - New York Times

Other Excellent Pieces from 2018

Still looking for more to read? Here are a few more pieces that we highly recommend:

Service Meant to Monitor Inmates’ Calls Could Track You, Too - New York Times

Cops Around the Country Can Now Unlock iPhones, Records Show - Motherboard

ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US - The Verge

The Cambridge Analytica Files - The Guardian

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2018.

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Like what you're reading? Support digital freedom defense today! 

from Deeplinks http://bit.ly/2CxlwGL

[theinvinciblenoob]

Dan Genduso spent nearly a decade working in consulting before landing on the Disrupt Berlin stage to launch his first startup, Apoll01 — a small company with a big idea about how to solve America’s expanding education crisis. 

First at Accenture and then at Slalom Consulting in San Francisco, Genduso focused on building out customer engagement platforms that captured the workflows, institutional knowledge and digital assets surrounding the development of customer profiles.

“I was building those out and personalizing products and advertisements to people,” Genduso recalled. “I got kind of tired of doing that and started to notice that there were other applications for this technology to enable people instead of enabling companies.”

That realization started Genduso on the path that would culminate with the launch of Apoll01 and its first product, a digital identity management tool, built on Hyperledger, that the Apoll01 founder hopes will be the first step in the transformation of the American educational system.

There’s no doubt that education in the U.S. is at a tipping point. Whether or not anyone ascribes to the belief of Harvard University Professor Clayton Christensen, the progenitor of the popular theory of disruptive innovation, who predicts that “50 percent of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. will be bankrupt in 10 to 15 years,” there’s no arguing against the fact that a wave of attrition is coming for higher education in the country.

That statistic is sobering, but debatable. However, even the Department of Education and Moody’s Investor Services predict that the number of college and university closures will triple in the coming years. 

What’s worrying to Genduso is that this thinning of educational opportunity for students is occurring alongside what will be rising demand for new skill sets as automation transforms the workforce.

Longer term, Genduso sees Apoll01 as a new platform for managing labor in the age of automation. In a future where automation has erased traditional notions of work, Genduso sees people operating in a more flexible and attenuated gig economy where workers will be matched with short-term projects in the same way that Uber drivers are now matched with riders. He thinks that Apoll01 will be the ledger that has a full accounting of its users’ skillsets and is able to match them with the jobs that need to be filled.

“The same way I was automating operations of a company by making it so there’s no middle man, I realized I could match people to education and to work without the middleman as well,” Genduso says.

That’s the long-term vision, but the first step is getting an identity management system to store all of the different accreditations, certificates and skills that a person has amassed over their educational career in a single place. And that’s what Genduso is launching on the Disrupt stage.

“Right now, think about how there are online training platforms like Salesforce’s Trailhead,” said Genduso. “There are industry-specific schools like blockchain schools. You have specialized training schools and then you have Coursera and Udacity. There’s nothing that’s pulling those things together to put a school system together. No one is pulling that together to create an accreditation and acknowledge that what you’re learning counts.”

That vision was enough to earn Genduso a finalist slot in the U.S. Department of Education’s “Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem Challenge” and garner praise from the country’s controversial Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Apoll01 was among a number of companies including Competency Catalyst, EdRec: Next Gen by Design, and FlexchainEdu, trying to create ways for skills learned outside of the traditional classroom to be acknowledged by employers and traditional universities.

Other companies, like Learning Machine, raised $3 million to pursue putting digital diplomas on the blockchain. In fact, traditional universities have already acknowledged the value of the tools and services that Genduso is hoping to develop. In September, Genduso was accepted into the University of Southern California’s Rossier EdVentures education technology incubator.

“The original use case of this product was to start within universities to better understand their students and personalize online education for their students. [Universities] wanted to better understand what their students had been learning outside of the university system from other online learning platforms,” Genduso says.

However, the entrepreneur soon realized that for Apoll01 to be successful, it would have to be independent from the university system.

“The only way there could be a profile that moves outside of the university and within the university was through an independent profile,” says Genduso. So he developed an identity management tool on top of the Hyperledger Fabric open source blockchain toolkit.

Some universities are already putting diplomas and certifications on the blockchain. Learning Machine is working with MIT to put their certifications and digital diplomas into a cryptographically secured ledger, while Southern New Hampshire University and Central New Mexico Community College, both issue blockchain diplomas.

“I’m trying to get away from this world where everyone is screwing everything up by creating these closed systems for the user,” says Genduso. “I’m trying to get people who run these online institutions to get those pilot programs to get that started. My customer is not a university, my customer is every single person… I’m trying to do what’s best for them.”

Apoll01 already has its first customer, through a pilot with the blockchain based education company Teachur, but the company’s vision resonates with a number of different potential customers.

