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First though, they stopped back at Crimson’s mansion. Keeper had an idea. He was going make like a scavenger (No offense to Bolt) and raid the wicked SkyWing’s treasure chamber. He brought many big sacks and burst into the house.
The mansion was empty. With the death of their leader, the Crimson Gang had effectively disbanded. The only dragon left in the mansion was Crimson’s corpse laying with his severed wing in the parlor. Bolt glanced uneasily at Crimson as they passed him.
“It’s okay, Bolt. He’s not coming back.”
Bolt spoke in a low, pained tone of voice: “I should be happy about that. He killed my family, and so many other helpless humans. But all my path of revenge did was put me in harm’s way, and I almost died. I was so reckless.”
Keeper saw the pieces of Bolt’s armor lying on the ground, along with the light weapon he had used against Crimson. He scooped them up and placed them in one of his bags. He didn’t want these powerful tools of destruction to fall into the wrong hands or talons.
Down the hall from the parlor was the treasure room. There was a thick lock on the door. Keeper took the light weapon out of the sack and tried to hand it to Bolt. He held up his good hand and shook his head. “I won’t be able to hold it without the assistance of the LinkSuit. It’s too heavy.”
Instead Keeper tried to use the Pulsar cannon himself. He had seen how Bolt had used the weapon, and had a solid idea on how to operate it. The hole where the trigger was barely fit his talon, but he managed to fit the tip of his claw into the chamber. He aimed the “small” gun at the lock.
He twitched his talon and the weapon let loose its power on the lock, melting it and causing the door to swing open. A powerful weapon indeed.
Inside the treasure room was a wealth of gold and jewels. He became excited. He would never have to worry about money again! This must have been what those scavengers felt when they broke into the SandWing treasure room! He thought. He looked at Bolt behind him, expecting him to share his excitement. Instead he saw Bolt looking indifferent, and somewhat distant about the treasure.
It was clear Bolt wanted nothing to do with Crimson’s treasure. It seemed that it only served as a reminder of what the SkyWing had put him through. Keeper sighed. He realized that most of this treasure was stolen property. It would be best if it were returned to its rightful owners. He began to bundle the treasure into his sacks.
-------------------------------------------
-Possibility-
As it turned out, word had traveled fast regarding the fall of the Crimson Gang. Many were shocked to learn that a “super-powered scavenger” had destroyed the gang. To most of the residents of Possibility, many had already made the connection that the “Armored Scavvie” was in fact Bolt, given that the human had made quite a scene of going off to rescue Keeper.
The Crimson Gang had terrorized Possibility for years. Demanding payments for their own safety, no dragon here was safe from them. Until now. When Keeper landed with Bolt on his back, laden with treasure sacks pilfered from Crimson’s mansion, the dragons erupted into cheers and applause. The two of them were now considered heroes, and Bolt in particular was now the first scavenger in the dragons’ history to be hailed as such.
Bolt carefully got off of Keeper’s back, and was approached by the elderly SandWing who had shown him Crimson’s location.
“You risked your own life to save a dragon, and not only that, you succeeded, and helped to save our town from tyranny. As strange as it is to be thanking a scavenger, I think we of Possibility can all agree that our gratitude is well-warranted. You will always be welcome here.”
“Thank you,” Bolt said.
Keeper began distributing the treasure among the townspeople while Bolt rested under a palm tree nearby. Some dragonets came over to play with him, but decided not to bother him when they saw his sling and bandages.
When most of the treasure was given away, Keeper found that no one had claimed about one-eighth of it. He decided that he would keep the rest of it. As for now, he had to focus on getting his shop in working order again. He told Bolt to come along and together they walked home, surrounded by thankful dragons.
-Two Months Later-
-Bolt-
It took some work to get Keeper’s business/residence back to its former glory. Unfortunately, with only one working hand, Bolt was unable to rebuild his bed, though he was able to salvage the mattress and sleep on that. Several dragons came to visit them. They were all thankful for saving them from the Crimson Gang.
After this long, Bolt’s arm had healed enough to be removed from its cast. Keeper took Bolt back to the hospital to have it sawed off, and soon Bolt’s arm was free. Thankfully, Keeper could communicate with and understand the doctor more easily now, as Bolt had taught him more of his language during his recovery time.
Aloe gave him some instructions for his continued recovery. “It’ll take about a year for your arm to fully heal, so be careful with it until then. No heavy lifting with that arm.”
“Got it,” Bolt said.
The doctor also removed Bolt’s bandages, and even provided him a new shirt for free. Before he put on the garment, he looked at his back in the mirror and groaned. His back was now even more scarred, raised sections of his flesh completely covering most of his skin on that part of his body. He put on his new shirt, not wanting to look at his wrecked body any longer.
When Bolt walked out of the village with Keeper, they met up with Winter for lunch. As they ate, Winter commented on Bolt’s recovery, fascinated with humans’ ability to bounce back from injuries. When they were finished, Keeper flew with Bolt back home.
That night, Bolt dreamed of the Starchild again. The dream had a sense of urgency to it. He couldn’t wait much longer.
-The Next Day-
Bolt walked up to Keeper. This was it. He was going to leave Keeper and go follow his destiny.
“Keeper… There’s something I need to tell you about myself.”
Keeper crouched down to his level. “Of course, Bolt. What is it?”
Bolt told him everything. The underground research center, his true ancestry, and the fact that he had to go to this “Earth” planet. Keeper was surprised to hear about his lineage, then devastated to learn that Bolt wanted to leave off on his own.
“Bolt… Why? I thought we were close? What happened to helping unite our species?”
“Keeper, I know you really like me, but this is for the best. I don’t belong on this world. My home is on Earth.”
-Keeper-
Keeper closed his eyes and let out a few tears. He had just gotten his friend back… And now he wanted to leave him behind to travel to another world. It’s for the best… He repeated in his head, and then he realized it really was. Bolt would never be safe in Pyrrhia, not as long as dragons ruled it. If he really cared about Bolt… He would have to let him go.
“Let’s go,” Keeper said, “Let’s… Get this over with.”
Bolt’s final flight with Keeper was bittersweet. It was a beautiful day for flying, that was for certain. Bolt opened his WristUnit map and right away, almost as if it was eager he was finally following his father’s plans for him, it gave him directions to the place where the Starchild waited for him. It seemed that the ship was currently underwater, just off the coast of the Mud Kingdom.
Several hours later, they arrived at a large hill, southeast of Outpost Village near the ocean shore. Bolt’s WristUnit was pointing right at it, even though it seemed it was just an ordinary semi-forested hill. Keeper landed on the hill.
Or tried to. His feet sank straight through the ground, and with a surprised roar, Keeper fell through a hole that materialized out of nowhere and crashed into a cave, but thankfully neither Keeper nor Bolt were hurt. Keeper didn’t know this, but the area he had landed on was only a projection, made by the Terrans to hide the cave.
Bolt and Keeper looked up from their crash site, and saw why the cave was hidden. A strange feeling took over them. This place doesn’t belong here, they both thought.
The cave contained several things of interest. In the dim light they could see a slightly rusted metal pedestal, and something huge at the other end of the cave. Bolt’s WristUnit was going crazy; a rotating ring had appeared, hovering, over his wrist, and then they noticed that a backlit ring, though the light was covered in dirt, had activated on the pedestal.
Bolt dismounted Keeper in a trance, and walked up to the pedestal. They could both see that a faint human handprint shape was engraved into it. Bolt held up his hand, with his WristUnit’s ring going nuts now, and he slowly, firmly placed his hand on the pedestal.
Both Bolt’s wrist and the pedestal erupted with light, and suddenly, huge lamps on the ceiling of the cave lit up, illuminating the entire chamber. Now they could see what was at the end of the cave. It was a massive circular door, made out of dense, unyielding metal.
A floating window flickered into place over the pedestal. He couldn’t read the scavenger writing, but Bolt obviously could.
-Bolt-
COMMANDING OFFICER RECOGNIZED
HELLO, [MISSINGIDENT]
These words hovered there for a second, then the screen cleared and began typing out new words.
............................................
AIRLOCK SEAL CONTROLS
CURRENT STATUS: SEALED (SEAL INTEGRITY 99%)
STANDING BY FOR AIRLOCK DOOR ACCESS CODE
>
Bolt looked over the words on the screen. What code? Then the code came to him. The learning machine back in Outpost Village had planted it in his head for this exact moment. The Terrans really do think of everything.
Bolt called up a keyboard, and Bolt began to type in the code. He could tell that Keeper was impressed with the way his hands were moving across the keys, no dragon could make their talons move like that.
> A6 CC 23 β
-CODE ACCEPTED-
A very loud repeating sound pierced the cave. A buzzer alarm, Bolt’s brain told him.
A feminine announcer voice blared over the alarm: "CAUTION: PLEASE KEEP CLEAR. AIRLOCK SEAL IS OPENING."
Following this announcement was the single biggest metallic sound he had ever heard. A huge ring on the outside of the vault door popped out, and with an ear-piercing grinding sound it began to rotate, scraping off huge amounts of rust and letting loose a flurry of sparks. With a gigantic BOOM, the door stopped rotating, then an inner section of the door also began to rotate, this time in the opposite direction. As this was happening, a huge arm-like contraption came down from the ceiling and it latched onto the center of the door, letting loose more sparks as it did so.
Finally, the arm, with what must have been the strength of five hundred or more dragons, pulled on the door, and with a rush of wind from inside the hatch that nearly knocked Bolt over, the door began to pull out from its socket. Several seconds later, it was free, and the door then rolled along a track to the left, and slammed to a stop with a BANG.
Behind the door was total darkness… Until some more spotlights flickered on inside the chamber, and inside, another platform elevator like the one in Outpost Village sparked its way up to the floor.
Bolt and Keeper walked into the chamber, which was big enough to admit a dragon. A gate on the elevator platform opened itself, and Bolt stepped on. Keeper also tried to get on the elevator, and Bolt’s heart skipped when the platform began to shake with a loud grinding sound. The platform was big enough to hold Keeper, but not strong enough.
“Keeper, get off!” Bolt shouted in a panic. The last thing he wanted was for both of them to plummet down a deep hole.
Keeper quickly stepped off the elevator, and Bolt followed.
Bolt stepped up to Keeper and sighed. His destiny could wait a little longer. For now, he wanted to say goodbye to his friend.
-Keeper-
“So… This is it,” Bolt said.
Keeper teared up. “You don’t have to go… You could stay.”
“It’s for my own safety, at least for now. Think about it, Keeper. A whole world populated only by us! I couldn’t imagine a safer place to spend the rest of my childhood. And maybe, when I’m feeling better and I’ve gotten stronger, I’ll come back. It’s not like the Starchild is only good for a one-way trip… I could always come back!” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Earth may be my species’ home planet, but I was born here. I’ll return someday. I promise.”
Bolt then hugged Keeper, the feeling of his little arms and paws embracing his body is one he’d never forget. Keeper thought of all the adventures they had together. All the times he had to bail the little human out of a sticky situation. Bolt meant the world to Keeper, and he knew that if he really loved him he’d have to let him go… But that didn’t make this parting any less heartbreaking.
“I’m going to miss you, Bolt…” Keeper tearfully told him.
Bolt looked like he was going to tear up himself for a second, but then his eyes had a strange determination to them. He looked trustfully up at his dragon friend… He brought his hand up to his neck, and slowly, deliberately...
He removed his scarf.
Underneath was a round little nose and a clean, furless chin and mouth. Bolt had a very pretty face, leading Keeper to wonder why he always covered it up. Bolt draped his scarf down over his shoulders, and let it rest there.
"Please... Call me Goldie." Bolt placed his hand on Keeper's nose. "You've earned the right to call me by that name."
Keeper sobbed and nuzzled Bolt’s entire body with his snout.
“Don’t cry for me, Keeper…” Bolt told Keeper, “I was born to do this.”
And with that, Bolt stepped away from Keeper onto the elevator, and he pressed a button next to the gate. The gate closed itself, and slowly, the platform began to descend into the ground.
“Try and find Wren!” Bolt called to him, “I’m sure she’d be happy to teach you some more English!”
With those last instructions, Bolt’s golden head disappeared down into the pit leading to his ship.
------------------------------------------------------
-Bolt-
-Starchild Dock-
The light from the spotlights began to fade as he went lower and lower. Soon it was pitch black, and Bolt’s ears popped from the drastic change in pressure. He was going even deeper into the ground than he had gone in Outpost Village, easily more than a mile below ground. Finally, ten minutes later, the elevator jolted to a stop.
Just like before, he couldn’t even see his hand when he waved it in front of his face. And this time, he didn’t have his silver torch, or “flashlight” as he now knew it was called. He had left it with his backpack in the research bunker.
Thankfully, some dim lights came on, and Bolt could now see. A large concrete tunnel spread out into the distance. A dark haze hovered over the environment. His fear of cramped spaces twinged within him. He was all alone, deeper than the bottom of the ocean.
I could always go back up, Bolt reasoned in his head, Sure, it’d be awkward to go back to him after that tearful goodbye, but we’d get over it.
