It's so welcome to the latest presentation in the Festival of Coins. Today, we're joined by Jesse Kraft, who's a curator at the American Humanism Society, and we're really excited to be able to present a live launch of a new website that Jesse's been working on. That's the Medellic Art Company website. So over to you, Jesse. And we're really interested to hear more about the project. Great. Hello, Jesse Kraft. I'm going to start sharing my screen. All right. So this is the Medellic Art Company Archives website. Just a little bit of a background of the Medellic Art Company is one of the oldest or was one of the oldest mints, private mints in the United States. It lasted from 1903, 1907-ish to 2013.  They made many, many medals for thousands of different clients. Even such thing as the Peabody Awards and so on. In 2018, the archives of the Medellic Art Company went to public auction after they went bankrupt and the American Mismatic Society purchased them. And it ranged in content from a near complete collection of medals that they produced throughout their entire existence, as well as digital archives, a lot of paper archives, binders, books that they used in-house during the production process. Dyes, dye shells, galvanos, literally hundreds of tons of material that were still really in the process of trying to organize and catalog. So this website I made as not necessarily a short term website. We do want to use it for a few years, but kind of just to allow people to have some sort of insight into what the collection has. And it's really a blog. So there's content that I posted on there. And then there's going to be, there is a blog that I will be periodically updating as we process the archives as well. So this is the landing page. Medallic Archives Company Archives held by the American Mismatic Society. This is the Medallic Art Company logo and then the American Mismatic Society logo. I have the website into four main sections. The first is actually the Mako Specimen Archive itself. I'll click that. And these are actually the documents that Mako used in order to catalog the collection as they went through it. Dick Johnson in the 60s and the 70s made this catalog and then it just grew from there. There are many, many errors that I've found in the catalog as I've been going through it piece by piece. But we still decided to kind of post this because it's kind of cool to see what Mako used in-house. Even up here you can see a specimen image archive, proprietary and confidential, not for distribution. That was Mako's policy. Now we own it and we kind of just wanted to let it out there because it's going to take us probably a couple of years before we have a complete and hopefully error-free catalog that we will be able to post and it won't be in this format necessarily either. As you can see there are lots of different things that we don't need. This is kind of the code for the image. We won't have that and some of the information is wrong. Also things like reverse aren't next to each other which can cause some sort of confusion as you're going through it. So simple things like that we plan to update into a more modern and error-free catalog in due time. But some things that you are able to do with this now is if you have a Mako metal, which some of them aren't necessarily that rare and the fact that they made more than 15,000 metals throughout their career, chances are that you can come across a metal Mako relatively easy for a relatively inexpensive amount. But at the same time, not know what it is just because there are so many made for so many purposes. So we wanted to kind of just release this catalog as is and allow people to kind of have fun with it because it is kind of a fun little thing to go through. They're cataloged separated by decade. So here's the first decade, they didn't make too many but as time went on, the catalogs just got more and more intense and even actually by the 60s they actually had to catalog or break them up into five years, half decades instead of full decades just because they were getting way too long. But as you can see, I mean, you know, there's just a whole plethora of different metals that Mako made. And again, you could very easily come across one and have no idea what it is, when it was made or anything like that. So this catalog will give you at least the bare minimal information that you might be looking for including the name of the metal, who the client that commissioned it, where that client was located, the artist that sculpted the metal and also different sizes of the metal because some metals weren't only in one size but you can have the same metal in various sizes as well as different compositions as well. So this is kind of, you know, a fun little insight that we're hoping people will play around with. And if by all means, if you come across an error, let me know and I can update it because there are many of them in here and it is an awfully long catalog for one person to have to go through. So I'm kind of hoping that the collector community will help out with that. Unfortunately, there were two little sections, 2000 to 2004 and then 2010 to 13 that we didn't get the PDFs for. I do have them printed out. So if you do come across to make a metal that are from either of those little sections, you're more than welcome to reach out to me. I'm sure we can post my email in the description of this video and I'll be more than happy to help you out with that. Another section that I created kind of for eye candy was for images, different historical images of Mako. I have two different sections. One is actually of the production process itself. So here you can see the James H. Hyde medallion on the Jean-Vierre reduction machine. Right here is the die shell and it's tracing it and engraving it into the die.  You can see the same to the right is the obverse of the metal being reduced and then over here is the reverse of the metal being reduced. Right here is the metal itself. You can see the bust is right there and then the four smaller busts being reduced over here. So this is some of the digital archives that we've received along with the Mako archives. I kind of just found all these images in an unmarked folder had a lot of fun with them, kind of go through them and trying to figure out what the different metals are because they weren't marked as such. So I had to use the catalog that I just showed you to kind of find out what these were just based off the image. It's the 1951 World and Metallurgical Congress that was held in Detroit. And there's the die shell, something's happened with that. Here's the finished die. It's being taken out. I think it was just a kneel, which means it was hardened. Here's a finished metal with the coating being put on it towards the end. And then this metal actually has a mounting bar in the reverse and here's one of the Mako workers putting the mounting bar on. You can see the finished metal here. There and here's the mounting bar that he's hottering on. So that was kind of fun to go through. World War II campaign metals Mako made in addition to like large round bronze metals that were used to Mako made a lot of war decorations for the United States military. Pretty much any time there was a war that the United States was involved with, if you go through the Mako catalog you can inevitably see a bunch of war decorations that they made as well. And they are kind of being sorted and then packed for distribution. And I did account and there's literally upwards of 100,000 metals right here. So they didn't make them in small numbers. So they're definitely out there for collectors. And then here's a series of photos that they don't necessarily show the metal. So I couldn't positively identify the picture with a metal in that production process. But a bunch that are just kind of cool. Here's an employee making blank planchets for metals, being struck, some more of the production process. Ginsburg is kind of sorting them out and then