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Memoization in React: Powerful Tool or Hidden Pitfall?

প্রতিক্রিয়ায় স্মৃতিচারণ: শক্তিশালী হাতিয়ার বা লুকানো পিটফল?

Memoisierung in React: Leistungsstarkes Tool oder versteckte Falle?

Memoización en React: ¿herramienta poderosa o trampa oculta?

Mémorisation dans React : outil puissant ou piège caché ?

रिएक्ट में मेमोइज़ेशन: शक्तिशाली टूल या छिपा हुआ नुकसान?

React でのメモ化: 強力なツールか隠れた落とし穴か?

React의 메모화: 강력한 도구인가 아니면 숨겨진 함정인가?

Memoização no React: ferramenta poderosa ou armadilha oculta?

Мемоизация в React: мощный инструмент или скрытая ловушка?

React'te Notlandırma: Güçlü Araç mı, Yoksa Gizli Tuzak mı?

Ghi nhớ trong React: Công cụ mạnh mẽ hay cạm bẫy tiềm ẩn?

React 中的记忆化：强大的工具还是隐藏的陷阱？

Dealing with Missing Data in Financial Time Series - Recipes and Pitfalls 

ফাইন্যান্সিয়াল টাইম সিরিজে অনুপস্থিত ডেটা নিয়ে কাজ করা - রেসিপি এবং ক্ষতি

Umgang mit fehlenden Daten in Finanzzeitreihen – Rezepte und Fallstricke

Manejo de datos faltantes en series de tiempo financieras: recetas y trampas

Gérer les données manquantes dans les séries temporelles financières – Recettes et pièges

वित्तीय समय श्रृंखला में गुम डेटा से निपटना - विधियां और नुकसान

金融時系列における欠損データの扱い - 秘訣と落とし穴

금융 시계열에서 누락된 데이터 처리 - 방법 및 함정

Lidando com dados ausentes em séries temporais financeiras – receitas e armadilhas

Работа с недостающими данными в финансовых временных рядах: рецепты и подводные камни

Finansal Zaman Serilerinde Eksik Verilerle Başa Çıkmak - Tarifler ve Tuzaklar

Xử lý dữ liệu bị thiếu trong chuỗi thời gian tài chính - Bí quyết và cạm bẫy

处理金融时间序列中的缺失数据 - 秘诀和陷阱

As data leaders, we recognize the limitations of traditional, centralized data management. Sluggish decision-making, siloed information, and restricted agility impede our ability to leverage data effectively. a promising paradigm shift towards . Imagine empowering subject matter experts to own and manage their data, fostering deeper responsibility and swifter insights. However, achieving this ideal balance requires careful planning and execution. Are you a data leader tasked with implementing the exciting yet challenging Data Mesh approach? Enter Data Mesh: decentralized ownership and collaboration This article dives into the common hurdles I have encountered during my Data Mesh journey, equipping you with the knowledge to overcome them. By the end, you'll be well-prepared to embark on a successful implementation, empowering your teams to unlock the full potential of your data and deliver transformative insights for your entire organization. herself said "The biggest challenge with Data Mesh is . It's not just about giving everyone access but ensuring accountability and responsibility for the data. Otherwise, you end up confused and conflicting versions of the truth." Zhamak Dehghani defining clear ownership boundaries Imagine Gordon Ramsay storming into a restaurant, expecting Michelin-starred execution from a team of burnt-out short-order cooks who've never seen the pressure of a high-end kitchen. That's the chaotic recipe for disaster many organizations cook up when they dive headfirst into Data Mesh without proper support. Instead of empowering teams, they unleash data anarchy. Imagine tossing untrained cooks into a five-star kitchen, each throwing in random ingredients with their limited skills. Chaos erupts, quality plummets and the business goes belly-up. This is precisely what happens when organizations lack a strong before implementing Data Mesh. learning program and data strategy Without proper training, even talented cooks falter under pressure. Similarly, expecting teams to navigate data ownership and decentralized decision-making without the right skills and knowledge leads to confusion, inconsistency, and ultimately, data-driven indigestion. Yesterday they worked on front-end features, and all of a sudden today they need to build data products based on the events they fire. A robust acts as the restaurant's menu, clearly outlining goals, roles, and expectations. Organizations need to invest in data literacy programs, equipping teams with the skills and knowledge to thrive in the decentralized kitchen. data strategy Data Mesh isn't just about handing out data sources; it's about fostering a culture of collaboration and excellence. Without the right training and a clear vision, your data journey might end up looking more like a Kitchen Nightmares episode than a Michelin-starred success story. Clear Ownership & Measurement: Don't just "hand over the data" without defining boundaries and expectations. Think of it as providing guidelines, not just components. Establish clear ownership, roles, and success metrics to avoid disjointed initiatives and ensure everyone cooks the same data. Many leaders misinterpret Data Mesh as simply handing over data ownership to individual teams without proper support. The executive team needs to build the frame around it, and no I am not calling now for people to hire a CDO (Chief Data Officer) which I think is a bad behavior by senior managers who try to remove the responsibility from themselves. I am expecting the executive team to take part in deciding what is the true source of the data the organization uses. What is the organization's goal, and how to evaluate why it goes in the right direction or not, and share it with the people? Then identify your one true source for the data, I am not expecting the executive team to deal with the decision of Data Lake or not, or use data tool A or B, the expectation is to create clarity on how to measure success If the executive team avoids doing so it will turn into a recipe for disaster. Imagine each team preparing their own data using their elements and understanding, with no unified taste or measurement. Executives need to define the desired "flavor" (business goals) and establish KPIs to monitor success, preventing data confusion and "FOMO-driven" metrics from clouding the picture. "Data Mesh isn't a silver bullet for data quality issues. If you have bad data going in, you'll still have bad data coming out, even with decentralized ownership. remain critical." - Data governance and quality standards Hilary Mason, Data Scientist and Author Empowerment Through Training Unleashing untrained cooks leads to disaster. Invest in data literacy programs, equipping teams with the skills to thrive in the decentralized kitchen. Remember, Gordon Ramsay trains his team – don't skip this crucial step! Make sure they understand the tool they need to use, I remember a mentoring session a few months ago with a product owner who asked to understand what data product is, he was part of a front-end team and his managers told him one day that from now he owns the data products of his events, the poor PM was so lost and didn’t even know what needs to be done, he was an awesome PM when it came to engaging and increasing conversion of his users, but what he understands in creating a data products out of the events he was firing. Organizations often jump into Data Mesh without a clear data strategy, like starting a restaurant without knowing what dishes to serve. A defined data strategy acts as the menu, identifying key data sources and aligning everyone toward common goals. Sending your front-end engineers to discover what tools they can use to send data into the data lake, and later also expect them to build tables out of it, without giving them standardized tools and education, will not work well and you will drag many issues of data quality. “The biggest hurdle isn't the technology, it's . Moving from a centralized, top-down approach to a decentralized, self-service one requires a significant mindset shift that can be met with resistance." - changing the organization's culture Adrian Colyer, Co-founder of The Information Lab Data Governance is the Secret Sauce Don't underestimate the importance of data governance. It's like having a defined menu, ensuring everyone uses the right ingredients and cooks with consistent quality. Avoid data silos and confusion by establishing clear guidelines and standards. Organizations that have not adopted data contracts including schema validation methods or certified their KPIs and datasets will suffer from having garbage data, very simple, the most important part is to have a team that can build tools to create flow in the data ecosystem, from requests of the analysts to the data producers, and up to changes created in the data from the data producers to the analysts and data consumers. Setting up data governance is the key to creating this order in the kitchen, not that everyone now orders their curry powder from a different provider, and then the taste will be different Embrace Your Tools Excel sheets are fine spices! Focus on empowering your data culture and collaboration, not tool snobbery. Remember, Data Mesh is about teams owning their voice and contributing effectively, regardless of their tools. I remember in the past I read about Netflix and I said are they crazy? Why do they have Tableau, MicroStrategy, and PowerBI, is it because they can’t decide on a tool for the organization? Well, I didn’t know anything about data mesh and this is the reason most likely. Excel Sheets? No Sweat! Embrace the "Mise en Place" of Data Mesh Legacy systems, limited tools, and data quality snags might feel like kitchen nightmares. But fear not, data chef! Forget tool snobbery. Whether your team wields Excel sheets or Tableau, Data Mesh is about empowering their with the organization. Maybe the CRM team is obsessed with content quality over conversion rates. That's Data Mesh in action! Teams can self-evaluate, but with the understanding that the company might assess performance differently. data culture and aligning their voice Think of it like , the French culinary term for prepping ingredients before cooking. A strong data strategy lays out the ingredients (data sources, governance), ensuring everyone speaks the same language and contributes effectively. "mise en place" Learning from Other Kitchens Understanding common roadblocks faced by similar organizations helps. Imagine chefs sharing their "kitchen fire" stories and learning from each other's mistakes. By highlighting these challenges and potential solutions, we can equip others to avoid similar pitfalls. Data Mesh isn't just about throwing open the kitchen doors; it's about creating a well-coordinated culinary ensemble. Learn from others' "kitchen fire" stories, adopt helpful tools and resources, and most importantly, approach Data Mesh with an open mind and a collaborative spirit. So, ditch the bland, embrace the spice, and prepare a data-driven masterpiece that tantalizes everyone's taste buds!