But he had a job to do. He couldn’t turn back now; he had to get to the Starchild and go to Terra. Bolt stepped off the elevator into the tunnel.
Bolt’s WristUnit flashed, then when he looked at it, he noticed that the ring was in some sort of animation where the ring was slowly drawing itself on his wrist, going clockwise as it filled up. It’s loading something, Bolt figured out.
When the ring had finished its circular trip around the surface of his wrist, it beeped and spoke “Local Structure Plan download complete.”
Bolt tapped his wrist, and instantly a strange series of rectangular prisms and cubes formed over his wrist. It took him a few seconds to realize that his WristUnit was projecting a three-dimensional map of the underground complex! Sure enough, a dot appeared at the end of a long tunnel; that was his position. And on the other side of the underground building, which must have been very large… Sat the Starchild, in what seemed to be a colossal cave beneath the seafloor.
Bolt stowed his map and began to walk forward. The overall ambiance of the tunnel set Bolt on edge; this was a place no one had been to for a very long time. He was half-expecting some monster or ghost to jump out at him and end his journey right there.
Bolt walked down the tunnel for five whole minutes, and then finally it opened up into an atrium. Here the lights were somewhat brighter. He could see that the wall in front of him had been painted with some mural. On it was a picture of a big white ship shaped loosely like a bird, hanging in the sky. Bolt realized that this image bore an uncanny resemblance to the vision he had in his dreams these past several weeks. Written in elegant cursive letters above the ship were the words:
TERRAN UNIFIED STAR COMMAND: OPERATION “TREK”
LARGE EXPLORATION VESSEL “STARCHILD”
The mural was surprisingly well-preserved given its age. Bolt’s educated mind told him that it was because the entire underground complex had been totally sealed against the elements for two centuries: it had been airlocked. This complex was meant to serve as the “capital” of the Terran colony on this planet, probably back before the Terrans realized that this planet was already populated by two forms of intelligent life.
Bolt called up his map. This place was clearly a facility where one would quickly get hopelessly lost without guidance. It seemed that there was no straight path to the Starchild itself. He would have to take several corridors to get to the ship.
Bolt decided to open a door to his left. After the lights flickered on inside, he stepped in. A row of glass doors stood on one side of the hall. Unlike the sliding blast doors, these doors pivoted open like a normal door. He delicately pulled one of them open. Inside was what apparently passed as an office or work station among Terran humans. Rows of dusty desks occupied the space.
THUD!!!
Bolt nearly jumped out of his skin. The entire facility shook as if something huge had started moving nearby. Bolt began to shiver with fear… Was something coming to get him??
Thankfully, his knowledge infusion from the outpost facility stepped in to quell his fear: that noise was simply the sound of the facility’s power core and life-support machinery waking up. It was actually a very good thing that happened; if the machines had failed to activate, Bolt would have run out of breathable air within a few minutes. As of now, the Starchild Dock was now back under full operational capacity, and fresh, filtered, conditioned air was being pumped down from ground level on the artificial hill the entrance was in.
With the re-activation of the facility's systems, the lights suddenly became brighter, dispelling the fear-inducing aura the building had previously. In addition, a number of holographic displays appeared over the desks in the office. Bolt became very curious. He had to see what kind of data the computers here had on them.
He randomly selected a computer and approached it. Sitting down in the eco-plastic chair, he pulled up to the desk and looked at the screen. It was currently displaying a login prompt. Bolt tried his luck at pressing his wrist up against the desk, since that seemed to work for most Terran hardware. No such luck, this PC was primitive enough that it used a username-password login method.
Bolt called up the keyboard and entered the name computers usually had for him: [missingname].
Surprisingly, the computer accepted the name. The username box disappeared and was replaced with “Hello, [MissingName]! Please set a password for your account!”
Another set of text boxes appeared, and Bolt decided to try something easy.
[Password]: password
Unfortunately, the box turned red, and the words “Sorry, please choose a more secure password” appeared over it.
Bolt decided to type in his father’s name according to the computer.
[Password]: Darter[MissingLastName]
He repeated the password as he was instructed by the system to confirm it, and soon, his login was successful, and he was dropped at what seemed to be a larger, scaled-up version of the home screen on his WristUnit.
A notification appeared at the top of the screen:
Error: Unable to establish celestial uplink with Terra. Some network features will be unavailable because of this.
“Guess that means I’ll have to wait until I get home to talk to anyone,” Bolt told himself.
Bolt opened the “Apps” tab on the desktop and scrolled through the selection of software available to this screen. One of them instantly caught his eye. He tapped on “Ship’s Log” and a window opened in front of the desktop projection.
On screen were all the log entries available to the captain of the Starchild. There were easily over a hundred individual files, all organized by date, starting with “November 8, 2597.” He opened the first log entry, set on that date.
TUSC Starchild: Captain Frank Terrence’s Log, Wednesday, November 8 2597, 13:34 Unified Terran Time
You know, no one expected me to become a captain, much less the captain of a high-stakes exploration mission to an uncharted planet. Someone up in the brass smiled down at me, nonetheless, and now here I am, captain of a brand-spanking-new exploration behemoth, off to find some aliens. The whole crew of 300 is already aboard, and we’re set to launch from Terra’s surface in less than five hours.
This ship supposedly is super-fast. Rumor has it she can top out at half a lightyear per day, which according to the scientists on this ship is un-freaking-heard of. If our projections are correct, we’ll make it to the destination planet in less than two weeks. We’re talking about one lightyear further than Proxima Centauri in TWO WEEKS!
Anyway, I gotta go prep the ship for launch. See ya later, diary.
Bolt closed the entry. Apparently the Starchild was a big deal on Terra back in the day. He scrolled down to an entry dated two weeks in the future from the last entry.
TUSC Starchild: Captain Frank Terrence's Log: Thursday, November 21, 2597, 06:59 Local Planetary Time
Well, after a bit of a scare with our Flux Drive, we finally made it. We had to stop for a day to fix a space-warp on deck five, and thankfully no one was hurt, but it did set us back a bit. The planet TUSC sent us to is beautiful. Initial scans show a wealth of life and THREE moons! That’s gotta make for some excellent views having those things hanging in the sky at night. I can’t wait to get down there and see the place for myself.
Discovery Team’s telling me that the planet’s a lot like ours. Diverse ecosystems, lots of wildlife. They’re picking up some odd readings with some of the creatures, though. They’re not telling me much, but it seems like this planet’s got a particularly dangerous species living on it.
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Bolt told himself jokingly.
Anyway, we’re going to call the star this planet orbits Devonhart, which would make this planet’s official designation “Devonhart 3.” So yeah, we’re not Terrans anymore, we’re officially residents of the third planet from Devonhart. DT tells us orbital scans will be complete in a couple days, and then we’ll prep the ship’s drop shields and go in-atmo. We’ve got big plans for this planet. BIG plans.
Bolt closed that log entry. There were many more logs below this one. He didn’t want to stick around here forever, he was excited to see the Starchild, so he scrolled to the bottom of the list, and found that this log had been marked URGENT: DISTRESS SIGNAL ENCLOSED.
Uh-oh, Bolt thought, Looks like they had some trouble. Bolt opened the log.
TUSC STARCHILD: EMERGENCY LOG ENTRY AUTO-GENERATED BY SYSTEM (BLACK BOX PROTOCOL) 12/26/2601 21:49 LPT
Interestingly, this log entry included audio. He opened the sound file, and the sounds of panic and destruction came from the PC’s speakers, echoing in the empty room. The man’s voice was punctuated by absolute fear. Human screams could be heard in the background along with what could only have been dragon noises.
"This is a Code Three distress signal... Ship name: TUSC Starchild... Ship callsign... Bolt 3... Ship UVID: 34, 34- triple-zero, ONE!... All Terran vessels in the vicinity are legally obligated to respond... Coordinates are found in the subwave of this frequency..." The man's face shattered into abject terror as a dragon's roar sounded in the background. "PLEASE HURRY!!"
The audio log abruptly cut out. System-generated log entries followed.
//WristUnit Signal Lost//
//Incendiary damage detected to surface-level habitation//
Soon the screen filled up with messages about lost WristUnit signals. Bolt knew what that meant. The original crew of the Starchild was being eaten and/or burned alive. The same thing that had happened to Bolt's friends and family was happening to these poor souls.
//All WristUnit Signals Offline: Mission has been declared "Failure." Setting Starchild into Stasis Mode for retrieval by TUSC retrieval team//
//END LOG//
"But if everyone died that night…” Bolt asked himself, “How did anyone survive to make my ancestors, my father... Me?”
Suddenly, Bolt’s WristUnit flashed. “Proximity-based trigger point reached. Playing message from Darter [MissingLastName].”
Bolt quickly raised his wrist, and a hologram of his dad appeared.
“You made it to the dock. Great job, son. You’re closer than I’ve ever been to escaping this forsaken planet.”
“Forsaken? Wow, dad really hated this place.”
“There’s something I need to tell you before you go. I think it’s right that you know the true history of the village before you take off. That way you will always know where you came from.”
Bolt looked closely at his father’s face. He could see little digitized tears coming off of his eyes, and his face conveyed pride to him. Bolt’s heart swelled. Dad’s proud of me getting this far!
“Sit down, son. This is going to be a long one. Okay. You’ve probably seen the ship’s logs by now, since they were pre-loaded onto your WristUnit.”
“They were!?” Bolt was actually surprised by this.
“What the logs don’t tell you is what happened after the Burning of “Original” Outpost Village. The computer thinks we all died, that the dragons got all of us. Little did it know… We had some young kids in the village, mostly around three years old, who hadn’t been fitted with WristUnits yet. No WristUnits meant that according to the ship’s computer… they didn’t exist. So while everything was shut down, the Starchild, the dock, the research center… These children kept on living. They survived in the dragon shelter and came back up to find the place had been wrecked, and all the adults were gone.”
“Just like what happened to me…” Bolt said sadly to himself.
“But they were strong fellows. They didn’t give in. They rebuilt Outpost Village from the ground up. The place wasn’t touched by dragons for two whole centuries, thanks to their genius camouflage skills! The houses they built still stand to this day!”
Bolt scoffed. “Not anymore.”
“But the downside of it all was… The kids were uneducated at that point. Their mommies and daddies had been gobbled up before they could tell the children where they came from. They didn’t know about the underground research center their parents had built. And so began the two-hundred years of ignorance. They thought that they were bona fide natives to ‘Devonhart 3,’ since we knew at that point the planet had natives that looked almost just like us.”
“So they did find the ‘scavengers,’” Bolt said.
“Anyway, we lived the medieval life for two centuries. Then I came along. I found a key that opened the hatch to the underground bunker below the village, buried beneath the ground while I was playing ‘treasure hunt’ as a kid. You can bet I was just as shocked to find that hatch as you were, Bolt. I went down there and found so much! I spent the entire rest of my childhood researching the technology our ancestors left behind. The only person I eventually told about the place was my partner… Your mother.”
“Mom knew…” Bolt whispered, “That’s why she was telling me to go to the Starchild the night she died...”
“Eventually me and her fell in love, and before we knew it, she was with child. Right away I knew that our child was going to be blessed with the technological wonders of the Terrans. That’s why we decided to name you Bolt. You are named after the Starchild’s callsign, Bolt Three. That ship’s a part of you. You were born to fly it.”
Bolt looked at his father skeptically. If that was literally the only reason his father had him, then maybe he was a little too obsessed with leaving Pyrrhia.
“As soon as your umbilical cord was cut, we rushed your dripping body downstairs to the implant lab where I was conducting my research. I already had a selection of high Terran nanotechnology I had prepped to have inserted into you. The implant tech achieved by the Terrans is phenomenal. These devices are implanted at birth, and they literally grow with their hosts! You, my son, have some impressive functionality built into your body, and frankly, I’m jealous of you.”
Bolt chuckled a little bit at that.
“What this is all building up to, Bolt, is this. You’re destined to take us all home, Bolt. No doubt we’re waiting for you outside that door!”
His hand pointed straight at the glass office door, leading Bolt to wonder just how personalized these messages were. Of course, the message was obviously inaccurate in that no one was waiting outside. He was alone here; everyone in the village he was supposed to “take home” was dead, long ago burned away to ash or digested by a Crimson Gang member.
“Remember, Bolt. We’re all counting on you. I couldn’t be prouder to call you my son. Good luck out there, my boy.” He looked tearfully with joy at him. “Safe travels.”
The message finally ended. Bolt wiped away a tear on his cheek. His father had been dead for eleven years, but he had planned this far ahead that even now he had somewhat relevant messages for him saved away in his wrist.
Bolt was energized by his father’s encouraging words. He stood up and rushed out the door, down the halls, checking his map as he went.
Let’s go to the Starchild.