One of those could be edX, the online portal for massive open online courses (MOOCs) that were the darling of the education set only a few years ago. Writing in Quartz, edX chief executive, Anant Agarwal laid out a compelling rationale for Apoll01’s technology.

Education isn’t static. In this future, traditional degrees themselves may become antiquated, and employers will increasingly look for what multifarious skills learners know versus what degree they possess. Modular credentials will be ideal for working professionals who want to update their skillset to suit the shifting job market, better preparing students and adults alike for an excitingly unpredictable future.

Initially, Genduso sees his company getting traction by charging universities a small fee for access to the profiles that his users are generating. Eventually, Apoll01’s chief executive thinks there’s an opportunity to raise money through the tokenization of the platform, where advertisers, continuing education companies, and other vendors in the education space would pay for access to the profiles created on Apoll01’s platform. The key, for Genduso, is to make the system as accessible as possible for the students.

“In the next 10 to 15 years 50 percent of colleges and universities are going to be bankrupt and we’re also heading to a time when 10 percent to 15 percent of people are going to be out of work. When you look at that trajectory how do you as a person in the labor force properly prepare for that?” Genduso asked. “You can start building a profile where you’re building up a transcript that actually counts for something and you can get it from all of these different sources.”

via TechCrunch

[mlephoebe]

The 5th and Final Subwoofers Post: It's finally over!

Welcome to my fifth and final blog post about Subwoofers, the family, dog and deaf friendly music festival my course so wonderfully put together on Sunday the 6th of May 2018 in co-ordination with the Hearing Dogs for Deaf People charity. To say that we smashed it out of the park is an understatement but with all the highs came lows and areas that are eagerly waiting for improvement within next year’s event, this blog post will cover it all from my perspective.

With 7 months to prep for the day came many disagreements whether that was about what acts, rides, food and even name we would use for the event, to get up to date with all the ins and outs of the event check out my previous 4 blogs on Subwoofers to read all about the past 7 months prior to the big day. 

2 days after the event we held a debrief meeting which is when we learnt that the whole course had very similar views on areas of the event that had major room for improvement, I will be linking in the sections which relate to my experience within this post.

8:00am May 6th, 2018 my alarm rang, honestly it was a wonderful lie in I am very grateful for compared to the 5:00am start for Winterland the previous year. I made my way to the bus stop to be greeted by Femke and her sun cream which was a lovely thing, if I had a penny for the amount of times someone asked me if I wanted sun cream that day, honestly, I think I could quite frankly quit the course and go live off the wealth for the rest of my life.

At 9:30am we were off and heading to site to join the first group full of logistic and production members who had been there since 7:30am. I am not going to beat around the bush, but I was not too excited for the event at this point, maybe it was the fact today despite being the big day also meant it was over and I think a part of me is still sad about it being done and dusted, relieved but sad nonetheless, however as soon as I stepped on site the excitement hit me like a brick to the face.

The morning started with us all being given roles and heading out on site to erect some gazebos and marquees, which I am not going to lie this was a little bit more complicated than the average joe may think. This was the first load of team work I was involved in for the day and I think it was some of the best team work I’ve seen in the whole 7 months of work. Whether it was the amazing weather or something in the air, everyone was a ray of sunshine and despite in my opinion there being a slight divide between the music business students and us in the live course throughout the whole build up, I felt it was the first day this whole year where there was no divide at all, we all got on happy as Larry and worked our buts off to be ready for 1pm, our opening time.

Here I will point out some areas of improvement that I feel need to be re-evaluated for next year’s event. Firstly have everyone on site for 7am, not just certain teams as it was shown this year that having the other half of the course there 3 hours later had a major impact on our schedule when being ready to open to the public at 1pm. Secondly, I would make the jobs that need doing the morning of the event clearer and give people certain tasks to complete, despite this seeming a bit time consuming in the lead up I feel It would be majorly beneficial on the day to make sure the site is able to be 100% ready to open on time. It would also prevent people floating around being unsure what they should be doing.

Being a member of the marketing team, I heard some people prior to the event think we could have done a better job, in all fairness I agree, I think especially within the social media team we could have gained a wider crowd through more videos with the artists that would be performing on the day. Create a wider variety of clips of the acts other than re-using those on our doorstep like Dan the Guitarist and Acapella as Subwoofers had so much more to offer. Also, I do not feel we took advantage of the site enough, people love a cute dog and we did not really use that to our advantage as much as we should have. Flyering is another area I think we should have worked on collectively, going to local events during the lead up like Wycombe Wanderers games, local gigs and even shop windows and schools should have been on the priority list. I was a big fan of the timetable that was made by Alan our course leader, it was the only schedule for flyering that was followed to a t, even if it was a bit late in the day, it is definitely an idea for next year to have someone of higher authority like your lecturer to make the timetable as people are more likely going to follow it, like we have learnt here.