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Data Mesh Adoption

ডেটা মেশ গ্রহণের ক্ষতিগুলি এড়ানো

Vermeiden Sie die Fallstricke der Einführung von Datennetzen

Evitar los peligros de la adopción de la malla de datos

Éviter les pièges de l’adoption du maillage de données

डेटा मेश अपनाने के नुकसान से बचना

データ メッシュ導入の落とし穴を回避する

데이터 메시 채택의 함정 방지

Evitando as armadilhas da adoção do Data Mesh

Как избежать ошибок при внедрении сетки данных

Veri Ağının Benimsenmesinin Tuzaklarından Kaçınmak

Tránh những cạm bẫy của việc áp dụng lưới dữ liệu

避免数据网格采用的陷阱

A lot of mobile advertisers fail to scale their ad campaigns on various ad platforms before they even begin. When it comes to , tossing aside your gut feelings won't cut it. While it's a challenging endeavor, with a strategic approach, you can navigate this terrain and maximize your ad campaigns' potential. scaling In this article, I'll explore the key principles of scaling, common missteps, and proven strategies we have developed at , a performance marketing agency, to ensure your ad campaigns thrive. AdQuantum Understanding Scaling and Its Purpose Scaling refers to increasing the daily ad budget for a given project. Every app is unique, with , distinct benchmarks, , average revenues, and lifetime value rates. monetization strategies unit economics These variables should be factored in before employing uniform scaling strategies across varied products. While some campaigns may accommodate doubling the budget daily without hitches, others may falter with even minimal changes. There are two scaling methods: vertical and horizontal. Vertical scaling involves increasing budgets and bids within campaigns, while horizontal scaling entails making changes to campaign settings, optimization, and duplicating campaigns. So, it comes down to deciding if you want to duplicate a profitable campaign or increase its budget. The choice between scaling types should be case-specific. On paid social platforms, vertical scaling – beginning with a budget increase followed by raising the bid – is typically recommended. However, blending both techniques often yields better results on these platforms. only allow vertical scaling. Horizontal scaling is futile since duplicated campaigns target the same audience as the original one. Mobile ad networks Before initiating campaign scaling, ensure your product is ripe for it. A product is deemed scale-ready when it demonstrates positive unit economics concerning paid user acquisition – indicating that the campaign has consistently met its KPIs for at least 2-3 days. From a marketing perspective, before scaling: Engage in creative testing. Ascertain the stability of ad campaigns, ensuring they don't incur abrupt cost hikes as budgets escalate. Ensure the user acquisition team has deduced the threshold metrics correlating ad spent to product profitability – surpassing these metrics could be detrimental. While preparation demands considerable time and effort, the returns justify the investment. Relying solely on intuition can deplete budgets and undermine the efficacy of campaigns. Thus, allocating time for refining and enhancing your marketing strategies is pivotal for scaling success. Pitfalls of Scaling Scaling, while promising, entails challenges that warrant meticulous attention. Below are potential pitfalls in scaling ad campaigns: Audience Limitations Every product has its limitations: the target audience is limited to a specific city or country, the level of user’s interest in the product, and the ability to engage users within an app. Additionally, advertisers often vie for the same audience, leading to or getting overshadowed by competitors with larger budgets. ad fatigue Simply having a high average revenue per user (ARPU) doesn't guarantee that a project will be more successful than its competitors. When it comes to user acquisition, a higher ARPU means users on average spend more, but it also means a smaller percentage of users can afford it. Typically, there are more people willing to pay $30 for a subscription than those willing to pay $100. Conversely, projects with lower subscription costs face greater competition for the same audience. That's why it's crucial to develop an effective user acquisition strategy before you start scaling to attract a steady stream of new users without suffering substantial losses. Cannibalization This occurs when one campaign eats into another's traffic. Blindly duplicating campaigns can result in them competing against each other. To prevent cannibalization, implement a strategic approach to campaign duplication by diversifying targeting parameters. Experiment with various audience segments, ad creatives, and GEOs to reach new audiences without overlap. Regularly analyze the performance of your campaigns to identify potential overlaps and optimize budget allocation for maximum efficiency. Abrupt Budget Increases Sometimes, when an advertiser sees a campaign performing 2-3 times better than the target KPI, they impulsively start to significantly increase the budget for this campaign. However, in such cases, the media buying process usually gets disrupted. In practice, it's better to increase the budget gradually. For example, if a campaign performed well at $300 per day, try keeping it at $500-600 per day for a few days before jumping to a budget of several thousand dollars. Premature Budget Increases To avoid impulsive decisions, consider specific factors before increasing the campaign budget. Firstly, ensure that the campaign has consistently performed well over a longer period of time of not less than 3 days. Secondly, make sure the campaign has completed its learning phase. And thirdly, ensure it has already achieved several purchases at the target cost. Auction Limitations No secret auctions have limitations. It's not uncommon for campaigns to experience a sudden decline, even after months of successful performance, resulting in a failure to attract the desired target audience. And the reasons for that may be: Getting pushed out of the auction – this issue may arise when competing projects allocate larger budgets toward more compelling creatives, so you need to either increase your spending or find a better creative. Product-channel fit – when a product reaches the limit of its available audience within the ad channels it fits, further spending growth becomes challenging. This is mainly applicable to niche products. Competition in the auction within one product – this problem occurs when multiple teams are working on a project within the same advertising channel, such as both an agency and a client running campaigns simultaneously. There can be competition for top creatives, and if your ads aren’t strong enough, you may be outperformed, and your audience will be taken away. Thus, creatives become a crucial factor for scalability. The quality of campaign optimization – if a campaign lacks optimization data within the conversion window, it can limit the campaign's scalability. Thus, scaling becomes impossible. Algorithm changes and platform update scans also impact campaign performance and scalability. Staying updated with platform changes and adjusting campaign strategies accordingly is crucial to mitigate potential limitations. Misguided Scaling Approach Doubling the campaign budget may seem like an easy solution, but it doesn't always yield the desired results. A viable alternative is campaign duplication. Gradually increase spend on the main campaign, and create 1-2 duplicates with minor audience and placement variations. This step-by-step approach allows for a better evaluation of the impact of increased spend and provides a smoother path to scaling. Creative Fatigue Ad creatives eventually experience fatigue, evident when click-through rate (CTR) and install rate (IR) drop while the cost per thousand (CPM) rises. Even in such cases, campaigns can still perform decently but not at their previous volume or level. To overcome creative fatigue, it's crucial to be prepared with multiple reserve creative approaches. Instead of aggressive scaling, have new and fresh ad creatives ready to replace exhausted ones. By regularly refreshing your ad content and introducing new creative variations, you can maintain user engagement while avoiding creative fatigue. Summing Up Mastering mobile ad campaign scaling is both an art and a science. It demands a blend of strategic foresight, a keen understanding of your audience, and a vigilant eye on the ever-changing digital landscape. Remember, scaling isn't just about increasing budgets; it's about making calculated decisions that align with your product's unique metrics and market dynamics. A thoughtful, well-prepared strategy in advance is your roadmap to navigating this complex terrain. If you have any questions about mobile ad campaign scaling or need further clarification on any points discussed in this article, feel free to reach out to me. Just ping me on LinkedIn, and I'll be more than happy to make things clearer for you. Scale wisely and confidently, and watch your campaigns soar to new heights!

Mastering Mobile Ad Campaign Scaling: Common Pitfalls and Useful Tips

মোবাইল বিজ্ঞাপন প্রচারাভিযান স্কেলিং আয়ত্ত করা: সাধারণ সমস্যা এবং দরকারী টিপস

Die Skalierung mobiler Werbekampagnen meistern: Häufige Fallstricke und nützliche Tipps

Dominar el escalado de las campañas publicitarias móviles: errores comunes y consejos útiles

Maîtriser la mise à l'échelle des campagnes publicitaires mobiles : pièges courants et conseils utiles

मोबाइल विज्ञापन अभियान स्केलिंग में महारत हासिल करना: सामान्य नुकसान और उपयोगी युक्तियाँ

モバイル広告キャンペーンのスケーリングをマスターする: よくある落とし穴と役立つヒント

모바일 광고 캠페인 크기 조정 마스터하기: 일반적인 함정과 유용한 팁

Dominando o dimensionamento de campanhas publicitárias para celular: armadilhas comuns e dicas úteis

Освоение масштабирования мобильной рекламной кампании: распространенные ошибки и полезные советы

Mobil Reklam Kampanyasını Ölçeklendirmede Ustalaşmak: Sık Karşılaşılan Tuzaklar ve Yararlı İpuçları

Nắm vững quy mô chiến dịch quảng cáo trên thiết bị di động: Những cạm bẫy phổ biến và mẹo hữu ích

掌握移动广告活动规模：常见陷阱和有用提示

. The phrase you can certainly associate with businesses that want to develop a custom software solution. “As fast as possible” That is why software development agencies try to use technologies that can guarantee business executives and startup founders a fast product development process. , a vendor from Ukraine, worked with such a client. JatApp software development Laravel Nova was the technology of choice as it had to deliver the customer a working product within the shortest time possible. Did Laravel Nova meet its purpose? Let’s find out in the following case study. A Pharmaceutical Company Needed Its Custom ERP System Management of logistics and supply chains in the pharmaceutical industry is a hefty task. Legal regulations, specific requirements for product storage, high demand variability, and supply disruptions are the main hurdles to frictionless and timely delivery of pharmaceuticals across the entire supply chain. Also, many companies record their supply chain management data manually, which also causes delays and confusion. Consequently, the entire supply chain faces a serious bottleneck in performance. JatApp’s client intended to ditch such ill-equipped processes from their supply chain management by developing a custom enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for internal use. The ERP application was expected to digitalize, optimize, and automate all supply chain management operations within a single shared system accessible by all stakeholders within the chain of supply. Even though the client was well aware of the problems within pharmaceutical industry logistics, the company apparently didn’t have any expertise in software development. That’s why the client came to JatApp asking for technical assistance. But here that “as fast as possible” thing emerged. The client’s company had to invest a lot of money upfront, and their desire to quickly get a tangible result was natural. On top of that, the client did not want to focus much on the user interface (UI) of the ERP. They intended to use it internally only, so any additional bells and whistles for making the solution marketable were not mandatory. The main goal was to develop the solution fast enough to start using it at the client’s earliest convenience. We evidently needed a tech stack that could serve this purpose well. Laravel Nova Is All About Convenience and Efficiency The ERP system was required to automate and speed up operations across the entire supply chain of the company which is why the development of a robust admin panel for control of data records and user permissions was the top priority. And let’s not forget that the development process should be fast and efficient at the same time. For those reasons, JatApp’s software engineering team decided to employ Laravel Nova as a tool for saving time and effort in coding the administration panel. But why Laravel Nova? Laravel Nova is a commercial administration panel for Laravel, a popular PHP web application framework. It is designed to provide developers with a customizable and easy-to-use interface for managing the administration of their Laravel applications. With Laravel Nova, software developers can quickly and easily create a web-based administrative interface that allows them to manage various aspects of their application, such as user management, content management, and other administrative tasks. It includes features like searchable resource lists, filters, forms, actions, metrics, and authorization. Laravel Nova is built with Vue.js which integrates well with PHP Laravel because Laravel supports Vue.js as an out-of-the-box solution. Needless to say, such compatibility of Nova and Vue.js brings a good deal of flexibility in software development because creating custom pages, fields, and the like becomes possible. This was the general reason why we handpicked Laravel Nova. But convenience and efficiency in software development aren’t some abstract and subjective terms. Our team found Laravel Nova an effective and convenient solution for the client’s project because of the following advantages: Out-of-the-Box Components Laravel Nova offers a wide range of out-of-the-box solutions that enabled our software developers to compose the ERP’s administration panel with maximal efficiency: ready-made menus, filters, actions, and search fields were easy to assemble into a full-fledged admin panel. However, Laravel Nova isn’t a low code/no platform but a tool with a series of pre-built elements necessary for an app’s administration. Our team still had to write the code to customize and extend these components according to the system’s requirements. No-Brainer CRUD Operations The company’s supply chain management involves tons of data that should be exchanged among different stakeholders. That is why it was paramount to make the data accurate, easily updatable, and consistent across the whole supply chain. To cope with this challenge, the JatApp team had to come up with proper management of so-called CRUD operations. CRUD operations refer to the basic functions that are necessary for managing data in most software applications. CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, and Delete, and these operations correspond to the four basic functions that you can perform on data. In the context of PHP Laravel, CRUD operations are used to interact with a database and perform actions such as creating, reading, updating, and deleting records. With Laravel Nova, navigating CRUD operations was a breeze for our team. The tool eased the structuring of the data architecture, thereby saving much time on the ERP’s development. Laravel Nova provides built-in validation that ensures data is entered correctly and meets specific criteria. This helped us to make the system sensitive to errors. In such a way, the users of the ERP application have a low chance to submit wrong or irrelevant data to the system. Laravel Nova also supports relationships between different database tables, which simplifies the process of performing CRUD operations on related data. This was particularly important for the ERP application since it had to involve complex data structures with multiple related tables. Relationships helped us to ensure that data entered into the system is always consistent and accurate. In addition, the relationships feature enabled our software engineers to simplify the code and make it easier to maintain over time. Aside from proper data management, the client highlighted that it was important to them to avoid complete data erasing. Laravel Nova was able to resolve this task in a snap of the fingers, thanks to the feature called soft delete. This feature gives a particular data element the status of being excluded from a data set, but the element remains stored in the database. Custom Fields The ERP system is used by multiple stakeholders which means that the risk of human error is high. That’s where the custom fields feature of Laravel Nova came in handy. Custom fields in Laravel Nova allowed us to create and customize fields in the administration panel that were critical to the ERP application's data requirements. With custom fields, our team added new types of input fields, customized the display of existing fields and created complex field types that could be used to collect or display data. We created input fields that are tailored to the system’s data and improved the efficiency and accuracy of CRUD operations. In such a way, data entry in the ERP system became more intuitive for users, while the quality of data improved as specific input formats and validation rules were applied. Policies for Permissions Management We have mentioned that the use of the ERP system was meant to involve different parties: storage workers, drivers, customers, and so on. For that reason, it was crucial to isolate all user flows in order to ensure that stakeholders don’t interfere with each other’s data. The policies feature helped us to solve this task. In Laravel Nova, policies are a feature that allows defining rules for controlling access to various parts of your application. Policies define what actions a user can perform on a resource, based on their role or permissions. Thanks to this feature, our developers were able to create a wide range of permissions for every single user. Implementing permissions into the system prevented numerous confusions since each user had access to the data that is relevant to them. Convenience Doesn’t Come Without Challenges Even though Laravel Nova was a convenient tool to build the admin panel fast and easily, there was one major roadblock: the panel’s elements weren’t completely customizable. The tool did provide a wide range of ready-to-go components for the development of even complex admin panels, but many of them simply didn’t meet our requirements. As it often happens with using out-of-the-box solutions, you become their prisoner. In the late stages of the development, our team faced challenges with the customization of multiple components as Laravel Nova didn’t customize them the way we wanted. Beyond a doubt, these challenges somewhat slowed down the pace of the development process. Owing to the inventiveness and creativity of our development team, we found unobvious yet working ways to make the ERP meet its requirements and look as it was intended to. To get out of the “ready-to-go solution” trap, we had to use Vue.js to make the system’s interface look exactly like the software requirements specification stated. Laravel Nova enticed us to use it by offering almost endless possibilities of customization, but we should have run a short demo to see whether such capabilities are really that great in practice. The good news is that our software developers solved the problem by thinking outside of the box and finding a creative way out. The pun intended, by the way. Is Laravel Nova Worth Trying? Yes, but… Laravel Nova is a good tool to quickly build an administration panel, regardless of the app’s complexity. The tool did help us develop such an admin panel for the client’s ERP system fair and square. The client was satisfied with the result and even plans to scale the solution to optimize processes within other aspects of their pharmaceutical business. But the freedom of customizing every shiny button and dark corner of your admin panel is elusive. This means you have to be absolutely sure that Laravel Nova will be a good fit for your project or that your team is creative and knowledgeable enough to smooth the corners of stubbornly non-customizable components. Our verdict and lesson learned: Laravel Nova is a fairly efficient tool for the fast development of an administration panel, but you should care to run a short demo to ensure you are completely fine with what this tool can bring to the table.