Common Hacking Techniques and How to Deal With Them

With high-value targets like user credentials, email accounts, and credit card details being stored on personal devices and transmitted freely over the internet, attempts to gain access to these prizes continue at an astonishing pace.
Hacking – looking to gain unauthorized access to information by modifying the features of a system or network, or exploiting its vulnerabilities – is one way to achieve this. And there are several ways in which hackers can target devices and networks.
In this article, we’ll be looking at some of the most common hacking techniques, and steps that you can take to avoid them.

Common Hacking Techniques

1. Bait and Switch

It’s been a favorite gag of carnival and street hustlers for centuries: Offer your mark something that they’re sure to want, then swap it out for something different when they’re not looking. In the digital realm, this trick has several variations.
One of the most common is a scam perpetrated by cyber-criminals on websites (preferably big, high-profile ones) that sell advertising space to third parties. Attackers can acquire sidebars or pop-up panels by registering with a verifiable email address and links to a legitimate-looking site – which is the one that the site administrator gets redirected to. But when the ad goes live, site visitors clicking on the link may be sent to a page that’s been booby-trapped with malware.
Another variant is the direct appeal to users, with an irresistible download of some fantastic widget or app – which runs malicious code on your website or device once it’s installed.
If you want great products, software, or desktop/web page gadgets, your best bet is to obtain them from reputable sources (approved app stores, recognized brands, and vendors, etc.). And if you’re selling advertising space, due diligence should be your watchword.

2. Cookie Theft

The cookies (little text files) stored in your system or browser cache when you visit various websites can hold a wealth of information about you – including personal and financial data, user credentials, and passwords.
Cookies may be stored as plain text, or with varying degrees of encryption (depending on the website). And the use of browser add-ons has made the decades-old practice of cookie theft a richer and easier prospect for hackers.
Once stolen, cookies may be read or decrypted to reveal your information, or used to impersonate you online (e.g. if they contain your passwords). Cookie theft may also operate in conjunction with a fake WAP attack (see below), or a hijacked session.
Avoiding public or unprotected private networks is your safest bet. Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to encrypt and tunnel the connection on your phone or mobile device is also advised. And periodically clearing your browser and system caches will reduce the number of cookies you have available to steal.

3. Denial of Service/Distributed Denial of Service (DoS/DDoS)

A classic technique used to bring down systems or networks, by overloading them with login attempts, data requests, repetitive tasks, etc.
Attacks range from the fairly basic (configuring a system to continually bombard a site or server with requests), to the orchestrated (infecting a multitude of systems with malware to form a “botnet” that proceeds to flood a target network with unmanageable traffic), to the specific and sophisticated (buffer overflow attacks which allow hackers to gain access to personal information by filling online form fields with excess data, so they freeze up).
Systems infected by malware are a common vector for DoS and DDoS attacks, so exercising caution when downloading files or opening email attachments is a basic first step. Having an up to date anti-malware package installed is the next.
If your website hosts an online forum, a cloud-hosted security service that uses unified threat management (UTM) technology can be a hedge against overflow attacks.

4. Eavesdropping

A passive technique used by hackers to listen in on a network connection and observe and record as much high-value information as possible. Packet sniffing, interception of data transmissions, and other monitoring techniques may be used – but the success of this kind of attack depends on the hackers themselves not being detected or observed.
Unsecured networks are again the greatest gift to eavesdroppers. Users of public WiFi should connect via a VPN. Corporate networks may deploy Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and/or Intrusion Prevent Systems (IPS) to guard against eavesdropping.

5. Keylogging

One of the simplest and oldest hacking techniques, keylogging allows attackers with basic software to record to a log file the strokes you make on a keyboard (or in more sophisticated cases, the clicks and movements of a mouse). These log files may hold sensitive data like passwords and user names.
Virtual (on-screen) keyboards – which scramble or encrypt your text input as you click on each key – are a guard against this kind of attack. That’s why so many banking and online commerce websites use them. They’re also available as apps for personal use, and well worth having.

6. Malware

One of the greatest weapons in the hacker’s arsenal is malicious software of all kinds. Viruses, Trojans (innocent-looking files and programs that deliver a malicious payload later on), worms (for continuous network infiltration), and ransomware can all deliver a handsome pay-day – if you allow them onto your system.
Numerous methods exist to induce unsuspecting users to do just that (some of which are described below).
To avoid becoming infected, exercise caution and due diligence when dealing with email messages and attachments. Disable pop-up windows in your browser, to eliminate the temptation to click on them. Restrict your downloads of software to approved app stores and reputable manufacturers. And keep your anti-malware and security software regularly updated.

7. Phishing and Related Phenomena

Using specially crafted email messages to induce a recipient into divulging personal or financial information is the basis of a phishing attack – and hackers have improved on the technique by using social engineering to add an element of increased urgency into their lures.
A not-to-be-missed financial deal or software download. A court summons from the power company, over that unpaid bill. An alert from the police, regarding your recent browsing activity. Any or all of these can be the bait that lures you to a spoofed website where an online form harvests your credentials, or malware is pushed onto your system in a “drive-by download.”
Beyond the caution and due diligence already discussed, a dose of common sense is also advised. If you’re unsure about a message, call or visit the office or person who supposedly sent it, to verify.
Security awareness training is a good idea for corporate users – as well as the posting of security intelligence, to keep workers advised of the latest threats and scams observed in the wild.

8. Watering Hole and WAP Attacks

Setting up a fake wireless access point or WAP (like a spoofed WiFi hotspot) is a great way for hackers to gain a captive audience whose data streams can be monitored, intercepted, or hijacked for various purposes.
Likewise, setting up a bogus but attractive website (like a spoofed social media platform) in a “watering hole” attack is a great way to assemble a herd of unwitting victims in one place – where you can harvest data, or spread a malware infection to the maximum number of recipients.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) remains your safest option when using wireless access. Caution and a fully updated security and anti-malware suite are your safeguards against watering hole attacks.

9. “Man in the Middle” (or “MITM”) Attack

Unsecured network connections expose users to this particular tactic, which involves intercepting the data stream between the sender and recipient (of an ongoing communication or file transfer). An attacker effectively establishes two connections: One between themselves and a servesender, and another between themselves and the client/recipient. They can then read or modify the data being passed through their proxy connection.
The objective may be to observe and record a confidential transmission such as an exchange of login credentials or the transfer of intellectual property. Or the attacker may insert malicious code into the data stream, compromising or infecting either or both systems involved in the exchange. If undetected, such attacks may persist for an extended time period.
Secure connections are key to avoiding MitM attacks, and using a reliable VPN is a way of ensuring the required encryption strength and point to point security.
Other tips:

Avoid the use of free Wi-Fi hotspots
Avoid automatic connections
Ignore unexpected communications
Don’t jailbreak your mobile devices
Avoid using apps from untrusted sources

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Let's Talk Budgeting

Inspired by the topic that was asking what people wanted to see, I thought I'd do a little write-up about budgeting. I'm by no means an expert, but I've learned a thing or two in my time and would love to pass along what I know to anyone who's trying to get their budget in order!
What is Budgeting?
Budgeting in its most basic form is setting goals on where your money goes and then tracking the results over time. I assume if you're reading this, you've already bought into the idea of why this is useful. If you haven't, suffice it to say that I find budgeting to be incredibly freeing. Instead of thinking about it in terms of "I can only spend X dollars", budgeting helps me to not feel guilty when I buy something that doesn't feel like a necessity because I can account for it in my budget.
Budgeting requires you to choose how much money you want to spend on certain categories. As a result, your own budget may share a few similarities with others (everyone needs to cover living expenses, after all), but beyond that budgets can vary wildly. It all depends on each individual's goals in the short and long term.
Additionally, when creating your budget, I feel there are two main ways to go about it: “Fixed Income” and “Previous Month”. If your salary is set and doesn’t change from month to month, then you could budget based on a Fixed Income. With this method, the amount you spend each month on your various budget categories is equally fixed, so a grocery budget of $350 per month won’t change whether it’s March or August. With Previous Month, the amount you can spend on your various categories is dependent on how much money you made the month before. In this form, your budgets are often not recorded as a set number (say, $350 for groceries) but instead as a fixed percentage (say, 8% of your income goes towards groceries). There’s pros and cons to both methods, so again it comes down to your personal preferences. Specifically, it comes down to what you’d like to happen if you were to make more or less money than your expected amount. In a Fixed Income setup, if you have a surplus one month, the default would likely to be to put it into savings and it would be on you to reallocate it to other categories. In Previous Month, if you have a surplus, then it will be distributed across your different categories based on the percentages you’ve allocated for each. One drawback to Previous Month is that this can lead to “lifestyle creep”. As you make more money, your budget will say you can spend more and more on, say, shopping or groceries, when in reality you don’t need to. Thus, if you use a Previous Month system of budgeting, it’s always wise to reevaluate the percentages you’ve allocated to each category as your income grows. (Which allows you to have a sort of Fixed Income / Previous Month hybrid.)
I’d say Fixed Income seems to be a little more popular as a method, but I don’t know if that’s because any particular reason. I think programs like Mint or YNAB default to fixed income, where they want you to set a dollar amount for your categories and that amount is fixed from month to month. (Maybe you can set it as a percentage of your income, but I’m not certain about that.) Even when I switched to using my own spreadsheets instead of Mint, I still used Fixed Income because my salary was super stable and I didn’t see any reason not to. It wasn’t until I took a job where the income paycheck to paycheck could vary significantly (I went from teaching to working in a restaurant for a while), that I switched to Previous Month simply because it wasn’t possible to know how much money I’d earn in a given month. Even though I’ve gone back to teaching, though, I still find myself using Previous Month. But because the income is much more stable, and I’ve adjusted the percentages to have reasonable amounts in the categories I track, it does behave sort of like Fixed Income.
Really, you do what’s best for you. As long as you’re tracking your income and your expenses, you’re going to do great.
Method of Budgeting
I’m going to keep this brief because if you’re in MiddleClassFinance, you probably already have some sort of method. Suffice it to say the most popular (that I’m aware of) are:

Mint – Online tool that you link your financial accounts to. It downloads your transactions and organizes things for you. Great because it’s easy to use and free
You Need a Budget (YNAB) – Very popular software that works similarly to Mint, but (arguably) better. Lots of support around it and has a pretty big community. Only drawback is that it does cost money: $6.99/month or $83.99/year. That’s not nothing, but those who use YNAB generally say it’s worth it.
Your own spreadsheet (I’ll link a version of mine at the end) – This gives you the most control, but also requires you to input your data manually. Generally, I don’t recommend this for anyone starting out, but it also seems to be the logical end stage for anyone on their budgeting journey as it allows for the most customization. (If you do go this route, I like to use Google Sheets because you can create a Google Form to input your expenses that will then automatically populate your spreadsheet. You’ll see it in the spreadsheet I share at the end.)

No matter what, though, just find what works for you. Honestly, if you just google “Best Budgeting App”, I bet there are some pretty in-depth articles explaining the nuances between all of the options out there.
Categories of Budgeting
Different people will tell you to budget differently (for example, check out this, this, this, this, or this). Like I said, it all breaks down to the level of complexity you want/feel comfortable with. In generally though, you’ll want to start by creating categories for your budget. (And if you’re unsure where to start, check out any of the links provided above for different approaches you can take.)
For me, I start by breaking things down into two main categories for expenses: Fixed Costs vs Variable Costs. This was the most helpful to me because even though something like groceries are a need, that fact isn’t as important as knowing that I can spend more or less on groceries and, thus, they are a variable cost. And I ultimately don’t really know how much money I have to spend on Variable Costs until I know how much of my income needs to be devoted to Fixed Costs first.
My Fixed Cost categories are as follows:

Rent/Mortgage
Gas/Electric
WateSewer
Trash
Home Insurance
Vehicle Insurance
Internet/Cable
Phone Service
Gym Membership
Subscriptions (think Netflix, Spotify, etc)
Loans

Savings could also be considered a Fixed Cost, if you save a static amount each month. I like to save a percentage of my income, though, so I don’t include it as a Fixed Cost, even though I know it’s going to happen every month. Fixed Costs are all about the expenses that do not change from month to month.
After I know my fixed costs, I can subtract that from my income and the money I have leftover is what I can use towards my Variable Costs. My Variable Cost categories, and the percentage of my income I allocate to each, are as follows:

Savings (29%)
Groceries (11%)
Dining (10%)
Drinks (5%)
Home Expenses (13%)
Transportation (3%)
Entertainment (7%)
Pets (7%)
Shopping (6%)
Travel (3%)
Gifts (3%)
Miscellaneous (3%)

This is where you get to customize. My wife and I both drive electric vehicles, so we don’t need to buy gas. This results in a higher electric bill (Fixed Cost), but allows us to have a very low transportation budget (Variable Cost). And some categories, such as Savings, Travel, and Gifts are there just to know to set that money aside—not to actually spend any money on those categories month to month. And if you don’t own pets, then congrats! You get to decide if you’d want to replace that with a different category or just spread it out amongst the others! Again, you can choose how you want to allocate your funds in whatever makes the most sense. Ideally, as you make more money you’d adjust these percentages (with the main goal being to keep your categories pretty constant while your Savings budget increases), but don’t beat yourself up if it’s not “perfect” yet.
Conclusion and My Spreadsheet
Once you’ve tracked your income and expenses, then congrats—you’re budgeting! If you have any specific questions, feel free to post them below! For now, I just wanted this to be a pretty basic overview.
And for anyone who wants to see, here is my own spreadsheet. Some things to note:

Because my wife and I were in a transition period, making far less money than when we first met, our savings for 2019 were not great and I got pretty lazy filling out the “Automatic Savings” portion. Now that we have better incomes, we’re back to saving, but since I’ve been saving as a percentage of the income, the savings are taken out as a Variable Cost (on the “Monthly Goals” tab) and not as a Fixed Cost (on the “Budget” tab under “Automatic Savings”).
“FormRe1” is the Google Form that is linked to the sheet. I have a shortcut on my phone, so whenever we spend money, we just launch the shortcut and fill out the form. It then populates the form tab on the spreadsheet, which then organizes all the data automatically.
You’ll notice some amounts are filled in already (my income for November and December on the “Budget” tab, as well as utilities for November and December on the “Fixed Costs” tab). This is because I like to project based on the worst-case scenario. What I mean by that is I put in amounts that I think are higher than why they actually will be (in November under “Fixed Costs”, the Gas/Electric is set to $197.88). When I get the actual information, I then go back and re-update the Fixed Costs tab, often times giving myself more money than anticipated because I overestimated how much the bill would be. This helps for long-term projecting because I’m likely to end the year with more money than my budget may have lead me to believe. Similarly, I put my income at $1,700 per paycheck because this is the absolute lowest it will be. When I get an actual paycheck, I go back and enter it in to update the data.

Again, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out or comment! Middle class budgeting is also where I feel most comfortable, so I'm more than willing to help in any way I can!
PS - If anyone is into app developing, I think it'd be pretty easy to make a simple budgeting app that does a lot of what my spreadsheet does, but sadly I only have the idea and don't now how to execute. I'd love to chat with you!

Some tips for Windows Destructions

Even though most people would consider staying away from viruses harder than getting them, there are actually quite a few people who want to destroy virtual machines like Joel but have no idea what to do to get viruses (besides searching the exact same things Joel does, which usually doesn't yield unseen results.) In addition to making this comment for those people, I also thought it would be fun to share a few of my strategies for getting viruses.
Of course, the best and only way to really have fun is to meander along and see what you find; these are mainly tips for people who actually have trouble getting viruses. (They exist.)
General Tips:

VMware is easier to set up and has more options, but VirtualBox is more user friendly and often runs faster. I use VirtualBox, as does Joel, but VMware is fine for something like this.
Disable your antivirus on your real PC before starting, as the viruses and popups on your virtual PC can be detected by antiviruses outside the program.
Connect to a proxy/VPN or a network that can't be traced to your real one, just in case you get that ransomware that spreads through Wi Fi.
If you want your virtual PC to run slow for the memes that's fine, but it's a lot more fun if your computer runs faster, so look up some recommended requirements for the operating system you want to destroy to run fast. Obviously you want your real PC to still run fast, so keep that in mind too.
Newer systems and older systems are more immune to viruses. Go with 2000, XP, Vista, or 7.
Keep copies of systems so you can destroy them multiple times and go through the setup once.
Unless it was your goal in the first place or as a last resort because you really want this OS demolished, custom made viruses (the ones that are made to show off payloads) are not recommended. If you do want to test them, make copies for that.

First Things First:

Customize your desktop to the max.
Chrome or Firefox should be your first download. Internet Explorer is always too slow for this kind of thing.
Relive nostalgia (movie maker, pinball, purble place, screensaver setting changing, paint, etc.) if it's an old system. That'll get you into a better mood for virus hunting.
Get a simple antivirus for your about-to-be-murdered PC. One that isn't well-known or intrusive, but not one that looks sketchy. Set it up but keep it disabled. This way if you're a data-loving type and you want to see how many viruses you have throughout your destruction, you can do a scan at any time without having to download an antivirus when your computer has almost reached its breaking point.
What have you always wanted to try out on your PC but your parents, tech support person, or antivirus program told you not to for fear of viruses? Try it here, since there are no worries on a virtual PC.

Virus Scouting:

Although it doesn't matter much when it comes to malware I always prefer to get my programs from unsecure sites.
Toolbars and browser extensions are, as you would know from watching these streams, always good sources of malware. The cream of the crop are found on page 7 of bing and fake download buttons that are really ads.
Most desktop assistants aren't filled with malware, but they're usually really funny and somewhat comforting in the strange world of computer viruses, as they talk 24/7. Recommended and most famous one is BonziBuddy but there are others
"PC Speedup" type programs are rife with viruses and don't actually work. Try getting some from Cnet and Softpedia.
Any antivirus that you get FOR FREE! from an unsecured .ru site is definitely rogue.
Anything foreign looking or using Engrish is probably not legit. When you find one of these it's a good bet they'll be malware.
Screensavers, cursors, and custom themes are also good virus sources. Use the "page 7 of Bing" trick (remember, the more specific the better! "purple dolphin swimming screensaver free 2019" will yield better results than "screensavers free" most of the time. Also remember, the point of a destruction isn't just viruses, it's also finding legit computer programs you'd never want on a real PC.)
An interesting point of view for virus finding: try searching things a woman in her 60s or 70s would search. Most viruses and spyware are aimed at this demographic.

Deeper Down The Hole:

Open spam emails you get on an old email you don't use anymore. Most of these surveys and news reports are actually fake and lure viruses to your system, which of course you want.
A very good way for finding foreign software sites: Google a verbatim (quotation marks) misspelled word (antiviris, scrensaver, optomizer, etc.) and "download". I have gotten so many good viruses from using this trick.
Click all pop up ads. Every single one. Especially the ones that have a big green download button or the ones telling you to "update your browser". After a few redirects you'll be in virus heaven. Surveys, fake virus scans, and "X rated" sites are my favorite redirects from popup ads.
In a similar vein, adf.ly is virus filled from all the pop ups. Mediafire and Dropbox can be good sources as well, if you know what you're looking for.
Random letters will more often than not lead to something good. Even if it's just a bunch of 2009 youtube videos it's still fun to see what you come up with. Favorite result of this: A russian car part ordering site that my real antivirus detected.
Find a bunch of different youtube converters and put the same video through each one. It's a great way to obtain results, and it's also a little fun to compare the results. (One fishy site of this nature left out the audio, leaving only a 144p video that was supposed to be HD. I rated 5 stars on the website.)
Torrents, free movie streaming, and video game pirating are infamous for spreading malware. Just make sure you have a VPN enabled.
As the man himself has pointed out, files that are supposed to be a specific file type (.mp3, .avi, .midi) but end with .exe instead are always malware. Most ROM sharing sites nowadays have lowered their standards and started doing this.
In general, bootleg flash game sites have viruses. Although some can be downloaded just from playing the game, most reside in ads.
Porn.

The Last Straw:
If you haven't completely BSODed your poor virtual PC or infected it with ransomware by the time you're done, there are a few things to do to finish one off.

Download malware made on purpose to run and erase the master boot record. There are collections of these kinds of malware online and you can find them quite easily, although you might want to install it beforehand so you won't have to deal with a slow, corrupted PC while you try to download one.
Delete system32 in the command prompt. (A classic.)
Just give up and delete the VM---it's not like you have to have a satisfying ending.

