University of Washington computer science professor wins $100K Infosys Prize

Science and Health

Shyam Gollakota.

Shyam Gollakota, a University of Washington computer science professor and Seattle-based health tech startup founder, won a $100,000 award as one of six researchers honored as part of this year’s Infosys Prize.

The annual award is organized by the Infosys Science Foundation, a charitable arm of Indian multinational company Infosys.

Gollakota won this year’s prize for engineering and computer science.

“This was surprising since I did not know I was on their radar,” Gollakota told GeekWire.

Gollakota’s research spans a variety of areas, including wireless tech, battery-free devices, WiFi sensing and imaging, medical diagnostics via smartphones, and more. He leads the Mobile Intelligence Lab at the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering.

Gollakota co-founded Sound Life Sciences, a UW spinout that developed an app to monitor breathing that was acquired by Google in 2022.

He’s also the co-founder of Wavely Diagnostics, which uses a smartphone app to detect ear infections.

More recently Gollakota has been leading research on a headphone prototype that uses AI to create a “sound bubble” and can learn the distance for each sound source in a room. He said he’ll use his award money from the Infosys Prize to help commercialize the technology.

“I do think this prize supports our work on creating a symbiosis between humans, hardware, and AI to create superhuman capabilities like sound bubbles, with the potential to transform billions of headphones, AirPods, and improve the lives of millions of people who have hearing loss,” Gollakota said.

The Infosys Prize, launched in 2008, goes to Indian researchers and innovators in fields including economics, engineering & computer science, humanities & social science, life sciences, mathematical sciences, and physical sciences. Those based outside of India are required to spend 30 days at a host institute in India.

The only previous U.S. recipient of the award for computer science was Hari Balakrishnan in 2020.

This year year the Infosys Prize began limiting winners to 40 years of age.

Gollakota recently spoke on the Shift AI podcast, which you can check out below.

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Kelowna RCMP looking for truck stolen from Highway 97 business

Business News

Kelowna RCMP is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a stolen truck taken from a business along Highway 97.

The black 2017 Ford F350 was stolen from the 2700 block of Highway 97 near Enterprise Way and Leathead Road on Nov. 10.

It has several unique features:

Push bar in the front;
Front blacked out grill;
Lifted with black wheels;
Black colour matched fender flares;
Short antenna with a red tip;
BC License plate # VG6200.

The vehicle was last seen at 3:18 a.m. on Nov. 10 on video surveillance when it was stolen from the business’ parking lot. 

“Stolen vehicles are often used to commit other property related offences over a period of several days and sometimes weeks before they are dumped, and another vehicle is stolen,” said Cpl. Michael Gauthier, RCMP media relations officer.  “This particular truck has very unique features and we believe the public can assist us in locating it quickly, increasing our likelihood of apprehending someone and preventing any further crimes with it.”

Anyone who sees the vehicle, or has information as to its whereabouts, is asked to call Kelowna RCMP at 250-762-3300 and reference file number 2024-66844. 

New business expansion to bring 1,000 jobs to Melbourne

Business News

Melbourne City Council has approved a significant business expansion project that will create roughly 1,000 new jobs near the airport. The project includes a 300,000-square-foot building and a 17,000-square-foot high bay building, with two new entrances off NASA Boulevard.The new expansion project will be built very close to the city airport, just north of NASA Boulevard, and will have enough parking for over a thousand employees.The buildings will be located inside the industrial zone near several defense contractors. In a social media post from October, the airport confirmed the expansion of defense contractor Northrop Grumman.The city said increasing employees will require traffic improvements along NASA Boulevard.Melbourne Mayor Paul Alfrey issued a statement to WESH 2 News: “This project and growth will bring more high-paying jobs to our community and is consistent with the forward progress that our Melbourne airport is focused on,” Alfrey said.The council promises more details to come as the project progresses.

MELBOURNE, Fla. — Melbourne City Council has approved a significant business expansion project that will create roughly 1,000 new jobs near the airport. The project includes a 300,000-square-foot building and a 17,000-square-foot high bay building, with two new entrances off NASA Boulevard.