Laravel Nova Pros, Cons, and Pitfalls: A Case Study of the Pharmaceutics ERP System Development

Pros, contras y dificultades de Laravel Nova: un estudio de caso del desarrollo del sistema ERP farmacéutico

Avantages, inconvénients et pièges de Laravel Nova : une étude de cas sur le développement du système ERP pharmaceutique

लारवेल नोवा पेशेवरों, विपक्ष और नुकसान: फार्मास्यूटिक्स ईआरपी सिस्टम डेवलपमेंट का एक केस स्टडी

Laravel Nova の長所、短所、落とし穴: 製薬 ERP システム開発のケーススタディ

Prós, Contras e Armadilhas do Laravel Nova: Um Estudo de Caso do Desenvolvimento do Sistema ERP Farmacêutico

Ưu, nhược điểm và cạm bẫy của Laravel Nova: Nghiên cứu điển hình về phát triển hệ thống ERP dược phẩm

Laravel Nova 的优点、缺点和陷阱：制药 ERP 系统开发案例研究

I remember when I was first starting to learn how to code. I was so excited to dive in and start building my own website, but I quickly hit a roadblock. I had heard that it was important to learn multiple programming languages, so I tried to juggle learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript all at the same time. It was a disaster—I was constantly confused and frustrated, and I ended up making very little progress. If only I had known then what I know now about the importance of focusing on one language or technology at a time! Learning to code can be a challenging and rewarding journey, but it's not without its pitfalls. From trying to learn too many languages or technologies at once to not seeking help when you need it, it's easy to get stuck or frustrated. However, with a little knowledge and planning, these common pitfalls can be easily avoided. By following some simple best practices and seeking out the right resources, you can navigate the learning process with confidence and succeed as a coder. Most Common Coding Pitfalls Trying to learn too many languages or technologies at once Not practicing enough Not asking for help Not testing your code Not staying up to date with new developments Not taking breaks Trying to learn too many languages or technologies at once Focusing on one language or technology at a time is important for a number of reasons when learning to code. Here are a few: It helps you build a strong foundation: By focusing on one language or technology, you can fully immerse yourself in the concepts and practice using them. This helps you build a strong foundation of knowledge that you can build upon as you continue to learn. It reduces confusion: Trying to learn multiple languages or technologies at once can be overwhelming and lead to confusion. By focusing on just one at a time, you can avoid this and feel more confident in your understanding. It allows you to progress faster: When you focus on one language or technology, you can make faster progress because you're not constantly switching between different subjects. This can help keep you motivated and make the learning process more enjoyable. Not practicing enough Practice is an essential part of mastering any skill, including coding. When you practice a skill, you are reinforcing the knowledge and techniques that you have learned, which helps you become more proficient and confident in your abilities. There are a few key ways in which practice can help you master a skill: Repetition helps solidify knowledge: When you practice a skill, you are repeating the actions and techniques required to perform it. This repetition helps reinforce the knowledge and muscle memory needed to perform the skill, making it easier to recall and use in the future. Practice helps you identify areas of improvement: As you practice a skill, you may encounter challenges or mistakes that reveal areas where you need to improve. By identifying and addressing these areas, you can continue to improve and become more proficient in the skill. Practice helps you develop confidence: The more you practice a skill, the more confident you will become in your ability to perform it. This can be especially important when learning to code, as confidence is key to overcoming challenges and setbacks. Tips for regular coding practice Here are a few tips for incorporating regular practice into your learning routine when learning to code: Set aside dedicated practice time: Choose a specific time each day or week to practice coding. This could be a set number of hours or a certain number of tasks or projects that you want to complete. Practice with a specific goal in mind: When you practice, try to have a specific goal or objective in mind. This could be working on a specific project, learning a new concept or technique, or improving your efficiency or accuracy. Practice in different environments: Try practicing coding in different environments to see what works best for you. This could include working at a desk, at a coffee shop, or even outdoors. Find a practice partner or group: Practice with a partner or in a group to help keep you motivated and accountable. You can also learn from and help each other as you practice. Make practice fun: Try to make practice enjoyable and engaging. You could try using coding games or challenges, or setting up friendly competitions with your practice partner or group. By following these tips and making practice a regular part of your learning routine, you can improve your skills and become more proficient in coding. Not asking for help Not asking for help when you need it can be a common pitfall when , and it can have a number of negative consequences. Here are a few reasons why it's important to seek help when you need it: learning to code It can save time: When you're stuck or confused, it can be tempting to try to figure things out on your own. However, this can often lead to frustration and wasted time. Asking for help can often save you time by getting you past a roadblock or providing a solution that you might not have thought of on your own. It can improve your understanding: Asking for help can also help improve your understanding of a concept or technique. When you ask someone else to explain something, they may use different words or examples that help the concept click for you in a way that it didn't before. It can help build connections: Asking for help can also be a good way to build connections and relationships with other developers. Whether you're seeking help from a mentor, a colleague, or a member of an online community, reaching out for help can help you grow your network and learn from others. Asking for help is a superpower that can turbocharge your learning. Resources for Getting help There are many resources available for getting help from experienced developers when learning to code. Here are a few options to consider: Online forums: There are many online forums and communities specifically for developers, where you can ask questions and get help from more experienced members. Some popular options include Stack Overflow, Reddit's subreddit, and the forums on sites like Codecademy. /r/learnprogramming Mentorship programs: Some organizations and companies offer mentorship programs, where you can work with an experienced developer who can provide guidance and support as you learn. Local meetups and events: There may be local meetups or events in your area where you can connect with experienced developers and ask for help or advice. These can be a great way to build connections and learn from others in person. Professional development courses: Many organizations and companies like offer professional development courses or workshops specifically geared toward helping developers learn new skills or technologies. These can be a great way to get help and guidance from experienced professionals. Microverse There are many resources available for getting help from experienced developers when learning to code. By taking advantage of these resources, you can get the guidance and support you need to succeed as a coder. Not testing your code Not testing your code can have a number of consequences, including Bugs and errors: Failing to test your code can lead to bugs and errors that may not be immediately apparent. These can be difficult to track down and fix and can lead to frustration and wasted time. Poor performance: Code that is not tested may not perform as expected, which can lead to a poor user experience or other problems. Security vulnerabilities: Failing to test your code can also leave it vulnerable to security issues, such as malicious attacks or data breaches. Loss of credibility: If you're working on a team or building software for clients, not testing your code can damage your credibility and reputation as a developer. By making testing a regular part of your workflow, you can avoid these consequences and create better, more reliable code. Tips for frequent code testing Here are a few tips for testing your code frequently: Write test cases: Write test cases that cover a range of scenarios, including edge cases and error conditions. This will help ensure that your code is thoroughly tested. Use automated testing tools: Automated testing tools can help you test your code more efficiently and thoroughly. These tools can run tests automatically and alert you to any issues that they find. Test early and often: Don't wait until the end of a project to start testing. Instead, test your code frequently as you go, so you can catch and fix issues as soon as they arise. Test in different environments: Test your code in different environments to ensure that it performs as expected on different platforms or devices. Collaborate with other testers: If you're working on a team, make sure to collaborate with other testers to ensure that your code is thoroughly tested from different perspectives. Not staying up to date with new developments Staying current in the fast-paced world of technology is important for a number of reasons, including: Improve your skills and knowledge: The world of is constantly evolving, and new tools and techniques are being developed all the time. By staying current, you can stay up to date on the latest developments and improve your skills and knowledge. technology Enhance your career opportunities: Being up to date on the latest technology can also enhance your career opportunities, as it shows that you are proactive and committed to staying current in your field. Help you stay competitive: In a fast-paced and competitive industry like technology, staying current can help you stay competitive and relevant. It's important to make an effort to stay current in the world of technology to ensure that you are keeping your skills and knowledge up-to-date and positioning yourself for success in your career. Resources for staying informed about new trends and best practices There are many resources available for staying informed about new trends and best practices in the world of technology. Here are a few options to consider: Tech news websites and blogs: There are many tech news websites and blogs that cover the latest trends and developments in the industry. Some popular options include TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, and of course, HackerNoon. Industry conferences and events: Attending industry conferences and events can be a great way to stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices. Many conferences offer sessions and workshops focused on specific topics or technologies. Professional development courses: Many organizations and companies offer professional development courses or workshops specifically geared toward helping developers learn new skills or technologies. These can be a great way to stay current and learn from experienced professionals. Online learning platforms: Online learning platforms like Coursera, Udemy, or edX offer a wide range of courses and programs on a variety of tech-related topics. These can be a convenient way to stay current and learn at your own pace. Not taking breaks Burnout is a common problem for many people who work in the tech industry, and it can have serious consequences for your physical and mental health, as well as your career. Burnout is characterized by feelings of exhaustion, cynicism, and a lack of accomplishment, and it can be caused by a variety of factors, including working long hours, having high levels of stress or pressure, and a lack of work-life balance. To avoid burnout, it's important to take steps to manage your stress and maintain a healthy work-life balance. Here are a few tips to help prevent burnout: Set boundaries: Set limits on the time you spend working and make sure to take breaks and time off when you need them. Find ways to relax and de-stress: Find activities that help you relax and de-stress, such as exercise, meditation, or hobbies. Seek support: If you're feeling overwhelmed, don't be afraid to seek support from friends, family, or a mental health professional. Practice good self-care: Make sure to take care of your physical and mental health by getting enough sleep, eating well, and exercising regularly. By following these tips and making self-care a priority, you can avoid burnout and maintain a healthy and productive career in the tech industry. Importance of Rest and Relaxation Rest and relaxation are important parts of the learning process, and they can have a number of benefits. Here are a few reasons why it's important to make time for rest and relaxation when learning to code: It helps you retain information: Taking breaks and getting enough rest can help you retain information better. When you're well-rested, your brain is better able to process and retain new information. It helps you stay focused: Taking breaks can also help you stay focused when you're working. When you work for long periods without a break, it's easy to lose focus and become less productive. Taking breaks can help you recharge and refocus when you return to your work. It helps prevent burnout: Making time for rest and relaxation can also help prevent burnout. Conclusion In conclusion, learning to code can be a challenging but rewarding process, and there are a number of pitfalls to avoid along the way. By focusing on one language or technology at a time, seeking help when needed, testing your code regularly, staying current with industry trends and best practices, and making time for rest and relaxation, you can avoid common pitfalls and become a successful and proficient coder. So, it is very important to follow these tips to become a successful coder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-7FKLIXWeM?embedable=true The lead image of the article ﻿was generated using HackerNoon's feature, via the prompt "pitfall". Stable Diffusion AI Image Generator

Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Learning to Code

Errores comunes que se deben evitar al aprender a programar

Les pièges courants à éviter lors de l'apprentissage du codage

कोड सीखते समय बचने के लिए सामान्य नुकसान

コードを学ぶときに避けるべきよくある落とし穴

Armadilhas comuns a serem evitadas ao aprender a programar

Những cạm bẫy phổ biến cần tránh khi học cách viết mã

学习编码时要避免的常见陷阱

Nowadays, if you are following the tech updates, Metaverse is the hottest topic to discuss. Shortly, Metaverse and DeFi are going to change the way we interact with the world. According to the pace of technology, so many outdated systems are trying to get tuned with the further implementation of these advanced technologies. The rebranding of social media giant Facebook to Meta Platforms Inc. has fueled this concept to inspire developers to create more products and services. This article attempts to cover so many aspects related to DeFi, blockchain, and Metaverse. What is DeFi? The term DeFi stands for Decentralized Finance, and it is based on the blockchain that follows the distributed ledger technology. DeFi removes the centralized control of banks and financial institutions to give financial freedom to everyone. Here are the key components of DeFi which are as follows: Stablecoins, Software, and Hardware These three components help to develop the applications related to DeFi. Indeed, DeFi is still in the experimental phase as it is based on emerging technology, the craze on it is still going on. So many DeFi platforms are emerging according to a daily basis. Some examples of genuine DeFi projects are , , , etc. Let’s see how DeFi works: Sora MakerDAO Uniswap Blockchain eliminates intermediaries by allowing people to conduct financial transactions, users just need software and internet connections to access the financial services. What is Metaverse? The metaverse is a digital reality that is created by integrating a network of 3D virtual worlds for enhanced user experiences. The truest form of Metaverse still does not exist as we don’t have all the necessary infrastructures to realize it practically, but development progress is going on and the activities like virtually getting married, selecting desired goods, and purchasing digitalized lands are mapped with the real-world addresses, etc. are looking like to be possible soon. Let’s see how Metaverse works: The Metaverse creates advanced online spaces with multidimensional features which will allow users to go beyond just viewing the 2D contents. Simply, it will help users to emerge themselves in the universe where virtual and physical reality converge. Roles of DeFi in the Metaverse If we imagine a fully decentralized and free digital space in the Metaverse then DeFi also plays a crucial role to fulfil the growing demands of users. The Metaverse needs the following components: NFTs to ensure indisputable ownership DeFi applications Cryptocurrencies for Metafinance Workplace automation Online shopping On-chain credit scoring The natural language processing system Artificial intelligence Solid infrastructure Hardware devices and software We have seen that the Metaverse itself requires a trustless financial system powered by the DeFi with backed blockchain technology. DeFi provides open access to financial services for the different activities in the Metaverse like online shopping, borrowing, investing, earnings, insurance, etc. without centralized control. So DeFi would be an effective tool for Metaverse because cross-border payment will be easier due to less time and minimal transaction costs and these features of DeFi would inspire more projects to come into the virtual world. Some reasons why DeFi could be the best financial tool for the Metaverse economy. DeFi platforms are already in operation, so it is convenient to integrate with Metaverse. DeFi can skyrocket depending on the particular Metaverse and how much freedom they can have there. DeFi would leave the traditional financial system far behind in the virtual world due to its use cases and growing adoption trends. DeFi offers the financial infrastructure for the Metaverse with advanced security and reliability. In more recent years, the industry hype towards the DeFi-enabled Metaverse has been growing. Some projects have already launched games claiming they have built their Metaverse products. Here are some crucial reasons behind it. 1. It could be the future of the internet: The Metaverse is linked with emerging concepts like Web 3.0 and Web 5.0, so it has attracted so many sectors to invent new products which could be the new trend caught by the public. In addition, Metaverse will allow users to interact with digitalized 3D objects so FinTech cannot be an exception to stay in silence, so there should DeFi powered services. 2. Most of the Metaverse will be open-source: It will be the beauty because most projects make open-source Metaverse so that developers will be free to create so many applications to meet the growing demands of the users. 3. It could be the digital destination: Metaverse could allow us to interact with each other face-to-face digitally in the 3D forms, so we would hand out on it without physically traveling from each place to another. If it managed to be a successful alternative for interacting with the world, everyone will get attracted to it. 4. Easy to use UI (User Interface): AI (Artificial Intelligence) powered system in Metaverse with natural language understanding capabilities will help users to interact with the digital world easily. 5. DeFi-based Play-to-Earn economy: Especially, the gaming industry in the Metaverse could skyrocket as it can attract players with innovative ideas i.e. Play-to-Earn. The Axie Infinity game has already managed to achieve a huge reputation. 6. It could boost hardware technology innovation: The foundational technology for the Metaverse is computers and smartphones from which users can easily access the internet wherever they are. DeFi-based Metaverse itself requires a cluster of computers or nodes to perform the operations. So, there can be possibilities of coming out with the most powerful devices with enhanced features and operations. 7. IoT and Metaverse: Here is no doubt Metaverse and its emerging technology require the most advanced IoT  (Internet-of-Things) architecture. Since the Metaverse would blur the gap between virtual and physical worlds, it will increase the demand for high-quality sensors and wearables, for example, sensor gloves, gaming consoles, AR glasses, head-mounted displays, etc. 8. It will give full freedom: The decentralized nature of the Metaverse allows users to have full control over their data, assets, and privacy, so it will transform the way the digital world operates. User consent would be required for performing any sort of operations in the metaverse and blockchain helps to offer security instead of the centralized servers or entities. 9. It will help scientific research: Researchers could conduct scientific research in the Metaverse by gathering the target groups, and it will reduce the costs. In addition, the medical sector could get huge benefits from it as the professionals could perform diagnoses of different diseases. The new concept of MetaFi: The term MetaFi refers to the combination of Meta and Finance where Meta is for metadata and Fi comes from DeFi. The concept of MetaFi is trying to standardize large-scale applications like dAapps, Metaverse, decentralized games, and social media. The role of MetaFi in the Metaverse would be to make infrastructure with specified metadata so that users can communicate with each other in the virtual world with the enabled identity management features. This is another emerging concept so it also has its own limitations to overcome. Metaverse Challenges: To realize the full potential of the genuine Metaverse with its advanced features, it has to overcome several challenges which are as follows. Blockchain technology to handle Metaverse would need advanced features like high throughput, advanced sharding management, low latency, storage distribution mechanism to prevent single point failures, infinite scalability, etc. but till now, no such blockchain networks are in operation for processing the bigger-sized data including multimedia files. DeFi services in the Metaverse can be accessible to everyone if there is internet connectivity, but the internet penetration is still low in most parts of the world, so it could create complexities for the mass adoption trends. Security issues are one of the most important factors to determine the success rate of Metaverse because so many DeFi protocols are exploited by attackers to create a huge loss. Since there will be no one to take responsibility for the decentralized system, a single security breach might create a huge loss to the entire ecosystem. Digital literacy is required to use the functionalities in the Metaverse, so it would take a long time to spread awareness. Advanced hardware components for using the Metaverse are not available in the markets. High-quality sensors and wearables are required on the mass scale for the cheapest prices, so everyone can afford to have them. High-speed internet connectivity is required so that remote collaboration will be possible for users to have true experiences in the Metaverse. DeFi is not fully free from the human intervention for various roles like mining/validating the transactions and also financial services are not fully automated as they require manual verifications for most cases. To avoid human error and extra delay in the operations, advanced AI will require to process everything quickly, but AI in this sector is not so mature. Computers that are available in the markets still have so many limitations in terms of performance, data storage capacities, etc. Metaverse would require devices with more functionalities and features. Technology has to be served everyone so physically disabled people should also get benefits from the Metaverse. There should be complexities in implementing features for such people. Future of DeFi-enabled Metaverse: Human beings by nature, always seek freedom in their life. Financial freedom has been discussed for a long time. It is certain that future generations will surely seek alternatives to the centrally handled traditional financial system. Not only the financial system, but DeFi in the Metaverse will also allow users to have full control over their data too. Now, the Web 5.0 concept is being raised on the internet that is also linked with Metaverse. Web 5.0 could bring DeFi to the next level enabling users to have full control over their data and identity. In the future, quantum computers and quantum AI are more likely to come into existence which could bring our imagination into reality. The larger computational power of the quantum computer can entirely change every aspect of our daily life. In addition, both quantum AI and computers could enable seamless switching between the physical and the digital worlds with a better UI. Such advanced technology could entirely transform the current education system too because students will get a more practical learning mechanism with digitalized 3D objects. There will be no single industry to get benefits off Metaverse, but almost all will be there like scientific research, especially in the medical and the aerospace sector will get an extra twist. Agricultural products, arts, industrial products, etc. can be ordered and tested online before physically having them so, so there is no doubt, that Metaverse has a long way to go. Another milestone to advance Metaverse technology could be the advancement of the internet like we have 5G internet and cloud-based high-speed internet now. Several experiments are going on to bring even the fastest 6G internet to this world. This sort of rapid progress of innovating new technology will assist the digital world to go up and get matured. So, it is safe to say, the future of Metaverse is bright. Bottom Line: The Metaverse is an exciting idea that has endless possibilities to bring changes. Indeed, it has a long way to go, we are already experiencing Metaverse-like projects so, there is no doubt that next-generation blockchain technology will be fueling up more projects, and DeFi will be there to integrate the financial structures. The combination of innovations will transform the way of interacting with this world in virtual space.

DeFi in the Metaverse: Possibilities, Pitfalls, and Promises

DeFi en el metaverso: posibilidades, trampas y promesas

DeFi dans le métaverse : possibilités, pièges et promesses

मेटावर्स में डेफी: संभावनाएं, नुकसान और वादे

メタバースにおける DeFi: 可能性、落とし穴、約束

DeFi no Metaverso: Possibilidades, Armadilhas e Promessas

DeFi trong Metaverse: Khả năng, Cạm bẫy và Lời hứa

元宇宙中的 DeFi：可能性、陷阱和承诺

Fine-Tuning LLaMA for Multi-Stage Text Retrieval: Conclusion, Acknowledgements and References

Authors:
(1) Xueguang Ma, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo;
(2) Liang Wang, Microsoft Research;
(3) Nan Yang, Microsoft Research;
(4) Furu Wei, Microsoft Research;
(5) Jimmy Lin, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo. Table of Links Abstract and Introduction Method Experiments Ablation Study and Analysis Related Work Conclusion, Acknowledgements and References 5 Related Work 5.1 Large Language Models Pre-trained language models based on the Transformer architecture (Vaswani et al., 2017) have demonstrated impressive capabilities when finetuned for various downstream tasks since the advent of BERT (Devlin et al., 2019). Depending on their architecture, pre-trained Transformers can be classified into three categories: encoder-only models (Devlin et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2019; Conneau et al., 2020), encoder–decoder models (Raffel et al., 2020; Lewis et al., 2020a), and decoder-only models (Radford et al., 2018). Decoder-only models like GPT/GPT-2 have been lauded for their simplicity in terms of model architecture and pre-training procedures (Radford et al., 2018, 2019). Recent research has shown that scaling up LLMs by pre-training larger decoder-only models using larger and higher quality corpora can significantly enhance model capabilities for general-purpose NLP tasks such as question answering and code generation (Wei et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2021). This is achieved by fine-tuning the pre-trained LLMs with instruction-following data using reinforcement learning with human feedback. InstructGPT (Ouyang et al., 2022) and GPT-4 (OpenAI, 2023) are two popular representatives in this class of models. Among the many implementations of open-source large language models, LLaMA (Touvron et al., 2023a,b) is among the most recent and among the top-performing on a variety of tasks. 5.2 Multi-Stage Text Retrieval While multi-stage retrieval pipelines date back well over a decade (Matveeva et al., 2006; Cambazoglu et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2011), they have benefited immensely from pre-trained language models such as BERT in recent years, starting with the monoBERT reranking model (Nogueira and Cho, 2019). Nogueira et al. (2019) proposed a multi-stage retrieval pipeline that employs a BM25 retriever followed by two BERT-based reranking stages. This design demonstrates the effectiveness of pre-trained language models in reranking tasks. RankLLaMA follows the same basic design as monoBERT. The dense passage retriever (DPR) further proposed to fine-tune BERT to replace the BM25 retriever with a dense retrieval model in a bi-encoder design (Karpukhin et al., 2020). DPR encodes text into low-dimensional dense vector representations and treats retrieval as a nearest-neighbor search task. RepLLaMA follows the same bi-encoder design. Several solutions have been introduced to enhance the effectiveness of retrievers and rerankers in a multi-stage pipeline. On the retriever side, works such as ANCE (Xiong et al., 2021), RocketQA (Qu et al., 2021), CoCondenser (Gao and Callan, 2022b), RetroMAE (Xiao et al., 2022), and SimLM (Wang et al., 2023), have shown that augmenting the training data with hard negative mining or continuous retrieval-oriented pre-training can improve the effectiveness of dense retrievers. On the reranker side, monoT5 (Nogueira et al., 2020) and monoELECTRA (Pradeep et al., 2022) demonstrated that initializing the reranker with a custom pre-trained model can enhance effectiveness. Gao et al., 2021 proposed using a contrastive loss for reranker training to replace the default pairwise loss. Zhuang et al. (2023) studied the use of T5 as a reranker, analyzing the influence of different model architectures and loss functions. However, directly fine-tuning modern billion-parameter-scale large language models for multi-stage retrieval has not been explored to date. Recently, LLMs have demonstrated impressive effectiveness when prompted to perform few-shot or zero-shot text generation. As mentioned in the introduction, researchers have cast reranking as text generation. These models can be leveraged to directly generate a reordered list of candidates, e.g., LRL (Ma et al., 2023), RankGPT (Sun et al., 2023), RankVicuna (Pradeep et al., 2023). Alternatively, they can compare passages in a pairwise manner, e.g., PRP (Qin et al., 2023). Although promptbased methods have shown good zero-shot effectiveness, they require multiple decoding passes, thus making them slow and non-parallelizable. Furthermore, reranking with prompts makes it difficult to exploit available human judgments such as MS MARCO (Bajaj et al., 2016) to further improve effectiveness. Finally, these approaches do not allow for joint reranker–retriever optimization. In contrast, we address all these issues. Our work is most similar to GPT-XXL (Ni et al., 2022) and SGPT (Muennighoff, 2022), which also used billion-parameter-scale models as backbones of dense retrievers, achieving better zero-shot effectiveness than smaller models. However, LLaMA has demonstrated even better effectiveness on natural language generation tasks, suggesting that it might serve as a better backbone and warranting further exploration. The cpt-text model (Neelakantan et al., 2022), initialized with the 175-billionparameter GPT-3 model, also shows strong zeroshot effectiveness. However, cpt-text is not an opensource model. Additionally, none of the models referenced above are fully optimized for a multistage retrieval pipeline. Our RepLLaMA and RankLLaMA models are fully open-source and optimized for multi-stage retrieval, achieving state-ofthe-art effectiveness on both retrieval and reranking, for both in-domain and out-of-domain evaluations. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Xueguang Ma, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo; (2) Liang Wang, Microsoft Research; (3) Nan Yang, Microsoft Research; (4) Furu Wei, Microsoft Research; (5) Jimmy Lin, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo. Authors: Authors: (1) Xueguang Ma, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo; (2) Liang Wang, Microsoft Research; (3) Nan Yang, Microsoft Research; (4) Furu Wei, Microsoft Research; (5) Jimmy Lin, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo. Table of Links Abstract and Introduction Abstract and Introduction Method Method Experiments Experiments Ablation Study and Analysis Ablation Study and Analysis Related Work Related Work Conclusion, Acknowledgements and References Conclusion, Acknowledgements and References 5 Related Work 5.1 Large Language Models Pre-trained language models based on the Transformer architecture (Vaswani et al., 2017) have demonstrated impressive capabilities when finetuned for various downstream tasks since the advent of BERT (Devlin et al., 2019). Depending on their architecture, pre-trained Transformers can be classified into three categories: encoder-only models (Devlin et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2019; Conneau et al., 2020), encoder–decoder models (Raffel et al., 2020; Lewis et al., 2020a), and decoder-only models (Radford et al., 2018). Decoder-only models like GPT/GPT-2 have been lauded for their simplicity in terms of model architecture and pre-training procedures (Radford et al., 2018, 2019). Recent research has shown that scaling up LLMs by pre-training larger decoder-only models using larger and higher quality corpora can significantly enhance model capabilities for general-purpose NLP tasks such as question answering and code generation (Wei et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2021). This is achieved by fine-tuning the pre-trained LLMs with instruction-following data using reinforcement learning with human feedback. InstructGPT (Ouyang et al., 2022) and GPT-4 (OpenAI, 2023) are two popular representatives in this class of models. Among the many implementations of open-source large language models, LLaMA (Touvron et al., 2023a,b) is among the most recent and among the top-performing on a variety of tasks. 5.2 Multi-Stage Text Retrieval While multi-stage retrieval pipelines date back well over a decade (Matveeva et al., 2006; Cambazoglu et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2011), they have benefited immensely from pre-trained language models such as BERT in recent years, starting with the monoBERT reranking model (Nogueira and Cho, 2019). Nogueira et al. (2019) proposed a multi-stage retrieval pipeline that employs a BM25 retriever followed by two BERT-based reranking stages. This design demonstrates the effectiveness of pre-trained language models in reranking tasks. RankLLaMA follows the same basic design as monoBERT. The dense passage retriever (DPR) further proposed to fine-tune BERT to replace the BM25 retriever with a dense retrieval model in a bi-encoder design (Karpukhin et al., 2020). DPR encodes text into low-dimensional dense vector representations and treats retrieval as a nearest-neighbor search task. RepLLaMA follows the same bi-encoder design. Several solutions have been introduced to enhance the effectiveness of retrievers and rerankers in a multi-stage pipeline. On the retriever side, works such as ANCE (Xiong et al., 2021), RocketQA (Qu et al., 2021), CoCondenser (Gao and Callan, 2022b), RetroMAE (Xiao et al., 2022), and SimLM (Wang et al., 2023), have shown that augmenting the training data with hard negative mining or continuous retrieval-oriented pre-training can improve the effectiveness of dense retrievers. On the reranker side, monoT5 (Nogueira et al., 2020) and monoELECTRA (Pradeep et al., 2022) demonstrated that initializing the reranker with a custom pre-trained model can enhance effectiveness. Gao et al., 2021 proposed using a contrastive loss for reranker training to replace the default pairwise loss. Zhuang et al. (2023) studied the use of T5 as a reranker, analyzing the influence of different model architectures and loss functions. However, directly fine-tuning modern billion-parameter-scale large language models for multi-stage retrieval has not been explored to date. Recently, LLMs have demonstrated impressive effectiveness when prompted to perform few-shot or zero-shot text generation. As mentioned in the introduction, researchers have cast reranking as text generation. These models can be leveraged to directly generate a reordered list of candidates, e.g., LRL (Ma et al., 2023), RankGPT (Sun et al., 2023), RankVicuna (Pradeep et al., 2023). Alternatively, they can compare passages in a pairwise manner, e.g., PRP (Qin et al., 2023). Although promptbased methods have shown good zero-shot effectiveness, they require multiple decoding passes, thus making them slow and non-parallelizable. Furthermore, reranking with prompts makes it difficult to exploit available human judgments such as MS MARCO (Bajaj et al., 2016) to further improve effectiveness. Finally, these approaches do not allow for joint reranker–retriever optimization. In contrast, we address all these issues. Our work is most similar to GPT-XXL (Ni et al., 2022) and SGPT (Muennighoff, 2022), which also used billion-parameter-scale models as backbones of dense retrievers, achieving better zero-shot effectiveness than smaller models. However, LLaMA has demonstrated even better effectiveness on natural language generation tasks, suggesting that it might serve as a better backbone and warranting further exploration. The cpt-text model (Neelakantan et al., 2022), initialized with the 175-billionparameter GPT-3 model, also shows strong zeroshot effectiveness. However, cpt-text is not an opensource model. Additionally, none of the models referenced above are fully optimized for a multistage retrieval pipeline. Our RepLLaMA and RankLLaMA models are fully open-source and optimized for multi-stage retrieval, achieving state-ofthe-art effectiveness on both retrieval and reranking, for both in-domain and out-of-domain evaluations. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