distribution. So this kind of gives you an insight into how Mako operated in the mid 50s in the mid 20th century. I go back one, I have a second set of photos. These are recipients of Mako metals. And this is really where kind of a lot of Mako metals really entered into American society was through different achievements and things like that. So this is Carl Meyer who won the American Legion School Award as well as the pin that's pinned to them. That was, these are both a part of that award. Carl was born in Germany, but his parents had passed away and then he was raised by an uncle in San Francisco. And it said on the back, there was a little piece of paper that he said that he hoped to join the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Here is Nino Martini who is a famous tenor on the radio in the 1930s. In the process of winning the CBS Guest Medallion Award, Martini was actually the first radio artist to be signed by leading role for the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Here's Catherine Cornell who was awarded the Delia Austrian Medal for Distinguished Performance in 1935 for her work in Romeo and Juliet. This was at the Central Park Casino, the 25th anniversary for the Drama League. For anyone of these individuals that are kind of more well known, just this little side note, I was able to actually link them to their Wikipedia page just to give you a little bit more insight. So if you see a name that has a link that their names are highlighted, you're able to click them and go to a Wikipedia page to learn more about the individual. That wasn't necessarily the case with everyone. For instance, Carl Meyer up here, he didn't necessarily become well known enough in history to warrant his own Wikipedia page. So I wasn't able to link that to any. But Nino Martini as well, famous tenor, go down. Here we have Malvina Hoffman who is a famous sculptress throughout the 30s and 40s and she is in the process of winning the American Women's Association Medallion and Pearl S. Buck is awarding it to her. So here we have Gifford Pinchot who is the Pennsylvania governor as well as a very famous nature conservator in the United States. This is grandson, Dr. Petrus Debye over here is winning the Gregor P. Mendel medal and very famous one, Amelia Earhart being awarded the National Geographic Society special gold medal by President Herbert Hoover in 1932. Lester Goldsmith winning the George Wallace Melville medal in 1939. And lastly, Harold E. Stesson who's the governor of Minnesota on the right. Winning the parents magazine medal for his outstanding service to children being awarded by public publisher, George Hecht and this person right here is Linda Kassen who is the quote unquote little magazine cover girl during that period. So these are really examples of different makeup medals that were kind of entering American society in the way that they were intended to be as awards for recognition of different achievements. So this is really kind of a special little page for me and a lot of these actually didn't while I was going through these photos which are again, we're in a kind of an unmarked folder in the Mako digital archives. I kind of had to do a little bit more research using the catalog that I had already shown you and kind of figure out what medal the individuals was winning at the time and who the people were.  We go down and show you the next part which are different essays that I've written. This is kind of incomplete. I haven't quite finished this. I want to add a few more essays but I have one, you know, what are medals?  Like here's an art medal which is just for pure sake of art. I mean, there's no real, you know, a lot of these weren't necessarily awarded as decorations or awards or anything like that but simply for a means for an artist who express him or herself. Here's society medals. This is the Edward T. Newell Presidential Medal for the New York Numismatic Club. Every president of the New York Numismatic Club gets their portrait on the obverse of one of these medals. That's a tradition that carries on to today and has since 1908. So these are society medals, you know, kind of different ways that medals are dispersed as well. Portrait medals are similar to art medals except they're usually commissioned by a person and it's, you know, they're not awarded in any given way. The artist usually has pretty strict guidelines that they have to follow. You know, here's Audrey and Newell, the obverse and the reverse the coin or the medals and most likely their parents commissioned it just to kind of celebrate the lives of these children. Here are decorations that I was telling you about. These are usually given for, many of them are given for military reasons but also sports accomplishments pretty much, you know, lots of different types of accomplishments can be awarded by a decoration that usually gets pinned on one's shirt or jacket as opposed to the medals that I was showing you earlier with the recipients that are the traditional, you know, larger round bronze medals. And some other, I didn't put photographs for all of them, commemorative medals, souvenir medals that if you go, you know, to an exhibition or a fair or something like that, you can find them there. Religious medals, orders, and then table medals are really the ones that are kind of too large to be held in a traditional way. So a lot of them are placed into wooden stands and stuff like that and are displayed on a table. Medallic production process. If you haven't watched The Metal Maker, it's an absolutely incredible movie. It's a half hour long. It was made in 1929 and it shows Lara Garden Frasier creating the National Sculpture Society special Medal of Honor. I'm not gonna play it in its entirety here but please do watch it. And it really is an incredible movie that really documents from how metal is made from a blank canvas, you know, through the whole artist's artistic process. And then even after the artist is done with it, what Mako or a similar manufacturing company would do with it. And this medal was actually made by Mako. So you get to see a video of Mako actually making the medal in 1929. This video is actually thought to be lost for several decades. And then it was rediscovered in the late 1990s and then Elizabeth Jones, who was the former chief engraver of the United States Mint kind of did a voice over to it. And then the American Museumatic Society helped publish it and reproduce it. And I have a, not necessarily lengthy but a little bit more detailed description of how metals were made by Mako in particular. I, for research for this, I used an article that was published in the Numismatist, the publication of the American Numismatic Association. It was published in 1978. This, an article by Edward R. Rove, who was a private sculptor, as well as he was also a mint engraver for a short time in the early 1960s. And he got into pretty good detail on his techniques of the metal making process. And then also, since he had first hand knowledge of dealing with the metallic art company, he was able to give rather specific production processes by them as well. So that was, if you're interested at all in how metals are made, this is really the section for you. I have a brief kind of leading up to the metallic art company metals in the United States before World War I. Mako kind of started just before that. So this is just kind of like a brief history on metals before Mako and what they represented. The Libertas Americana Metals, one of the most famous in a lot of United States coins were inevitably designed after this, the Liberty Cap sense and the flowing hair dollar and everything else. Again, not gonna necessarily read all of it, but kind of just give you a brief introduction to it just to kind of let you go back and read it on your own. Mint metals and starts to discuss kind of the artistic turn right around in the 1890s and 1900s when James Earl Frazier, Gustav St. Goggins, Victor David Brenner started to get