Braving sharks, urchins, Bay Area scientists nurture kelp forests

Science and Health

The weathered UC Davis Marine Laboratory looms in thick fog on the edge of the ocean near Bodega Bay. Inside, an experiment is playing out that gives a needed boost to Northern California’s kelp forests — underwater cathedrals of green and gold that nearly vanished from the North Coast a decade ago.In early October, marine biologist Julieta Gomez rolled up her sleeve, reached into a jug of tumbling salt water, and pulled out a spool of twine. On it grew dozens of bull kelp starts, each little more than a brown speck. Their destination: the ocean. When Gomez attached twine like this to the seabed this summer, more than 100 juvenile kelp stipes appeared within the month and began reaching for the surface.“They’re looking amazing,” she said.Thanks to Gomez and her team, kelp is rebounding for the first time in a decade along the Sonoma coast, if even on a small scale.Their research is also providing insights that may be used to protect Central California’s kelp forests south of San Francisco. These, like others, are threatened by climate change, which is contributing to extreme ocean temperatures seen in recent years.“We’re having success,” said Brent Hughes, a professor of biology at Sonoma State University who is restoring kelp in Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties. “We’re growing kelp out in the ocean. And now we’re ready to really expand this.”The past two summers, Gomez and her colleagues donned scuba gear and dove into a briny cove north of Bodega Bay, with the spools in hand.The site, Fort Ross Cove, was once home to a lush underwater forest that provided habitat for marine life, supported commercial fisheries and stored carbon. Now, the kelp is replaced by armies of purple sea urchins, a casualty of a vast kelp forest collapse that began in 2014.Fueled by a marine heat wave that year that scientists dubbed “the blob,” and key predators absent, urchins devoured more than 90% of bull kelp forests in Northern California. South of the San Francisco Bay, however, healthier kelp forests still coat the coasts and give life to California’s iconic sea otters.At Fort Ross Cove, the scientists unraveled these inoculated lines of twine and secured them to the seabed. The hope was that these specks of young kelp would grow into towering stalks, and by fall’s end, release millions of reproductive spores. At the same time, commercial fishermen hand-removed purple urchins by the hundreds of thousands, to protect any new kelp that might appear, and scientists released millions of spores themselves.Other scientists are using similar tactics in Marin and Mendocino counties. The experiments are small, on the order of a few acres each, but the results are promising. At another cove in Sonoma County, a canopy of bull kelp expanded modestly over the summer.The projects are collaborations between the federal government, researchers and scientists like Gomez with the nonprofit Greater Farallones Association. The organization protects an expansive marine sanctuary home to humpback whales, throngs of seabirds and great white sharks. The $9.5 million initiative in Sonoma County is mostly funded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as fishing regulators and California’s state wildlife agency.Bull kelp circulates in an outdoor tank at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)The return of kelp forests would broadly benefit the waters of Northern California. That would also protect coastlines from erosion, store planet-warming carbon dioxide and support the beleaguered abalone and red urchin fisheries.Even with the recent success, however, it remains to be seen if these mighty underwater forests will ever be restored to their former glory in Northern California, or how long that might take.Broadly, there are far too many purple urchins for divers to bag on the seafloor. Urchin “barrens” are vast, stretching through Oregon, and their natural predators are absent from the North Coast: Sunflower stars are locally extinct due to a mysterious disease, and sea otters — a keystone species — haven’t returned to this part of the coast since they were hunted to extinction in the 19th century. Now, great white sharks limit their expansion north of the San Francisco Bay.Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist holds a sea urchin at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)“It’s a lot of work to put people in the water and remove enough sea urchins to facilitate recovery,” said Joshua Smith, a research scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium who studies kelp forest restoration.Beneath the surface, these swaying kelp forests create habitats for sea stars, rockfish, abalone and more. Globally, kelp forest collapse is becoming more common due to climate change, pollution, overharvesting and other factors.But so is restoration.Scientists are protecting or expanding kelp forests in Baja California, Southern California, Oregon and Washington’s Puget Sound. Locally, Hughes is also restoring kelp at two sites in Mendocino County.Gina Contolini, another kelp restoration specialist with the Greater Farallones Association who coordinates urchin removal, said more projects like these are cropping up as scientists increasingly focus on these underwater forests. Researchers in California are also tying kelp restoration to global climate initiatives to store “blue carbon” in marine foliage.“Kelp is a hot topic right now,” she said.The research in Sonoma County has shown that scientists can grow kelp on twine on the North Coast, where vicious storms and sharks limit their work, Hughes said. The benefit of the twine is that kelp can grow above the reach of hungry urchins.But the research also shows that kelp forests can regrow directly on the seabed if enough urchins are removed from the equation.Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a twine wrapped tube used to grow bull kelp at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a sample of bull kelp growing in an outdoor tank at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over bull kelp growing in an outdoor tanks at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a sample of bull kelp growing in an outdoor tank at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over bull kelp growing in an outdoor tanks at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Bull kelp circulates in a tank next to grow lights at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a twine wrapped tube used to grow bull kelp at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Show Caption1 of 7Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a twine wrapped tube used to grow bull kelp at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
ExpandTo that end, the project employs commercial divers to remove purple urchins from two coves. Among them is Erik Owen, a fisherman based in Bodega Bay, who dove for red urchins before kelp forests collapsed, taking the fishery with them. Red urchin uni is a valuable commodity used in foods like sushi, but not purple urchin. After hungry purple urchins mow down kelp forest, they lay dormant on the sea bed in a starved condition, with little uni of value for divers.In the last year, Owen and other divers have pulled roughly 650,000 urchins from Fort Ross Cove and another, Timber Cove, using only their hands or an underwater rake. The urchins are boated back to land and composted because they’re not a worthwhile food product.They’ve made a big dent. But Contolini says there’s not much stopping purple urchins from crawling back into the research sites.“There’s still millions of urchins at the larger site,” she said. “They’re just everywhere.”People will always be slower at harvesting urchins than sunflower stars and sea otters, their natural predators. Both species are known to protect kelp forests, and enough sunflower stars can even convert urchin barrens back to forested canopies, said Jason Hodin, a research scientist with the University of Washington.“A healthy kelp forest has both,” he said. “A functioning ecosystem has both.”Originally Published: November 14, 2024 at 1:30 PM PST