However, despite the room for improvement, with there being a queue out into the car park 10 minutes before doors opened that’s when I became super proud of what we had achieved, and all efforts that were not made went out the window. To have sold 1,000 tickets prior and 2,500 on the door is insane and nobody saw that coming. Despite it not being the 6,000-capacity sold out show we had hoped for back in September, with being a bit slow on the socials within the first few months and the strong effort coming into play a bit later than liked I think we are very lucky with the outcome we had, and I believe the big banners hung on round abouts and main roads are a big thanks to pay. I will give some credit to the weather too, that had a massive help in hand.

With 1pm on our heels the masses were flooding in and the music had begun. It took me about 30 minutes to really get my head in the game, it still seemed unreal, an improvement I would make in regard to that is to make a plan, this is something we lacked in the social media team, we had forgotten to make a plan, and that left myself and the other social media member to essentially be floating around capturing whatever we saw. This leads me onto communication within the teams, marketing and talent should have had a much better relationship, the event was classed as a music festival yet those promoting it were oblivious to the schedule and so were those in the talent team, only a fair few seemed to know who was on and when which made it very confusing when making sure you were promoting the correct talent acts on the social media pages. Having up to date stage times next to the stages would have been a blessing, something for next year’s group to definitely take on board as it would allow the event to be seen more professional on screen as unfortunately due to this miscommunication we Instagram lived a certain act naming them after someone else, a major rooky error.

Despite our minor hiccup we miraculously had no negative comments on the social media pages, whether that be on the day of the event or after which is a great achievement and something I think the whole team should be proud off, no incidents, no threats, nothing in my opinion went drastically wrong.

6 hours has never gone so fast, and despite a few slips in that time for example did the face painter even show? that is something we will never knew the answer to for sure, with the last hour finally drawing into a close came many relaxed shoulders and a time for a little fun for some of us, we could not really recommend the rides to the customers if we had not tried them out for ourselves, surely. Despite having one of the best days so far going on the Miami trip and bumper cars with my fellow hard workers was so much fun and a much-needed last spur for us to break down the site for the day once everyone had left.

Whilst Ska Souls serenaded the crowd with one last song it was wonderful to see everyone dancing but sad to see it was over so quickly, our 7 months of work gone in the space of 6 hours.

 I say this every time, but it amazes me how incredibly fast it is to take everything down, the fencing, box office, signage however the deck chairs I’m not so sure. I have never seen so many students try and pack away 300 deck chairs into a van so awkwardly it was painful but we did it, like we did the event, despite a month ago the event looking like a right shambles I think the day itself did it justice. When packing away, from my view point there was jobs clearly given out to everyone which worked amazingly and was a true vision of how team work should be, I believe if the morning roles were as clearly given out we would have been more prepared upon opening but that was just down to time management and there was not much time left to spare in the few hour leading up to the doors opening.

Once we were pretty much packed away we discovered all food traders but one had completely sold out which was wonderful to hear and proof that people stuck around to quite literally eat us out of house and home.

Getting on the bus and heading back to Wycombe at 9pm that night was sad as it meant it was nearly over but to wake up and read the incredibly kind reviews left by our customers and the press that attended was amazing. to discover that it was not just our big heads who were still buzzing from the day but those who attended was a great reassurance we had pulled it off.

Due to our fantastic efforts, like with Winterland the hearing dogs have confirmed there will be a second year of Subwoofers which means our hard work did pay off, despite it being a very stressful few months, to watch everyone have an amazing time on the day, customer or staff made it worth while, to next years team good luck you are going to need it, just be ahead of the ball, please!

A brief reflection on my role: I will forever be grateful to our course leader Alan for moving me to the marketing team midway through the year as I had an absolute blast and the most enjoyable time leading up to the event as well as on the day going round and being able to capture the fun and liveliness of the event. Working with the social media pages was something I had never done before and I realised it is a major interest of mine as I found so much enjoyment from it these past 5 months.

[danielphowley]

Amazon’s imperfect Echo show is the smart device I’ve always wanted

Amazon’s (AMZN) Echo is the most popular smart home assistant around, with the Alexa-powered speaker expected to capture north of 70% of the market by the end of 2017, according to eMarketer.

But for all of its capabilities — the ability to order pizza, call an Uber, turn on smart lights and, of course, play music — the Echo is still just a cylinder with a speaker.

Amazon’s new $229 Echo Show, however, looks to expand on the company’s success in the smart speaker market by including an innovative new feature: a screen.

And you know what? That little addition makes a world of difference. Sure, the Show isn’t without its flaws. It can’t show you items your shopping cart, or dive deep into your favorite apps like Yelp. But if you want the best version of Amazon’s Echo, the Show is the one you’re looking for.