into the medallic making process which really revolutionized how metals were made and the artistic quality of them. It's a very famous metal by James Earl Frazier that portrays Augusta St. Goggins. And this here is actually made by John Davison's and Son's Philadelphia, but it shows the Jean-Vierre reduction machine, actually two different kind of reduction machines, but the odd verse one is the one that is really integral to the medallic making process. The essays, I have one more, that is the history of Mako, kind of the early years. I'm working on kind of subsequent years right now that I just haven't quite finished yet and haven't been able to upload, but eventually I'm gonna have similar pages to go to other sections of history of Mako, and then eventually I wanna write a much larger book on the history of Mako. This is actually the very first set of dyes that Mako made was designed by Augusta St. Goggins and he commissioned Mako to reduce the dyes. Interestingly enough, Mako actually didn't actually strike any metals for the first, about 15 years of their existence. They were only a dye reduction company. This is another one that they reduced in 1909, Jules-Edward Ronay. This was the first Mako metal to include the Mako name, you can see it right here. It's actually in the dyes and subsequent metals, they kind of counter struck the metals on the edge, usually on the bottom edge with Medallic Art Company and whatever location they were at the time, most of their existence, they were in New York and then in the 70s, they moved to Connecticut and then in the 80s to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and then they moved to Nevada and that's where they ended up was in the bottom. This was the first metal produced by the Vile Brothers who were the founders of Mako, but when they first found at the company, they were actually kind of under the auspices of a different company that they worked for at the time and there was kind of some legal trouble that they had but then they were finally able to purchase the name and purchase the equipment and this is the first one that they produced as the Medallic Art Company and as the sole owners in 1910. And this is Henry Vile, Felix Vile on the right and then Clyde Trees and Clyde Trees is really, he was key on making the Medallic Art Company grow in 1919 and 1920 and beyond that and without them or without Clyde Trees, Mako probably would still never have struck any metals as the Vile Brothers were kind of intent on maintaining just the dye reduction company and working with their artist friends where Clyde Trees really expanded on that and started to get commissions from outside sources and really is the person who made Mako into one of the more important Medallic Art Companies in the United States. And I have one more little section, the future of Mako. I don't think there are any images in here yet. There are, I'll get to that. But the future of Mako kind of just outlines what we the American Numismatic Society wants to do with this massive, massive collection that we purchased. First and foremost, like I said before we want to update the catalog. There are some missing pieces in there so add missing pieces, get rid of any errors and stuff like that. We want to make a website that focuses on Mako and American Society, which is kind of the direction that not a lot of Numismatic publications take per se. A lot of them, especially when it comes to the Medallic Arts a lot of people kind of focus on the artists. While we still do want to focus on that we also feel that the clients, there's a very long list of clients that we have that kind of sum up all of American Society in the United States as well as the recipients. A lot of these medals are highly prized both now and when they were first issued. Some of them we have already been able to kind of locate lists of winners of these different medals and like I've said a few times when people have won or been awarded a Mako medal that's kind of like when the piece of art was able to enter American Society and that's a key point is kind of key in the medal and the medallic art history and the history of the specific medals. So it's one of the reasons why I added so many pictures of people actually being awarded the medal because really it's just important kind of instant snapshot of that happening. I do have I kind of went through a small selection of medals and kind of updated them to give a brief snapshot of what a finished catalog entry might look like. Given that I made this website on WordPress and the finished website might not be on WordPress it probably won't have this exact layout but if you remember the catalog there was just small pictures and just little bits of information so we kind of wanted to expand on that a little bit actually catalog them and give the typology type out the legends again if there is a Wikipedia page for any of the people I was able to pull into that give, provide what's listed on the edge compositions, diameters, thicknesses and weights and then also the artist and the client that that made the medal possible. So I did that with I think nine different ones here is what a series would look like so pretty much the same but then when you get to the bottom you kind of see that this medal is part of a larger series and I put links to the different series to the different medals that are in the series and I want to show this one too it doesn't have a traditional dye number because they didn't actually make dyes in it or out of them but this is the galvano for the gallant ship award the full name is the merchant marine gallant ship citation and if this wasn't actually awarded to people but it awarded to entire ships it started out in World War II as an executive order by President Roosevelt and ships still win it to the present day or earn it I should say to the present day and if an entire ship did something kind of heroic they would get this is 20 and three quarters and it wasn't reduced to a dye so they would get this larger than two feet or almost a whole meter plaque awarded and kind of put somewhere in a special place inside the ship. Have the artist, the client was the United States government gave a little brief history about it but then here I have a list of all the different ships that were awarded this medal throughout the history and if the ship has again a Wikipedia page I was able to link to that, not all of them do but it's kind of interesting. Lastly, I have a frequently asked questions these are the three questions I get asked the most what's in the archives you know I pretty much said that in your complete reference collection of all the medals, business records, in-house histories galvanos, dyes, everything, photographs, correspondence I always get asked can you tell me about this medal and get sent an email image and I pretty much just go through the catalog and find the medal and tell them what brief history I can tell them about from the catalog and now with the catalog online hopefully that'll circumvent this question and then also I get this question a lot you know I'm a representative of X company and my company has utilized Mako's services in the past to have medals struck and I always get asked if I have the dyes for them. We, the American and Mismatic Society actually while we bought the entirety of the archives a lot of the dyes are still active so people do still want to get medals struck from them and for the active section of the medallic art company I have here that Metal Craft Mint Incorporated who are just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin they actually are still producing Mako medals under the name I think it's just medallic art medals is what they go by now but so if you have any questions about any active dyes or anything like that you should contact Metal Craft Mint Incorporated because they are still kind of carrying on the Mako tradition to this day and that in a nutshell is basically the new medallic art