Braving sharks, urchins, Bay Area scientists nurture kelp forests

Science and Health

The weathered UC Davis Marine Laboratory looms in thick fog on the edge of the ocean near Bodega Bay. Inside, an experiment is playing out that gives a needed boost to Northern California’s kelp forests — underwater cathedrals of green and gold that nearly vanished from the North Coast a decade ago.In early October, marine biologist Julieta Gomez rolled up her sleeve, reached into a jug of tumbling salt water, and pulled out a spool of twine. On it grew dozens of bull kelp starts, each little more than a brown speck. Their destination: the ocean. When Gomez attached twine like this to the seabed this summer, more than 100 juvenile kelp stipes appeared within the month and began reaching for the surface.“They’re looking amazing,” she said.Thanks to Gomez and her team, kelp is rebounding for the first time in a decade along the Sonoma coast, if even on a small scale.Their research is also providing insights that may be used to protect Central California’s kelp forests south of San Francisco. These, like others, are threatened by climate change, which is contributing to extreme ocean temperatures seen in recent years.“We’re having success,” said Brent Hughes, a professor of biology at Sonoma State University who is restoring kelp in Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties. “We’re growing kelp out in the ocean. And now we’re ready to really expand this.”The past two summers, Gomez and her colleagues donned scuba gear and dove into a briny cove north of Bodega Bay, with the spools in hand.The site, Fort Ross Cove, was once home to a lush underwater forest that provided habitat for marine life, supported commercial fisheries and stored carbon. Now, the kelp is replaced by armies of purple sea urchins, a casualty of a vast kelp forest collapse that began in 2014.Fueled by a marine heat wave that year that scientists dubbed “the blob,” and key predators absent, urchins devoured more than 90% of bull kelp forests in Northern California. South of the San Francisco Bay, however, healthier kelp forests still coat the coasts and give life to California’s iconic sea otters.At Fort Ross Cove, the scientists unraveled these inoculated lines of twine and secured them to the seabed. The hope was that these specks of young kelp would grow into towering stalks, and by fall’s end, release millions of reproductive spores. At the same time, commercial fishermen hand-removed purple urchins by the hundreds of thousands, to protect any new kelp that might appear, and scientists released millions of spores themselves.Other scientists are using similar tactics in Marin and Mendocino counties. The experiments are small, on the order of a few acres each, but the results are promising. At another cove in Sonoma County, a canopy of bull kelp expanded modestly over the summer.The projects are collaborations between the federal government, researchers and scientists like Gomez with the nonprofit Greater Farallones Association. The organization protects an expansive marine sanctuary home to humpback whales, throngs of seabirds and great white sharks. The $9.5 million initiative in Sonoma County is mostly funded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as fishing regulators and California’s state wildlife agency.Bull kelp circulates in an outdoor tank at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)The return of kelp forests would broadly benefit the waters of Northern California. That would also protect coastlines from erosion, store planet-warming carbon dioxide and support the beleaguered abalone and red urchin fisheries.Even with the recent success, however, it remains to be seen if these mighty underwater forests will ever be restored to their former glory in Northern California, or how long that might take.Broadly, there are far too many purple urchins for divers to bag on the seafloor. Urchin “barrens” are vast, stretching through Oregon, and their natural predators are absent from the North Coast: Sunflower stars are locally extinct due to a mysterious disease, and sea otters — a keystone species — haven’t returned to this part of the coast since they were hunted to extinction in the 19th century. Now, great white sharks limit their expansion north of the San Francisco Bay.Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist holds a sea urchin at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)“It’s a lot of work to put people in the water and remove enough sea urchins to facilitate recovery,” said Joshua Smith, a research scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium who studies kelp forest restoration.Beneath the surface, these swaying kelp forests create habitats for sea stars, rockfish, abalone and more. Globally, kelp forest collapse is becoming more common due to climate change, pollution, overharvesting and other factors.But so is restoration.Scientists are protecting or expanding kelp forests in Baja California, Southern California, Oregon and Washington’s Puget Sound. Locally, Hughes is also restoring kelp at two sites in Mendocino County.Gina Contolini, another kelp restoration specialist with the Greater Farallones Association who coordinates urchin removal, said more projects like these are cropping up as scientists increasingly focus on these underwater forests. Researchers in California are also tying kelp restoration to global climate initiatives to store “blue carbon” in marine foliage.“Kelp is a hot topic right now,” she said.The research in Sonoma County has shown that scientists can grow kelp on twine on the North Coast, where vicious storms and sharks limit their work, Hughes said. The benefit of the twine is that kelp can grow above the reach of hungry urchins.But the research also shows that kelp forests can regrow directly on the seabed if enough urchins are removed from the equation.Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a twine wrapped tube used to grow bull kelp at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a sample of bull kelp growing in an outdoor tank at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over bull kelp growing in an outdoor tanks at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a sample of bull kelp growing in an outdoor tank at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over bull kelp growing in an outdoor tanks at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Bull kelp circulates in a tank next to grow lights at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a twine wrapped tube used to grow bull kelp at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Show Caption1 of 7Julieta Gomez a kelp restoration specialist looks over a twine wrapped tube used to grow bull kelp at The UC Davis Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s Bodega Marine Laboratory on Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024 in Bodega Bay, Calif. Kelp forests vanished off the northern California coast a decade ago. A restoration project in Sonoma County is seeing success re-planting kelp along the coast. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
ExpandTo that end, the project employs commercial divers to remove purple urchins from two coves. Among them is Erik Owen, a fisherman based in Bodega Bay, who dove for red urchins before kelp forests collapsed, taking the fishery with them. Red urchin uni is a valuable commodity used in foods like sushi, but not purple urchin. After hungry purple urchins mow down kelp forest, they lay dormant on the sea bed in a starved condition, with little uni of value for divers.In the last year, Owen and other divers have pulled roughly 650,000 urchins from Fort Ross Cove and another, Timber Cove, using only their hands or an underwater rake. The urchins are boated back to land and composted because they’re not a worthwhile food product.They’ve made a big dent. But Contolini says there’s not much stopping purple urchins from crawling back into the research sites.“There’s still millions of urchins at the larger site,” she said. “They’re just everywhere.”People will always be slower at harvesting urchins than sunflower stars and sea otters, their natural predators. Both species are known to protect kelp forests, and enough sunflower stars can even convert urchin barrens back to forested canopies, said Jason Hodin, a research scientist with the University of Washington.“A healthy kelp forest has both,” he said. “A functioning ecosystem has both.”Originally Published: November 14, 2024 at 1:30 PM PST

‘The kindest man you’d ever meet’: Friends mourn death of Helena’s ‘Book Guy,’ David Spencer

Arts & Culture, Books

There is a stool at the counter in the Gold Bar on Last Chance Gulch and Lawrence Street where David Spencer used to sit and sip a beer with his bags of books nearby and engage in chatter with others — most likely about books.