Related Work on Fine-Tuning LLaMA for Multi-Stage Text Retrieval

On War by Carl Von Clausewitz, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Attack on Fortresses Book VII: Chapter XVII. Attack on Fortresses The attack on fortresses cannot of course come before us here in its aspect as a branch of the science of fortification or military works; we have only to consider the subject, first, in its relation to the strategic object with which it is connected; secondly, as regards the choice among several fortresses; and thirdly, as regards the manner in which a siege should be covered. That the loss of a fortress weakens the defence, especially in case it forms an essential part of that defence; that many conveniences accrue to the assailant by gaining possession of one, inasmuch as he can use it for magazines and depôts, and by means of it can cover districts of country cantonments, etc.; that if his offensive at last should have to be changed into the defensive, it forms the very best support for that defensive—all these relations which fortresses bear to theatres of war, in the course of a war, make themselves sufficiently evident by what has been said about fortresses in the book on the Defence, the reflection from which throws all the light required on these relations with the attack. In relation to the taking of strong places, there is also a great difference between campaigns which tend to a great decision and others. In the first, a conquest of this description is always to be regarded as an evil which is unavoidable. As long as there is yet a decision to be made, we undertake no sieges but such as are positively unavoidable. When the decision has been already given—the crisis, the utmost tension of forces, some time passed—and when, therefore, a state of rest has commenced, then the capture of strong places serves as a consolidation of the conquests made, and then they can generally be carried out, if not without effort and expenditure of force, at least without danger. In the crisis itself the siege of a fortress heightens the intensity of the crisis to the prejudice of the offensive; it is evident that nothing so much weakens the force of the offensive, and therefore there is nothing so certain to rob it of its preponderance for a season. But there are cases in which the capture of this or that fortress is quite unavoidable, if the offensive is to be continued, and in such case a siege is to be considered as an intensified progress of the attack; the crisis will be so much greater the less there has been decided previously. All that remains now for consideration on this subject belongs to the book on the plan of the war. In campaigns with a limited object, a fortress is generally not the means but the end itself; it is regarded as a small independent conquest, and as such has the following advantages over every other:— 1. That a fortress is a small, distinctly-defined conquest, which does not require a further expenditure of force, and therefore gives no cause to fear a reaction. 2. That in negotiating for peace, its value as an equivalent may be turned to account. 3. That a siege is a real progress of the attack, or at least seems so, without constantly diminishing the force like every other advance of the offensive. 4. That the siege is an enterprise without a catastrophe. The result of these things is that the capture of one or more of the enemy’s strong places, is very frequently the object of those strategic attacks which cannot aim at any higher object. The grounds which decide the choice of the fortress which should be attacked, in case that may be doubtful, generally are— (a) That it is one which can be easily kept, therefore stands high in value as an equivalent in case of negotiations for peace. (b) That the means of taking it are at hand. Small means are only sufficient to take small places; but it is better to take a small one than to fail before a large one. (c) Its strength in engineering respects, which obviously is not always in proportion to its importance in other respects. Nothing is more absurd than to waste forces before a very strong place of little importance, if a place of less strength may be made the object of attack. (d) The strength of the armament and of the garrison as well. If a fortress is weakly armed and insufficiently garrisoned, its capture must naturally be easier; but here we must observe that the strength of the garrison and armament, are to be reckoned amongst those things which make up the total importance of the place, because garrison and armaments are directly parts of the enemy’s military strength, which cannot be said in the same measure of works of fortification. The conquest of a fortress with a strong garrison can, therefore, much more readily repay the sacrifice it costs than one with very strong works. (e) The facility of moving the siege train. Most sieges fail for want of means, and the means are generally wanting from the difficulty attending their transport. Eugene’s siege of Landreci, 1712, and Frederick the Great’s siege of Olmütz, 1758, are very remarkable instances in point. (f) Lastly, there remains the facility of covering the siege as a point now to be considered. There are two essentially different ways by which a siege may be covered: by entrenching the besieging force, that is, by a line of circumvallation, and by what is called lines of observation. The first of these methods has gone quite out of fashion, although evidently one important point speaks in its favour, namely, that by this method the force of the assailant does not suffer by division exactly that weakening which is so generally found a great disadvantage at sieges. But we grant there is still a weakening in another way, to a very considerable degree, because— 1. The position round the fortress, as a rule, is of too great extent for the strength of the army. 2. The garrison, the strength of which, added to that of the relieving army, would only make up the force originally opposed to us, under these circumstances is to be looked upon as an enemy’s corps in the middle of our camp, which, protected by its walls, is invulnerable, or at least not to be overpowered, by which its power is immensely increased. 3. The defence of a line of circumvallation admits of nothing but the most absolute defensive, because the circular order, facing outwards, is the weakest and most disadvantageous of all possible orders of battle, and is particularly unfavourable to any advantageous counter-attacks. There is no alternative, in fact, but to defend ourselves to the last extremity within the entrenchments. That these circumstances may cause a greater diminution of the army than one-third which, perhaps, would be occasioned by forming an army of observation, is easy to conceive. If, added to that, we now think of the general preference which has existed since the time of Frederick the Great for the offensive, as it is called, (but which, in reality, is not always so) for movements and manœuvres, and the aversion to entrenchments, we shall not wonder at lines of circumvallation having gone quite out of fashion. But this weakening of the tactical resistance is by no means its only disadvantage; and we have only reckoned up the prejudices which forced themselves into the judgment on the lines of circumvallation next in order after that disadvantage, because they are nearly akin to each other. A line of circumvallation only in reality covers that portion of the theatre of war which it actually encloses; all the rest is more or less given up to the enemy if special detachments are not made use of to cover it, in which way the very partition of force which it was intended to obviate takes place. Thus the besieging army will be always in anxiety and embarrassment on account of the convoys which it requires, and the covering the same by lines of circumvallation, is not to be thought of if the army and the siege supplies required are considerable, and the enemy is in the field in strong force, unless under such conditions as are found in the Netherlands, where there is a whole system of fortresses lying close to each other, and intermediate lines connecting them, which cover the rest of the theatre of war, and considerably shorten the lines by which transport can be affected. In the time of Louis the Fourteenth the conception of a theatre of war had not yet bound itself up with the position of an army. In the Thirty Years’ War particularly, the armies moved here and there sporadically before this or that fortress, in the neighbourhood of which there was no enemy’s corps at all, and besieged it as long as the siege equipment they had brought with them lasted, and until an enemy’s army approached to relieve the place. Then lines of circumvallation had their foundation in the nature of circumstances. In future it is not likely they will be often used again, unless where the enemy in the field is very weak, or the conception of the theatre of war vanishes before that of the siege. Then it will be natural to keep all the forces united in the siege, as a siege by that means unquestionably gains in energy in a high degree. The lines of circumvallation in the reign of Louis XIV., at Cambray and Valenciennes, were of little use, as the former were stormed by Turenne, opposed to Condé, the latter by Condé opposed to Turenne; but we must not overlook the endless number of other cases in which they were respected, even when there existed in the place the most urgent need for relief; and when the commander on the defensive side was a man of great enterprise, as in 1708, when Villars did not venture to attack the allies in their lines at Lille. Frederick the Great at Olmütz, 1758, and at Dresden, 1760, although he had no regular lines of circumvallation, had a system which in all essentials was identical; he used the same army to carry on the siege, and also as a covering army. The distance of the Austrian army induced him to adopt this plan at Olmütz, but the loss of his convoy at Domstädtel made him repent it; at Dresden in 1760 the motives which led him to this mode of proceeding, were his contempt for the German States’ imperial army, and his desire to take Dresden as soon as possible. Lastly, it is a disadvantage in lines of circumvallation, that in case of a reverse it is more difficult to save the siege train. If a defeat is sustained at a distance of one or more days’ march from the place besieged, the siege may be raised before the enemy can arrive, and the heavy trains may, in the mean time, gain also a day’s march. In taking up a position for an army of observation, an important question to be considered is the distance at which it should be placed from the besieged place. This question will, in most cases, be decided by the nature of the country, or by the position of other armies or corps with which the besiegers have to remain in communication. In other respects, it is easy to see that, with a greater distance, the siege is better covered, but that by a smaller distance, not exceeding a few miles, the two armies are better able to afford each other mutual support. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Carl von Clausewitz (2006). On War. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1946/pg1946-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