company archives website. That's brilliant. Thank you Jesse, that's really interesting. One of the things that impresses me is as you say the way it's kind of put everything in context so it's not just the study of the medals themselves it's putting them in context of kind of social history. Right, yeah, as a research institution we felt that was important to kind of have that context and everything and not just provide a essentially just provide a list of medals we want to actually do something with this because we really do feel that it does capture a really interesting section of United States history throughout the whole 20th century and into the 21st even so that was very important for us to kind of include that. Excellent, so around 15,000 medals, is that right? Yes. Okay, so how many do you think you can kind of cover in the website in the future? We're going to do all of them. Really? Yes. I've been going through the medals one by one and just kind of getting the basic components of them the weight, the composition, the diameter and the thickness and it's taken me several months and I started in 1907 with the first medal that's in the catalog and I'm up to 1985 right now. So it's a slow process. Of course I can't only concentrate on that but that in itself is time consuming. One of the things that we did also get with the archives were digital files of each of the photographs. So all the little photographs that you saw in the catalog we do have larger ones of those but a lot of them were struck in 2010 or before. That's when the photograph was taken so they're not the best quality anymore and like JPEGs degrade over time and stuff like that and the more you open them. So we also eventually want to re-photograph all of the medals as well which is going to take, we're going to have to hire a photography assistant for that and everything. So unfortunately when you think of one new thing that you want to do with the medals you have to do it 15,000 times.  So one thing we want to do before we make one final pass through the entire collection is kind of make sure we have all the bases covered and know exactly what we want to do with it before we start again. Because I've started over a few times with different little things and it just takes me a few weeks just to catch up to the point to where I was because I would have to do it a couple thousand times. Yeah, okay. So 15,000 medals, have you got a favorite? It's really tough. I really like this one, it's kind of interesting. Let me share my screen again. Zoom, share screen. I like this one here that I have and I do have an image of it in images. It's not in images, it is in essays. What are medals? Here's the full one right here. It's kind of interesting. This is like an underwater scene and the thing that I really like about it is that most of the medals have this kind of neutral bronze finish. You can see all of them essentially have that same kind of bronze finish but the finish on this with the green patina is really kind of eye-catching and right when I saw it, it's just like, you know, kind of, you know, we have them all on trays right now and they kind of just lit up the tray and it immediately stuck out. You know, there's some other things, like the Peabody Award is kind of cool just because it's so well-known. The Pulitzer Prize, they struck the Pulitzer Prize, it's extremely well-known. So kind of seeing those, you know, the kind of, you know, collection example that Mako had of those is kind of exciting because a lot of the things on the edge that they struck in there, you know, countersunk into the edge on those specific examples are not on the pieces that were released because they, you know, had little hints or clues about the production process itself. So, yeah, they're not, well, you know, the face, but the obverse and the reverse will look pretty much exactly the same. You know, there's little hints on the production process on the edge of all of these metals that aren't on metals that you would find in, you know, otherwise. Okay. And would you say, are there any metals that are, you know, really historically significant? I think that the Pulitzer is probably very, you know, historically significant. Also, some of the Lincoln metals that were produced for the centennial of his birth in 1909, they were some of the first ones made by Mako. And, you know, historically have, you know, kind of held their weight as far as, you know, being important metals that commemorate that, that the centennial. Yeah, excellent. So are there any metals in the, in the archives that are unique to the archive? There is one that kind of comes to mind pretty immediately. Apparently in the early 2000s, Bill Gates actually had a portrait metal commissioned by Mako with his bust on the obverse and his son's bust on the reverse. And while it's not quite unique, he only had two struck, one for him and one for his son. And then of course, the third one was struck for the archives. Okay. So, you know, not quite unique, but, you know, pretty darn close to it. Yeah.  So that's, you know, not a nobody name. So that was a really cool one to come across. Yeah. But then, you know, in addition to all the metals themselves, we have like the dies to get the larger galvanos and stuff like that. And all of those are unique.  So each of those are unique in their own right. Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. Well, that's brilliant. Thanks so much for your time. Yes. Really good resource. And good luck with the, with the ongoing project. I think it'll keep you, keep you going for a very long time. Oh yeah. Absolutely. I'm tempted to say you deserve a medal for what you've done. No, that's too, too bad. Maybe at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Brilliant. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thanks, Jesse. Bye.


Smart grids in cyber-physical systems, CPS, have been developed to improve the safety, reliability, and efficiency of energy production and distribution. To ensure the proper operation of these systems, they must be protected from malicious actors and unauthorized entities. This paper discusses the importance of key management and authentication mechanisms in protecting smart grid systems from attack manipulation and unauthorized access. It also addresses the main intelligent attacks affecting smart grid systems, as well as the main terms of cryptography, key management techniques, authentication methods, and related research challenges. This article was authored by Mohammed S. Abdelzahar, Mustafa M. Fuda, Ahmed Emron, and others.


So in the previous video, we learned about graphing absolute value functions. Now, and we did that via transformations. Every absolute value function could be graphed by transformations. But the question I wanna talk about in this video is how does one solve equations involving absolute value? Because we might ask ourselves questions like the following. What are the x intercepts of the function, the absolute value of two times x minus three minus two? Now we solve them on the graph and we graphed it, right? We found the vertex as three comma two and then using our slope, we kind of accidentally found these x intercepts. There's this x intercept at four comma zero and another one at two comma zero. So we can see that the x intercepts from the graph are two and four, but is there a purely algebraic way of finding these x intercepts? Well, remember x intercepts mean we're setting the y coordinate equal to zero. The x intercepts are those points of the graph that are on the x axis and the x axis is the line y equals zero. So if we wanna solve for the x intercepts, we're essentially just trying to solve the equation, my function equals zero. This is true for any function, but what particularly happens when you try to solve this with absolute value? Well, trying to solve this right here, my first thing to do is I would add two to both sides. That's fairly routine from what we've done in the