A tribute was set up Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, at the Gold Bar for David “Book Guy” Spencer.

Phil Drake, Independent Record

On Thursday, that stool was turned around and leaned up against the bar, a beer mug sat upside down on the counter and a sign read: “Reserved for David ‘Book Guy’ Spencer Rest in Peace.”Helena’s beloved “Book Guy” died Wednesday. He was 78.Christina Barbachano, executive director of the Holter Museum, where Spencer was a fixture for nearly 35 years, said she found him in his apartment Wednesday when he failed to come to work earlier in the day. It is believed he died hours earlier. He had been ill for some time, she said, adding he had pneumonia and sepsis last year.

David Spencer

Holter Museum

“He was known everywhere,” Barbachano said Thursday.

People are also reading…

Spencer, most recently the Holter’s store assistant and historian, was a familiar sight in downtown Helena, carrying bags stuffed with books.“He haunted all of Last Chance Gulch and all of Helena for 40 years,” Barbachano said jokingly. “He was the kindest man you’d ever meet.”She said he claimed to read three-five books a day. She added he had a photographic memory and his recall was incredible.Spencer always had 20-30 books with him in bags, she said.“That is how I knew he was very, very sick, because he showed up to work with two books,” Barbachano said.She said she had tried to get him to go to hospital for more than a week, but he refused. She believes it was because of his health scare last year in which he was in the hospital for more than a week.A GoFundMe page had been set up at that time and raised $10,724 to help him pay hospital bills, exceeding the $10,000 goal. “Although David’s book collection is vast, his lifestyle is very minimal — he does not own a phone, a car, or a computer,” the site noted.”He is known to be fond of intelligent conversation and philosophical discussions, and seems to have a book recommendation for everyone,” the GoFundMe site stated. “It’s probably not far off to assume that David has, in many ways, kept the spirit of literacy and learning alive in Helena for many years.”Barbachano said he was the Holter’s “longest-standing employee, he was the history of the Holter. He won’t be replaced.”A 2002 story in the Independent Record said Spencer was a familiar figure to many Helena resident and could be seen walking around town with a “telltale stack of books, conversing in coffee shops or browsing the new selections at the Lewis and Clark Library.”At the time he said he was probably the library’s most frequent customer.The story said he had left his job as an editor and proofreader at Blue Cross Blue Shield and “began making inroads to my real life.”

Bartender Michael Herbert stands by a tribute in the Gold Bar to the late David Spencer, known as the “Book Guy.” 

Phil Drake, Independent Record

He grew up in Twin Falls, Idaho. He moved to Helena in 1985 and completed his degree in English literature at Carroll College in 1990, nearly a quarter-century after he began.Michael Herbert, a bartender at the Gold Bar, said Thursday that Spencer was a very well-liked customer.“He probably had the grip strength of a rancher from carrying all those books,” he said.And always had others engaged in stories about books. Herbert said the tribute at the bar was the idea of Sarah, a senior bartender.“She cared for him a lot,” he said.Riley Tubbs, owner of Ten Mile Creek Brewery, said Spencer came to his place as well.“It’s hard to find someone down here who didn’t know him,” he said. “I think he frequented every business in the gulch.”“He was one of the sweetest guys.”Tubbs said Spencer seemed to retain everything he read.“Every time I chatted with him he would bring up a book,” he said. “I think he read the most books of anybody in this world.”Barbachano told members of Hometown Helena on Thursday that the Holter had planned retirement party for him later this month, but are shifting that to a celebration of life that will be held Dec. 20.The museum noted his death on its Facebook page.“To know David was to love David. And of course, passing away on World Kindness Day seems so very fitting,” museum officials stated.