Or alternatively, run your antivirus you got at the beginning of destruction and see if you can restore it to how it used to be. It's worth it just to see how many viruses you were actually successful in getting.
Well, there you go! There are your viruses.
Of course, it's impossible to do all of these things. They're completely just my suggestions, and you should tweak them and make up your own strategies as you go.
If anyone has any ideas I should add to this post please tell me.

r/Ethereum - I wrote this to explain Ethereum in depth to newbies. Please check for accuracy!

Hello ethereum - I'm currently in Singapore exploring all of the cool blockchain tech that's going on here. I'm also writing a blog that aims to explain blockchain technology simply to anyone whose interested. www.cryptoambit.com
If you guys could spot check my Ethereum post for accuracy, I'd appreciate it. If you like it, would also appreciate some subscribers! Thanks
By now, most people know Ethereum as the second most valuable cryptocurrency, currently valued at over $60 billion dollars. Well, it turns out that Ethereum isn't actually a cryptocurrency - it's a software platform that let's programmers build applications on top of blockchain technology. Within the ethereum platform, is a cryptocurrency called ether that is used to power applications built on the Ethereum blockchain.
From Bitcoin to Ethereum
Bitcoin uses a global network of computers that maintain a shared ledger called a blockchain that keeps track of who owns bitcoin. Once blockchain technology was introduced to the world, people realized that blockchains could be used to keep track of anything of value. In 2013, a 19 year old named Vitalik Buterin introduced the Ethereum white paper, which proposed an open source platform that would let programmers build blockchain applications that could facilitate the exchange of money, content, property, shares or anything of value. Much like with Satoshi Nakamoto's paper, Buterin's was met with widespread excitement from software developers around the world who began building toward the vision Buterin laid out.
Much like Bitcoin, Ethereum isn't owned or controlled by any one person. Unlike Bitcoin, whose creator remains anonymous, Ethereum has a leader in Vitalik Buterin (pictured below). While Buterin doesn't control Ethereum in the way that a CEO does, his word carries tremendous weight in dictating the direction of the project - something that is considered a strength or a weakness, depending on who you ask.
Smart Contracts
The basic function that programs built on Ethereum perform are called smart contracts. Smart contracts are digital agreements that execute automatically based on real world data. An easy way to think of them is an "If-then statement." IF condition A exists, THEN perform function B.
Let's say for example Grandma wants to make sure she never forgets to give Little Billy birthday money each year. She could write a smart contract that says IF it's Little Billy's birthday, THEN pay him $10 from Grandma's account. Once this contract is broadcast to the Ethereum network, it will execute automatically each year on Little Billy's birthday.
Smart contracts have applications far beyond improving the reliability and efficiency of Grandmothers around the world. Another simple application of a smart contract is for rental payments: IF date = 1st of the month, THEN pay landlord rent amount. Processes that currently involve manual interactions between two parties can now be automated and the value can be moved in real time over the blockchain rather than settling days later as with traditional banking.
A Real World Example
Ethereum and smart contracts are a big deal because they have the ability to usher in what's been dubbed the "smart economy" - one in which slow manual processes prone to human error and deceit are replaced with automated processes that are completely transparent and trustworthy. A real world example that typifies the new "smart economy" is a project being run by a French insurance company called AXA.
AXA offers a flight insurance product that pays out a policy holder in the event that a flight is delayed by two hours or more. It currently has a product in trial that will pay out insurance claims using smart contracts and the Ethereum blockchain. The smart contract is simple: IF flight is over two hours late, THEN pay policyholder. The smart contract is connected to a database that monitors flight times. If the database shows that the flight is over two hours late, the smart contract is triggered and the policyholder is paid automatically over the blockchain.
Without the smart contract, the policyholder would have to file a claim and wait for the insurance company's claims department to process it, which could take anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks. With the smart contract, neither the insurance company nor the policyholder has to do anything. This also creates trust between the two parties because there are no grey areas - the customer can review the smart contract prior to purchasing the policy and feel comfortable that he will receive his claim in the event of a delay.
Ethereum vs Ether
As stated in the intro, Ethereum is a platform for building blockchain applications using smart contracts. What you may have just purchased on Coinbase is called Ether, which is the cryptocurrency that fuels the Ethereum network.
Ether functions more like a digital commodity than a digital currency. Just like you need gasoline to fuel your car, you need Ether to run applications on the Ethereum blockchain. In the Grandmother example cited above, Grandma would have to purchase small amounts of Ether to fuel her smart contract that pays Little Billy his birthday money.
The Ethereum blockchain functions in the same way as the Bitcoin blockchain: a network of computers run software that validates transactions through majority consensus. The people running these computers are called miners. Bitcoin miners are compensated for their resources by being paid in Bitcoin. Ethereum miners are compensated in Ether. On Little Billy's birthday, Grandma's ether transaction fee will go to whichever miner adds the block containing Grandma's transaction to the blockchain. That miner will also receive new Ether in the process.
The same supply/demand economics that apply to commodities like oil and gas also apply to Ether. Oil is valuable because it powers many of the things we use in our everyday life - it heats our homes and fuels our engines. The more people and enterprises that rely on Ethereum based applications, the higher the demand will be for Ether which will increase its value. As with all cryptocurrencies, there's plenty of speculation baked into the price - speculation that the demand for Ether will increase in the future. Since Ether is valuable, exchangeable and transferable, certain merchants are also starting to accept it as a currency.
dApps - Decentralized Apps
Applications that run smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain are called "dApps," or decentralized apps. Just as any app developer can build apps on top of Apple's IOS operating system, developers can build on top of Ethereum's blockchain infrastructure. To the end user of a dApp, it might not look and feel any different than the apps you use today. It's the underlying blockchain infrastructure that make them different.
Since dApps function on top of the blockchain, they can be used to transfer value peer-to-peer. To return to our Grandmother example, there could be a dApp that Granny can download that lets her schedule Little Billy's birthday payments without having to code the smart contract herself. dApps are also completely open sourced so other people can access the code and build on top of them. Someone could take the code to the birthday payment dApp and add the ability for Grandma to add a note that says, "Happy Birthday Billy!" Running dApps on the blockchain also offers added security benefits. Since the transactions are distributed and encrypted across the Ethereum blockchain, there is no central place for a hacker to breach and gain access to all of the world's Grandmother to grandson birthday payment data.
At this point, I'm really beating the GrandmotheLittle Billy example to death because I think it represents a simple illustration for the kinds of applications that can be built on the Ethereum blockchain. In reality, the dApps that are being built are much more complex. Here are a few examples:

Weifund - blockchain crowdfunding: Users can launch traditional crowdfunding campaigns, but through the use of smart contracts, backers can gain a financial stake in the project. If an indie film gets funded on Weifund, a backer who financed 10% of the project can collect 10% of the film's revenues. Payments will be issued in real time as the film generates revenue.
Ujo Music - Music licensing via the blockchain: An artist can create an original song and register it on Ujo's platform and set their own licensing terms. If a film producer wants to use that song in a movie, they can purchase the rights based on the terms set by the artist who will then get paid directly. This erases the need for industry middlemen like Warner Brothers who end up taking the lion's share of their artist's profits.
Virtue Poker - Online poker secured by the blockchain: At the height of it's popularity, online poker platforms like PokerStars were marred with issues that ranged from deck rigging to the abuse of player funds held by the company. Virtue Poker using Ethereum allows players to fund their bets directly, insuring that no central party can access and misappropriate player money. Their code is open sourced so that users can understand how hands are dealt, insuring that no one can rig the deck. Lastly, players are paid out their winnings in real time over the blockchain so no more waiting weeks for a check to come in the mail.

Ethereum Tokens
So now that you understand that Ethereum is a network for building decentralized applications that require a cryptocurrency called Ether to run, I'm going to introduce a confusing concept. Many dApps built on Ethereum have their own cryptocurrencies or "tokens." In order to interact with the dApps, customers need to purchase the dApp's native token.
Here's a helpful analogy I came across - when you go to a waterpark, you pay the admission fee and in return, you get a wristband. That wristband gives you the ability to ride the waterslides in the water park. With certain dApps, the token is the wristband, and a user must purchase it to interact with whatever the dApp offers.
Let's take a dApp called Golem as an example. Golem lets people rent out their excess computing power to people who need it - kind of like a computer AirBnb. To cite this article from Laura Shin, if I'm a computer graphics artist that wants to render some kind of computationally intense animation, I can purchase Golem tokens that let me tap into the Golem network to generate my animation. I then pay the people who are renting me their computers with the Golem tokens. The Golem token is a form of smart contract and this transaction is recorded on the Ethereum blockchain.
Since Golem tokens are also a cryptocurrency, they can be traded on the free market. If I'm a speculator who has no intention of using the Golem network to rent computing power, I can still buy the Golem token on an exchange in hopes that it appreciates in value. Like bitcoin, there is a fixed supply of Golem tokens so if the demand for the service increases, so will the value of the token. If I bought Golem at its original price of around 1 penny and held it to today, I would have made 35X my initial investment since Golem tokens currently trade around 35 cents a piece.
ICOs
ICO stands for, "Initial Coin Offering" which is a fundraising mechanism for cryptocurrencies which has exploded in popularity this year - the majority of them are held on the Ethereum network. Similar to a kickstarter campaign, they allow entrepreneurs to raise money for projects by giving investors an early opportunity to purchase the cryptocurrency before the final product has been built. If the project is successful, the value of the cryptocurrency will rise in value and early investors can sell it on the open market for a profit.
ICOs have stirred up a lot of controversy because they represent a risky proposition with zero investor protection. Let's say I wanted to build a casino and to finance it, I gave investors the opportunity to buy chips that can be used at my roulette tables once the casino opened. If you bought $100K in roulette chips from me and I decide that I no longer want to build the casino, you're stuck holding worthless chips. If investors don't do their due diligence, they may end up buying tokens for a project whose creators never intended on building it in he first place - the creators walk away with the money and the investors have no way of recouping their funds.
On the other hand, early investors in projects that go on to be successful have the opportunity to make enormous returns. For example, people who invested $1,000 in the Golem ICO would be sitting on $35,000 at it's current price of $0.35 - if it ever goes to $10, they're all millionaires. Another positive aspect of ICOs is that they let anyone, rich or poor get involved in early stage investing. To invest in a company like Twitter or Facebook pre-IPO (initial public offering), you need to be an accredited investor - this basically means you're already a rich person. With ICOs, all you need is an internet connection and a little bit of money and you have the potential to become wealthy by investing in the right projects.
Far From Perfect
Ethereum has the potential to change the way humans transact with one another but it is still a very young technology and it hasn't been without its problems. While the blockchain architecture underlying the Ethereum network is secure, not all of the applications built on top of it are. Faulty code can and has made applications vulnerable to hacking and malfunctions. Here are two prime examples:
DAO Hack - DAO was a dApp built on Ethereum that enabled crowd based venture capital. DAO token holders were given the right to vote on projects they wanted to support - if projects went on to be successful, DAO token holders would receive financial rewards. The DAO ICO received $168 million in funding. The DAO software was hosted on the Ethereum blockchain and was publically visible by all. A hacker spotted a flaw in the DAO's code that enabled him to route $55M in ether held by the DAO into an account that he controlled. The Ethereum team had do do something called a hard fork (something I won't get into now) to reverse return the stolen funds. Parity Wallet Freeze - Parity is a wallet where people store Ether. A flaw in Parity's code let a user delete a specific line of code that was necessary for accessing funds in a Parity wallet. This led to $280 million dollars worth of ether being frozen - it hasn't been stolen but it can't be accessed either. Parity Technologies has proposed another hard fork to correct the issue - something that is sure to divide the Ethereum community and rattle user confidence.
Despite the world changing implications that Ethereum dApps and smart contracts have, the trouble is that any programmer can write them - if they aren't written properly, they can behave in unintended ways and be exploited like in the above listed examples. Ethereum is still a very young network and security issues with dApps and smart contracts will have to be sorted out if its to reach its true aspirations.
Leading The Decentralized Revolution
“Ethereum aims to take the promise of decentralization, openness and security that is at the core of blockchain technology and brings it to almost anything that can be computed.” - Vitalik Buterin
With dApps, smart contracts and blockchain technology, Ethereum is leading the decentralized revolution. Bitcoin is the world's first decentralized currency, that operates on a global network of computers outside of central intermediaries. Ethereum gives programmers a platform to develop a decentralized version of just about anything.
Decentralized networks like Ethereum have the power to remove the intermediaries that currently exist between producer and consumer. Let's take a company like Uber. Uber is a platform that brings people who need rides together with people who have cars. To facilitate this interaction, Uber collects 20% of every ride. With Ethereum and blockchain technology, there is nothing to prevent a bunch of software developers from writing a dApp that creates a decentralized Uber. Instead of 20% per ride, transaction fees are paid to the network and the driver takes home the lions share of the transaction. Tokens can be issued that represent ownership in the network. Coders who work on improving the network can get paid for their efforts in ownership tokens. Non-technical people can come up with marketing campaigns that spread awareness for the network and also get compensated in ownership tokens. As the decentralized Uber network grows and improves, the value of its ownership token increases, rewarding the people that built it. The result is whats referred to as a "Decentralized Autonomous Organization" and theres a strong possibility that DAOs replace a lot of the world's biggest corporations.
This may sound like a radical concept but blockchain technology enables these kinds of decentralized organizations to exist - Ethereum provides the tools for people to go out and build them.