past. Then we get two times x minus three all inside the absolute value is equal to two. And so what we're tasked to do here is we have to then solve this equation when it has absolute value. How do you get rid of the absolute value expression here? What do we do? Well, absolute value, if we remember, it's not a one-to-one function, right? This graph does fail the horizontal line test. So we can't just necessarily do the inverse function, but it turns out we can reason with ourselves on how to proceed here. If the absolute value of my quantity equals two, that means that the number was originally two or it was negative two. The only way the absolute value is two is if the number in question is two or negative two. And so we really just kind of consider both situations and we can do that simultaneously by saying plus or minus two. Really, when you see like plus or minus two right here, this represents two numbers, positive two and negative two, but we're just doing shorthand so we don't have to write the two numbers all the time. So it basically to get rid of absolute value, you have to take plus or minus the number that's on the right-hand side. There is an important caveat to that, which we'll talk about in just a minute, but let's proceed with the question right here. So now we basically have two equations, two times x minus three equals two and two times x minus three equals negative two, these two linear equations, but we can solve them simultaneously because we're gonna divide both sides by two. On the left-hand side, the twos will cancel leaving just an x minus three.  So we still get plus or minus one. The next thing to do is then add three to both sides in which case minus three plus three cancels out and then the right-hand side, we're gonna get x is equal to three plus or minus one and this is about as far as we can get without considering the two cases. So really we have the two cases, three plus one and three minus one for which we then get four and two like we solve visually on the graph. So algebraically, we can solve equations involving absolute value.  But like I said, there is a slight caveat which I wanna explore in this other example we did. So let's take the function f of x equals two times the absolute value of x minus three plus four and if we try to solve that one, we'll see what happens. So we're gonna get minus four on both sides. The four is on the left with cancel. This then gives us two times the absolute value of x minus three is equal to negative four. And next divide both sides by two. So the two cancels right here and then we get the absolute value of x minus three is equal to negative two. I'm now gonna switch my ink to red here because the things I'm gonna be doing next are actually wrong and I want you to see red here to think of blood. So death will come if we proceed in the following manner. Because now we're tempted to say the following. Hey, look, the absolute value of x minus three equals negative two. What we learned on the previous slide is to get rid of absolute value, we just take plus or minus. And so you're gonna get x minus three equals plus or minus negative two. I guess that's really just like minus plus two which is really just plus minus two again. So I'm gonna add three to both sides. I get x equals three plus or minus two which means five, three plus two and one, three minus two. But conveniently over here you can see the graph of our function and you can see that one and one, two, three, four, five are not x intercepts of the graph. What just happened? Well, the issue came back to, I'm gonna switch to red, right? The issue came to here because this is completely bonkers. The issue came to here. The absolute, let's pause and think about this for a second. The absolute value of x minus three is equal to negative two. Is that even possible? Can absolute value equal negative two? Well by construction, absolute value always produces something positive. The only exception of that is the absolute value of zero is itself zero. But absolute value cannot produce a negative. Basically the issue here is that negative two is not in the range of your absolute value function. I will say absolute value like that. You can't get two from absolute value or I really should say it in just simpler terms. The absolute value of x minus three cannot equal negative two. If your absolute value equals a negative it actually turns out that there's gonna be no solution to that equation, right? So we draw, I shouldn't write this in red. This is now actually the correct stuff, right? So we should be saying no solution in this situation. No solution. The empty set is the solution set to this equation. And now since this equation had no solution this would mean for our function that this function has no x intercepts which we can then see on the graph that, oh yeah, because the V is pointing upward and my vertex is above the x-axis there is no x intercepts on this graph. Now the geometry and the algebra come in harmony with each other. If you have an absolute value equal to a negative you have no solution. If you have an absolute value equal to a positive or equal to zero then in that situation you take plus or minus and you proceed from there. So make sure you check for negative as before you get rid of the absolute value. So looking at some more examples of this if you have the absolute value of x plus four equal to 13 we wanna solve this equation. We first have to check is my left hand side negative? Nuh-uh, this is greater than or equal to zero so I can proceed. I'm gonna get x plus four equals plus or minus 13. Subtract four from both sides you get negative four plus or minus 13. You can never leave your answer with a plus or minus here. We have to write this as two individual numbers. This is negative four plus 13 and negative four minus 13. In which case we look at the two situations 13 take away four is a nine and negative four take away 13 is a negative 17. And so those are your two values for x. And you know if we wanted to then we ought to we should plug those back into the original equation and check what happens. Nine plus four is 13, it's absolute value is 13. Negative 17 plus four is negative 13 whose absolute value is 13, it checks out.  So whatever might be attached to the absolute value whether it's like additions, attraction, multiplication, division perform inverse operations until you get absolute value all by itself. So subtract two from both sides we see that the absolute value of two x minus three is equal to seven take away two which is five. That is a positive five. So there is a solution we'll proceed forward by getting rid of the absolute value we'll take plus or minus five two x minus three equals plus or minus five. Then solving this linear equation we'll add three to both sides. That'll give us two x equals three plus or minus five for which if you want to we actually could then look at the two options, right? Three plus five is eight and three minus five is a negative two. You don't have to keep this plus or minus if you don't want to. But then whichever option you choose the next thing to do is divide by two, divide by two. And so we get that x is equal to three plus five over two which I mean we can't type that in as an answer. We're gonna have to simplify that which that gives us eight over two and negative two over two. And so we see that the two solutions here are gonna be four and negative one. And we could check in the original solution again. And that's all it takes to solve an absolute value function that you isolate the absolute value and then you make a check. If the absolute value is equal to a negative, nope, problems done, no solution. If the absolute value is equal to zero or positive you get rid of the absolute value by doing plus or minus on the right hand side and then you can solve the two cases either together or separately whichever works best for you. And this is how we can solve an absolute value function or absolute value equation.