Attack on Fortresses

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SECURES A CURIOUS MEANS OF CONVEYANCE AT A FABULOUS PRICE here CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SECURES A CURIOUS MEANS OF CONVEYANCE AT A FABULOUS PRICE The train had started punctually. Among the passengers were a number of officers, Government officials, and opium and indigo merchants, whose business called them to the eastern coast. Passepartout rode in the same carriage with his master, and a third passenger occupied a seat opposite to them. This was Sir Francis Cromarty, one of Mr. Fogg’s whist partners on the “Mongolia,” now on his way to join his corps at Benares. Sir Francis was a tall, fair man of fifty, who had greatly distinguished himself in the last Sepoy revolt. He made India his home, only paying brief visits to England at rare intervals; and was almost as familiar as a native with the customs, history, and character of India and its people. But Phileas Fogg, who was not travelling, but only describing a circumference, took no pains to inquire into these subjects; he was a solid body, traversing an orbit around the terrestrial globe, according to the laws of rational mechanics. He was at this moment calculating in his mind the number of hours spent since his departure from London, and, had it been in his nature to make a useless demonstration, would have rubbed his hands for satisfaction. Sir Francis Cromarty had observed the oddity of his travelling companion—although the only opportunity he had for studying him had been while he was dealing the cards, and between two rubbers—and questioned himself whether a human heart really beat beneath this cold exterior, and whether Phileas Fogg had any sense of the beauties of nature. The brigadier-general was free to mentally confess that, of all the eccentric persons he had ever met, none was comparable to this product of the exact sciences. Phileas Fogg had not concealed from Sir Francis his design of going round the world, nor the circumstances under which he set out; and the general only saw in the wager a useless eccentricity and a lack of sound common sense. In the way this strange gentleman was going on, he would leave the world without having done any good to himself or anybody else. An hour after leaving Bombay the train had passed the viaducts and the Island of Salcette, and had got into the open country. At Callyan they reached the junction of the branch line which descends towards south-eastern India by Kandallah and Pounah; and, passing Pauwell, they entered the defiles of the mountains, with their basalt bases, and their summits crowned with thick and verdant forests. Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty exchanged a few words from time to time, and now Sir Francis, reviving the conversation, observed, “Some years ago, Mr. Fogg, you would have met with a delay at this point which would probably have lost you your wager.” “How so, Sir Francis?” “Because the railway stopped at the base of these mountains, which the passengers were obliged to cross in palanquins or on ponies to Kandallah, on the other side.” “Such a delay would not have deranged my plans in the least,” said Mr. Fogg. “I have constantly foreseen the likelihood of certain obstacles.” “But, Mr. Fogg,” pursued Sir Francis, “you run the risk of having some difficulty about this worthy fellow’s adventure at the pagoda.” Passepartout, his feet comfortably wrapped in his travelling-blanket, was sound asleep and did not dream that anybody was talking about him. “The Government is very severe upon that kind of offence. It takes particular care that the religious customs of the Indians should be respected, and if your servant were caught—” “Very well, Sir Francis,” replied Mr. Fogg; “if he had been caught he would have been condemned and punished, and then would have quietly returned to Europe. I don’t see how this affair could have delayed his master.” The conversation fell again. During the night the train left the mountains behind, and passed Nassik, and the next day proceeded over the flat, well-cultivated country of the Khandeish, with its straggling villages, above which rose the minarets of the pagodas. This fertile territory is watered by numerous small rivers and limpid streams, mostly tributaries of the Godavery. Passepartout, on waking and looking out, could not realise that he was actually crossing India in a railway train. The locomotive, guided by an English engineer and fed with English coal, threw out its smoke upon cotton, coffee, nutmeg, clove, and pepper plantations, while the steam curled in spirals around groups of palm-trees, in the midst of which were seen picturesque bungalows, viharis (sort of abandoned monasteries), and marvellous temples enriched by the exhaustless ornamentation of Indian architecture. Then they came upon vast tracts extending to the horizon, with jungles inhabited by snakes and tigers, which fled at the noise of the train; succeeded by forests penetrated by the railway, and still haunted by elephants which, with pensive eyes, gazed at the train as it passed. The travellers crossed, beyond Milligaum, the fatal country so often stained with blood by the sectaries of the goddess Kali. Not far off rose Ellora, with its graceful pagodas, and the famous Aurungabad, capital of the ferocious Aureng-Zeb, now the chief town of one of the detached provinces of the kingdom of the Nizam. It was thereabouts that Feringhea, the Thuggee chief, king of the stranglers, held his sway. These ruffians, united by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age in honour of the goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was a period when this part of the country could scarcely be travelled over without corpses being found in every direction. The English Government has succeeded in greatly diminishing these murders, though the Thuggees still exist, and pursue the exercise of their horrible rites. At half-past twelve the train stopped at Burhampoor where Passepartout was able to purchase some Indian slippers, ornamented with false pearls, in which, with evident vanity, he proceeded to encase his feet. The travellers made a hasty breakfast and started off for Assurghur, after skirting for a little the banks of the small river Tapty, which empties into the Gulf of Cambray, near Surat. Passepartout was now plunged into absorbing reverie. Up to his arrival at Bombay, he had entertained hopes that their journey would end there; but, now that they were plainly whirling across India at full speed, a sudden change had come over the spirit of his dreams. His old vagabond nature returned to him; the fantastic ideas of his youth once more took possession of him. He came to regard his master’s project as intended in good earnest, believed in the reality of the bet, and therefore in the tour of the world and the necessity of making it without fail within the designated period. Already he began to worry about possible delays, and accidents which might happen on the way. He recognised himself as being personally interested in the wager, and trembled at the thought that he might have been the means of losing it by his unpardonable folly of the night before. Being much less cool-headed than Mr. Fogg, he was much more restless, counting and recounting the days passed over, uttering maledictions when the train stopped, and accusing it of sluggishness, and mentally blaming Mr. Fogg for not having bribed the engineer. The worthy fellow was ignorant that, while it was possible by such means to hasten the rate of a steamer, it could not be done on the railway. The train entered the defiles of the Sutpour Mountains, which separate the Khandeish from Bundelcund, towards evening. The next day Sir Francis Cromarty asked Passepartout what time it was; to which, on consulting his watch, he replied that it was three in the morning. This famous timepiece, always regulated on the Greenwich meridian, which was now some seventy-seven degrees westward, was at least four hours slow. Sir Francis corrected Passepartout’s time, whereupon the latter made the same remark that he had done to Fix; and upon the general insisting that the watch should be regulated in each new meridian, since he was constantly going eastward, that is in the face of the sun, and therefore the days were shorter by four minutes for each degree gone over, Passepartout obstinately refused to alter his watch, which he kept at London time. It was an innocent delusion which could harm no one. The train stopped, at eight o’clock, in the midst of a glade some fifteen miles beyond Rothal, where there were several bungalows, and workmen’s cabins. The conductor, passing along the carriages, shouted, “Passengers will get out here!” Phileas Fogg looked at Sir Francis Cromarty for an explanation; but the general could not tell what meant a halt in the midst of this forest of dates and acacias. Passepartout, not less surprised, rushed out and speedily returned, crying: “Monsieur, no more railway!” “What do you mean?” asked Sir Francis. “I mean to say that the train isn’t going on.” The general at once stepped out, while Phileas Fogg calmly followed him, and they proceeded together to the conductor. “Where are we?” asked Sir Francis. “At the hamlet of Kholby.” “Do we stop here?” “Certainly. The railway isn’t finished.” “What! not finished?” “No. There’s still a matter of fifty miles to be laid from here to Allahabad, where the line begins again.” “But the papers announced the opening of the railway throughout.” “What would you have, officer? The papers were mistaken.” “Yet you sell tickets from Bombay to Calcutta,” retorted Sir Francis, who was growing warm. “No doubt,” replied the conductor; “but the passengers know that they must provide means of transportation for themselves from Kholby to Allahabad.” Sir Francis was furious. Passepartout would willingly have knocked the conductor down, and did not dare to look at his master. “Sir Francis,” said Mr. Fogg quietly, “we will, if you please, look about for some means of conveyance to Allahabad.” “Mr. Fogg, this is a delay greatly to your disadvantage.” “No, Sir Francis; it was foreseen.” “What! You knew that the way—” “Not at all; but I knew that some obstacle or other would sooner or later arise on my route. Nothing, therefore, is lost. I have two days, which I have already gained, to sacrifice. A steamer leaves Calcutta for Hong Kong at noon, on the 25th. This is the 22nd, and we shall reach Calcutta in time.” There was nothing to say to so confident a response. It was but too true that the railway came to a termination at this point. The papers were like some watches, which have a way of getting too fast, and had been premature in their announcement of the completion of the line. The greater part of the travellers were aware of this interruption, and, leaving the train, they began to engage such vehicles as the village could provide four-wheeled palkigharis, waggons drawn by zebus, carriages that looked like perambulating pagodas, palanquins, ponies, and what not. Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, after searching the village from end to end, came back without having found anything. “I shall go afoot,” said Phileas Fogg. Passepartout, who had now rejoined his master, made a wry grimace, as he thought of his magnificent, but too frail Indian shoes. Happily he too had been looking about him, and, after a moment’s hesitation, said, “Monsieur, I think I have found a means of conveyance.” “What?” “An elephant! An elephant that belongs to an Indian who lives but a hundred steps from here.” “Let’s go and see the elephant,” replied Mr. Fogg. They soon reached a small hut, near which, enclosed within some high palings, was the animal in question. An Indian came out of the hut, and, at their request, conducted them within the enclosure. The elephant, which its owner had reared, not for a beast of burden, but for warlike purposes, was half domesticated. The Indian had begun already, by often irritating him, and feeding him every three months on sugar and butter, to impart to him a ferocity not in his nature, this method being often employed by those who train the Indian elephants for battle. Happily, however, for Mr. Fogg, the animal’s instruction in this direction had not gone far, and the elephant still preserved his natural gentleness. Kiouni—this was the name of the beast—could doubtless travel rapidly for a long time, and, in default of any other means of conveyance, Mr. Fogg resolved to hire him. But elephants are far from cheap in India, where they are becoming scarce, the males, which alone are suitable for circus shows, are much sought, especially as but few of them are domesticated. When therefore Mr. Fogg proposed to the Indian to hire Kiouni, he refused point-blank. Mr. Fogg persisted, offering the excessive sum of ten pounds an hour for the loan of the beast to Allahabad. Refused. Twenty pounds? Refused also. Forty pounds? Still refused. Passepartout jumped at each advance; but the Indian declined to be tempted. Yet the offer was an alluring one, for, supposing it took the elephant fifteen hours to reach Allahabad, his owner would receive no less than six hundred pounds sterling. Phileas Fogg, without getting in the least flurried, then proposed to purchase the animal outright, and at first offered a thousand pounds for him. The Indian, perhaps thinking he was going to make a great bargain, still refused. Sir Francis Cromarty took Mr. Fogg aside, and begged him to reflect before he went any further; to which that gentleman replied that he was not in the habit of acting rashly, that a bet of twenty thousand pounds was at stake, that the elephant was absolutely necessary to him, and that he would secure him if he had to pay twenty times his value. Returning to the Indian, whose small, sharp eyes, glistening with avarice, betrayed that with him it was only a question of how great a price he could obtain. Mr. Fogg offered first twelve hundred, then fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, two thousand pounds. Passepartout, usually so rubicund, was fairly white with suspense. At two thousand pounds the Indian yielded. “What a price, good heavens!” cried Passepartout, “for an elephant.” It only remained now to find a guide, which was comparatively easy. A young Parsee, with an intelligent face, offered his services, which Mr. Fogg accepted, promising so generous a reward as to materially stimulate his zeal. The elephant was led out and equipped. The Parsee, who was an accomplished elephant driver, covered his back with a sort of saddle-cloth, and attached to each of his flanks some curiously uncomfortable howdahs. Phileas Fogg paid the Indian with some banknotes which he extracted from the famous carpet-bag, a proceeding that seemed to deprive poor Passepartout of his vitals. Then he offered to carry Sir Francis to Allahabad, which the brigadier gratefully accepted, as one traveller the more would not be likely to fatigue the gigantic beast. Provisions were purchased at Kholby, and, while Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg took the howdahs on either side, Passepartout got astride the saddle-cloth between them. The Parsee perched himself on the elephant’s neck, and at nine o’clock they set out from the village, the animal marching off through the dense forest of palms by the shortest cut. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1994).Around the World in Eighty Days. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/103/103-h/103-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SECURES A CURIOUS MEANS OF CONVEYANCE AT A FABULOUS PRICE