[Debate] FEE vs Uniquenameosaurus, A libertarian thinktank and a somewhat libertarian youtube channel discussing on whether Netflix and the streaming industry is either/both 1.) Market Driven and/or 2.) Improving the industry for consumers as a whole. Just putting all the resources in one place.

1.) Uniquenameosaurus released this viral video (The NETFLIX Problem) **in April 2019.**It details all the severe faults and issues with the streaming industry and about how it relies more on competing over exclusive rights on IPs rather than competing on providing a better product.

2.) FEE releases A Definitive History of Streaming Media from Netflix to Disney+ in December 2019. (Coincidentally and independently, not as rebuttal to Uniquenameosaurus's video).Video is complimentary on Netflix and the streaming industry even to the present, nearly a decade after putting Blockbuster and to some extent Cable, both inferior products out of Business.
3.) Uniquenameosaurus's rebuttal (as a pinned comment):

FEE what.
You talk like its competition driving improvement in this industry but you yourself literally admit to buying all the streaming services. If most consumers are buying two different kinds of milk at once, are they competing? Or is it more likely that they are fulfilling separate demands? The market signal a business gets when you buy both is the same as when you buy a car and a t-shirt, you're ignored (from that angle at least) because their bottom line isn't effected by the other. So in streaming this encourages stagnation because they are not losing money to a competitor. There is no incentive to compete in any way other than to lock down exclusive licenses which can't possibly be defined as competing because exclusive licenses don't improve your product, they just hurt your "competitors"
[Your] definition of a natural monopoly is also really dodgy too, typically libertarians don't consider a "natural monopoly" as a real thing because the only useful definition of a monopoly is to describe why consumers are being abused. This doesn't happen even when they're is only one company because the THREAT of a new company capitalising on their abuse is enough to keep them away from it. You talk like Hulu/disney/amazon was good for Netflix but any consumer will tell you that the golden years of streaming was when Netflix was the ONLY streaming service. Infact Sandvine's internet Phenomena Report is finally beginning to reflect that as piracy is now on the rise again for the first time since like 2012.
You go on to address higher price and the splitting of content over tons of different apps but then strawman it by conflating it with a race to the bottom/the quality of individual shows going down. But more egregiously you compare our current system to CABLE rather than Netflix dominating the market just a couple of years ago. Like no shamwow, we're not as bad as cable (YET) but that doesn't prove anything. What DOES prove something is that there is a wide spread notion that streaming got worse. Tell me, in what true competitive market does an industry make consumers less happy than before?
And finally at 15:00 you say there's a restructured Blockbuster but say it was too late to get big. and I know it was 2011 so it wasn't even really true that is was too late, that was more 2017-now but the very fact you think it can be "too late" for a business to challenge another that's far bigger than them is completely opposed to the idea of a free market economy.
And all of this while completely dodging the issue that copyright IS government regulation. Copyright and other government interventionism IS the only way to get a monopoly in a free market economy and I really expected a libertarian channel to question copyright or at least its implementation instead of dodging it entirely and pretending this is somehow a golden child of a market economy. I'm disappointed that there wasn't just a LITTLE bit more thought put into this. If you want anymore perspective, look at the video "the Netflix Problem". This topic has kinda been my thing for 3 years now.

4. FEE's First Response:

1) "You talk like its competition driving improvement in this industry but you yourself literally admit to buying all the streaming services. If most consumers are buying two different kinds of milk at once, are they competing?"
Yes. They are competing. I'm not most consumers. I'm an outlier who has spent most of his life consuming and producing media content. And even inside that, there are tons of niche services friends of mine have that I don't have and vice-versa -- I have DC Universe, for example, but not CBS All Access, because I like Titans, Swamp Thing, and Doom Patrol and I get value out of having access to DC's library of comics on demand, but I don't really care about Star Trek: Discovery.
That is what competition does for us. It means people can customize their own experiences.
The market signals here are still very much in effect. Like every other service or product, streaming companies experience week-to-week changes in subscriber numbers and they can learn an awful lot about what they should be doing based on those factors. Markets are dynamic. They're changing all the time. You're acting as if everyone will make the same choices I have, and that's just not the case.
2) "You're definition of a natural monopoly is also really dodgy too."
It's not dodgy at all. It's simply the definition of the term followed by a discussion around what most people actually think it is. I also did (and referenced) a whole other episode of this series with a huge discussion of natural monopolies and you can check it out for more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzEQkS-9XCE
People routinely called Netflix a "Monopoly". People on this thread, right now, are talking about how Disney+ is going to be a "Monopoly". Neither is really true, but you actually have a case to make with Netflix for about 10-seconds back in 2008 or so. But it now has a ton of competition, and the point I was making there was that all that competition arose without any sort of government action.
3) "You talk like Hulu/disney/amazon was good for Netflix but any consumer will tell you that the golden years of streaming was when Netflix was the ONLY streaming service."
I completely disagree.
Most people who don't remember Netflix from the beginning don't really understand what it was actually like back then. Prior to this competition, Netflix had just as limited a selection of great TV shows and Movies as it does now, and although it often got access to more bigger, newer releases, it usually had a pretty short time that it was allowed to stream that content -- 6 months at most, and then it would go away.
But it didn't go away to some other service, it was just... not available to stream at all anymore. Instead, those rights generally reverted back to cable networks and people who were OG cable-cutters (like me) just couldn't see that stuff anymore.
However, the bigger and more significant change is that it was only after Netflix started getting real competition nipping at their heels that we started seeing pretty much every streaming service investing in original content -- which was (and is) their best means of differentiation. This has created an insane boom in quality programming and a race to create better and better stuff. It's like what HBO did to cable TV in the 90s and 2000s, but magnified a hundred times over.
Without the competition and the limits that Netflix had in terms of being able to reliably stream top TV shows and Movies, it would not have started producing shows like House of Cards, OitNB, Stranger Things, Daredevil, Ozark, and on and on... Likewise, Amazon Prime wouldn't have felt the need to create stuff like The Man in the High Castle, Carnival Row, or The Boys. I'd even be willing to bet that without the existence of Netflix and the other services as benchmarks, Disney+ wouldn't have created The Mandalorian or any of the other Marvel/Star Wars shows they have coming down the line. Disney could have easily been content to just stream all their hit movies throughout the decades... but competition made it so that they had to do much more and offer a lot more value.
And that's not really even getting into the explosion of stand-up specials and documentaries that have come from Netflix and Hulu in particular.
The Golden Age for consumers is happening *RIGHT NOW*. And it is likely to get better, not worse, over time.
4) "You go on to address higher price and the splitting of content over tons of different apps but then strawman it by conflating it with a race to the bottom/the quality of individual shows going down. But more egregiously you compare our current system to CABLE rather than Netflix dominating the market just a couple of years ago."
Firstly, I did a detailed breakdown of the price comparison, so it's hardly a straw man to make an additional -- and I'd argue more important point -- about the value created by the programming we're actually getting (see also: response #3 above). But also, of course I'm comparing it to Cable. That's the actual alternative. Amazing how short a memory people have.
In any case, refer back to point #3 for why Netflix by itself actually wasn't as great as you think.
5) "And finally at 15:00 you say there's a restructured Blockbuster but say it was too late to get big. and I know it was 2011 so it wasn't even really true that is was too late, that was more 2017-now but the very fact you think it can be "too late" for a business to challenge another that's far bigger than them is completely opposed to the idea of a free market economy."
This is the most bizarre argument of all here.
Blockbuster was the dominant business in the home entertainment space for a decade. Netflix was the scrappy upstart challenging a business that was far, far bigger than they were and Blockbuster was still massive by comparison in 2011. It was too late for them to catch up to Netflix not because Netflix was "too big" but because Blockbuster had already shot itself in the foot, made too many poor decisions as a company, and it was too late to change course sufficiently and reclaim their customer base.
This makes the opposite of the point you are arguing above. The story of Blockbuster shows you that being a huge company with dominant market share doesn't make you immune to your competitors.
6) Lastly, to the issue of Copyright, the reason I didn't get into it here is because it's not a differentiating factor for any of these services. Every one of them operates under the same rules. Copyright is a fact of reality for everyone and has been since before the founding of the United States. And it's actually significantly more open today than it was then. The original Copyrights were stamps you had to get from the King himself that allowed you to publish books and the rulers wanted that power not to protect the creators who originated the content, but because they wanted to control what people were allowed to say. Criticizing the crown? No copyright for you and no right to publish.
Today, copyright is much more geared towards protecting the creator of a given work, and as i wrote on a different thread, if we didn't have that system at all, that might actually create different problems you're not considering. Companies use copyright to protect their investments -- which for movies are often hundreds of millions of dollars -- and the government treats their artistic creations the same way as if they were physical property. Tons of libertarians (but by no means all) would argue this isn't a good thing, but let's imagine a world where government doesn't protect copyright at all... It doesn't change the fact that a company like Marvel Studios is going to want some way of making sure they can see a return on their $200 million Avengers movie.
So what would they do instead? Sit back and let anyone stream anything anywhere even if they don't capture any revenue? I doubt it.
Instead, the world I bet we would have without governments protecting IP is a world where companies are a lot more individually protective of their content via technological solutions like DRM and file formats that are only playable on specific hardware or software.
I don't think it would result in a world where everybody can stream whatever they want, but rather in a world where people are far more locked in to separate platforms.
Sidenote related to Intellectual Property, in your video on "The Netflix Problem", you list all these other companies who have made these big, visible innovations in their product line and then suggest that the reason this "hasn't" happened with Netflix and other streaming services is because of IP protection.
ALL those other products exist in a market with IP protection as well. Heck, Samsung was recently the subject of a massive lawsuit with Apple on this very basis.
Apple was awarded $539 million in damages just last year, on a patent infringement claim. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/business/apple-samsung-patent-trial.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electronics_Co.
Every piece of media Apple and Samsung produces is subject to copyright protection, every piece of software and hardware change is protected by a patent, their logos are trademarked, and on and on.
This is a terrible argument for why you perceive a difference in streaming services.
Copyright/IP protection is pervasive and applies to virtually every industry. So if you're seeing more innovation in one than another, it's probably not an issue of IP law. Although there are industries where you could make the argument -- like cuisine or fashion -- but the last place I would go to try to make that point is cellphones.
All that said, I also think that you're missing a lot about what has been innovated by Netflix and the other streaming services over time. In your video, you seem to assume that the only innovations that count have to be software features that users can easily notice, like the ability to do offline downloads of content.
That's a weird assumption.
Inside the software, most of the developments have been about the streaming experience itself -- improving compression algorithms, working on reducing latency, etc. And otherwise, Netflix is investing $13 Billion on producing new content right now. https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/netflix-content-spending-2019-15-billion-1203112090/
I'm not sure how you could possibly ignore that as either a) irrelevant and not a result of the competitive market they're operating under; or 2) something that is also predicated on IP protection.
We can debate the principled merits of the idea, and I'd probably agree with most of the hardcore criticism of it coming from guys like Michele Boldrin, but the stated purpose of IP law in the US (which has been exported to most other countries now) was to encourage creators to make new stuff by granting them the exclusive right to profit from their creations for a limited period of time.
That's actually what's happening here. The rules incentivize Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and everybody else to create new original programming that they own and can present to their users exclusively. Maybe this will lead to more piracy longer term (though I suspect that has more to do with kids growing up with a sense of entitlement about content availability than anything to do with the actual user experience), but we haven't seen anything yet in terms of the explosion of original programming that's going to be available and that is the actual innovation you're missing.