David Spencer

Holter Museum

Barbachano invited people to share memories and photos of David on the Holter’s Facebook page.“He had no next of kin, except for the community of Helena,” she said.Barbachano said some people are getting together to ensure his book collection is taken care of.She said he has “thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of books.”“There is no way to measure.”Former Mayor Jim Smith, who moderates Hometown Helena, said Spencer was “a one-man bookmobile.”One person in the audience said they believed the fireball that lit up the Montana skies late Tuesday was Spencer.The celebration will be at the Holter, which museum officials said Spencer considered his second home.They said more information will be posted as details come together.“In the meantime, in his honor we request that you read some books, drink a pint of beer or hot tea, and remember a man that was the heart of downtown Helena and the Holter for four decades,” museum officials said on Facebook. “We love you David and you will be sorely missed.”
Assistant editor Phil Drake can be reached at 406-231-9021.

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‘The kindest man you’d ever meet’: Friends mourn death of Helena’s ‘Book Guy,’ David Spencer

Arts & Culture, Books

There is a stool at the counter in the Gold Bar on Last Chance Gulch and Lawrence Street where David Spencer used to sit and sip a beer with his bags of books nearby and engage in chatter with others — most likely about books.

A tribute was set up Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, at the Gold Bar for David “Book Guy” Spencer.

Phil Drake, Independent Record

On Thursday, that stool was turned around and leaned up against the bar, a beer mug sat upside down on the counter and a sign read: “Reserved for David ‘Book Guy’ Spencer Rest in Peace.”Helena’s beloved “Book Guy” died Wednesday. He was 78.Christina Barbachano, executive director of the Holter Museum, where Spencer was a fixture for nearly 35 years, said she found him in his apartment Wednesday when he failed to come to work earlier in the day. It is believed he died hours earlier. He had been ill for some time, she said, adding he had pneumonia and sepsis last year.

David Spencer

Holter Museum

“He was known everywhere,” Barbachano said Thursday.

People are also reading…

Spencer, most recently the Holter’s store assistant and historian, was a familiar sight in downtown Helena, carrying bags stuffed with books.“He haunted all of Last Chance Gulch and all of Helena for 40 years,” Barbachano said jokingly. “He was the kindest man you’d ever meet.”She said he claimed to read three-five books a day. She added he had a photographic memory and his recall was incredible.Spencer always had 20-30 books with him in bags, she said.“That is how I knew he was very, very sick, because he showed up to work with two books,” Barbachano said.She said she had tried to get him to go to hospital for more than a week, but he refused. She believes it was because of his health scare last year in which he was in the hospital for more than a week.A GoFundMe page had been set up at that time and raised $10,724 to help him pay hospital bills, exceeding the $10,000 goal. “Although David’s book collection is vast, his lifestyle is very minimal — he does not own a phone, a car, or a computer,” the site noted.”He is known to be fond of intelligent conversation and philosophical discussions, and seems to have a book recommendation for everyone,” the GoFundMe site stated. “It’s probably not far off to assume that David has, in many ways, kept the spirit of literacy and learning alive in Helena for many years.”Barbachano said he was the Holter’s “longest-standing employee, he was the history of the Holter. He won’t be replaced.”A 2002 story in the Independent Record said Spencer was a familiar figure to many Helena resident and could be seen walking around town with a “telltale stack of books, conversing in coffee shops or browsing the new selections at the Lewis and Clark Library.”At the time he said he was probably the library’s most frequent customer.The story said he had left his job as an editor and proofreader at Blue Cross Blue Shield and “began making inroads to my real life.”

Bartender Michael Herbert stands by a tribute in the Gold Bar to the late David Spencer, known as the “Book Guy.” 

Phil Drake, Independent Record

He grew up in Twin Falls, Idaho. He moved to Helena in 1985 and completed his degree in English literature at Carroll College in 1990, nearly a quarter-century after he began.Michael Herbert, a bartender at the Gold Bar, said Thursday that Spencer was a very well-liked customer.“He probably had the grip strength of a rancher from carrying all those books,” he said.And always had others engaged in stories about books. Herbert said the tribute at the bar was the idea of Sarah, a senior bartender.“She cared for him a lot,” he said.Riley Tubbs, owner of Ten Mile Creek Brewery, said Spencer came to his place as well.“It’s hard to find someone down here who didn’t know him,” he said. “I think he frequented every business in the gulch.”“He was one of the sweetest guys.”Tubbs said Spencer seemed to retain everything he read.“Every time I chatted with him he would bring up a book,” he said. “I think he read the most books of anybody in this world.”Barbachano told members of Hometown Helena on Thursday that the Holter had planned retirement party for him later this month, but are shifting that to a celebration of life that will be held Dec. 20.The museum noted his death on its Facebook page.“To know David was to love David. And of course, passing away on World Kindness Day seems so very fitting,” museum officials stated.