Throughout my life I've increasingly found that reading Scripture in public is not just about feeding our own spirits and minds, but about rehearsing the mighty acts of God for God's glory. So let's think together about Galatians 2.20. And first we're going to need some tea. I have been crucified with the Messiah. I am, however, alive, but it isn't me any longer. That's the Messiah who lives in me, and the life I do still live in the flesh. I live within the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. This is one of the most richly personal statements anywhere in Paul's very personal letters about the meaning, the deep heart meaning of the Gospel of Jesus for him personally. He's not just saying it though for the sake of saying, guess what, I've had this religious experience. He is drawing onto his own experience the larger argument of the passage, which is about the fact that through the death of Jesus, Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus are brought into a single body. It's about identity. The problem he was facing when writing this was that some Jewish believers were saying, well, we are Jewish believers. These are Gentile believers. We're happy to know them, happy to think that we're sort of on the same team. But of course, they're Gentiles.  We cannot allow that to infect us. And Paul was writing at a time when there was great social and what we would call political tension among many Jews, both in Jerusalem and in Virens and out in the Jewish diaspora, where the Roman threat was ever present and the threat of compromise with Gentile ways was regarded as a very serious issue for many Jewish people. Paul himself growing up in the diaspora in what we would call southern Turkey will have known only too well about this. But Paul's gospel insists that what happened in the death of Jesus was so dramatic that anyone who then becomes part of the people of Jesus. Anyone who in baptism and faith is enfolded into this new reality has stepped away from their old identity and has become a new person.  Paul is very clear about that in his argument to Peter, just three or four verses before the one I read. But then Paul brings it right down to himself because he himself was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was the most zealous kind of Jew that there was. But even for Paul, that wasn't good enough to say, well, I of course don't need to go through any transition. I am automatically one of the Messiah's people when he turns up. No, I through the law, he says, died to the law that I might live to God. And that's when he says, I have been crucified with the Messiah. Israel's Messiah has been crucified. That means that even the most devout Jew when faced with the crucified Messiah has to go through this death and resurrection, which is after all what baptism means as Paul explains it in Romans six and elsewhere. So I have been crucified with the Messiah in our day when we have so much talk about identity, who I really am. This is the Christian answer. I am somebody who has lost the previous identity through being crucified with the Messiah. But that doesn't mean I become a nobody. I am alive. I am however alive, but it isn't me any longer. It's the Messiah who lives in me. The messianic life through the power of the spirit, as Paul explains later on in Galatians and elsewhere. This messianic life is the new identity of the people of God. All those who are baptized and believing in Jesus come into this new identity. And this identity isn't just a legal construct. It's not just not just a convenient fiction. It's a matter of love. The life I still do live in the flesh. I'm still the person I was. Paul can refer to himself elsewhere as, of course, I Paul am a Jew. And this follows from that. The life I do still live in the flesh. I am not defined by the flesh, either in terms of the desires of the flesh or the identity of the flesh. No, I live within the faithfulness of the Son of God, the faithfulness which Jesus exercised when he went to the cross in fulfillment of his vocation. The faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. For Paul, the gospel is about a debt of love which only love can repay. And in that relationship of grateful love, Paul finds his whole identity.  Instead of the philosopher Descartes saying cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. Paul would say Amor ergo sum, I am loved, therefore I am. And that love which reaches out from the cross of the Messiah is that which defines us as people characterized by the answering love, which we call faith. So may God give you faith and love and hope. And that believing you may know who you really are in the Messiah and have life in his name. Amen. How is this passage speaking to you? Let us know in the comments. Like and subscribe or check out our other videos.


We've reached that time again, the end of Cobra Convergence. It was another spectacular year with many awesome presenters and participants. This is my opportunity to thank everyone who got involved this year, let's look at each of them individually and see what amazing creativity they brought to the event. Sergeant Slaughter's Slaughterhouse kicked it off with a discussion about the GI Joe animated series episodes Worlds Without End. I was a guest as was Ken from Toy Connections, Steven from GI Joeberg and Sergeant Slaughter's daughter Kelly, special appearances by Action Force Space Commander and Sergeant Slaughter. Alright let's get into the show, let's get into the meat and potatoes of the show. So I wanted to mention that sometimes when looking at forums or chat groups concerning the two-part episode Worlds Without End, a lot of people are under the impression it's like a shattered glass universe where the good guys are the bad guys and the bad guys are the good guys. Which is not true. It's basically just a, it's almost as if, I mean there are some slight differences like I believe it's, is it Stealer that has a tattoo on one side of his arm and happens to be on the other side in this universe? I think there's a lot of inconsequential things but I think for the most part and disagree with me if you like, is that basically this is almost the same as our universe except something has happened that's made it so Cobra now has primary control for the world. The Full Forces episode covered the Hazlab, His Tank, new GI Joe classified figure reveals and much more. Chris and Pat always have great information and insight.  Yeah it almost, I do wonder if we're going to see some tears like added toward the end. Other than the tears of Troy. They should change it to T-E-A-R-S, shouldn't they? That is amazing. Also I've got to shout out Hooded Cobra Commander 788 who is on the chat as we're talking. He says there's a new His Tank, question mark, yes, HCC, you've obviously been under a rock for the last, I don't know, month I would say but also I have to, I have to also shout out HCC for this comment as well. If you've been a red ninja for 20 years you're lucky to be alive. JoeMotionVideos82 reviewed the Valor vs. Venom Venomization Chamber with Venomous Maximus. That's a series of toys that is often overlooked so it's great to get some information about it. You're supposed to start it off on the side of the victim and then flip it around and out comes Gluteus Maximus. You may have been wondering about the G.I. Joe Retro line. Is the Retro Cobra His 3 a good vehicle? Cobra Island has you covered. It is the same as every other His Tank, well that's in this particular mold but it's in a blue plastic and no that's not dust and dirt on the trash, it's actually the paint, it's actually the paint and the design of it. They actually come like this, which is pretty cool because it shows the weathering on it. Would it be a Cobra Convergence without half the battle? Timmer reviewed a classic Cobra weirdo, the Mega Viper.  Okay I'll say a bit more, why do I always get the worst crafter review for this event? So meet the Mega Viper I guess. This figure was released in 1993 with all original body parts. Very bright yellow body parts. This figure is so loud you need eye and ear protection to handle it. The secondary colors of purple and pink don't exactly help. And that's a real shame because this is a pretty decent mold.  