5.) Uniquenameosaurus's final response:

Hey hey, you actually responded, now that’s more what I expected out of FEE.
1) You're not an outlier, according to one study the average American owns 3.4 streaming services. https://www.vindicia.com/company/press-releases/new-study-reveals-average-online-video-subscriber-us-subscribes-34-streaming Additionally, just because there are a bunch of little services that come from studios that specialise in certain genres it doesn't mean they're appealing to a niche demand. If it was just about fulfilling a demand, the highest demand shows that blew outside of the niche demographic and into pop culture wouldn't be ripped from the most popular service to play exclusively somewhere else. This was true with Disney and it was true with the dedicated anime service Crunchyroll losing anime to amazon prime simply because they had more money to pay for exclusivity. They don't exclusivise a niche, they exclusivise the highest demand IP or just the ones they already have the rights to.
2) Look you can define a natural monopoly like that if you want, the point is that it doesn't mean anything when you apply it to Netflix because things didn't get better for consumers when it got more "competitors". Where's the sense in calling it a monopoly then and not now if consumers are worse off now. Prices have consistently risen since the streaming wars, it has less high demand shows after other studios began to take back their licenses to exclusivise for their own platforms, and piracy is on the rise for the first time since like 2012. Disregarding the originals for now, what about this seems like competition?
3) This one I'll retract a little. My bad, I got a little lost in my hyperbole. When I say the golden years of streaming I mean the brief period around 2012 to about 2015 (eg, that was when HBO had only just started a streaming app) when exclusive licenses either weren't being utilised or other streaming services weren't prominent enough that they were even in the public eye. That’s the common perception that can be demonstrated by this meme's prominence for example: https://www.reddit.com/comics/comments/bcdlbf/hello_old_friend_oc/ Though my main point should really be that competition by other legal services wasn't really what was driving progress anyway, I think netflix would have got to the golden years regardless, because *its true competition was piracy*. Going through a brief history of Netflix in 08 even before any competition they partnered with Xbox, blu-ray disc and other methods for streaming, they also partnered with stars to bring more licenses onto the platform. It was already in their business model to keep increasing their library regardless of competition. Likewise Crunchyroll created simulcasting when it was the only anime streaming service and Steam is a gold mine of continuous self-improvement and pampered consumers well before Origin or Epic games started exclusivising licenses.
There IS an argument to say original content was driven by exclusive licensing but the problem with that is we would have had that anyway if streaming services continued being as loved in the golden years because of ease of access. The more money in this industry, the more studios will create shows and movies trying to cash in by making high demand stuff to sell to services. This was debatably what happened with movies after paramount v United states separated production and distribution. And I don't like anti-trust, but when anti-trust is cleaning up what was already government intervention (copyright), I'm okay with it. The more high demand shows are separated, the more appealing piracy will be and the less money this industry will make, Netflix is already in debt, it already lost a bunch of stock just by raising prices, and piracy is on the rise again. This is a bubble waiting to burst.
4) My bad again, I'm now seeing you're main point of improvement is the original content and believing that outweighs the splitting. But the reason I'd consider the golden years as better than what we have now even if each services makes more originals is because outside licenses would arrive on Netflix because they were in high demand. Where as now, originals are made in attempt to be high demand. But not every high demand program can be found on a greater amount of services. The golden years meant most people got what they want, but now there's a totally random chance of what most consumers want to see being on their chosen service outside of some vague genres like "dc super heroes" If an anime like Attack on Titan comes out and blows up pop-culture, it shouldn't just be on some niche distribution network no one has, it should be on the most popular service, supply met demand in the golden years, it doesn't anymore.
5) Thought you said blockbuster closed down and then was reformed so I was assuming it didn't have the same size. Didn't realise you were trying to take a PR angle. That’s fine, this was a minor argument that could really have been put down to word choice.
6) Well you wouldn't have more DRM, cause that would just create a demand for what were once illegal pirates to dissemble and legally sell DRM free versions. I'm still not sure how I feel about abolishment of copyright, but I'm starting to believe that as long as there is a demand for 2 million dollar marvel movies the market would eventually find a way to monetise it. Supply and demand has always been a self solving problem like that. Hell, I think voluntary donations would be the future of movies, if it doesn't get funded first supply can't meet demand so it SHOULD work out. Meanwhile streaming services might even compete based on how much money they send back to creators and studios. But that’s all theory, right now I'm just questioning implementation and calling for either piracy as boycott or another paramount v united states for streaming instead of movies.
7) Its useful that you bring this up actually, I've heard people talk about phone design patents for a while and I myself was wondering what they do because it doesn't seem like they create problems consumer side for phones. As far as I'm aware there is no high demand feature in one phone that you can't get somewhere else. But this court case explains that, Samsung did copy features and designs, they got taken to court and lost, but all they paid was damages, they weren't told to do a call back on phones, and presumably their new phones havn't lost those features either. The actual streaming equivalent would be if netflix decided to stream disney anyway and then took them to court and the court said, "pay damages but don't take anything down". You're right, It is all IP apparently, but it seems with phones, its worth it to break laws to give consumers what they want, so I don't think its equivalent.
As for the last thing, I've covered this a bit and it something I've corrected myself on before, innovation can happen in markets with no competition, it depends on the company, some just don't realise they don't need to. Also piracy is still a pusher, Steam for instance went crazier than any Netflix or other streaming service. Netflix is kinda midrange, but its better to work in terms of how much innovation and especially if it's started to drop as they push for more exclusivity. Netflix has had like 3 in the last five years, none in the past too. That is software though, I'd be interested to know how much algorithm stuff they've been doing lately.
For ease of debate, we can remove 5) and combine 3) and 4) now

Thoughts?