Of the Empire of the Persians

Of the two Contemporary Empires of the Babylonians and Medes

Of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth

Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John by Isaac Newton, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. The Vision of the Image composed of four Metals was given first to Nebuchadnezzar, and then to Daniel in a dream: and Daniel began then to be celebrated for revealing of secrets, Ezek. xxviii. 3. The Vision of the four Beasts, and of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, was also given to Daniel in a dream. That of the Ram and the He-Goat appeared to him in the day time, when he was by the bank of the river Ulay; and was explained to him by the prophetic Angel Gabriel. It concerns the Prince of the host, and the Prince of Princes: and now in the first year of Darius the Mede over Babylon, the same prophetic Angel appears to Daniel again, and explains to him what is meant by the Son of man, by the Prince of the host, and the Prince of Princes. The Prophecy of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven relates to the second coming of Christ; that of the Prince of the host relates to his first coming: and this Prophecy of the Messiah, in explaining them, relates to both comings, and assigns the times thereof. This Prophecy, like all the rest of Daniel's, consists of two parts, an introductory Prophecy and an explanation thereof; the whole I thus translate and interpret. 'Seventy weeks are cut out upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, to expiate iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, to consummate the Vision and the Prophet, and to anoint the most Holy. 'Know also and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to cause to return and to build Jerusalem, unto the Anointed the Prince, shall be seven weeks. 'Yet threescore and two weeks shall it return, and the street be built and the wall; but in troublesome times: and after the threescore and two weeks, the Anointed shall be cut off, and it shall not be his; but the people of a Prince to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary: and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war, desolations are determined. 'Yet shall he confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in half a week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease: and upon a wing of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that which is determined be poured upon the desolate.' Seventy weeks are cut out upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, &c. Here, by putting a week for seven years, are reckoned 490 years from the time that the dispersed Jews should be re-incorporated into a people and a holy city, until the death and resurrection of Christ; whereby transgression should be finished, and sins ended, iniquity be expiated, and everlasting righteousness brought in, and this Vision be accomplished, and the Prophet consummated, that Prophet whom the Jews expected; and whereby the most Holy should be anointed, he who is therefore in the next words called the Anointed, that is, the Messiah, or the Christ. For by joining the accomplishment of the vision with the expiation of sins, the 490 years are ended with the death of Christ. Now the dispersed Jews became a people and city when they first returned into a polity or body politick; and this was in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when Ezra returned with a body of Jews from captivity, and revived the Jewish worship; and by the King's commission created Magistrates in all the land, to judge and govern the people according to the laws of God and the King, Ezra vii. 25. There were but two returns from captivity, Zerubbabel's and Ezra's; in Zerubbabel's they had only commission to build the Temple, in Ezra's they first became a polity or city by a government of their own. Now the years of this Artaxerxes began about two or three months after the summer solstice, and his seventh year fell in with the third year of the eightieth Olympiad; and the latter part thereof, wherein Ezra went up to Jerusalem, was in the year of the Julian Period 4257. Count the time from thence to the death of Christ, and you will find it just 490 years. If you count in Judaic years commencing in autumn, and date the reckoning from the first autumn after Ezra's coming to Jerusalem, when he put the King's decree in execution; the death of Christ will fall on the year of the Julian Period 4747, Anno Domini 34; and the weeks will be Judaic weeks, ending with sabbatical years; and this I take to be the truth: but if you had rather place the death of Christ in the year before, as is commonly done, you may take the year of Ezra's journey into the reckoning. Know also and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to cause to return and to build Jerusalem, unto the Anointed the Prince, shall be seven weeks. The former part of the Prophecy related to the first coming of Christ, being dated to his coming as a Prophet; this being dated to his coming to be Prince or King, seems to relate to his second coming. There, the Prophet was consummate, and the most holy anointed: here, he that was anointed comes to be Prince and to reign. For Daniel's Prophecies reach to the end of the world; and there is scarce a Prophecy in the Old Testament concerning Christ, which doth not in something or other relate to his second coming. If divers of the antients, as Irenæus, Julius Africanus, Hippolytus the martyr, and Apollinaris Bishop of Laodicea, applied the half week to the times of Antichrist; why may not we, by the same liberty of interpretation, apply the seven weeks to the time when Antichrist shall be destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming? The Israelites in the days of the antient Prophets, when the ten Tribes were led into captivity, expected a double return; and that at the first the Jews should build a new Temple inferior to Solomon's, until the time of that age should be fulfilled; and afterwards they should return from all places of their captivity, and build Jerusalem and the Temple gloriously, Tobit xiv. 4, 5, 6: and to express the glory and excellence of this city, it is figuratively said to be built of precious stones, Tobit xiii. 16, 17, 18. Isa. liv. 11, 12. Rev. xi. and called the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Holy City, the Lamb's Wife, the City of the Great King, the City into which the Kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour. Now while such a return from captivity was the expectation of Israel, even before the times of Daniel, I know not why Daniel should omit it in his Prophecy. This part of the Prophecy being therefore not yet fulfilled, I shall not attempt a particular interpretation of it, but content myself with observing, that as the seventy and the sixty two weeks were Jewish weeks, ending with sabbatical years; so the seven weeks are the compass of a Jubilee, and begin and end with actions proper for a Jubilee, and of the highest nature for which a Jubilee can be kept: and that since the commandment to return and to build Jerusalem, precedes the Messiah the Prince 49 years; it may perhaps come forth not from the Jews themselves, but from some other kingdom friendly to them, and precede their return from captivity, and give occasion to it; and lastly, that this rebuilding of Jerusalem and the waste places of Judah is predicted in Micah vii. 11. Amos ix. 11, 14. Ezek. xxxvi. 33, 35, 36, 38. Isa. liv. 3, 11, 12. lv. 12. lxi. 4. lxv. 18, 21,22. and Tobit xiv. 5. and that the return from captivity and coming of the Messiah and his kingdom are described in Daniel vii. Rev. xix. Acts i. Mat. xxiv. Joel iii. Ezek. xxxvi. xxxvii. Isa. lx. lxii. lxiii. lxv. and lxvi. and many other places of scripture. The manner I know not. Let time be the Interpreter. Yet threescore and two weeks shall it return, and the street be built and the wall, but in troublesome times: and after the threescore and two weeks the Messiah shall be cut off, and it shall not be his; but the people of a Prince to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, &c. Having foretold both comings of Christ, and dated the last from their returning and building Jerusalem; to prevent the applying that to the building Jerusalem by Nehemiah, he distinguishes this from that, by saying that from this period to the Anointed shall be, not seven weeks, but threescore and two weeks, and this not in prosperous but in troublesome times; and at the end of these Weeks the Messiah shall not be the Prince of the Jews, but be cut off; and Jerusalem not be his, but the city and sanctuary be destroyed. Now Nehemiah came to Jerusalem in the 20th year of this same Artaxerxes, while Ezra still continued there, Nehem. xii. 36, and found the city lying waste, and the houses and wall unbuilt, Nehem. ii. 17. vii. 4, and finished the wall the 25th day of the month Elul, Nehem. vi. 15, in the 28th year of the King, that is, in September in the year of the Julian Period 4278. Count now from this year threescore and two weeks of years, that is 434 years, and the reckoning will end in September in the year of the Julian Period 4712 which is the year in which Christ was born, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, Irenæus, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome, Orosius, Cassiodorus, and other antients; and this was the general opinion, till Dionysius Exiguus invented the vulgar account, in which Christ's birth is placed two years later. If with some you reckon that Christ was born three or four years before the vulgar account, yet his birth will fall in the latter part of the last week, which is enough. How after these weeks Christ was cut off and the city and sanctuary destroyed by the Romans, is well known. Yet shall he confirm the covenant with many for one week. He kept it, notwithstanding his death, till the rejection of the Jews, and calling of Cornelius and the Gentiles in the seventh year after his passion. And in half a week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease; that is, by the war of the Romans upon the Jews: which war, after some commotions, began in the 13th year of Nero, A.D. 67, in the spring, when Vespasian with an army invaded them; and ended in the second year of Vespasian, A.D. 70, in autumn, Sept. 7, when Titus took the city, having burnt the Temple 27 days before: so that it lasted three years and an half. And upon a wing of abominations he shall cause desolation, even until the consummation, and that which is determined be poured upon the desolate. The Prophets, in representing kingdoms by Beasts and Birds, put their wings stretcht out over any country for their armies sent out to invade and rule over that country. Hence a wing of abominations is an army of false Gods: for an abomination is often put in scripture for a false God; as where Chemosh is called the abomination of Moab, and Molech the abomination of Ammon. The meaning therefore is, that the people of a Prince to come shall destroy the sanctuary, and abolish the daily worship of the true God, and overspread the land with an army of false gods; and by setting up their dominion and worship, cause desolation to the Jews, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. For Christ tells us, that the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel was to be set up in the times of the Roman Empire, Matth. xxiv. 15. Thus have we in this short Prophecy, a prediction of all the main periods relating to the coming of the Messiah; the time of his birth, that of his death, that of the rejection of the Jews, the duration of the Jewish war whereby he caused the city and sanctuary to be destroyed, and the time of his second coming: and so the interpretation here given is more full and complete and adequate to the design, than if we should restrain it to his first coming only, as Interpreters usually do. We avoid also the doing violence to the language of Daniel, by taking the seven weeks and sixty two weeks for one number. Had that been Daniel's meaning, he would have said sixty and nine weeks, and not seven weeks and sixty two weeks, a way of numbring used by no nation. In our way the years are Jewish Luni-solar years, as they ought to be; and the seventy weeks of years are Jewish weeks ending with sabbatical years, which is very remarkable. For they end either with the year of the birth of Christ, two years before the vulgar account, or with the year of his death, or with the seventh year after it: all which are sabbatical years. Others either count by Lunar years, or by weeks not Judaic: and, which is worst, they ground their interpretations on erroneous Chronology, excepting the opinion of Funccius about the seventy weeks, which is the same with ours. For they place Ezra and Nehemiah in the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, and the building of the Temple in the reign of Darius Nothus, and date the weeks of Daniel from those two reigns. The grounds of the Chronology here followed, I will now set down as briefly as I can. The Peloponnesian war began in spring An. 1 Olymp. 87, as Diodorus, Eusebius, and all other authors agree. It began two months before Pythodorus ceased to be Archon, Thucyd. l. 2. that is, in April, two months before the end of the Olympic year. Now the years of this war are most certainly determined by the 50 years distance of its first year from the transit of Xerxes inclusively, Thucyd. l. 2. or 48 years exclusively, Eratosth. apud Clem. Alex. by the 69 years distance of its end, or 27th year, from the beginning of Alexander's reign in Greece; by the acting of the Olympic games in its 4th and 12th years, Thucyd. l. 5; and by three eclipses of the sun, and one of the moon, mentioned by Thucydides and Xenophon. Now Thucydides, an unquestionable witness, tells us, that the news of the death of Artaxerxes Longimanus was brought to Ephesus, and from thence by some Athenians to Athens, in the 7th year of this Peloponnesian war, when the winter half year was running; and therefore he died An. 4 Olymp. 88, in the end of An. J.P. 4289, suppose a month or two before midwinter; for so long the news would be in coming. Now Artaxerxes Longimanus reigned 40 years, by the consent of Diodorus, Eusebius, Jerome, Sulpitius; or 41, according to Ptol. in can. Clem. Alexand. l. 1. Strom. Chron. Alexandr. Abulpharagius, Nicephorus, including therein the reign of his successors Xerxes and Sogdian, as Abulpharagius informs us. After Artaxerxes reigned his son Xerxes two months, and Sogdian seven months; but their reign is not reckoned apart in summing up the years of the Kings, but is included in the 40 or 41 years reign of Artaxerxes: omit these nine months, and the precise reign of Artaxerxes will be thirty nine years and three months. And therefore since his reign ended in the beginning of winter An. J.P. 4289, it began between midsummer and autumn, An. J.P. 4250. The same thing I gather also thus. Cambyses began his reign in spring An. J.P. 4185, and reigned eight years, including the five months of Smerdes; and then Darius Hystaspis began in spring An. J.P. 4193, and reigned thirty six years, by the unanimous consent of all Chronologers. The reigns of these two Kings are determined by three eclipses of the moon observed at Babylon, and recorded by Ptolemy; so that it cannot be disputed. One was in the seventh year of Cambyses, An. J.P. 4191, Jul. 16, at 11 at night; another in the 20th year of Darius, An. J.P. 4212, Nov. 19, at 11h. 45' at night; a third in the 31st year of Darius, An. J.P. 4223, Apr. 25, at 11h. 30 at night. By these eclipses, and the Prophecies of Haggai and Zechary compared together, it is manifest that his years began after the 24th day of the 11th Jewish month, and before the 25th day of April, and by consequence about March. Xerxes therefore began in spring An. J.P. 4229: for Darius died in the fifth year after the battle at Marathon, as Herodotus, lib. 7, and Plutarch mention; and that battle was in October An. J.P. 4224, ten years before the battle at Salamis. Xerxes therefore began within less than a year after October An. J.P. 4228, suppose in the spring following: for he spent his first five years, and something more, in preparations for his expedition against the Greeks; and this expedition was in the time of the Olympic games, An. 1 Olymp. 75, Calliade Athenis Archonte, 28 years after the Regifuge, and Consulship of the first Consul Junius Brutus, Anno Urbis conditæ 273, Fabio & Furio Coss. The passage of Xerxes's army over the Hellespont began in the end of the fourth year of the 74th Olympiad, that is, in June An. J.P. 4234, and took up one month: and in autumn, three months after, on the full moon, the 16th day of the month Munychion, was the battle at Salamis, and a little after that an eclipse of the sun, which by the calculation fell on Octob. 2. His sixth year therefore began a little before June, suppose in spring An. J.P. 4234, and his first year consequently in spring An. J.P. 4229, as above. Now he reigned almost twenty one years, by the consent of all writers. Add the 7 months of Artabanus, and the sum will be 21 years and about four or five months, which end between midsummer and autumn An. J.P. 4250. At this time therefore began the reign of his successor Artaxerxes, as was to be proved. The same thing is also confirmed by Julius Africanus, who informs us out of former writers, that the 20th year of this Artaxerxes was the 115th year from the beginning of the reign of Cyrus in Persia, and fell in with An. 4 Olymp. 83. It began therefore with the Olympic year, soon after the summer Solstice, An. J.P. 4269. Subduct nineteen years, and his first year will begin at the same time of the year An. J.P. 4250, as above. His 7th year therefore began after midsummer An. J.P. 4256; and the Journey of Ezra to Jerusalem in the spring following fell on the beginning of An. J.P. 4257, as above. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Isaac Newton (2005). Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16878/pg16878-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks

Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John by Isaac Newton, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Of the kingdoms represented in Daniel by the Ram and He-Goat Of the kingdoms represented in Daniel by the Ram and He-Goat. The second and third Empires, represented by the Bear and Leopard, are again represented by the Ram and He-Goat; but with this difference, that the Ram represents the kingdoms of the Medes and Persians from the beginning of the four Empires, and the Goat represents the kingdom of the Greeks to the end of them. By this means, under the type of the Ram and He-Goat, the times of all the four Empires are again described: I lifted up mine eyes, saith Daniel, and saw, and behold there stood before the river [Ulai] a Ram which had two horns, and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.—And the Ram having two horns, are the kings of Media and Persia: not two persons but two kingdoms, the kingdoms of Media and Persia; and the kingdom of Persia was the higher horn and came up last. The kingdom of Persia rose up, when Cyrus having newly conquered Babylon, revolted from Darius King of the Medes, and beat him at Pasargadæ, and set up the Persians above the Medes. This was the horn which came up last. And the horn which came up first was the kingdom of the Medes, from the time that Cyaxares and Nebuchadnezzar overthrew Nineveh, and shared the Empire of the Assyrians between them. The Empires of Media and Babylon were contemporary, and rose up together by the fall of the Assyrian Empire; and the Prophecy of the four Beasts begins with one of them, and that of the Ram and He-Goat with the other. As the Ram represents the kingdom of Media and Persia from the beginning of the four Empires; so the He-Goat represents the Empire of the Greeks to the end of those Monarchies. In the reign of his great horn, and of the four horns which succeeded it, he represents this Empire during the reign of the Leopard: and in the reign of his little horn, which stood up in the latter time of the kingdom of the four, and after their fall became mighty but not by his own power, he represents it during the reign of the fourth Beast. The rough Goat, saith Daniel, is the King of Grecia, that is, the kingdom; and the great horn between his eyes is the first King: not the first Monarch, but the first kingdom, that which lasted during the reign of Alexander the great, and his brother Aridæus and two young sons, Alexander and Hercules. Now that [horn] being broken off, whereas four [horns] stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation [of the Greeks], but not in his [the first horn's] power. The four horns are therefore four kingdoms; and by consequence, the first great horn which they succeeded is the first great kingdom of the Greeks, that which was founded by Alexander the great, An. Nabonass. 414, and lasted till the death of his son Hercules, An. Nabonass. 441. And the four are those of Cassander, Lysimachus, Antigonus, and Ptolemy, as above. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a King [or new kingdom] of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up: and his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. This King was the last horn of the Goat, the little horn which came up out of one of the four horns, and waxed exceeding great. The latter time of their kingdom was when the Romans began to conquer them, that is, when they conquered Perseus King of Macedonia, the fundamental kingdom of the Greeks. And at that time the transgressors came to the full: for then the High-priesthood was exposed to sale, the Vessels of the Temple were sold to pay for the purchase; and the High-priest, with some of the Jews, procured a licence from Antiochus Epiphanes to do after the ordinances of the heathen, and set up a school at Jerusalem for teaching those ordinances. Then Antiochus took Jerusalem with an armed force, slew 4000 Jews, took as many prisoners and sold them, spoiled the Temple, interdicted the worship, commanded the Law of Moses to be burnt, and set up the worship of the heathen Gods in all Judea. In the very same year, An. Nabonass. 580, the Romans conquered Macedonia, the chief of the four horns. Hitherto the Goat was mighty by its own power, but henceforward began to be under the Romans. Daniel distinguishes the times, by describing very particularly the actions of the Kings of the north and south, those two of the four horns which bordered upon Judea, until the Romans conquered Macedonia; and thenceforward only touching upon the main revolutions which happened within the compass of the nations represented by the Goat. In this latter period of time the little horn was to stand up and grow mighty, but not by his own power. The three first of Daniel's Beasts had their dominions taken away, each of them at the rise of the next Beast; but their lives were prolonged, and they are all of them still alive. The third Beast, or Leopard, reigned in his four heads, till the rise of the fourth Beast, or Empire of the Latins; and his life was prolonged under their power. This Leopard reigning in his four heads, signifies the same thing with the He-Goat reigning in his four horns: and therefore the He-Goat reigned in his four horns till the rise of Daniel's fourth Beast, or Empire of the Latins: then its dominion was taken away by the Latins, but its life was prolonged under their power. The Latins are not comprehended among the nations represented by the He-Goat in this Prophecy: their power over the Greeks is only named in it, to distinguish the times in which the He-Goat was mighty by his own power, from the times in which he was mighty but not by his own power. He was mighty by his own power till his dominion was taken away by the Latins; after that, his life was prolonged under their dominion, and this prolonging of his life was in the days of his last horn: for in the days of this horn the Goat became mighty, but not by his own power. Now because this horn was a horn of the Goat, we are to look for it among the nations which composed the body of the Goat. Among those nations he was to rise up and grow mighty: he grew mighty towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land; and therefore he was to rise up in the north-west parts of those nations, and extend his dominion towards Egypt, Syria and Judea. In the latter time of the kingdom of the four horns, it was to rise up out of one of them and subdue the rest, but not by its own power. It was to be assisted by a foreign power, a power superior to itself, the power which took away the dominion of the third Beast, the power of the fourth Beast. And such a little horn was the kingdom of Macedonia, from the time that it became subject to the Romans. This kingdom, by the victory of the Romans over Persius King of Macedonia, Anno Nabonass. 580, ceased to be one of the four horns of the Goat, and became a dominion of a new sort: not a horn of the fourth Beast, for Macedonia belonged to the body of the third; but a horn of the third Beast of a new sort, a horn of the Goat which grew mighty but not by his own power, a horn which rose up and grew potent under a foreign power, the power of the Romans. The Romans, by the legacy of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, An. Nabonass. 615, inherited that kingdom, including all Asia Minor on this side mount Taurus. An. Nabonass. 684 and 685 they conquered Armenia, Syria and Judea; An. Nabonass. 718, they subdued Egypt. And by these conquests the little horn waxed exceeding great towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land. And it waxed great even to the host of heaven; and cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them, that is, upon the people and great men of the Jews. Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the Host, the Messiah, the Prince of the Jews, whom he put to death, An. Nabonass. 780. And by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down, viz. in the wars which the armies of the Eastern nations under the conduct of the Romans made against Judea, when Nero and Vespasian were Emperors, An. Nabonass. 816, 817, 818. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practised and prospered. This transgression is in the next words called the transgression of desolation; and in Dan. xi. 31. the abomination which maketh desolate; and in Matth. xxiv. 15. the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place. It may relate chiefly to the worship of Jupiter Olympius in his Temple built by the Emperor Hadrian, in the place of the Temple of the Jews, and to the revolt of the Jews under Barchochab occasioned thereby, and to the desolation of Judea which followed thereupon; all the Jews, being thenceforward banished Judea upon pain of death. Then I heard, saith Daniel, one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. Daniel's days are years; and these years may perhaps be reckoned either from the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the reign of Vespasian, or from the pollution of the Sanctuary by the worship of Jupiter Olympius, or from the desolation of Judea made in the end of the Jewish war by the banishment of all the Jews out of their own country, or from some other period which time will discover. Henceforward the last horn of the Goat continued mighty under the Romans, till the reign of Constantine the great and his sons: and then by the division of the Roman Empire between the Greek and Latin Emperors, it separated from the Latins, and became the Greek Empire alone, but yet under the dominion of a Roman family; and at present it is mighty under the dominion of the Turks. This last horn is by some taken for Antiochus Epiphanes, but not very judiciously. A horn of a Beast is never taken for a single person: it always signifies a new kingdom, and the kingdom of Antiochus was an old one. Antiochus reigned over one of the four horns, and the little horn was a fifth under its proper kings. This horn was at first a little one, and waxed exceeding great, but so did not Antiochus. It is described great above all the former horns, and so was not Antiochus. His kingdom on the contrary was weak, and tributary to the Romans, and he did not enlarge it. The horn was a King of fierce countenance, and destroyed wonderfully, and prospered and practised; that is, he prospered in his practises against the holy people: but Antiochus was frighted out of Egypt by a mere message of the Romans, and afterwards routed and baffled by the Jews. The horn was mighty by another's power, Antiochus acted by his own. The horn stood up against the Prince of the Host of heaven, the Prince of Princes; and this is the character not of Antiochus but of Antichrist. The horn cast down the Sanctuary to the ground, and so did not Antiochus; he left it standing. The Sanctuary and Host were trampled under foot 2300 days; and in Daniel's Prophecies days are put for years: but the profanation of the Temple in the reign of Antiochus did not last so many natural days. These were to last till the time of the end, till the last end of the indignation against the Jews; and this indignation is not yet at an end. They were to last till the Sanctuary which had been cast down should be cleansed, and the Sanctuary is not yet cleansed. This Prophecy of the Ram and He-Goat is repeated in the last Prophecy of Daniel. There the Angel tells Daniel, that he stood up to strengthen Darius the Mede, and that there should stand up yet three kings in Persia, [Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius Hystaspis] and the fourth [Xerxes] should be far richer than they all; and by his wealth thro' his riches he should stir up all against the realm of Grecia. This relates to the Ram, whose two horns were the kingdoms of Media and Persia. Then he goes on to describe the horns of the Goat by the standing up of a mighty king, which should rule with great dominion, and do according to his will; and by the breaking of his kingdom into four smaller kingdoms, and not descending to his own posterity. Then he describes the actions of two of those kingdoms which bordered on Judea, viz. Egypt and Syria, calling them the Kings of the South and North, that is, in respect of Judea; and he carries on the description till the latter end of the kingdoms of the four, and till the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, when transgressors were come to the full. In the eighth year of Antiochus, the year in which he profaned the Temple and set up the heathen Gods in all Judea, and the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon; the prophetic Angel leaves off describing the affairs of the kings of the South and North, and begins to describe those of the Greeks under the dominion of the Romans, in these words: And after him Arms [the Romans] shall stand up, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength. As ממלך signifies after the king, Dan. xi. 8; so here ממנו may signify after him: and so מן־האחת may signify after one of them, Dan. viii. 9. Arms are every where in these Prophecies of Daniel put for the military power of a kingdom, and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful. The Romans conquered Illyricum, Epirus and Macedonia, in the year of Nabonassar 580; and thirty five years after, by the last will and testament of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all Asia on this side mount Taurus: and sixty nine years after, they conquered the kingdom of Syria, and reduced it into a Province: and thirty four years after they did the like to Egypt. By all these steps the Roman arms stood up over the Greeks. And after 95 years more, by making war upon the Jews, they polluted the sanctuary of strength, and took away the daily sacrifice, and, in its room soon after, placed the abomination which made the Land desolate: for this abomination was placed after the days of Christ, Matth. xxiv. 15. In the 16th year of the Emperor Hadrian, A. C. 132, they placed this abomination by building a Temple to Jupiter Capitolinus, where the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stood. Thereupon the Jews under the conduct of Barchochab rose up in arms against the Romans, and in that war had 50 cities demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580000 men slain by the sword: and in the end of the war, A.C. 136, they were all banished Judea upon pain or death; and that time the land hath remained desolate of its old inhabitants. Now that the prophetic Angel passes in this manner from the four kingdoms of the Greeks to the Romans reigning over the Greeks, is confirmed from hence, that in the next place he describes the affairs of the Christians unto the time of the end, in these words: And they that understand among the people shall instruct many, yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil many days. Now when they shall fall they shall be holpen with a little help, viz. in the reign of Constantine the great; but many shall cleave to them with dissimulation. And some of them of understanding there shall fall to try them, and to purge them from the dissemblers; and to make them white even to the time of the end. And a little after, the time of the end is said to be a time, times, and half a time: which is the duration of the reign of the last horn of Daniel's fourth Beast, and of the Woman and her Beast in the Apocalyps. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Isaac Newton (2005). Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16878/pg16878-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

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