Pig warmers had guests Penelope and Justin from Farpoint Toys to talk about Cobra's crazy schemes and weird figures. It was a wide ranging and fun conversation. Like I remember watching it, I remember not understanding the movie references in it and then years later like in high school when when I get the deep kid Rhino DVDs or whatever came out, I was watching it again and I'm like, oh, I understand all this stuff now. It's constantly quoting these old movies. Yes. Oh, that's his thing. Yeah. Yeah. And it's banned. But you can tell like the generations of it. So it's four little kids, it's somebody in their 40s writing it about movies they saw when they were kids. It's not movies I recognize. No. It's not at all. And not at all. Plastic battles took us behind the scenes of his diorama for a toy photo shoot. Check out his custom crock master too. Macbooks, I'll take it in, I'll find an image, I'll pull it up full screen and then I airplay it to the TV and then that's my backdrop. And then so basically I made all this like swampy water and I put crock master in there and I got some trees and I got some stuff. You can see Duke and the Cage that's coming up for later. That's another that's another shot that I'm doing but that one's not ready yet. So so he's just hanging out in the swamp. This Nuva's Corner Cafe featured an article about the Cobra Eels. The Eel is my favorite Cobra Army Builder. They covered all vintage versions of the figure. What's on Joe Mind went live with the whole team, Mike, Mark, Joe and Rob. They covered a lot of GI Joe news and did a special ranking of every Cobra classified figure. Yeah, I love the little extra stuff. I love the gold tinge on the glasses. Yeah. I like the gold pistol. It's just something that like the Baroness is pretty vain as a character. And that's something that she would have. That snakey laser gun is kind of weird too. Yeah. Yeah. Her glasses have the Cobra's on the side. Yeah. Those are as you look closely at their Cobra on the corner in there. It came with our first vehicle, right? Toy Connections was in the Sergeant Slaughter's Slaughterhouse episode and he had his own entry. Who should occupy the Cobra Throne? Should it be Cobra Commander or Serpentor? Here is how this version of the throne looks with the Cobra Commander version 1.5 from 1983 along with some of the enemy troopers from that same year flanking him. I think if anybody had a custom cape to attach to the commander, it could make him look even better. This to me gives a natural, timeless look and while it requires probably the least amount of imagination, it's just fitting to display him in this manner. And here's Cobra Commander again. This time the second version with the hooded appearance. It is always a pleasure having JLS Comics in Cobra Convergence. This year he looked at a video game character that is also a G.I. Joe villain, M. Bison. And his original version had a Japanese Imperial Army peaked cap with a Communist star on it but it was later changed to Skull and Wings. During development his pre-production name was Eaglehead so where did all that inspiration come from? We can source two inspirations. The first is General Washizaki from Rikiyo whose name translates to Eagle Cape. Special Mission Force returned to Cobra Convergence with a photo of the Cobra Royal Family featuring classified figures. Amazing work! Forgotten Figures is a fantastic resource for G.I. Joe history and information. This year he did an in-depth look at a rarely discussed character, Cesspool. The Joe on Joe podcast is known for producing epic stories and this year is no exception. Do you remember when Colombo joins G.I. Joe? Listen to this special episode of G.I. Colombo. Elsewhere in the bit the G.I. Joe dog handler, code name Mutt, escorts a very special guest through their reception center. So you see, Onk, that a day in a pit, even an off day like today, is never really relaxed. Boy, I'll tell you Stanley, this is all just way bigger than when I was in the Cybers. Uncle, how many times do I have to ask? Everyone here calls me Mutt. You can't be Mutt, your dogs are Mutt. But his name is Junkyard. Why don't you call him Mutt, you're Stanley. The Talking Joe podcast joined the Convergence and it is my pleasure to have them in the event. They showed us Cobra's weirder side. They have all the crazy Cobra's. And so, so against that, that giant choice of characters, how did you land on your character and what was it? I'm waiting for the turn of the slide for when you say it. For Cobra Conversion 6 and our Talking Joe discussion today of crazy Cobra's, I picked Gristle. The Human Mechanism Mark II was back again this year and he addressed the Cobra vehicle that I most wanted as a toy. We get to see an amazing custom of the Cobra Transport Helicopter. The construction was actually very simple. I cut out a large chunk from the helicopter and left a space for cargo. The legs are constructed out of evergreen plastic sheets and are reinforced with metal. I also recycled the wheels. The helicopter has telescopic legs. I don't know why. It's just one of those things that happened and I rolled with it. I'm sure if someone were to make their own version of this, they could simplify the construction. So the ultimate question. Can it carry a his tank? Audible Interlude dives into a fun and supremely weird episode of the GI Joe animated series. Do you remember Cobra Thon? This is a brilliantly strange episode and the discussion on Audible Interlude is great. Cobra needs to raise some money for a computer virus that is going to take down Interpol and blow all the computers up. As one does. Yes.  So how else do people raise money in cartoons in the 80s? You get all the other villains together and you put on a marathon. A Telefon, a Cobra Thon, a Cobra Thon. I'm glad my side of the laundry room returned to Cobra Convergence this year. This time he looked at the most terrifying villains, the Cobra Monsters. Now the first monster is the Bio-Ennihilator, which appeared in the episode in the presence of Mine Enemy that aired on November 19th, 1986. In the episode we have Conquest Pilot Slipstream running missions over a Cobra installation, a small island. He is trying to gather what data he can and after a while he is pursued by a group of Cobra Night Ravens. Jay Bartlett had something special planned for Cobra Convergence, a full table read of the script for the 1987 G.I. Joe movie. Join Jay, me, Zazel, Ken, and Hans Chow as we perform the whole movie.  My loyal subordinates could testify to my superb stewardship of Cobra, but you don't have the courage to let them speak. Wrong again! Defend him if you can! You first noble distro. Militarily speaking, it's only fair to say that Cobra Commander is a world-class buffoon. The artist shark is new to Cobra Convergence, he entered the game with a great video about the Toys R Us Python Patrol set. It's great to see this era represented, it's also great to hear some personal stories. At some point I was stumbling across the G.I. Joe isle because that was my favorite, and of course this was near the revamp where there was a lot of two packs going on, but it was very hard to find those. But I remember walking around the isle and then I end up stumbling across this very exact six pack right here. And I looked at the price and said, oh my god, this is actually $20 and there's six figures and it comes with all these unique weapons and accessories. So I asked my father, can I purchase these figures? And he said, yeah, absolutely because you're getting a little more than you're bargaining for especially around the 2003 era. So and on top of that I was lacking in the Cobra department whereas like I said before I had a lot of Joes. Action robot punch introduced something truly intimidating for G.I. Joe, Cobra's new tank. See how this battle played out. This new heavy armor has rendered us well nigh impervious and since the Joes have spotted us, let's move out and see what this new tank can really do. Two direct hits and now it's moving out.  