How to write innovative and competitive longform content

The state of the sub being what it is, this is my attempt to be helpful. It took me awhile to put this together, so I hope you all like it.
I wanted to talk about content marketing (as in, any article or blog post that is hosted on your website or other content creation sites). In the early days of the internet, great content was pretty easy to find, and the creators of it were rewarded. As with all things, the market was eventually flooded by every bad writer and their dog who wanted a piece of the pie. Actually, the dog is likely doing it better. Regardless, content marketing is always going to be a primary method of creating or driving traffic.
Picture of a dog in front of a computer. I should see at least part of this first image without having to scroll.
Because of those bad writers, high quality content is becoming more difficult to find. It’s still out there, but it has a harder time gaining traction in a market dominated by dubious SEO practices. Basically, the internet sucks at discernment.
To combat the problems of keyword stuffing and link farming, the trend is increasingly longform--we’re talking 2,000-5,000 words or more. With a million screenshots or pictures thrown in, because the longer you’re on a page, the higher it ranks. We call these skyscrapers. Because they’re tall, obviously. (Final count of this post is 3724 words.)
What this means is that the winners of the content wars right now don’t necessarily have to be good. They just have to be long.
But!!! This is great news for you, a respectable business owneentrepreneur. Because almost anyone can write high-quality longform content that ranks well, without being an SEO expert. You just have to be willing to put in the time.
DISCLAIMERS/SALES PITCH: Yes, I’m a copywritecontent marketer, and yes, I can do this for you if you pay me. I have room for two, maybe three more clients for the remainder of this year, and if you’d like to talk rates (I’m not cheap) you can PM me. Also, none of the links are affiliate--everything I’m sharing here are tools or resources that I personally use and love.
Now that that’s out of the way, let me show you around deliberately crafted longform content. I want you see what it looks like when it’s done well; and the steps you can take to do it all by yourself. This isn’t rocket surgery; you just have to understand what works and what doesn’t.
Meme of a cat in scrubs.
Step 1: Start with a system
What kind of system you have matters not at all, but your writing and organization will be greatly improved if you can access everything you need all at once.
If you’re totally new to content creation, I highly recommend you check out Airstory or Notion. Both are rich text editors that allow you to save external clippings and notes. If Google Docs and Evernote had a baby, it’d be Airstory, but it’s web based, not an app, so you can’t use it offline. Notion adds Sheets and is far more feature rich, but will cost you a few bucks if you’re using it to write. Both use blocks, which allow you to edit much more easily than a traditional text editor.
Feel free to use whatever janky system you’ve already cobbled together, but keep your research accessible, because you will use it a lot for this type of content.
Picture of a cat sitting on a pile of binders.
Step 2: Create a copywriting outline
When you’re crafting deliberate content, you want to look at it from the reader’s perspective. Don’t half-ass this. The longer you spend asking yourself what your reader wants, the more it’s going to feel like you reached into their head, scooped out their brains, and perused them at leisure. You want them to feel like you know them personally. Will you connect with everyone who reads your thing? No. But that’s not the goal. The goal is your ideal reader--so the more you know about them, the more you’re going to be able to answer their actual questions.
For example, if you’re still reading this, it’s likely because you want to write better content, and you want it to rank better in search. You’re frustrated by the sheer amount of bullshit that gets shared on the internet these days, especially when you know that you have actual solutions to actual problems. And if you could just get your stuff in front of people, you know that you could help them. You have a genuine desire to serve your customers or clients, and also, you’d like to be able to pay the bills while doing it.
I’m not a mind reader. But I have done the work.
Now, my absolute favorite tool for a copywriting outline comes from the geniuses over at Fizzle. (I am not affiliated with them, although I do worship from afar.) The 80/20 Copywriting sheet is hands down one of the best tools in my arsenal. Go download it, read the instructions, and use it for everything you write. You won’t regret it.
You should go into this worksheet with a general concept about what you want to write, but it doesn’t have to be super specific yet. Pay special attention to the box on the bottom right, common words and phrases. Because that’s what you’ll be doing next.
My worksheet for this piece.
Step 3: Ask questions
Currently, search algorithms are leaning pretty heavily to questions, because people are using voice interface. Think of how you’d talk to Alexa or Siri. You’re asking a specific question. “How do I do this thing?” “What’s the name of the guy on Brooklyn Nine Nine who says cool a lot?” “I need a recipe for a no bake dessert.” “What's the best software to solve my specific problem?” You know, that sort of thing.
What you want to do is reverse engineer your content into these kinds of questions. Just pretend you’re Alex Trebek. If the answer is your content, what’s the question you’d ask to get there?
Next, you want to go plug it all into Google and see what comes up. There are a number of tools that you can use for this. Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush, Serpstat, Google Correlate (those last three are free for basic use). But if you’re not already using one of them, you don’t have to panic and start now. Google is more than enough to get you started.
SEO is based on keywords, which is why keyword stuffing is still a thing. But if you can put those keywords into the form of a question, you’ll have a little more leeway with the answers. So, if you ask, “What is the scientific name of a rose?” that exact phrase doesn’t have to be your post title, or even a part of your content at all. Just the keywords, plus the answer. In this case, that’s “scientific name,” “rose,” and “rosa.” If your content has all three of those things, then you’re well on your way to a good SEO ranking.
Before you move on, take a look at the competition. Click on every link on the first page (second and third pages too, if you’re really being diligent) and see what’s there. You’ll use this to form the basis of your outline, while also filing away quality outbound links to be used later. More on this in a minute.
Gif of Andy Samberg. (Sharing your fandoms almost never hurts you and it gives your audience another way to connect with you and your work.)
Step 4: Create a content outline (or plug into a template)
So, now that you know what questions you’re asking, and what the competition is doing, you should be able to start turning this information into your own very long content. The value of an outline can not be overstated. Taking ten minutes now will save you a ton of time later, and the more details you have, the easier it’ll be to do the actual writing. Use a bulleted list (or numbering if your topic is technical or especially complex) and come up with basic headings and subheadings.
This allows you to do a number of things. First, you’ll know what additional research you need to gather. The more quality links your content has, the higher it will rank.
Next, you’ll be able to design the flow of your content, especially if your goal is to get the reader to take action on something. Maybe you want them to subscribe to your list. Good content will guide them from the top of the page all the way down to your optin, where they will immediately subscribe because of all the amazing information you just gave them.
Finally, a good outline will help you figure out roughly how long your content is going to be. If you have ten headings and you average 200 words a section, that’s 2,000 words.
Outline for this piece.
Step 5: Research outbound links, affiliate links
I mentioned that using quality links will improve your ranking. Here’s how that works. It used to be that any backlinks from any site increased your traffic, and volume was a factor. The more links, the better. This led to a lot of link farming and other dubious SEO strategies, and it brought down the overall quality of searchable content. To combat this problem, search engines started prioritizing higher quality links. The better the site overall, the better the ranking from that site’s links, both inbound and outbound.
What that means, then, is that links in your content that lead to other high quality content makes you look good by virtue of association. If your outbound links are high quality, then your content probably is too, at least as far as the algorithm is concerned.
If you’re using affiliate links (and there’s no reason why you can’t--just make sure you disclose them), this is the time to gather them and any product screenshots. Longform content is often a great place to use affiliate marketing, because the length demonstrates to the reader that some actual effort went into selecting the products. It’s not just a generic listicle or gift guide, it’s a thoughtfully curated addition to your content. Your readers CAN tell the difference.
Cats wearing jewelry. Because obviously.
Step 6: Write post
Now you’re finally ready to write. The good news is, you aren’t starting with a blank page, so you can’t successfully claim writer’s block. You’re just going to plug in a few paragraphs per section to get things going. Remember, this is a rough draft, and you have lots of time to polish this thing up.
Unless you’re writing for an academic crowd, you’re aiming for an 8th grade reading level. The fact is that we love to share longform content because it makes us look smart. But we don’t actually read it. It’s just more noise (and a lot of it) in an already noisy world. So, the easier it is to read, the more likely it is to actually be...read. That’s a painful truth when you’re pouring hours of your time into something, but it’s reality.
On the other hand, that takes some pressure off of you. You don’t have to be a Pulitzer Prize winner here. Just easy to read.
Gif of another dog and computer.
Step 7: Write subheadings, introduction, and conclusion/call to action
I never write my introduction first. I might scratch out a few sentences to get the ball rolling, but it’s nearly always crap, and I nearly always change it. It’s much easier to write a compelling introduction and conclusion once you know the actual contents of your piece.
The same goes for subheadings really--you can write a much snappier section title if you know what’s in there. Your headings matter. Keywords in header tags rank slightly higher than text, so if you can naturally incorporate your keywords here, you should. But ONLY if it’s natural.
Gif of a snapping turtle and a watermelon. Snappy? Snapping turtle? It’s the best I had here, okay?
Step 8: Write headline
Now for the fun stuff. It’s time to come up with a title. Let’s be crystal clear on this: your title is everything. You want to strike a balance between creative and SEO friendly, which takes some time. Start with keywords and include as many of them as you naturally can. Then, go snag yourself a copy of this printable from CoSchedule, and see if any of these power words will work for you. Make a list of AT LEAST ten possible titles. For extra credit, use this headline analyzer tool. If you can score a 70 or better, you’re in great shape (final score for this headline was a 77). Then sit on it for a day or two.
If there’s no obvious winner when you come back, pick the one that you yourself would be most likely to click on. Your writing is a direct conduit from you to your customers. It’s a safe bet that if they are buying something from you, it’s because they like you. Which means that if YOU like a title, there’s a reasonable chance that your readers will like it too. Don’t overthink it. Just consider if you yourself would click, and pick your favorite.
Screenshot of my last round of headline analysis. I did three total.
Step 9: Proofread a gazillion times
Next, it’s time for the sweeps. If you’re interested in the technical aspect of copywriting and how to make it better, Jo Wiebe of Copyhackers has a bunch of tutorials about sweeps, and how to use them. There are seven sweeps in all, and if you learn to apply them, it will automatically make you a better writer.
But, if that freaks you out, then print out a physical copy of what you’ve written and read it aloud several times. That will allow you to trim out most of the bad writing and inconsistencies, because the more conversational your writing, the easier it is to read.
Proofreading should make you feel good about what you’ve written. The more you read it, the more you should like it. Most writers spend a lot of time rereading their work and telling themselves how clever and amazing they are, and it’s an important part of the process. Don’t sell yourself short--you’re writing good stuff here.
Yes, I am amazing.
Step 10: Add images
Once your text is all nailed down, go back and add images. The more you have, the better you’ll rank. That’s why recipes have step by step photos and completely inane stories to go with them. All that fluff makes the recipe itself rank higher in search. It adds theoretical value to the content and increases SEO.
Tutorials of any kind should be well documented, with photos for each part of the process. If it’s something that’s not as easily documented, then use photos that are in some way related to the text. Obviously, memes, gifs, and cat pictures work too, or you wouldn’t still be here.
Because I am writing this for Reddit, you’re missing out on the experience of photos as visual breaks. What I’ve tried to demonstrate here is how often photos should appear in between blocks of text. This isn’t an exact science, but try not to stack photos. Break them up with some kind of text in between.
Also make sure you use image tags, and add descriptions if you’re feeling fruity. Descriptions are great for clever asides, but if you go that route, make sure your tags are complete for accessibility purposes.
Pobody’s nerfect.
Step 11: Outbound links
Next you want to add your links. There's two types of outbound links. Nofollow and dofollow. Don't overcomplicate this. Dofollow links to sites you know, like, and trust (this is just a normal standard link). Nofollow the ones you don't (this requires an HTML tag, but it’s not hard).
Don't get cute. Links should say what they are, or they should just say here.
Bingpot, baby.
Step 12: Check your formatting
Before you publish, make sure you take a look at your content on mobile. Your content management system probably has a way to do this, but if nothing else, read it through on your own phone. You want easy navigation and lots of white space. Mobile users scroll through the text faster, so make sure that it’s easy to do.
Check that pictures resize automatically, that headers and subheaders don’t break off in unfortunate places, and that everything is visually appealing. In 2015, approximately 70% of users browsed Facebook via a mobile device. In 2018, that number was 95%. You likely know your own numbers, so make sure you look good for the audience and inbound traffic sources that you already have.
Take it sleazy. Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.
Step 13: Publish
Okay. It’s pretty, polished, and as close to perfect as you can get it. Plug it in your CMS, check formatting one last time, add your keywords to Yoast if you use it, and you are ready to go.
In veeeery general terms, the best day of the week to publish most forms of content is Tuesday. There’s an insane number of factors that go into that calculation though, so really, do what you want. SEO is a long game. You’re looking to score traffic over time, not create viral content (although if you do, that’s certainly a bonus). Virality is hard to predict though, and carefully optimized content will nearly always do well in the long run.
Noice.
Step 14: Social media/email scheduling and other promotion
With content marketing, actually writing the thing is only half the battle, and that’s probably being generous. You have to get eyes on your stuff. Obviously, the first step is to promote it on all of your own social media channels.
If you have an email newsletter, promote it there. With these folks, you can go a step farther and ask them to share it for you, because they already like you. Give them the opportunity to share your message, and you’ll create a fan base that feels like they’re a part of what you’re creating.
Once you’ve done that, head over to your social scheduler and plug it in to be promoted later in the week, later in the month, and then every three to six months, depending on how much content you already have. The more content you create, the easier this becomes, and you’ll get new traffic every time you share, because there will ALWAYS be people who missed it the first time around.
Now, about that scheduler…. You have a LOT of options here, and they run the gamut from free to definitely not free. Hootsuite is a great way to get started, and isn’t so complicated that you’ll be overwhelmed. If you want more features to play with, then Coschedule and Meet Edgar are probably my favorites.
Finally, find yourself some content ambassadors. These are people in your niche or in an adjacent niche who will share your content for you (this is how you get your backlinks, and you’ll have to work for them). Reach out to your network. Ask friends on social media. Mention an influencer by name in your content, and then @ them on social. Guest posts, Slack channels, message boards, relevant subreddits. There’s a ton of ways to get links to your content.
And remember--this is a long game. You don’t have to do it all at once. You can spread this out over several weeks, even months. Mention it organically in conversation. Reach out via email. Make it a part of your regular routine to ask people to share your content--”hey I wrote a thing your people might like, would you please share it?” If you’re not an asshole, you’ve got a good chance.
Supermodel kitten.
Step 15: Interlinking
Once you have created a library of content (around 30 pieces), you can and should take every opportunity to link to it. The goal here is to keep your visitor on your site for as long as possible. If you can get them to click around to your other content, and read everything you’ve ever written, your bounce rate will drop, and you’ll rank higher in search.
It also helps you build your authority and reputation. There's a difference between a skilled professional and a bad guru. We can smell it, instinctively. A guru wants to sell you something at all costs. They don't care about you, they care about your money.
But you can make money while genuinely being of service. Your free content is what helps you demonstrate that. A library of free content says that your actual product or service is worth my time.
Hot damn.
In conclusion, or your call to action:
We’ve done it, Reddit! I think. 15 very long steps later, we've reached the end.
A good conclusion should sum up your main thesis without being overly repetitive. You always want to assume the intelligence of your reader, so be clear and concise. If they’ve actually read the entirety of the content and not just skimmed it, they’ve been here for awhile.
Finally, this is where you make your ask. For example, you should PM me for quotes on amazing longform content that’s done for you, just like this. That’s it.
Look, you did not do all this work to beat around the bush. Tell people what you want them to do. Just make sure you’re only asking for ONE thing. “Share this and subscribe to my newsletter and leave a comment,” is going to get you exactly none of those things. Be explicit, be nice, and if you’ve done everything right, you’ll get them to do what you’ve asked.
Content marketing is a skill, but it’s one you can learn. And while it’s a time consuming process, it’s a pretty amazing feeling knowing that you’ve created something that’s both valuable to you as marketing, and to your customers as a resource. Good luck, and happy writing!

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