Rough around the edges

The Amazon Echo Show’s look is … interesting.

Let’s get one thing out of the way from the start: The Echo Show isn’t a pretty device. Unlike the original Echo with its futuristic styling, the Echo show looks like an old-school CRT TV attached to a speaker.

Sitting on my desk at the office, scattered among my various gadgets and empty soda cans, the Echo Show’s black, angular form stands out rather starkly. More than a few of my colleagues stopped by to express their interest in the Show and let me know how unattractive they found it.

Still, when left on your nightstand or an end table, the Show seems to blend in better than the original Echo. I guess what I’m saying is, you’re not going to see the Show and be as enthralled with its design as when you originally saw the Echo, but it’s not nearly as ugly as many first impressions would seem to suggest.

More to see

You’re not buying the Echo Show for its looks, though. You’re buying it because it puts Amazon’s Alexa into a device with a display. And while it’s not going to blow away your 4K TV, the Show’s screen is as crisp and clear as you could want from a 7-inch panel. The Show’s display isn’t just a gimmick, either. In fact, it manages to add some genuinely helpful functionality to Amazon’s voice assistant.

You can watch Prime video on your Echo Show.

My personal favorite feature is the ability to look up recipes and then either read them or watch a video showing me how to prepare a specific meal using the Allrecipes skill. Of course, you can also check out YouTube videos and even watch Amazon’s Prime Video to do that. That said, I can’t imagine very many people will stand over the Show for an hour and a half watching a feature-length movie.

Amazon has already begun flooding the Alexa app with skills specifically designed to take advantage of the Show’s display. There’s a “Jeopardy” skill that lets you play a six-question round of the game show, a “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” skill that lets you watch last night’s monologue and a slew of flash briefing skills that provide you with news updates complete with video.

This is … the Echo Show!

One of the best skills the Show offers is its ability to work with security cameras. So if you’ve got a camera at your front door and hear a knock, you can open the skill on your Show and see who’s at the door without having to pull out your phone.

Calling up

Then there’s the ability to make video calls through the Show. I made a series of calls over my office’s oft-wonky public Wi-Fi and was surprised with the clarity of the call’s video quality. Unfortunately, you can only make video calls to other people with Echo Shows or through the Amazon Alexa smartphone app. Voice calls are also limited to Amazon’s Echo line of products including the standard Echo and Echo Dot.

Outside of standard video calling, the Show introduces a new feature called “Drop in.” With Drop In, you can call anyone with an Echo Show and almost instantly be able to see what they’re up to without their ever answering your call.

Dropping in on friends and family is a lot easier with the Echo Show.

If that sounds kind of creepy, it’s because it is. But Amazon has set up some guidelines for how Drop In works. In order to use it, you’ll first need to enable Drop In for the person you want to be able to reach you via the Alexa app. That person will then also have to enable Drop In on their device.

What’s more, Drop In won’t begin streaming video as soon as you reach out to a contact. Instead, you’ll see a kind of frosted glass effect that will slowly dissipate until the image is completely clear. So if you receive a Drop In call while making eggs without your pants on, you can quickly reject it or simply move away from your Show.

Setting expectations

If you’re hoping the Echo Show is an Echo married to a fully functional tablet, you’ve got to reset your expectations. This is an Echo with a touch screen and that’s it. The Show will display things like video, music lyrics, recipes and news — but don’t expect to be able to dive deep into your favorite apps.

Take Yelp, for instance. You can ask the Echo Show to give you a list of nearby nails salons, and you’ll receive a number of examples. Then you can tap them to see their locations and Yelp scores. But that’s about it. You can’t tab their addresses to see their locations on a map, or tap their phone numbers to call them.

You can order items easily with the Echo Show, but can’t check your entire shopping cart.

The Show also doesn’t eliminate those nagging issues the standard Echo suffers from. Alexa will still activate at seemingly random times when it think it hears its activation phrase, and it still has trouble understanding certain commands. It tried several times to get Alexa to recognize the command “play a trailer for ‘Spider-man: Homecoming’ “ without getting a response. Finally after about four attempts, the voice assistant recognized my request and began playing the video.

Should you get it?

If you’re already an Echo owner, then the Show might feel a bit underwhelming at first blush. But when you begin using the video calling and streaming features, the Show begins to shine. As someone who doesn’t regularly use a standard Echo outside of streaming music, the Echo Show feels like exactly the kind of smart home device I’ve always wanted.

More from Dan:

China vs the World: Smartphone giants face a low-cost threat

The iPhone of 2027 might be completely unrecognizable

How to switch from iPhone to Android and vice versa

What you need to know about the new ransomware ravaging the internet

Nintendo is bringing back the Super Nintendo just in time for the holidays

Uber’s next CEO faces 3 big challenges

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Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.