I don't know steamroller, but right now we need to move out. Stay here and we're sitting ducks. Right on. Let's bum rush that Cobra scum. Steeler Falcon, you split off left. We'll split right. Let's take it to him. Yo, Joe. I called in a special favor from anything Joes. They showed us some Cobra characters that are almost never talked about. The enemies of Star Brigade. It is peak 90s. Boneless alien arms and razor sharp teeth. That's all he's got. They're not going to highlight anything else that's going on with him. It's got a crazy design. The artwork really is like, it looks like he has like a crab-type shell just on his legs and maybe his back and then his arms are like, they look like they have like follicles of hair or something coming off of them. But his hands are insane. His hands look like a puppet show gone wrong basically. He's like, I got a mekaka. Vagon joined the convergence with a look at the Cobra paratrooper, but he went beyond just a look at the figure. He also showed off his real service parachute. So here's the parachute itself. As you can see, you see that it has a static line on it because this is a static line shoot rather than a free fall shoot like your Halo jumpers. That's why it's funny because to me it's, I was complaining about it, about there's a difference and all that. A toy kind of mood convened a panel of GI Jo fans to show off some spectacular customs and dioramas. You have to see this stuff. Great job guys. Joe's about to get waxed. They better come up with something, man. GI Joe will be right back after these commercials. That is incredible work. Very nice. Wow. You know what, let's all for everybody here, let's do it. Come on guys. Thank you. Thank you. Code name new to vero two reviewed an era of the comic book that many of us consider to be a dark time with the assistance of comic tropes. He looks at transformers appearing in GI Joe. You see what I mean when you have to go a little bit back in order to get a better perspective of the actual story art because those are really crucial elements that kind of changes things a little bit with your perception. It doesn't save it totally, but it makes it more of a palatable going forward. And I also think that at the time, this is a really big thing that we were so fixed on generation one that when you saw G2, like for a lot of us old school guys that heard about this, it kind of came back just for a brief second to revisit our beloved GI Joe and transformers and solve this, like this different version of Megatron as we're going to see in the next issue. It really was disheartening, like that's not my Megatron. That's not my GI Joe. GI Joe Berg is a veteran of Cobra convergence and they know how to bring the heavy hitters. This year they produced the biggest collaboration ever with a feature length movie seconds to midnight. Enemy planes grounded, bomb drop vector 08880018. Protocol 83. Anti-mine crew has been sent out to mop up runway 77. Cleanup crew is on the deck, sir. If that runway is not cleared in two minutes, we all will perish. All air defenses are down except for the flak. It was a privilege to have Star Joe's in Cobra Convergence, I have been listening to their long running podcast for quite a while. Check out their Cobra special missions. Alright Eric, so scenario number one, which is the escape from the silent castle. Who were your agents and what were your vehicles and why? Well, as the leader of the group, I chose Crocmaster. Okay. Well, it's a freaking swamp and sewers. What better way to have a guy who controls alligators and crocodile's in there to eat them? People. Then I took Copperhead because he'll be rolling around on the water moccasin, you know, looking for people. Took a raptor because of the bird. The bird can help scout.  And then finally I have Zirana running around with the Swamp, the Dridnock Swampfire. Cobra Ling is the master of stop motion. This Cobra Convergence video was a look at the evil Cobra Emperor, Sarpentor. He's definitely one of my favorite villains. He was created by Dr. Mainbender by collecting and combining the DNA of great people of history such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hannibal, a great commander and others. That's many of you know. One thing I remember about Sarpentor were his biceps. He really looked like he could kick some butt, not just lead. Rob Vegas was doing Cobra Convergence videos every day. When we needed someone to step in, he took the job. For his day, he looked at the Toxoviper. And that's over at the Rob Vegas Technology Center and I tell you what, let's head on over there and get the job done. I'll see you there. Okay, so here we are at the Rob Vegas Technology Center which today is doubling as a Toxic Waste Treatment Plant. We have quite a few friends here. You know sometimes when you're on the internet you can get some toxic comments on your videos but they can get as toxic as they like here because we've got the gang. We've got Toxoviper version one. We've got Cesspool. We've got Sludge Viper. It was fun to meet the gang from Podcast From The Pit at Joefest. I'm thrilled they were able to join the Convergence. They picked their favorite Cobra figures and vehicles. I love Cobra. I mean I love G.I.G. I don't get me wrong. I lean Cobra. So happy to be asked to do this this year. So looking forward to it. So vehicles. I wonder how different we're going to be. I bet we're closer on vehicles or play sets than we are on figures. Let's see. All right. You start number five. Let's go. It's a classic. Very classic. Awesome. That's why it's my number five. Fun School Ronnie is our window into G.I. Joe in India. A lot of fans are curious about international toys. Ronnie restores and assembles a Cobra surveillance port. Today on this Cobra Convergence 6 special video I'm going to review the Fun School Cobra surveillance port. So without further ado let's get started. Five. Four. Three. So this is the Fun School Cobra surveillance port that my good friend Jason from Order of Battle Pod helped me buy. As you guys can see the box is in pretty rough shape so I decided to restore it somewhat. The Order of Battle podcast always brings thoughtful and insightful discussion and they give some love to some of the strangest Cobra characters of all time. I chose the Flag Viper not because of any of that but because on their file card especially if you think about it from when this came out two to day's time it's even funnier. They're wearing surface to air missiles on their back. This is not meant to fight Joe's on the ground. They are meant to ride around on vehicles like the parasite and fire up at overhead combatants and to train for that they put a cartridge into their helmets so that they can essentially play an altered reality video game through their helmets for ten hours a day to become experts at being these human surface to air missile weapons. The Skull Reviews is a veteran of Cobra Convergence and often does reviews of twelve inch action figures. This time he reviews a three and three quarter inch figure that is synonymous with Cobra the Viper. Having a closer look at the Cobra Viper he's got an awesome style so he incorporates the classic dark blue of the Cobra Trooper along with the faceplate of Cobra Commander so it's a really nice tie in it really makes the Cobra organization look like it's got its act together. Articulated points gave us the final entry in Cobra Convergence 6 with something truly special custom figures of rare Japanese characters. I'm gonna throw it over to Patrick now because he's got something he wants to show you as well. Hey thanks Philip it's not every day that you see a good use for that Robo Joe head is it? Oh. The fact that it has the old style body construction on the neck I think really made it blend in with those older parts in the O-ring line which made it mesh in with the other figures that were released in Japan so I think you did a really great job. Okay so for my half of this project I was picking a character that appears in the second to the last issue which was from January 1987 and the name of the character that I'm working on thanks to Philip having it translated is Bomber Jack. Thank you to everyone who was on the calendar it means a lot to me that they would join and produce such amazing content it's their creativity that drives the event. Cobra Convergence is for the entire community. I invited everyone to create their own Cobra Convergence productions. This is the community coming together to support each other and share their enjoyment for this iconic line. Thank you to everyone who converged. That's all for this year we bring Cobra Convergence 6 to a close. It was a lot of fun. We will be back next year but we don't have to wait until then to come together and build our community. I will see you for Cobra Convergence 7. Cobra!