David Spencer

Holter Museum

Barbachano invited people to share memories and photos of David on the Holter’s Facebook page.“He had no next of kin, except for the community of Helena,” she said.Barbachano said some people are getting together to ensure his book collection is taken care of.She said he has “thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of books.”“There is no way to measure.”Former Mayor Jim Smith, who moderates Hometown Helena, said Spencer was “a one-man bookmobile.”One person in the audience said they believed the fireball that lit up the Montana skies late Tuesday was Spencer.The celebration will be at the Holter, which museum officials said Spencer considered his second home.They said more information will be posted as details come together.“In the meantime, in his honor we request that you read some books, drink a pint of beer or hot tea, and remember a man that was the heart of downtown Helena and the Holter for four decades,” museum officials said on Facebook. “We love you David and you will be sorely missed.”
Assistant editor Phil Drake can be reached at 406-231-9021.

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Does Dwayne Johnson Holiday Movie ‘Red One’ Have A Post-Credits Scene?

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans’ Christmas movie Red One is new in theaters. Should you stick around for the end credits?

The movie plays in previews Thursday before opening in theaters nationwide on Friday. The logline for Red One reads, “After Santa Claus (code name: Red One) is kidnapped, the North Pole’s Head of Security (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Chris Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.”

Rated PG-13, Red One also stars Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Kristofer Hivju, Bonnie Hunt, Nick Kroll, Mary Elizabeth Ellis and J.K. Simmons—who plays Santa Claus.

Produced and distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, Red One will open in 4,032 North American theaters in addition to getting an international release.

What Happens During The End Credits Of Dwayne Johnson And Chris Evans’ ‘Red One’?
Generally, scenes during a film’s end credits or a post-credits scene serves one of two functions: either they tie up loose ends from a scene earlier in the movie or tease a potential sequel.

However, Red One has does not feature any end credits or a post-credits scene.

Of course, a film doesn’t need to feature scenes during the end credits or after the credits to get a sequel. Generally, the production of a sequel depends on how well a film performs financially unless, of course, it’s part of a shared universe like Marvel and DC’s comic book movies.

Given the enduring appeal of the Christmas holiday and Santa Claus, it wouldn’t be a stretch for the filmmakers to come up with a sequel idea for Red One—but the odds are stacked against Amazon MGM Studios for that to happen considering the film’s massive cost.
Per Variety, Red One’s production budget was $250 million before prints and advertising. To the film’s disadvantage, it is projected to only make $30 million to $35 million in its opening Friday to Sunday frame domestically.
Red One, of course, is sure to make more money when it debuts on digital streaming via premium video on demand, but whether the revenue the film generates is enough to financially justify a sequel is yet to be seen. In addition, Red One will eventually find its streaming on video on demand home on Amazon’s Prime Video.
The irony is, Red One, per Deadline, originally was supposed to debut as a straight-to-streaming release for Prime Video. However, the trade publication noted that Amazon MGM Studios opted for a wide theatrical release after the film did well in test screenings.
While a sequel to Red One is unlikely, there are ideas in the Red One that could conceivably lead to spinoff movies. That’s because in Red One, Lucy Liu plays the head of the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority—M.O.R.A. for short—which is a secret organization that protects mythological beings and creatures.
Since there’s an appearance by a mythilogical figure tied to Halloween featured early on in Red One, the producers of the film could conceivably get creative and center a film around the character or other mythological characters that M.O.R.A. protects. It’s a longshot, but the idea for Red One spinoff movies definitely are there.
Directed by Jake Kasdan—the filmmaker behind Dwayne Johnson’s Jumanji movies—Red One plays in Thursday previews before opening in theaters nationwide on Friday.